All the Pokemens

[Aura]

Stage 22: The Canyon

Down at the bottom of the mountain, we see Marth and Pokemon Trainer overlooking the events at the summit of the mountain. The Ice Climbers fall down and land next to Ike and Lucas who humorously dodge out of the way rather than try to catch them. I guess they're just good with the fall, then?

Shadow Bugs creep up from the canyon causing the party to turn their attention to the newly formed Primids. In the background, we can see another group of familiar heroes drawing near: Mario, Pit, Kirby, Link, and Yoshi! It looks like the party's growing larger!

Music: Battlefield (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

    

For this stage, you get to select from this newly joining party. I find this a little disappointing as I'd personally rather play as the Ice Climbers who really didn't get much of a chance to shine and we've played as these guys a lot. It would absolutely be nice to be able to select from the whole group down here. Anyway, at this point I've lost track of who I've played the most and who the least, so I went with Kirby, Pit, Link, and Mario.

This stage is one large ambush, much like at the Midair Stadium or on board the Smash Skiff. But unlike those two, this is stage is entirely just this one scuffle. There's no bosses or level surrounding it. Just enemies to fight. Remember how I said The Ruined Hall was the shortest stage? I think I'm actually wrong on that. This stage seems to exist solely as a moment to join the parties together which makes it all the more disappointing you don't actually get to select from the whole group and have them fight together.

Anyway, there's really not much to say here. As mentioned before, there are no new enemies to fight. You'll fight various Primids, Armights, Feyesh, Puppits, and Roturrets as well as Glires who you can completely ignore since they'll just roll right out of the stage.

And... that's it. Yeah, very disappointing. Once you clear the ambush, you've cleared the stage. There isn't a cutscene of the two parties meeting up or even a scene after the Stage Clear scene. So yeah, incredibly underwhelming. But up next it looks like we're following Lucario and Meta Knight on board the Halberd with Stage 23: Battleship Halberd Interior! Just what's gonna happen here, I wonder? Only time will tell!

[Aura]

Stage 23: Battleship Halberd Interior

With the Great Fox down, the Halberd moves on with the Subspace Army blissfully unaware that it has not one, or even two stowaways. Remember that random cutscene of a cardboard box earlier? Well, we soon return to the room that box was in to finally see what had to be the single most exciting character reveal for any Metal Gear fan: Solid Snake emerges from the cardboard box and even breaks the overall convention of characters having no spoken dialogue in the Subspace Emissary campaign. He looks to the camera and breaks the fourth wall, oddly enough, saying "Kept you waiting, huh?" Yes, Snake, you certainly have.

Music: Theme of Tara (Metal Gear)

You'd think with a character like Snake, the introduction to him would have some sort of stealth mechanic. Idk, something like having to sneak by searchlights and shutters that close when you're caught or something? To be fair, Snake was a late addition to the game if I understand correctly, so maybe they didn't really have any time to design new mechanics around him. Regardless, this brief introduction segment is similar to how Zero Suit Samus was introduced. Just a simple area for you to play around as Snake. This environment is much friendlier to his abilities than Samus', though. His arsenal of explosive weaponry can really pack a punch!

Push your way forward the incredibly linear hallway until you reach a point where you have to drop down some arrow blocks that'll drop into more arrow blocks. Drop down the second set on the far left and you'll find the block is hiding a secret button! This leads to a sneaky bonus room, of course! It's pretty standard, just helps you get used to moving around a bit more. Break the blocks to get to the Turquoise Cube in front of you, then break the blocks overhead and make your way up to claim the prize from the Orange Cube, too. You can use Snake's Cypher to help him fly up to the upper level more easily.

Returning to the main level, there's not much else to say. Fight your way through the corridors ahead, be careful not to fall into the pit in the upcoming section with more arrow blocks, and proceed through the door ahead.

Snake continues sneaking through the halls of the battleship before noticing someone up ahead. He quickly hides under his cardboard box as Meta Knight and Lucario pass by. This attempt at hiding is fruitless, however, as Lucario is capable of sensing the aura of all living things. He reveals Snake's location, much to Snake's surprise! Meta Knight immediately readies himself for a fight with Snake, but Lucario stops him, sensing good intentions from Snake's aura. Not like the red aura emanating from the Primids approaching from the other direction.

Music: Encounter (Metal Gear Solid)

  

For the upcoming section, you have your choice between Meta Knight, Lucario, and the newly joining Snake! Since we just put stickers on Lucario and he didn't get much time to shine last time, I suppose this is a good place to use him! Snake follows up second, of course.

The first section of this upcoming level is much less linear. There was a similar section back at the Research Facility where we had to hunt down multiple buttons in order to open up the way forward. This room has a central "hub" area filled with platforms and even a generous helping of Maximum Tomatoes for you to heal up with! At the bottom of this hub area is a series of gates that will need to be opened by pressing the buttons you need to hunt down. Each button is guarded by a generator in each of the three corners that you didn't enter the room from. The generators spawn enemies, of course, but they're also guarded by other enemies as well. Once you break the generator, the button will appear for you to press. Each button you press will open one of the shudders and sound an alarm that doesn't actually seem to do anything other than signal to you that you pressed the button.

Regardless, go to the three corners, fight your way through the enemies, destroy the generators, and hit the buttons that appear! But before you leave from the bottom-right section, the one with the Floows, take a moment to break the blocks in the corner of the room. This is one of the more embarrassing moments to me as I actually missed the secret here my first time through. I thought this area was suspicious, but walked to the right against the wall that looked like I should be able to walk through, and hit a wall. I figured there was nothing else or maybe I missed a trigger to spawn a door here or something, but as it turns out, you just have to jump to the right. I'm pretty sure this is a mistake as the wall is entirely black as if it's an opening if you look closely, but you can only enter through the top part of the black area, the bottom part is completely solid like a wall. Regardless, once you slip into this dark section, you can make your way to a door that otherwise looks to be out of bounds.

This door leads to, of course, a bonus area. This room has some Glires spawning from a generator and a Fire Primid at the end of a long hallway. Push through, fight past the Glires, and make your way to the end of the course for Turquoise and Orange Cube prizes!

In the lower left section, you can also continue a bit beyond the generator to find a Turquoise Cube guarded by a Primid. It's not important for completion, but it's there!

If you need healing after any of these rooms, munch on a Maximum Tomato or two before continuing onward. With all the buttons pressed, you should be able to take a ladder down to a lower area where you'll find an Orange Cube in the corner and a door moving on!

This door will lead you to an ambush in a room with fluctuating power. Fight it off and a door will appear leading you into a hallway with the lights off. This gimmick of light switches returns and they seem even more useless here where every ceiling and floor is bathed in light! The light switches can more or less be ignored, but hit them if it makes you sleep better at night.

At the end of the next section is another high security door. This time there are six shutters. Killing the Bombed in front of them reveals the gimmick of this part. Each of these shutters is tied to an enemy you're going to have to hunt down and kill: A Bombed, a Primid, a Nagagog, a Metal Primid, a Cymul, and a Towtow. None of these are particularly hidden, just explore the area and you'll find them. Just above the Cymul is a hidden Orange Cube you'll want to grab for completion's sake. Land on the springs to bounce your way up there if you can't quite make it.

As each enemy is killed, you'll hear the alert that another shutter is opened, so once you've killed all the enemies, return to the shutter and pass through the door ahead to progress!

As our heroes delve deeper into the halberd, we find where the princess' trophies have wound up. Suspended from the same cages Petey Piranha was holding in the beginning. Shadow Bugs spill over the two trophies creating false clones of the two characters to fight us.

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

They were really proud of this song, weren't they?

  

vs.

 (False)  (False)

I went with Snake to lead off here with Meta Knight following up, giving Lucario a bit of a rest. The fight might last a surprising amount of time as the arena is quite large, flat, and empty. As you fight, the two princess' trophies are visible in the background.

Upon defeating the false copies, the heroes break the chains holding the princess' trophies. They're both awakened from their trophies, but Snake warns them to lay low to avoid attracting unnecessary attention.

And that's the end of the stage!

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

Of course, Snake joins our team meaning it's sticker time again! His stickers are also pretty straight forward. You want to lean mainly into his Arm, Leg, and, of course, Explosive attacks. Nobody is better at Explosions than the guy with the Rockets, Grenades, Mines, and more! Most of his explosive attacks also count as Indirect Specials, so that's a good direction as well!

Octopus (Game & Watch) - Leg Attack +22

Dr. Lobe (Big Brain Academy) - Arm, Leg Attack +10

Mach Rider - Explosive Attack +29

Slippy (Star Fox: Assault) - Indirect Special Attack +6

Robo Cube (Custom Robo: BR) - Body, Spin Attack +5

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

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

I noticed on Mobile the word wrapping caused these stickers to be formatted slightly off, but I actually liked the way it looked on the larger stickers. What do you think? Maybe I'll go back and update the previous ones. I considered this format originally but throught it might be a bit confusing to look at. since it's not immediately obvious whether the caption for the sticker is above or below. But below is pretty consistent with a lot of the thread so I guess there you have it.

Next time, we'll continue our adventures to the Battleship Halberd Exterior!

[Aura]

Stage 24: Battleship Halberd Exterior

Despite being told to lay low, the two princesses aren't about to stay behind and let the boys have all the fun. The doors open again and out comes Zelda, disguised as Sheik, leading Peach out! These aren't just some helpless girls!

Music: Meta Knight's Revenge

 

You get your choice from Sheik or Peach. Of course, Sheik is capable of transforming at will into Zelda, so I suppose there's technically a third option there, too. But, the canonical choice here is Sheik. Either way, this is your first chance to play as the princess you didn't save since the Midair Stadium! Peach is the newer of the two characters, so I suppose she's the one I should select first. But I led with Sheik since she was the one leading the two forward. Either way, I wound up playing as them both quite a lot due to replaying this stage several times.

Anyway, the first section is a platforming section along the outside of the Halberd. The Halberd is flying through the air, so there are heavy winds at play. But there are no enemies or secrets hidden around out here, at least in this part, so just platform your way forward and enter the door at the end near the front of the ship to progress.

Inside the ship you'll find a lot of Quark Mines. Peach's Vegetables are ideal for taking these out from a range, but Sheik's Needles and Chain can function for the same purpose. There are also several jets of fire that can be activated by pressing nearby buttons. This fire can be used to remotely detonate quark mines as well as kill enemies in front of the jets that turn on.

You'll want to make your way to the top first to grab some Turquoise Cubes, including one that seems to always hold a Cracker Launcher! This Cracker Launcher could prove important for getting an upcoming Orange Cube, so you might want to try to hold on to it as you make your way back down.

As you pass through the hallway down below, pay careful attention to the ceiling because this is the most devilishly hidden secret in the game so far. If you pay careful attention, you'll notice a crack in the ceiling just barely on screen in an otherwise inconspicuous corner. You'll need to hit this crack with an explosion in order to reveal an Orange Cube hidden behind it! I'd like to stress that nothing in this game has ever been hidden behind a cracked wall, it's always been breakable blocks. The closest you have to this is the crack in the ceiling that appears when you hit the bomb block back at the Lake Shore. But that crack didn't indicate any sort of secret opening up, it just indicated that the path would open up on the other side of the door. I'll take the L on not noticing the crack here, but I still don't think this is a very fairly hidden secret. Cracked walls weren't even remotely on my mind for things to look out for throughout this playthrough. Anyway, this crack is why I recommend bringing the Cracker Launcher. You can simply shoot the crack with the Cracker Launcher to break it open. Alternatively, you can detonate the nearby Quark Mine next to the crack. Additionally, I'm aware that Din's Fire and Sheik's Vanish are explosive attacks, perhaps those might be capable of destroying the wall. I'm also not even necessarily sure that an explosion is necessary, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Anyway, that secret had be playing through this level several times over and over scratching my head searching for it. I can't tell you how many times I jumped to my death in the exterior parts of the stage looking for some platform that I figured might be hidden in the corners of the screen. This felt like some sort of cruel joke and, I'll admit, I did resort to actually looking this one up.

Continuing further ahead, there's a large sea of platforms and Quark Mines for you to carefully navigate. A couple of Turquoise Cubes are hidden around the area to heal up with. Up ahead, there's a button that raises a gate on the other side of a pit. It'll slowly close, but you have plenty of time to jump through and continue through the door.

On the other side of the door is an incredibly interesting room... This room contains many enemies in small containment cells. Are these prisoners the Shadow Bugs use as templates to power their army? There's a Poppant, Nagagog, Roader, Primid, Cylux, Buckot, Scope Primid, Autolance, Fire Primid, and... wait, what's...

What's that thing?? Talk about creepy!

So, I've previously mentioned cut enemies hinted at within the data of the game, and I may have alluded to this back then, but this is the only one of those cut enemies that actually does make some sort of appearance in the SSE campaign. This is Mizzo who's name comes only from a trophy it does have, and this is the only place in the entire game it appears in this strange containment cell. Judging by its name which seems to be a pun on the Japanese word for water (Mizu) as well as the trophy's description describing its movement as "swimming motions," it seems pretty likely this enemy would've swam in water!

Unfortunately, since there's no enemy data for Mizzo left in its folders, we can't say for sure what it would've done, but if I had to guess, these things would've swam along the surface of water and grabbed players to hold them in place in an effort to drown them. You'd have to button mash to shake them off. This in turn would've made water a much more dangerous obstacle and I've previously noted before that it definitely seems as though the devs designed some areas with the evident mindset that water would be a much more dangerous obstacle than it ultimately ended up being. Perhaps this oddity is due to the lack of this guy being finished? It does look like it would've been pretty weak and easily KO'd, but potentially incredibly dangerous if you find yourself launched into a pool of water it's swimming in.

Once you're done with your zoo trip, proceed through the next door to enter an ambush. Fight your way through the hoards of enemies to reveal a platform and proceed again.

Up ahead are a few pits with enemies in them. They can be mostly ignored, especially the one with the Greap. Do not drop down to fight it. Pick it off with projectiles from a distance if you can. Otherwise its blades can cover the entire area  of the pit it's in and it'll wrack up some devastating damage on you real quick. This section is actually a lot rougher than it might look on the surface, so think your moves through!

Continuing further, you'll find some fire jets that alternate on and off with Buckots flying overhead to try and damage you. Kill the Buckots while evading the Fire Jets. Some of the jets are on moving platforms that will even rise high enough to kill the Buckots for you! Nice!

At the end is a door between two crushers. These crushers move faster on higher difficulties. Wait for the right timing and slip in to quickly enter the door!

This door will lead you to the other side of the ship's exterior. This time there's a secret hidden out here, so don't get too trigger happy with your jumps! Make your way to the top of the first collection of platforms and you should find an Orange Cube! The platform the cube is on is actually pretty tricky to get to on its own since you have to fight the wind to reach it. Beyond that, you'll need to be quick to grab the reward or it'll be blown right off!

Regardless, continue further along and you'll eventually platform your way up to the bridge of the ship where you'll find the golden light signifying the end of the stage!

As the princesses arrive on the ship's bridge, we find out where Fox has been. He's still in an intense dogfight with the Halberd, trying to break his way in. Fox identifies the canon that knocked him out of the air before and begins blasting at it to destroy it! The canon explodes, nearly taking Peach out with it! This causes Sheik to mistake Fox's shots to be aimed at Peach and she immediately leaps for Fox's arwing and breaks the cockpit open, pulling Fox out and down to the halberd! The two clash for a fight, which Peach quickly halts, offering... a cup of tea!? Where did she even get that from!? Sheik is already enjoying a cup as well, to Fox's bewilderment...

And, yeah, that's the end of the stage! Fox has now joined with the two princesses to form a new party!

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

 

Both princesses have now returned to the roster! This of course means it's your first chance to set up stickers for the princess you didn't save in the beginning of the game.

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

Peach is, again, pretty standard. Most of her attacks are Leg and Arm attacks, but her Vegetables, Parasol, and Side Smash are treated as Weapon Damage. Her Peach Bomber is also a Body attack, so I leaned into that a bit as well. Overall, I'm sure I could probably do better with this build, but I don't see myself using Peach much, so I'm not too worried about it.

Peach & Daisy (Mario Party 7) - Leg Attack +27

Yoshi (Yoshi Touch & Go) - Arm, Leg Attack +8

Instructor (Pilotwings) - Arm Attack +10

Koopa (Super Mario Strikers) - Body, Spin Attack +10

Chonmyago (Densetsu no Stafy 2) - Weapon Attack +5

Iron Tiger (F-Zero GX) - Fire Resistance +4

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

And with that, we're done for this one! Next time, it's off to Battleship Halberd Bridge to see what the last line of defense the Subspace Emissary has in store for us!

[Aura]

Stage 25: Battleship Halberd Bridge

We check back in with the infiltrators who have made their way to the battleship's Bridge. The heroes peek through and are surprised to find the bridge is filled with several... Mr. Game & Watch? Snake charges through and knocks all the dimensionally-challenged creatures out the window, causing them to fall onto the deck below where they all dissolve into shadow bugs, assimilating into one massive machine... Duon. Noticing Sheik, Peach, and Fox down below, Snake and Lucario jump down to assist them in fighting off the new foe. To lend further help, Falco drops in from overhead, finally rejoining the battle!

     

Vs. Duon

It's really exciting to see everyone's stories coming together as small parties cross paths and join up as larger parties! For this battle, we hav ea whopping six characters to choose from! Sheik, Peach, Fox, Falco, Lucario, and Snake! I went with Falco first since he's the latest to join, followed up with Lucario, then Snake, then Fox. It may not seem like Peach and Sheik have seen much action, but after playing that previous stage several times over with them, I think I've had my fill for now.

Anyway, this upcoming boss fight is certainly a lot more difficult than what we've been dealing with so far, I think. Duon is a sort of chimera of two different monsters. One side is covered in artillery while the other is covered in blades. As you can imagine, the Pink side is better at attacking you from a range while the Blue side will punish you for drawing in too close. Throughout the fight, Duon will occasionally flip around and start fighting with the other side. Together, they really are a fearsome duo!

The blue, bladed side will attack you with a flurry of blade slashes that can dish out some serious hurt.

He can also crash the axe on his head into the ground suddenly, so watch out for that as well!

The blue side isn't all blades, however. It does have bomb launchers mounted on its shoulders that can fire bombs across the stage. So don't feel like you're safe from a range just because the blue side is facing you!

The pink side will attack you with is various forms of artillery. Watch out for its canon fire and charged laser!

Most interesting of note is the pink side's shoulders can fire heat-seeking missiles. If you're crafty with your movement, you can actually get these missiles to hit Duon without even reflecting them. Of course, reflecting them will still add a multiplier to the damage they deal!

Regardless of the side that's facing you, there are various attacks the duo can pull on you. One of these being a charge across the deck which you'll have to jump to avoid.

Another is a great spin which comes out so quickly you really just have to make sure you don't get too greedy with damage output. Get your hits in and dip out quick or you might regret it!

Lastly, as seems to be a trend among these bosses, Duon can leap into the air and crash down on the stage.

As for damage, Duon resists Grass and Slash damage as well as indirect attacks, but is vulnerable to Water attacks! Unfortunately, none of these characters have any Water attacks. I find Lucario to be the easiest character to fight Duon with since he can use his Counter to evade otherwise difficult attacks to avoid and deal that damage back to Duon. Unfortunately, Lucario's Double Team is probably the worst counter attack in the game since it's so slow to come out, so you really have to anticipate these attacks! Otherwise, Fox, Falco, and Zelda can be good to deflect the pink side's projectiles.

Of course, Duon has a trophy, too. Try to hit him with the Trophy Stand from a safe distance while he's stuck in an attack like its great spin.

Upon defeat, Duon dissolves, leaving Mr. Game & Watch's trophy behind. Peach casually strolls up and awakens Mr. Game & Watch from his trophy. The little guy seems a bit confused and disoriented before... bowing, I guess? Peach seems endeared by Game & Watch and lets him hold her parasol, laughing as he carries the object around.

Meanwhile, back in the bridge, Meta Knight finally reclaims his ship and flies it out of the foreboding black clouds its been flying through this whole time. Reclaiming the Halberd is a major victory, but there's still a lot of work to do to set things right! The Subspace Emissary is still at large! We must fight on!

And that's the end of the stage!

===========

Mr. Game & Watch joins our team after clearing the stage, and his moveset is a bit of a strange one. I wasn't really sure what to focus on as his attacks are so wildly varied it seemed like a waste to invest too heavily into one particular area, so I decided to focus my efforts on buffing his general properties as much as I could. I was honestly impressed enough that I could fit the three largest stickers on here together, so that pretty much cemented the build, but I'm sure there's something better you could do with this. The important takeaway is that most of the props G&W uses are classified as weapons. In addition, he has various elemental attacks tied to his Judge attack if you want to go in that direction. But overall, I'd say investing into Weapons as well as Direct and Indirect Specials is the way to go.

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

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

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

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

Tippi (Super Paper Mario) - Flame Resistance +5

Jill (Drill Dozer) - Electric Resistance +4

And that's that! I believe we've only got one small party left that's yet to join up with a larger group and it's pretty clear exactly who's going to meet who next when we return to the Subspace Bomb Factory!

[Aura]

Stage 26: The Subspace Bomb Factory

We seem to jump right into the action! Last we saw of Samus and Pikachu, they'd just spotted a bomb being taken from the facility where they're presumably being made. So, now they are infiltrating the Bomb Factory. With the Power Suit, Samus is no longer worried about any opposition she faces. Seizing control of this facility could stop the bombings! But we'll just have to see.

Music: Norfair (Metroid)

 

You can choose between Samus or Pikachu, of course.

This is probably the shortest level-based stage in the SSE, the majority of the gameplay here is optional and if you're just interested in completing the stage, you can pretty much just make a beeline for the exit. But here on AtP, we're all about completion! ...kinda. For things like this we are, anyway.

The whole gimmick of this stage as you'll quickly notice is that it's entirely built around stopping an elevator at various floors and exploring around. As you stop at each floor and step into the rooms on either side of the elevator, you'll be locked in with some sort of challenge. Usually an ambush of enemies you'll have to defeat in order to reveal the location of a button that'll open the way back out. Ironically, enemies in these rooms aren't capable of killing you since you're completely boxed in on all sides until the shutters open! They might wrack up a lot of damage if you aren't careful, but you'll never die unless you're attacked in one of the hallways.

Of course, some of these rooms hold Turquoise Cubes and, more importantly, doors leading to bonus rooms! Just like before, I'll be counting the first floor you encounter the first elevator in each room as 1F (So, B1F is the next floor down and so on) regardless of whether that's technically accurate just for simplicity's sake.

The first of these is down on B3F to the left of the first elevator. It's a kill room where you'll have to fight through several enemies before an Orange and Turquoise Cube appear and the exit reveals itself.

You can take the elevator to the very bottom on B4F and head to the right to find a second elevator!

As you take this elevator up to B3F, you'll find a door on the right side. Ignore this for now if you're going for completion. Otherwise, feel free to jump right through as you're already very close to the end of the stage!

On B2F, head to the left for a room with a button hidden under some destructable blocks. Hit the button to not only open the way back out but also reveal a bonus door!

Music: Multiplayer (Metroid Prime 2)

Passing through the door will lead you to a large open pit with a lone Armank at the very bottom. I've mentioned before how scary these guys can be, but you shouldn't have too much trouble dealing with this guy on his own. Kill it and it'll drop a trophy! A ladder will appear as well allowing you to head back to the main area.

Taking the elevator all the way to top at 1F and heading to the left, you'll find a kill room full of R.O.B.s. Defeating them all will reveal another bonus room. This room initially appears to just have a Turquoise Cube inside, but you'll notice some vertical shafts overhead. Samus and Pikachu are both capable of wall jumping, so wall jump your way up to the top to claim your Orange Cube prize!

And that's it! The other rooms just hold time-wasting kill rooms or Turquoise Cubes that'll provide healing or items. Make your way back down to B3F and take that door I suggested you ignore to proceed!

In here, there are a few R.O.B. Launchers to fight through and as you platform across the gap, you'll already see the golden light signifying the end! But right at the end, there is one last ambush of R.O.B.s to fight through. But that's the end of the stage right there! That's right, if you just take the first elevator all the way down and the second elevator up one floor, you can clear this entire stage after only fighting a handful of enemies and interacting with nothing else at all. It's actually kinda silly.

Samus and Pikachu break into the storage facility where the many bombs are being held, ready for deployment where they find the Ancient Minister standing in front of an army of R.O.B.s. Samus and Pikachu prepare to fight, but... the Ancient Minister doesn't seem interested in putting up a fight at all. Something... isn't right here...

And that's it for this brief level. Next time we'll follow up with Stage 27: The Subspace Bomb Factory Part 2! Something tells me we're about to see something bad happen here...

[Aura]

Source: IGN

Stage 27: The Subspace Bomb Factory Part 2

Music: Climb Up! And Get the Last Chance! (F-Zero X)

   

As we begin the next stage, we jump right into gameplay meaning we'll select our character from the world map screen. We're rejoining the adventure from the perspective of the team who were just approaching the floating island on board the Smash Skiff. Captain Falcon is infiltrating the bomb factory, brining Olimar along and the Kongs joining in for some payback as well! I decided to lead off with Donkey Kong followed by Captain Falcon, then Olimar, then Diddy Kong.

This stage was quite infamous to me as a kid because, for a long time, this was the stage that stumped me in regards to completion. I had 99% completion and every secret discovered with absolutely no clue what I was missing. I'd played through this stage several times being as thorough as child me could without ever discovering the secret. Where was that secret hiding all this time? Well, we'll get to that in a bit. For now, focus on pushing your way forward. The platforming in this stage is actually fairly rough, you might find yourself missing some jumps if you're too focused on the enemies. Be careful as you break the breakable and bomb blocks! You might drop yourself right into a pit!

As you run ahead, you'll wind up at the area depicted in the screenshot above. There's a bomb block under a platform. You'll need to carefully destroy the block while staying in the air. The best character for this job is probably Olimar who can throw a Pikmin out and quickly jump up, but the other characters should be able to do it with some well placed attacks. DK and Captain Falcon should be able to hit it from above the platform by clipping their aerial or smash attacks through the wall. Diddy's Up Special can safely blow up the block while propelling him to safety as well.

Immediately after this is an ambush in the middle of a Ferris wheel of rotating platforms. Clear out the enemies to hop your way along to an auto scrolling section. Move quickly to keep up with the screen but make sure to stop at the door on one of the platforms in the next set of rotating platforms as it leads you to a bonus room! And this here is where the secret I was missing all those years can be found.

On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything special about this room. There's just two Turquoise Cubes and another Ferris Wheel containing the exit door. There are springs on either side of the room that can help you in bouncing up toward these item cubes. At the top of the I-shaped platform, there's another spring. I'd always assumed this spring was just to help you jump back onto the rotating platforms. But this is where what I'd say is the single most sneakily hidden item in the game is located. This spring actually bounces you just off screen and, wouldn't you know it? While you're just off screen, if you attack, you'll break open an Orange Cube that's hidden away! The reward will drop down for you to pick up. Knowing what I know now about level design, I was able to pick up on the hint and find the item box. But I can't at all blame my child self for not being able to find this one. But this one treasure once haunted me for my entire Brawl career.

...Yet this treasure isn't the only reason I'd replayed this stage several times over, oh no. The other reason is yet to come.

As you continue forward with the stage, you'll return to the auto scrolling where you'll have to carefully platform across rotating platforms while moving fast enough to keep up with the screen. Watch out for the platforms covered in spikes! Eventually the screen will come to a rest at the door proceeding to the next room.

This next room features some conveyor belts and mashing spikes! If you watch the bottom of the screen as you cross these conveyor belts, you might notice the top of a door. This will be important for later, but it's another rather sneakily hidden secret! At the end of the conveyor belts, you'll find a door that won't open. It has three LEDs on it, a Red, Blue, and Green one. It should be pretty clear what you need to do from here. Overhead is a line of destructable blocks. You'll need to break through these blocks in order to carve your way upward toward a red lever. If you're currently playing as Diddy Kong or Captain Falcon, I recommend holding off on this one for a bit. It's not necessarily hard, but you don't want to risk losing that character. Otherwise, go ahead and press the lever. The spiked ceiling will begin moving down! Get out of the way quickly or it will crush you! When you return to the door we saw before, you'll find that the red LED is now activated! By now, it should be obvious we'll need to find the Blue and Green levers as well. Take the nearby Ladder further down to look for them.

If you're playing as Diddy or Falcon, head to the left at the bottom, otherwise, head right.

On the right side, you'll need to platform across some more conveyor belts over pits in order to reach the green lever. Simple enough. Olimar can even throw a Pikmin across to hit the lever!

Taking the left path will lead you to an ambush of enemies. Wipe them out. Hopefully you still have Diddy Kong or Captain Falcon by the time you clear this area. Up ahead is the blue lever. But before you turn around, take note of the fact that some Mites fall down from above. A little suspect, isn't it? Well, remember that door you saw earlier? This should be just below that point... This is why Diddy and Falcon are so important to have as these are the only characters in this party capable of making this jump since they're both capable of wall jumping. This is why I recommend going the other paths if you're not playing as them as you at least have a chance of dying going those other routes which could potentially change your character to one of these two. If you do find yourself over here and you're stuck as Olimar or Donkey Kong, you might be able to get a nearby enemy to damage boost yourself up to the door, but you'll still be SoL because the bonus room itself has no enemies and requires you to make a similar jump. The game clearly wants you to wall jump here.

Inside this bonus room is a clusterfuck of bombable blocks with the bomb block at the top of a tall vertical shaft. Just wall jump all the way up and smack it to blow up all the blocks in the room and reveal a Turquoise and Orange Cube to claim rewards from before making your way back.

Once you've hit the three levers, make your way back to the door with the LEDs to find all of them lit! The door is now unlocked and you can proceed through to the next part of the level!

This next section is filled with fire jets. You can use buttons to activate some to kill nearby enemies, but most of the time you'll be moving carefully to avoid these flames. As you proceed forward, you'll find a gap with a far stream of fire jets that doesn't seem safely traversable. Well, of course, you'll want to head up the nearby ladder to find a switch that'll drop some blocks on top of the jets to over the flames and allow you to cross!

But things aren't always so simple, before heading back down, continue to the left to find a platform leading up to another button that will shut off the fire jets to the left. This will make the stairway over here accessible which leads to an Orange Cube! This level is just chock full of secrets, huh? Just beyond that, there's another Turquoise Cube you can use to heal up with before hitting the nearby button to turn the jets off again and enable your way back down safely.

Now you can head back down and jump across the blocks that fell on to the jets. Some giant Bytans will drop in from overhead, so be prepared to either fight them or ignore them and continue down the ladder up ahead.

Don't take the launcher here! Jump over it and climb up the next ladder to hit a button and turn off the fire jets. Now it's safe to take the launcher! Launch yourself across quickly to get through the hallway without taking damage from the fire! You'll be launched straight onto an elevator where you'll have to fight off more Bytans. The elevator will lift you into an ambush with yet more enemies, but be careful as the walls are closing in! If you aren't standing on the center platform by the time they close, you'll be crushed! After the ambush, a platform will appear overhead, but the walls won't stop moving! You'll likely have to wait for the walls to close before you'll have a chance to safely take the platform up to the ladder above.

At the top of the ladder, you'll find a locked door to your right and a pretty basic room with a single large Bytan and a key hidden in destructible blocks. Use the key to unlock the way forward!

As you reach the dead-end behind the wall, you'll be met with a cutscene of DK pounding his fists into the wall, breaking into the room where we last left off with Samus and Pikachu. This briefly distracts the two, but the whole party quickly realizes they're on the same side and turns to face the Ancient Minister and his robot army. That's when a hologram of Ganondorf appears before the group. Ganondorf commands the R.O.B. army to begin detonating the many bombs prepared in the facility... he's going to take out the entire factory and everyone inside!? Even the Ancient Minister is opposed to this strategy and moves in to command the army to cease obeying Ganondorf's orders. The robots stop and look to each other in confusion.

However, it's soon made clear just why he's been going along with the Subspace Emissary. Ganondorf presses a button that grants him direct control of the entire R.O.B. army, overriding the Ancient Minister's authority over them and forcing them to proceed with detonating the bombs! The Ancient Minister tries to force them to stop, so Ganondorf presses the button again to force the remaining robots to attack him! As the robots blast him with their lasers, his robes catch fire as the many R.O.B.s begin to activate bomb after bomb all at once...

Ganondorf laughs as the heroes all desperately try to stop the R.O.B.s from setting the bombs off, and the Ancient Minister is helpless to stop the army's attack... With one final motion, Ganondorf sends in the Subspace Army to drive the heroes away. And this comes to the Ancient Minister's last stand. No longer willing to sit idly by as the Subspace Emissary takes over his home, he fires a laser from his eyes toward the swarm of Auroros. Finally, he sheds his burning robes to reveal his true identity: R.O.B. But not just any R.O.B. like the mooks we've been dealing with up until now.

From what I understand of canon, though I'm not sure where this information comes from so I can't verify its validity, this robot is canonically known as the Master Robot. He must be a special case among the R.O.B. army as he seems to be the only one on par with the other playable characters. What I do know is that he is the leader of the R.O.B. who lived on this island known as the Isle of Ancients. His purpose is unknown, perhaps we'll see more clues unfold as the story progresses from here. It seems that the Subspace Army overpowered the robot army and forced them into assisting with ripping apart the world of trophies with these subspace bombs, or they'd be wiped to extinction. But now, with everything being ripped from him, the Master Robot will no longer stand. He's ready to fight back, giving his life if necessary!

Music: Battlefield (Super Smash Bros.: Brawl)

      

For the upcoming battle, our parties on board the Isle of Ancients are joined together, allowing us to choose from all 7! Of course, who could turn down the opportunity to play as R.O.B. after such a powerful cutscene? I decided to lead with R.O.B. followed by Pikachu, Diddy Kong, and Samus.

Fight your way through the countless waves of enemies! Take 'em all out! Not much to say about it, but it feels really good to fight back here with nothing else to lose! Especially with this awesome Battlefield music playing! You've got Auroros, various types of Primids, Tickens, Floows, and Nagagogs! At the very end, you'll have to deal with two Armanks together which can be a little rough if you're unprepared, but you should be able to handle them all just fine.

After fighting through the army, we've managed to hold our ground, but it's clear there's no stopping these robots. Not even the Master Robot can stop his allies from detonating the bombs. Realizing this is a lost cause, Captain Falcon calls for the Falcon Flyer and now our top priority is simply to escape before the bombs begin to go off!

Music: Vs. Meta Ridley (Metroid Prime)

      

For the escape sequence, you once again get your selection of characters. I went with Donkey Kong followed by Captain Falcon, Pikachu, and Olimar. I figured R.O.B. would probably want to be out of the action for a bit.

As an escape sequence, this part of the level is an auto scroller so you'll have to move quickly as you descend! There's several enemies you'll have to break through and even a barricade of destructible blocks you'll need to burrow through! Don't waste any time, especially on harder difficulties where the screen scrolls faster!

Below this section is a section where you'll be lowered between two spiked walls. Segments of the walls will protrude inward, leaving only a small gap to stand safely in. Don't get stuck, try to stand near the first wall that stops and be confident that the other wall will stop before it reaches you! Eventually the lift will exit from these walls as they close tightly over your head narrowly avoiding a burn from the fire jets along the bottom. But the threat this large block imposes on you isn't gone yet! It'll slowly drop down toward you, so as the platform pulls away, you won't want to waste any time in dropping further down below.

There are a series of platforms down below that'll rise up when you land on them. Beyond that, there are several Cyluxes to avoid, too. Take them out if they're in your way. Otherwise, keep dropping and reach the door at the bottom!

This door will lead you into a section with quark mines on either side. Some of these mines will fly in toward you as you pass by, but they aren't difficult to avoid. Continue dropping further down until you pass through a narrow bottleneck below which the camera will zigzag around to follow the path of the hallways while you try your best to keep up in spite of the barrage of enemies! Keep close to the bottom-right corner as you pass the generator because there's a trophy that's very easy to miss down there! Grab it and continue down the next hole and through the next door.

As the heroes continue to drop down the massive shaft, Captain Falcon snaps as the Falcon Flyer arrives just in time to catch them all! But just as you think we're about to get to safety, we have one last attacker... Ridley is back! But this time he's been enhanced with the technology from the Isle of Ancients!

      

Vs. Meta Ridley

That's right, you get to fight Ridley not once, but twice! And this time stakes are a lot higher! Last time I had Pikachu fight him off, so this time I think it's finally time for Samus to get her revenge! I followed up with Captain Falcon, R.O.B., Donkey Kong, and Olimar.

Curiously, the music playing here is Vs. Ridley and not Vs. Meta Ridley like you'd expect. Probably because Vs. Ridley is an original remix of Ridley's theme from Super Metroid composed specifically for Brawl while Vs. Meta Ridley is ripped straight from Metroid Prime. I can't say it's a bad choice! This music rules!

This is an intense battle on the back of the Falcon Flyer and by far the coolest boss fight in the Subspace Emissary, and I don't think that's an unpopular opinion of mine. Not only are the stakes a lot higher, but there's a time limit to really layer on the pressure!

Ridley is pissed with you here and is far more violent! His actions have so much force they'll even knock the Falcon Flyer around! Some of his attacks are similar to what he'd do before in the Research Facility, but here, he's doing far more damage.

Ridley will use attacks to specifically target the Falcon Flyer itself, really throwing you off, so you'll definitely want to stay in the air a lot. He'll sometimes smack the ship, causing it to pitch upwards while other times he'll slam down onto it from above. This attack can be especially dangerous as he'll shove the entire ship offscreen, killing you instantly if you're on board. Make sure you jump to avoid this!

In addition, Ridley will now be shooting Fireballs at you! He can barrage you with fireballs from the air or charge up one giant one that'll explode on contact with the platform!

He can combine his tendency to knock the stage around with his fireballs by grabbing onto the edge of the flyer and weighing the whole ship down as eh charges up a fireball to blast upwards at you.

I really don't think any words can really describe to you how visually action-packed this fight is. You'd really just have to see it in motion. Look it up if you've never seen it! It's awesome and it comes at a really exciting part of the story!

Curiously, Meta Ridley actually seems to take more damage than Ridley does. His vulnerabilities don't change, so he shares Ridley's vulnerabilities to Water, Freeze, and Electric attacks. But he's actually slightly more vulnerable to electricity and Freeze. In addition, he loses his resistance to Indirect Specials, so go all out armed with this knowledge! Otherwise, the only thing to note in terms of damage input is his resistance to fire is unchanged.

Now then, remember that I said there was another reason you'd most certainly replay this stage a lot for more than just missing one of the secrets? Yes, as if the many easily missable secrets throughout this rather long stage weren't enough, this is also arguably the single hardest boss trophy to claim.

So, yes, of course Meta Ridley has his own Trophy to claim using Trophy Stands and it's difficult for two main reasons: 1, The battle is on a time limit. If you run out of time, it's an instant game over. 2, Ridley spends a lot of his time during this fight over pits.

Not only do you have to weaken him, but you also have to be careful to hit him during the small windows of time where he's hovering over the Falcon Flier which can leave you really vulnerable, especially if you misread his tells. If you're quick, you can turn him into a trophy over the pit and immediately move in to grab the trophy from midair, but more often than not this will just result in the trophy dropping into the pit and ending the fight. Try to play it safe unless time is running out!

For the best results, I recommend waiting until he tries to charge the large fireball while hovering over the flyer. But beyond that, there's really not much that can be said beyond keeping an eye on the timer and knowing when to call it quits and just go in for the kill. Good luck as this is probably the boss you'll be refighting the most.

Upon defeating Meta Ridley, the heroes escape the Isle of Ancients just in time to avoid getting caught in the explosion!

And at the tail end, we cut back to Mario and the gang who observe from a distance as the supermassive explosion goes off on the horizon. But this horrible sight is broken up by a sense of relief as we now see the Falcon Flyer join in with the Halberd to land near the heroes on the ground. Finally, everyone is accounted for and together! Well, mostly everyone.

         

On the ground, we have Kirby, Mario, Pit, Link, Yoshi, Lucas, Pokemon Trainer, Marth, Ike, and the Ice Climbers.

Ironically, though the story started out by mainly following Kirby and Pit, this whole squad has ultimately more or less ended up just being the sideliners who got dragged into all of this. They've all more or less been pawns to get the other characters into place. I'll need to be sure to give them extra attention in the coming levels!

       

On board the Halberd we have Zelda, Peach, Meta Knight, Lucario, Snake, Fox, Falco, and Mr. Game & Watch.

A lot of these characters joined only recently. They've been through a lot during the fight to reclaim the Halberd from the control of the Subspace Army.

      

And now, hitching a ride on board the Falcon Flyer, we have Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Samus, Pikachu, Olimar, Captain Falcon, and R.O.B.

This guys have been the leading offensive against the Subspace Army, causing a lot of destruction to their forces! Ganondorf's efforts to keep his and Bowser's #1 enemies distracted seems to have led him to underestimate the strength of these heroes he's not quite as familiar with.

With the three forces finally uniting, our party just got a lot larger! Sadly, not quite everyone is on our side. We already know that Bowser and Ganondorf are still working for the Subspace Emissary and don't seem interested in changing sides anytime soon. The whereabouts of Luigi and Ness' trophies are unknown, though they were likely swallowed up in the subspace bomb detonated at Dedede's Castle along with King Dedede himself. We've also seen Wario's trophy get sucked into the Galleom's Bomb at the ruins.

We still know little of who the Subspace Emissary really is or what they want with the world at large. But with all our forces united, it's clear we'll need to take our fight to the enemy! And next time, we'll do just that!

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

Anyway, that was a really long stage with a lot to cover. It's almost easy to overlook the fact that we have a new team member: R.O.B.! R.O.B.'s build was pretty standard. I decided to focus heavily on his arm and Energy attacks as a lot of his attacks use these. His Up Air and Arm Rotor I particularly find myself using a lot, so I wanted to give these particular moves some special attention as well.

Goron (Zelda: Ocarina of Time) - Arm Attack +21

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

Link (The Legend of Zelda) - Indirect Specials Attack +17

Perry (Super Princess Peach) - Direct Specials Attack +6

Colonel (MGS2: Sons of Liberty) - Energy Attack +8

Ana (Mother) - Body, Spin Attack +7

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

And that's that. Next time, our many heroes take the fight to the enemy! We're declaring war on the Subspace Army in Stage 28: Entrance to Subspace!

[Aura]

Stage 28: Entrance to Subspace

With many of the initial conflicts and loose ends finally cleared up, and our heroes all united, it's finally time to get into the underlying mystery of what's really been going on this whole time. Just what are these Subspace Bombs? What are these strange black holes that have been forming around the world? And just what is the purpose of all this destruction?

Well, we start to get some answers and even more questions with the introduction to this stage. We start with a massive, and I mean massive dreadnought called the Subspace Gunship emerging from the giant hole where the Isle of Ancients once was. The weapon charges up before unleashing a powerful Death Star-esque laser which creates a supermassive explosion far more powerful than that of a normal Subspace Bomb or even the collective explosion of the Bomb Factory! If left alone, the Subspace Army could use this weapon to cover the entire world in these explosions!!

To provide a sense of scale for just how massive this weapon is, the camera zooms in through its city-like surface to reveal that Ganondorf and Bowser are standing on a platform at the top and they look absolutely tiny compared to the Subspace Gunship! Bowser seems excited by the raw power of the weapon, but the ever-vigilant Ganondorf spots something in the distance... It's the Halberd! Ganondorf readies the gunship's many heavy weapons and they begin firing with overwhelming force at the Halberd! The Halberd does its best to evade the oncoming fire but ends up receiving a direct shought straight through the length of the ship! There's no way it can stay afloat from there. The ship begins to break apart before going down in a large explosion.

However, much to the villains' dismay, many smaller ships spring out from the explosion and debris of the Halberd! It was just a diversion! Samus's Gunship, the Falcon Flyer, Falco's Arwing, and even Olimar's spaceship continue the push, skillfully avoiding the firepower that's clearly meant to take on much larger targets. I suppose Samus's ship wasn't on the Isle of Ancients? Not entirely sure how she got there otherwise, but I guess you're just not supposed to think too much about it. Maybe she utilized autopilot functionality to avoid her ship being detected.

Anyway, as the various ships continue flying forward, it's soon made clear that even these are being used merely as a diversion. Because while the guns are trained on the swarm of flies, from up above, Kirby is riding on the most powerful weapon in the game: The Dragoon. The Dragoon flies at supersonic speeds and pierces straight through the Subspace Gunship, destroying it in one powerful attack! Defeated, Ganondorf and Bowser retreat into the black hole they'd emerged from. The heroes' ships, too, fly into the black hole to see just what's happening inside.

What an awesome scene! Fuck, I love this part of the story so much! And now it's finally time to see what exactly is lying on the other side of these Subspace Bombs...

Inside the black hole, our many heroes have successfully, and safely, made their way into Subspace, the homeworld of the Subspace Army.

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

                        

With all the parties joined together, we get by far the largest selection of characters so far! Kirby, Zelda, Peach, Mario, Pit, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Fox, Lucas, Pokmeon Trainer, Marth, Meta Knight, Ike, Link, Yoshi, Samus, Pikachu, Falco, Olimar, Captain Falcon, Ice Climbers, Lucario, Snake, Mr. Game & Watch, and R.O.B.. That's everyone we've been able to play as up to this point! As well as some you've only been able to use while replaying stages!

   

Notably, of the three final parties, each party had a retro character added at the tail-end that didn't get much, if any, screentime. Consequently, I decided to give them priority. That goes to Game & Watch, Ice Climbers, then R.O.B.. Beyond them, I figured Lucas probably has the most personal investment in this situation as he still wants to find Ness' trophy which must be lost somewhere in Subspace.

Regardless of the characters you select, though, this stage is pretty short and straight-forward, so you're not likely to cycle through them all.

This is our first level in Subspace! It's a very strange-looking environment with a cloudy background and ominous music. As you make your way forward, you'll be met with an ambush of enemies, things play out pretty standard in these levels. But you can expect a lot more pits since you're basically just floating in a void.

After clearing the ambush, you'll enter an autoscrolling section. You'll need to fight your way through some Primids coming from a generator. Keep your eyes peeled because there's a trophy on the other side of the wall up ahead. It can be easy to miss in all the action, make sure you grab it for completion!

At the end of the autoscrolling segment, you'll be met with an ambush including Borboras, Metal Primid, and Fire Primid generators. The Metal Primid generator is by far the scariest idea of the three, so I'd recommend breaking that one first. Destroy the three generators and continue platforming your way to the right for another handful of ambushes. Eventually, you'll have to brave an incline that seems to disappear. But don't worry, there's still ground here. Keep running and you'll eventually arrive at a door to progress onward.

We see a scene of Bowser and Ganondorf returning to Subspace. Bowser clearly furious about their failure, but it seems Ganondorf has more on his mind. Bowser's back is to him. He sees this as a perfect opportunity to pull out the Dark Canon and blast him in the back! He brutally kicks Bowser's trophy to the side before approaching the edge of a nearby cliff to meet with Master Hand. However, it's soon revealed that, much like the Master Robot, Mater Hand, too, is being controlled. Literally puppeteered with golden, magical chains.

Following these chains, the identity of the Subspace Emissary is finally revealed: A mysterious figure named Tabuu. He seems to be a ruler or god of sorts of Subspace.

It doesn't take long for Ganondorf to realize he'd been tricked by Tabuu and immediately lunges toward him with a powerful Warlock Punch, but Tabuu effortlessly deflects his attack, knocking Ganondorf into the chains controlling Master Hand. I'd never actually noticed this before, but it seems to be this contact with the chains, not Tabuu's attack, that converts Ganondorf into a trophy. Perhaps the chains use the same type of energy as the Dark Canon? Regardless, the force of Ganondorf crashing into Master Hand frees the hand from the chains that held him. Master Hand crashes to the ground with, yes, you see that right, bleeding wounds! I'm actually shocked they allowed such a visual in this game, as a kid, it blew my mind that they let a Smash Bros. game have blood in it like this, yet here it is! There's even an ESRB warning for it on the box and everything!

Now freed from Tabuu's direct control, Master Hand curls into a fist and immdiately retaliates with an attack of his own, only to be blocked and deflected as well. The heroes arrive soon after to which Tabuu responds by spreading massive wings and launching an incredibly powerful shockwave attack that instantly transforms everyone into trophies!!

The fighters all lie on the ground before Tabuu as he begins to pull bubbles containing the areas from the World of Trophies that were destroyed with the Subspace Bomb. It seems Tabuu's motivations through all of this is to simply seize control of the World of Trophies and bring it into his domain. As he seems incapable of leaving Subspace, this is the role the Subspace Bombs serve. All of the locations Tabuu has stolen with his bombs begin to engulf him as he uses them to begin rebuilding his own world.

As far as Tabuu is concerned, there is no one left to oppose him. He creates a staircase leading toward his new world practically inviting any challengers who might still be lurking...

And... that's the end of the stage! Yeah, what a dark note to end this post on, huh? The entire party is wiped, and you go from having the largest party in the game so far to... absolutely nothing left. There is nobody remaining to choose from. Consequently, we have no option from the stage select screen besides looking ahead at what's to come in Stage 29: Subspace. Who still remains that could possibly oppose Tabuu? How will we manage to defeat such a powerful opponent? Only time will tell, but we'll have to find an answer soon!

[Aura]

Stage 29: Subspace

As we bridge our way to the finale of the game, we're left at an unfortunate stalemate. Our massive party has been reverted to trophies by one single powerful attack from the ruler of Subspace, Tabuu.

The stage begins with a shot of the interior of Dedede's castle. As we saw at the end of the previous stage, all of the areas that were consumed by Subspace Bombs were ripped from the World of Trophies and brought into Subspace. What we're seeing must be the aftermath of one of the Subspace Bomb's explosions from the perspective of those now inside Subspace.

Of course, there isn't much life in here, either as Luigi, Ness, and Dedede remain here in their trophy forms. However, the silence is soon broken by the badge placed on Ness' trophy beginning to glow. Luigi's follows suit and soon both of them are awakened from their trophies automatically! As it turns out, Dedede's badges were capable of automatically reviving a fallen fighter from their trophy without being awakened by another fighter! It looks like hope is still alive and rests on these two heroes! Perhaps King Dedede knew that this would happen at some point and created these devices to ensure the trophies he'd gathered would be able to make a difference. Unfortunately, the Princess' trophy had been stolen by Bowser and wound up in the gaggle of trophies at Tabuu's feet.

Ness notices Dedede's face on the badge and recognizes that he must be the reason they were awakened, and he goes to awaken Dedede from his trophy! With that, Dedede is overjoyed to see his badges worked and he immediately leads Ness and Luigi onward!

Music: Step: Subspace

  

So, we get to choose characters from among a new party: Ness, Luigi, and King Dedede! Ness is the only one of these characters we've been able to play so far, so I want to start with King Dedede with Luigi following after.

This is our first real level in the final stretch of the game. I suppose if you consider the events leading up to this the Ancient Minister Arc, this would be the Tabuu arc. Regardless, this small squad is on a mission to search the world of Subspace for the trophies of the characters who were wiped out by Tabuu. You won't be getting any of the characters you've lost back unless you find their trophies within the following levels, so you now have extra incentive to be particularly thorough in your search. As you recollect these trophies, the characters will rejoin your team and become selectable again. Don't worry, they'll keep any stickers that were attached to them before.

The beginning of this section is a simple platforming segment, but just over the door at the end is a platform holding Samus' trophy!

 

Pass through the door and climb up the pendulum platforms in the next area. As you climb, you'll pass another door featuring a bonus room that contains the trophies for Pit and Falco as well as arrow blocks that'll drop you down to an Orange Cube. These are still important for completion as well!

Continue climbing up the pendulums, but don't let the Trowlons distract you from the Lucas Trophy near the top next to the door leading onward!

In the next room, you'll find golden platforms which, when you stand on them, will create a series of clear platforms for you to jump across. Be wary that these platforms will only be available for a brief amount of time, so climb quickly!

Take the first of these staircases up and you'll find Donkey Kong's trophy on a golden platform!

Instead of climbing the stairs that appear from this golden platform, drop down to the other one which will create stairs leading downward. Follow them to an area to the left of the entrance and you'll find Ike's trophy.

Make your way back up to the Gold platform that held DK's trophy but again, instead of climbing those stairs, make your way to the left and you'll find some springs leading you to a bomb block. Clear the way and you'll find a bonus room!

In this bonus room is Pokemon Trainer's trophy on top of some bombable blocks. You might be pleased to know he comes as a packaged deal with Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard this time.

Pikachu, on the flipside, is in a much more precarious location. He's surrounded by bombable blocks and destroying the bomb block will set a timer. You'll need to run in and grab him before the blocks blow up underneath him and drop him into the pit! But the danger isn't over yet! Quickly make your way back to the right before the blocks break from under you, too!

Back in the main section, you can finally return to progressing with your climb upwards until you reach the next platform of solid ground. Make your way to the right to find Marth's trophy! Then drop down and push through the Mite generator to your left to get to the next bonus room.

In here, you're surrounded by Quark Mines. Use a projectile to get rid of them! Ness has PK Fire and PK Thunder, Luigi has his Fireballs, and King Dedede can throw Waddle Dees! I think this is by far the funniest way to clear them.

 

With the mines out of the way, you can move in to grab Olimar and Fox's trophies.

Continuing to the right, there's a door that'll progress you to the next part of the stage.

Music: Step: Subspace Ver. 2 (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

This section is a long path of arrow blocks that'll drop you into a pit. Up ahead is a wall of breakable blocks. You'll want to break through it from the top to make sure you can get through safely to the other side. If you break through the bottom, you could fall into the pit below. It's not particularly difficult as long as you're mindful that nothing but death awaits you down there.

Further ahead is a door, but don't go through it just yet! There's a bombable block ahead! This is perhaps the most difficult puzzle in the stage to do without getting killed. The Bomb Block is covered by an arrow block. You'll need to stand on the arrow block to get it to drop and then hit the Bomb Block to detonate it. Then you'll need to quickly jump to the platform to the side. Your reward is Mr. Game & Watch's trophy!

 

Pass through the door ahead and you'll be met with what initially appears to be an autoscrolling section. You can find Diddy Kong and Captain Falcon's trophies here, but don't panic if they start to go off screen. The screen is really just scrolling in a circular loop, so you can take your time to take out the Mite generator before collecting the two trophies at your leisure and exiting through the next door.

Of course, Mario's trophy is given to you basically for free behind this door. It's sitting on top of the golden platform you need to progress. Platform your way across to the door at the end.

The rescue squad soon arrive at the point where the stairs leading to Tabuu begin. He notices Bowser's trophy here and decides to awaken him. Bowser immediately prepares to fight!

Music: Giga Bowser (Melee)

 vs. 

You're locked in to playing as King Dedede here, so prepare to take on the King of the Koopas himself! He even has the Giga Bowser theme from Melee! You can't convince me they didn't plan to include Giga Bowser as a boss in the Subspace Emissary at some point.

Anyway, this fight takes place on a flat, Final Destination-esque platform with the striking visual of Master Hand and the stairs leading up to Tabuu in the background.

After defeating Bowser, he drops to the ground as a trophy again. Again, King Dedede awakens Bowser who, again, prepares to fight. But in a hilarious moment, King Dedede just flicks him in the nose and directs his attention toward the fallen Master Hand. Bowser quickly connects the dots after this and clearly feels like an idiot. You almost have to feel sorry for him.

And that's the end of the stage!

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

   

Upon clearing the stage, Ness, Luigi, King Dedede, and Bowser all join the team along with regained access to all the trophies you've collected! Don't worry if you missed anyone, simply go back into the level and pick them up! But there are yet more trophies up ahead, so don't worry if you're still missing your favorite character! Well, unless your favorite character is one of the ones who has yet to show up at all...

We've got a lot of stickers to place, so let's get going!

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

Ness' build is very similar to Lucas', of course. You'll want to invest heavily into his PK attacks. However, unlike Lucas who's Smash attacks were mostly PK and Electric attacks, Ness probably wants a bit more focus on his Weapon attack stat as his Smash attacks involve his Home Run Bat as well as his Yo Yo. His Electric attack is also important for more than just PK Thunder, though, as it also affects PK Flash!

Ness doesn't have any Body or Spin Attacks in his standard moveset, but the Spinner was able to fit and it does contribute a nonzero amount since the Screw Attack item counts as a Spin Attack.

Ness (EarthBound) - PK Attack +33

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

Link (The Legend of Zelda) - Indirect Specials Attack +17

Blue Virus (Nintendo Puzzle Collection) - Electric Attack +5

Capsule (Nintendo Puzzle Collection) - Flame Attack +5

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

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

Luigi of course has a similar build to Mario. However, his attacks are generally more melee-focused, so I decided to lean slightly more into his defenses.

Super Mario Bros. - Arm, Leg Attack +15

Bowser (Super Paper Mario) - Arm Attack +23

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

Toad (Mario Party 6) - Launch Resistance +10

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

Jill (Drill Dozer) - Electric Resistance +4

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

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

King Dedede

Most of Dedede's attacks utilize his hammer which counts as Weapon Attack, so that's the direction you definitely want to focus on the most with him. Since his attacks come out so slow, you'll probably also want some Flinch Resistance to help him get his strongest attacks out more consistently. Beyond that, his Head Attack is fairly prominent thanks to his Up Tilt. His Indirect Specials are also pretty fun since he can just throw Waddle Dees, Waddle Doos, and Gordos. The Waddle Doo's laser is treated as electric attack while the Gordos use Slash Attack.

Sothe (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn) - Flinch Resistance +105

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

Toadsworth (Super Mario Sunshine) - Indirect Specials +10

Vector the Crocodile (Knuckles' Chaotix) - Direct Specials Attack +10

Side note about this one, this is most certainly NOT what Vector looked like in Kunckles' Chaotix.

this is more along the lines of what that sticker should actually look like. (Just, imagine the white border around it)

Nruff (Kirby 64) - Body, Spin Attack +5

White Cat (F-Zero GX) - Electric Attack +4

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

Bowser is kinda crazily simple, actually. The only particularly important things to focus on with him are Body and Spin attacks and Slash attacks. His Head Attack is also fairly important I suppose, but the majority of his attacks utilize his shell and anything that his shell hits takes Slash damage. He also has a lot of attacks utilizing his claws. He's slow like King Dedede, though, so you may want to slap some Flinch Resist on him as well. His Flame attack is surprisingly not very useful.

Mr. Resetti (Animal Crossing: WW) - Body, Spin Attack +33

Hector (Fire Emblem) - Slash Attack +27

Chao (Sonic Adventure Director's Cut) - Flinch Resistance +49

Ray (Custom Robo) - Direct Specials +6

Boundish (Digiluxe) - Flame Attack +7

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

 

I probably don't need to mention it by now, but Ness and Luigi being hidden characters, are unlocked for other modes after this mission is completed!

And that's that! Next time, we venture deeper into Subspace to see who else we can rescue!

[Aura]

Stage 30: Subspace (Part 2)

This stage begins with Kirby's trophy on its own. Mysteriously, his trophy awakens on its own as well! That is, until he coughs up one of Dedede's badges! As it turns out, this is where the badge that King Dedede placed on the princess went! After it fell off from Bowser dodging Pit's arrow, Kirby noticed it and evidently swallowed it up as you know he do.

Music: Step: Subspace Ver. 3 (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

For this stage, Kirby is all on his own, so he's the only character you'll be able to play as.

Right away, you can see Peach's trophy just overhead at the very start of this stage, she's a gimme so jump up and grab her!

And just further ahead is a line of quark mines. Destroy them with Kirby's Final Cutter and proceed forward through the path they were obstructing to find Zelda's trophy as well!

Further ahead are some quark mines circling around a platform with a Turquoise Cube. The Cube can contain an item that might prove helpful in more easily taking out more mines, but it's not really all that necessary.

Further ahead, you'll find Meta Knight in the center of a C-shaped block blocked in by Quark Mines. Kirby's Stone attack can be used to break the mines from above without taking damage allowing you to easily rescue Meta Knight!

Don't get too carried away with moving onward, though. Drop down below to find an Orange Cube! These are still important for completion!

Fight your way past the Sword Primid generator and enter the door ahead!

This will drop you down into a somewhat scary looking section where you'll drop into a stack of bomb and breakable blocks. It looks like you'll have to make a committed decision on which bomb block to break, but there's no risk of trophies below falling into pits or anything. If it helps you feel any better, you can burrow down through the breakable blocks and jump back up to hit the bomb block after the fact. You are Kirby, after all.

  

As you make your way down, you'll find Link, Yoshi, and Lucario's trophies by breaking the bomb blocks and making your way down. The only thing you have to watch out for is falling down too far below the platform to make your way back up, but it's a pretty difficult mistake to make.

As you reach the bottom, you'll drop into an ambush. Upon clearing the ambush, you'll be rewarded with a Stock Ball or healing item depending on your difficulty. After this, you'll be met with a fairly tricky auto scrolling section where you'll have to leap from platform to platform while fighting off Spaaks from all directions. It can actually be a little rough to keep up with the screen and manage all these annoying clouds in your face.

At the end of the autoscroller section is another ambush! Clear the enemies and proceed onward!

Just after the ambush, you'll find R.O.B.'s trophy once again kinda just handed to you as a gimme.

Passing through the door, you'll be met with another section. This time, there are launchers everywhere! You know the drill, avoid them unless you know where they'll take you. Though I don't think any of the launchers here are particularly bad for you.

Up ahead is a section with a couple of Shellpods on either side of a pit that's spawning Glires. Above that pit is a platform from where you can spot a Trackball! Hitting the trackball will break some blocks and drop Ice Climber's trophy!

Before taking the nearby launcher to the top of the ledge ahead, drop down and pick up the reward from the Orange Cube tucked away in the corner!

Snake's trophy is ahead, blocked off by another Track Ball. The formation looks a lot more confusing than it is, just hit the Track Ball with enough force to complete its track and Snake's trophy will drop safely to the platform below.

This area is technically an ambush, but all that spawns is a single Ticken which will fall into the pit below when you hit the Track Ball. I thought that was pretty funny.

Continue further ahead, fight your way past the Bytan Generators and Roturret, climb the stairs from the golden platform and you're nearing the end! There's one final ambush involving a Gamyga which is just as annoying as it's always been.

At the very end, you'll find Wario's trophy! It's a bit odd that its trophy would be found here, but pick it up and proceed through the golden door ahead!

After clearing the stage, Kirby stumbles across Ganondorf's trophy. He prepares to awaken Ganondorf when Bowser rushes in to attack the trophy out of pure rage! I've never seen Bowser act so violently! He discards Ganondorf's trophy and stomps onward. But if Bowser's here, then that must mean... indeed! King Dedede jumps up and hugs Kirby, he's never been so happy to see an old friend! He drags Kirby onward, leaving Ganondorf's trophy behind.

Immediately following this is a special scene that will only play if you rescued Link and Zelda during the previous stage. The two approach Ganondorf's discarded trophy and reluctantly agree to awaken him to seek his alliance in defeating Tabuu. Ganondorf must be experiencing all sorts of hateful feelings while watching Link and Zelda nonchalantly walking past him. But, clearly, his hatred of Tabuu is far greater. He'll sooner side with the hero he's cursed for generations than serve under Tabuu. Ganondorf follows Link and Zelda up the stairs leading up to Tabuu.

And there is yet one more bonus scene that plays out if you rescued Wario! He finally gets back at King Dedede, jumping up to kick him in the head. He flaunts his victory briefly until Ness and Luigi run in to help Dedede up. The three just stop and glare at Wario for his immense ignorance of the situation and point him towards Tabuu up ahead. Wario tries to shrug it off by picking his nose and looking away before finally getting on his bike and driving up the stairs to join the brawl!

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

 

Upon clearing this stage, there are no guaranteed new recruits. However, if you pick up all the trophies, or at the very least Wario's, Link's, and Zelda's, then Ganondorf and Wario will join your team! Of course, you'll also regain access to any characters whose trophies you've gathered along the way. Ganondorf is another hidden character, so upon recruiting him in the Subspace Emissary, he'll be unlocked automatically for other modes.

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

Ganondorf's another no brainer with a build fairly similar to Captain Falcon. However, he might benefit from some Flinch Resistance due to his slow speed. His most famous trait is his Warlock Punch which benefits from Arm, Darkness, and I can only assume Direct Specials (though, again, Smash Wiki can't quite confirm that last one). Ganondorf is the only character besides Olimar (strangely enough) to benefit at all from Darkness. Although, Bowser would benefit if Final Smashes were involved. Alas, they are not. So this is a good place to use those Darkness Attack stickers!

Petey Piranha (Mario Golf: TT) - Darkness Attack +47

One of the more bizarre cases among stickers, Petey Piranha is the largest and strongest darkness boosting sticker, and it's probably the least evil-looking depiction of Petey being the one from Mario Golf Toadstool Tour! I haven't really touched on Stickers much, but some of these things provide extremely weird effects that don't fit the character or item depicted at all.

Legend of Outset (Zelda: Wind Waker) - Arm Attack +26

Purple Pikmin (Pikmin 2) - Flinch Resistance +35

Mei Ling (MGS: The Twin Snakes) - Arm, Leg Attack +3

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

Bonsly (Pokemon Series) - Leg Attack +3

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

Wario's a bit of a wonky character. I didn't put much thought into him. Worth noting is that Wario is the only standalone character that benefits from Bite stickers. The only others being Charizard, who has to share a trophy base with Squirtle and Ivysaur who both have far more prominent exclusive attack types, Yoshi who only deals Bite damage with his Pummel attack, something that is inaccessible outside of Character v Character fights of which there are very few throughout the majority of the story (and is a whole sticker dedicated to just his pummel really worthwhile? In general, you want stickers that can benefit you against a enemies in the platforming stages as that's where most of you'll find yourself dying a lot.) and Wolf who, in case you haven't noticed, has yet to show up at all... Don't worry, we'll get to his role in all this sooner or later. The only attack of Wario's that benefits from Bite damage is his Standard Special, Chomp which isn't even good for anything in the SSE anyway. As it stands, Bite stickers are borderline completely useless and a massive waste of space on any trophy build. You're much better off focusing on Wario's various melee attacks. Arm, Body, and Spin attack is the main focus, with a little on his Direct and Indirect Specials as well!

Funnily enough, Wario's ego seems to show with the types of stickers I found myself favoring. A lot of stickers that are good for him are all Wario-related stickers and they fit really nicely together!

Wario (WarioWare: Smooth Moves) - Arm Attack +30

Wario & Bike (WarioWare: MMG) - Body, Spin Attack +21

WarioWorld Symbol (Wario World) - Direct Specials Attack +15

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

Brier (Yoshi Touch & Go) - Launch Resistance +7

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

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

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

And with that, we are officially done with the majority of the Subspace Emissary. All that's left is the final frontier as we approach the new world of Tabuu's creation within Subspace. An assimilation of bits and pieces of the world of trophies ripped up and mashed together in an amalgamation of parts -- Stage 31: The Great Maze.

[Aura]

Stage 31: The Great Maze

Music: Save Point (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

As our heroes approach Tabuu, we reach the wall of the various locations he's destroyed with the Subspace Bombs and find ourselves at the entrance to The Great Maze: A labyrinth that Tabuu has immersed himself deep within. This Labyrinth is formed from bits and pieces of levels we've already cleared and is by far the largest stage we've explored so far. So large, in fact, that it technically consists of four different entrance points, though there's only one you can start from at first.

Throughout the Great Maze, there are several Save points where you can save your data, change refresh your stocks, and change your selection of characters as well as assign stickers, all as if you're on the world map, but form the convenience of still being within the level. I was debating with myself how I should go about covering this stage, as it is one massive level that does have four distinct checkpoints that are treated like different stages by the world map, but I think the best approach is to cover it all in one post as it is all treated as one massive stage and The Great Maze serves as the final frontier between us and our final showdown with Tabuu.

Before you go into this stage, make sure you've rescued everyone! You should have everyone you've previously recruited plus Ness, Luigi, King Dedede, Bowser, Ganondorf, and Wario. If not, go back to Subspace Parts 1 and 2 and look for the trophies you're missing unless you just don't care and already have everyone you like. I'd say Pokemon Trainer and Mr. Game & Watch are probably the most missable characters, but there may have been some others you happened to overlook. Reminder again that Ganondorf is not obtained from rescuing his trophy, but instead the trophies of both Link and Zelda.

       

  

   

   

        

  

Wow, lining these characters up like this really makes the ones who are missing from the roster still stand out a lot, huh? Anyway, needless to say, I tried to go through giving as many characters some screentime during my playthrough of this stage as much as possible. I led off of course with the new recruits: Ganondorf, Bowser, and Wario, as well as other characters like Mr. Game & Watch, Ice Climbers, R.O.B., King Dedede's crew, etc. who haven't had nearly as much screentime as other characters. I won't keep you informed with what characters I chose, you can get an idea from the screenshots I'll be sharing going forward. I didn't bother taking note of the exact order.

Once you've readied yourself, prepare to enter the Maze by stepping through the shadowy door in the Save Point.

Vs. Petey Piranha

Right through this first door, you'll be met by a sight that might be quite a shock: Petey Piranha! Yes, sporadically throughout the Great Maze lie rematches with all of the bosses you've fought throughout the game! You'll fight Petey at the Midair Stadium. Even though his cages are empty now, you'll still need to defeat him all the same by breaking one of the cages. Nothing has changed about these fights, but now that you can use any character against them, those previously inaccessible weaknesses of theirs are now exploitable! Most of these bosses have more health this time around, but they're otherwise not any more difficult. Just stay persistant and keep attacking! In this case, whichever cage you break doesn't actually affect the story in any way, just break either of them and Petey will go down.

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

After Petey is defeated, the stage reloads and two doors now appear!

One of these doors contains a yellow dot on it. This indicates a save point. In this case, it's the same Save Point we've entered from. Every time you pass one of these doors, you'll want to jump in to reset your stock, select new characters if you want to change, and, of course, save your progress.

Once you're ready, progress through the red door to proceed into the maze proper.

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

This first room is based on a section from Stage 3: Sea of Clouds. But... Wait a minute, this place never got hit by a Subspace Bomb! Yeah, yeah, things aren't quite so well thought out here. Maybe the implication was that the Subspace Gunship blasted away the entire mainland and everything immediately surrounding it? That's the headcanon I'll be sticking with for now.

You'll start right at a junction where the nature of the Great Maze, as its name suggests, will begin to make itself apparent. Throughout this maze there will be many junctions where you'll have to make deicisions about where to go. Consequently, this level proves to be borderline "open world" in design, you can go pretty much wherever you want and do things in any order you want so long as you can get from Point A to Point B. Consequently, it might be really difficult to follow along with exactly where I am, so I'll be showing my map progress each time I pass a checkpoint to show my location and anything that's changed on the map. In general, I'll refer to the rooms based on the stages they're pulled from, though there are some repeats so I'll try to be more specific than that when necessary. Hopefully things don't get too confusing.

Anyway, right away you're probably going to want to make your way to the left. While the geometry of the area might be the same, the enemies and hazards you'll find within it might not match up. The enemies are generally going to be tougher than your first time through. You'll be fighting against the Koopa Troop here.

At the end of the left path, you'll find a shadowy door.

Vs. Pit (Clone)

That's right, not only are you going to be facing off against all of the previous bosses throughout this maze, but also subspacial clones of every character in the game! This is probably the best time in the SSE to make use of attacks that only work on other fighters in the Subspace Emissary as this is where most of the Fighter v Fighter battles take place.

The stages you fight all of the Subspacial Clones on vary from opponent to opponent. They're generally a flat platform with an arrangement of thin platforms above it. In Pit's case, the thin platforms are arranged in a v-shape above the main platform like an inverted battlefield. Each of these clones is relatively easy to KO, they seem to be handicapped with higher launch rates. This is in contrast to their size which is slightly larger than normal, giving off the impression that they might be tougher. But I think they're actually just larger to be easier targets.

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

Once the clone of Pit is defeated, the shadowy door will revert to a regular one and you'll pass through to the bonus room from Skyworld! Make your way to the top while avoiding the enemies and you'll find an Orange Cube!

Drop down to the bottom and return to the Sea of Clouds to cross over to the right side this time.

Through the door to the right, you'll find another section pulled from Skyworld. This time, the main level. Climb upward to find an Orange Cube in the same location that one was in the original level. This will happen a lot, so make sure to keep an eye out for familiar secret locations. Some of the notable locations in the Great Maze will also hint toward secrets you may have missed in previous levels. So the help might go two ways!

At the top, a Purple Cloud will carry you up to a ledge that holds a shadowy door.

Vs. Link (Clone)

Link's stage has two conjoined thin platforms above the center of the main platform.

Music: Dark World (A Link to the Past)

Once Link is defeated, this door will revert to a regular door allowing passage to an area pulled from The Forest! This section has you alternating between the Dawn and Dusk versions of the level. Just like before, pass through the doors marked with triangles to switch between the times. Actions in one room will affect the other, so switch back and forth whenever you make any substantial changes to the environment such as destroying blocks.

Just up ahead in this room is a Save Point!

This Save Point is a little bit different from the one we started with. This one only allows you to change your characters and stickers or save. It also lacks the four platforms bordering the save point. From now on, these smaller save points are going to be what I mean when I note a Save Point. I'll provide a different name for larger save points like the one we saw in the beginning for when we discover the main functionality that sets them apart.

Anyway, from this Save Point, this is what our map looks like so far! Aplogies for the low quality, while I can technically take a screenshot and save it to an SD Card, that's a lot of effort for something I can do like this. We've still got a bit of ways to go, so let's continue onward!

Just like in the original Forest stage, you'll find an Orange Box behind some seemingly indestructable blocks. Pass through the time door to enter the Dusk version of the stage, hit the bomb block, and return through the door to the Dawn version to find the bombs gone and reap your prize. Pass back through the door to proceed onward in the Dusk version.

In the Dusk Room, you'll find two doors up ahead. The second one just traps you in a room full of enemies. You'll want to take the second one to break the blocks ahead and change back to cross. Back in the Dawn room, you'll need to pass through the next door to enter the Dusk room and break the blocks here to make your way to the Bomb Block on the other side back in the Dawn Room. This will open the path to the shadowy door on the dusk side.

Whenever I pass by a save point, I try to rotate my characters out if my current one has been at it for a while. I try to shuffle in as many characters as possible this way.

Vs. Yoshi (Clone)

This stage is a fairly simple battlefield-esque arrangement of platforms with slightly slanted platforms somewhat akin to the Yoshi's Story stage from Smash 64. A cute touch!

Once defeated, this shadowy door will completely disappear and you'll return to the Forest! Some of these shadowy doors are actually fake! Interesting... Well, with Yoshi gone, you can make your way back to the Dawn room and proceed onward.

Through the next door, you'll enter another room pulled from the Forest. This time, it's the outskirts of the forest where it blends into the Plain.

Proceed to the right and you'll find an Orange Cube surrounded by Track Ball Blocks. Hit the Track Ball but be careful not to hit it so hard that it breaks the ground under you. Once you've broken the blocks hiding the cube from you, claim your reward and proceed onward to the shadowy door ahead!

Vs. Diddy Kong (Clone)

This stage has two thin platforms at equal heights, a bit higher up than typical but nothing too special.

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

Up ahead is a section pulled from The Swamp which contains a save point like the entrance! But this time, you'll notice one of the platforms is glowing! These are teleporters! Step on one of the platforms and you can teleport to another of these special rooms! From now on, I'll be referring to these special Teleporting Save Points as Warp Points. So to recap, Save Points are just regular rooms where you can save and restock, Warp Points are special Save Points where you can do that in addition to safely leave and warp between other Warp Points you've visited!

On the map, Warp Points are indicated with purple icons while regular save points are indicated with yellow ones. Furthermore, if we return to the map, we'll find that we can enter the Great Maze from any of the Warp Points we've visited.

Once you're prepared, let's press on! From here, the maze really starts to open up as you have three different doors you can take here. I took the ladder to the left to check the first door. You'll have to explore the entire maze in order to clear the stage, so we'll certainly come back to explore the other paths later.

Music: Jungle Level (Donkey Kong Country)

This leads you to another section pulled from The Swamp, the section with updrafts carrying Leaves as platforms! From here, you'll cross through to the left, carefully avoiding enemies along the way. At the very end, there's a branch. I went down first.

Vs. Samus (Clone)

The fight against Samus is on a fairly strange stage. There are three platforms but there are two on the right and one on the left, the one on the left being between the two on the right.

Music: Opening/Menu (Metroid Prime)

Upon defeating Samus, the next section to open up is pulled from The Research Facility. You'll want to head to the right where you'll find a locked door to your left. Continue to the right to look for the key. You'll pass through a section with red blocks that'll rise up as you step on them. Don't stand on them for too long or they'll carry you into the fire jets overhead! At the very least, you won't have to worry about getting crushed. Fight your way through the enemies and you'll arrive at the far side with a key. But before getting that key, check out the shadowy door just underneath it! It's a narrow path and you'll have to be quick to squeeze in.

Vs. Pikachu (Clone)

Pikachu here is fought on a symmetrical stage with an L shape of thin platforms on the left mirrored on the right.

Music: Opening/Menu (Metroid Prime)

Pikachu's door will disappear once he's defeated, leaving you back in the research facility. Grab the key, go through the locked door, and take the elevator down past the vertical line of strangely placed Cylux. You'd think these guys are guarding some sort of secret, but no, they're just there to potentially damage you if you get too close to the edge.

At the bottom of the elevator, to the left, there's a save point. Evidently, I forgot to take a photo of the map here, but I did visit the save point! You'll see at the next one.

Crossing over to the other side, you'll find a door leading to a new area that must be a part of the Research Facility we never explored before. There's a shadow door blocked by three switches just like the one we dealt with in the Subspace Bomb Factory. The red switch is right here while the other two switches are inside the doors nearby.

The door on the right leads to a hallway filled with treadmills. Along these treadmills, there are generators obscured by machines that make it look like Mites are being produced on an assembly line. A cute detail, but you can destroy the generators to stop the Mite production. If you keep going to the far right, you'll find an Orange Cube against the wall above another Mite generator. It's very important not to miss these cubes because missing a cube in this giant maze will be the death of you! It can be a nightmare to scour the entire maze to find that one secret you missed in some corner!

Double back and follow the platforms upward! Along the way there are yet more Mite generators on treadmills pouring into the main area. With a keen eye, you'll notice there's one treadmill that doesn't seem to be pouring Mites on your head. Upon closer inspection, you'll notice an Orange Cube hidden in it! This one is really sneaky and I wound up missing it my first time through. It took me forever to find it. I missed it because I was too distracted trying to get away from the cloud of mites all over me!

Anyway, at the top you'll find the green switch and another shadowy door!

Vs. R.O.B. (Clone)

R.O.B.'s stage features two joined platforms on the left and one slightly elevated one on the right. Again, really weird platforms. I'm not too much of an expert on stage design for Smash Bros., so I'm not sure if there's any practical purpose to formations like these, but it just looks weird to me.

Music: Opening/Menu (Metroid Prime)

Anyway, the door will disappear once R.O.B. is defeated, so you'll want to backtrack your way to the previous room in order to continue working toward unlocking that high security shadow door.

Behind the left side door is a flooded room. Platform across the water and you'll quickly find a locked door with the blue switch behind it. You'll need to fight your way through the hoard of Bytans to make your way to the other side and find the key behind some breakable blocks. Carry the key back, unlock the door, and hit that blue switch along with the Turquoise Cube to claim your prize. Then make your way back to the Shadowy Door to finally see what's behind it.

Vs. Ridley

And who could it be behind this door if not Ridley! Depending on your choice of character, you might be able to take advantage of his weakness to Freeze and Water! Otherwise, it's not really a big deal. Just take him out and continue!

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

Upon defeating Ridley, you'll find yourself in an area seemingly pulled from the Cave, again, this is an original room with a Warp Point found inside of it!

Here is what the map looks like at this point! We're certainly makin gprogress, but we've got a lot of ground to cover and evidently two more doors to choose from!

Strangely enough, there is nothing to the right side, just a pit of water and some arrow blocks that'll drop into them. It really looks like there should at least be a Turquoise Cube or something here but... nothing. Odd. Can't help but wonder if a shadow door would've been placed here for one of the cut characters, perhaps?

To the left, there's a pit of Amaranthine Gas with a button to clear it and lifts moving up on one side and down the other. For now, I jumped across this gap to reach the shadowy door on the other side.

Vs. Mario (Clone)

Mario's stage is similar to R.O.B.'s, but the two platforms on the left are separated so that it's moreso a left and center platform.

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

Upon defeating Mario's clone, you'll arrive in an area pulled from The Wilds. This is the bottom of the section where you would fall down while dodging rocks. Of course, you're climbing from here so the rocks are a bit more of a threat to you as it's not always immediately clear which areas are safe from cover. Stick to the left wall as much as you can, but of course you'll have to reach out to the platforms to actually climb up.

At the end is a door leading you to another area pulled from the Wilds. This time, the section where the wind blows you into spikes! You're fighting against the wind this time so the spikes are all a lot more threatening to you. Push your way to the left, fighting through the various enemies and you'll eventually arrive at another door to yet another section of the Wilds.

This time it's the autoscrolling section, though no autoscrolling here! Use the Trackballs to push your way further left to eventually reach a shadowy door.

Vs. Galleom

Here you'll be facing off against Galleom! Yes, for the third time! Take him out!

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

With Galleom defeated, you'll arrive in a section of The Ruins with a Warp Point!

Here's my map progress at this point! We're still going strong!

Up ahead, there's an elevator which will carry you to the various doors throughout this little hub area. I took the elevator to the first door up!

Music: Underground Theme (Super Mario Land)

This door leads to another section of the Ruins: A long tunnel with fire jets spewing from the floor and ceiling. At the far end is a shadow door.

Vs. Pokemon Trainer (Clone)

Pokemon Trainer's stage is a flat stage with two platforms, very similar to that of Pokemon Stadium! Sometimes you just can't beat simplicity.

Music: Underground Theme (Super Mario Land)

Defeating Pokemon Trainer's clone will drop you back into The Ruins, this time the section with the pit you fall down in the original level. It's filled with platforms now to help you climb up if you entered from the opposite side. Make your way down the pit and you'll find a button that'll raise the walls ahead. Slip under the gate and make your way through the iconic section with the stone blocks that move up and down trying to crush you. There's even a trophy in the same spot there was before, so make sure to nab that!

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

Eventually, you'll arrive back in the room with the elevator and the Warp Point!

Here's an updated look at our map now! There's still plenty more to go through!

I took the elevator to the next floor up where you'll find another Shadowy door!

Vs. Lucas (Clone)

Lucas' fight takes place on a stage with four platforms in a diamond shape!

Music: Frozen Hillside (Kirby's Air Ride)

After defeating Lucas, we're brought to a section pulled from The Glacial Peak! Take the Barrel Cannon up and start climbing the mountain again! As you climb, you'll eventually come across a Shadowy Door. Just take one wild guess who you'll find here while climbing this icy mountain?

Vs. Ice Climbers (Clone)

The Ice Climbers are fought on a stage with five platforms that are pretty high up. I suppose this one might be a reference to the type of platform formation you might see in Ice Climber.

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

After defeating the Ice Climbers, you'll arrive at another original section that's supposedly based on The Battlefield Fortress. This area is a march through a field of enemies. Up ahead is a Save Point.

And here is my map progress!

To the right of the save point is a door under a wall of spikes that slowly falls down. Once the spikes reach the bottom, a button will appear on the wall above that'll cause it to raise up again. From the Save Point, it shouldn't be difficult to reach the door, though.

Through this door is the Fortress itself! Now this part is much more recognizable. Fight your way to the top of the fortress. Along the way, you'll pass a locked door and a key. The locked door is blocking the way to a Shadowy Door.

Vs. Ganondorf (Clone)

Ganondorf's stage is a simple one with two conjoined platforms above the right side of the main platform.

Music: Save Point (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

After fighting Ganondorf's clone, you'll arrive at a particularly special-looking room. You're actually quite likely to stumble into this room a lot sooner than I ended up doing so. As you can probably guess, this fancy-looking door in the distance is the gateway that leads directly to Tabuu. But in the way are statues of all the bosses and clones you haven't defeated in the maze yet. As you defeat the clones and bosses throughout the maze, their statues will disappear from this room until eventually the gate will be open for you to access. We've found the end goal of the maze, but tracking down every single boss and clone might take a while.

If we exit out the right side of this, we'll return to the room pulled from The Swamp where we previously went down through the breakable blocks. Had we simply gone up, we would've arrived in this room far earlier in our adventure.

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

For now, though, let's head back the way we came and continue climbing the fortress. Once you make it to the top, you'll find a shadowy door.

Vs. Marth (Clone)

Marth's stage has one incredibly long thin platform that covers the entire length of the stage. It's a bit silly looking, isn't it?

After defeating Marth, his door will disappear and you'll be able to take a Barrel Cannon and Launcher to help you on your trek back down the fortress again.

We've completed a pretty large loop  now, but I think we should aim for coming full circle, don't you agree?

But first, we should probably clear out what remains in this room. We continue forward, taking the left path instead of rushing to the door under the spikes. This will lead you to a wall of Track Ball Blocks which you'll need to use the nearby Barrel Cannon to break. Aim the canon at the Track Ball overhead to break the blocks and open the way to the next shadowy door!

Vs. Ike (Clone)

Ike's stage contains a high platform on the left side and a low platform on the right side.

Upon defeating Ike's clone, you'll return to the Battlefield where we'll now need to make our way back to The Glacial Peak!

Music: Frozen Hillside (Kirby's Air Ride)

As we make it to the summit of the mountain, we'll arrive at another Shadowy Door.

 

Vs. Lucario (Clone)

Lucario's stage features four platforms forming an X-Shape.

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

Upon defeating Lucario, you're back at the Midair Stadium, emerging from a door that wasn't here before!

Now that we've closed the loop and make a full circle all the way back to the Midair Stadium, if we check our map now we'll find these icons all over it indicating all the shadowy doors we have yet to visit! Yep, yep, yep, we've still got a lot of work cut out for us! It's time to do a second loop around the maze!

...Well, in all honesty, my original plan here was to cover the entire Great Maze in a single post, but looking at this map here with all I still have to cover... and also factoring in my coverage of the final boss? Yikes, I'm gonna have to put this on hold, I think. I think this is a really good stopping point now that we've uncovered all the Warp Points and the rest of this is cleanup, focusing on all the doors we haven't taken. My main concern with this is that it might get confusing trying to figure out what I have and haven't done and that, if it's not fresh in my mind, there might be details I've forgotten about, but hopefully we won't have any issues!

 

[Aura]

Stage 31: The Great Maze (Cont.)

Last time we entered the Great Maze, the final frontier between us and Tabuu. We also discovered the gate that leads to him, but it's blocked off by statues depicting all of the bosses and cloned fighters. Now that we've made a full loop back around tot he Midair Stadium, it's time to make a second loop around and try to cleanup all the paths we've missed. The closest one looks to be in the Skyworld segment, so let's make our way there!

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

Instead of climbing up toward the Forest, we'll instead drop down and make our way toward the shadowy door at the other end.

Vs. Kirby (Clone)

Kirby's stage is a pretty generic Battlefield-esque stage. Notably, this structure is also similar to Dream Land from Smash 64, as well as Green Greends and Fountain of Dreams from Melee. A lot of Kirby stages just look like Battlefield, huh?

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

Upon defeating Kirby's clone, his door disappears and we're returned to Skyworld. Let's make our way back to the Warp Point at Midair Stadium.

Sorry again for the low quality, I took this one really quickly I suppose. Some of these images might be blurry like this, but you can see most of the important details pretty easily.

Anyway, I warped back to the Warp Point in The Ruins to reach the highest door we haven't gone to yet.

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

Simply take the elevator to the top and instead of heading right, make your way left toward a path that's blocked by a bomb block. Hit the block and you can proceed further up through a shadowy door.

Vs. Wario (Clone)

Wario is found on a stage with six platforms conjoined in pairs of two in a ladder-like formation. Another fairly odd formation that might be a reference I simply don't get.

Music: Gritzy Desert (Super Mario Land)

Upon defeating Wario, you'll arrive in a room designed after Outside the Ancient Ruins. Specifically, the part inside the tunnel that leads to an elevator. Take the elevator up and head to the right. The path seems to lead to a dead-end, but of course if you drop down to where the bonus door was in the original level, you'll find a shadowy door!

Vs. Luigi (Clone)

Luigi's stage is the most basic of all, being just a flat Final Destination-esque main platform. It could be argued that this stage is a reference to the Luigi's Mansion stage after the Mansion is destroyed, though that might be a stretch. I can imagine if that were the intention there would be platforms in place to make the stage better resemble the stage's more iconic form while the mansion is in tact.

Music: Gritzy Desert (Super Mario Land)

Once Luigi is defeated, you return to Outside the Ruins and there's nowhere to go but back to the left, past the way we came! Instead of going back down the elevator, though, there's actually a launcher directly in front of the bed of spikes that'll launch you straight across to the other side of the pit here, saving some time in progressing to the next area.

After passing through the door, you'll find another area based on The Path to the Ruins, though this one is original and built around a bunch of wiggling Balance platforms. Climb your way up and stick to the left side for an Orange Cube!

Toward the top, you'll need to break through some Bomb Blocks in order to break the barricades overhead and continue climbing. At the very top, you'll find a shadowy door!

Vs. Rayquaza

Through this door, you'll fight Rayquaza! Strangely enough, unlike most bosses, Rayquaza seems to have less HP here in the Great Maze... I can't help but wonder if that's an accident? Anyway, this time you might be able to take advantage of his vulnerability (or rather, lack of resistance) to Ice attacks.

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

Upon defeating Rayquaza, you'll once again return to the Midair Stadium.

Once again, I warped back down to The Ruins to finish cleaning up here.

This time, I took the elevator back down to the Ruins section and headed right toward the spike panels. Take the lift across the gap, hitting the Turquoise Cubes along the way if you like, and you'll find a shadowy door at the far end.

Vs. Zelda (Clone)

Zelda's stage features essentially a Battlefield stage with a second layer of platforms above the first.

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

After defeating Zelda's clone, you'll arrive in an area pulled from The Lake Shore, specifically, the autoscrolling segment outside of the cave leading to King Dedede's castle. In this case, though, the stage isn't an autoscroller and you can proceed at your own pace. At the far end, of course, is a shadowy door for you.

Vs. Peach (Clone)

Peach's stage features platforms in an L-shape formation spanning the width of the stage with two platforms on the left and one on the right.

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

Once Peach's clone is defeated, you'll return to The Lake Shore and proceed left to make your way all the way back.

After making our way back to the Warp Point in The Ruins, we warp on over to The Cave to reach the nearby door over here!

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

This time, we'll hit the button and drop down through the path that was covered in Amaranthine gas. At the very bottom is a door leading to the next area.

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

On the other side of this door is an area pulled from The Path to the Ruins, particularly the section inside the mountain filled with fire jets! Watch your step! Right where it was before, you can find an Orange Cube above the entrance.

Dropping down, there's a door that'll lead to the Minecart Section pulled from The Battlefield Fortress. Take the Minecart to the far end and you'll arrive at a shadowy door.

Vs. King Dedede (Clone)

King Dedede's stage features three platforms that are equidistant from each other on the same level. This might be a stretch, but I feel like this might be a reference to King Dedede's name using the same syllable three times: Dedede. It kinda looks like Morse Code for three Daas, though three Daas is just the letter O so that probably doesn't mean much, either. (In Japanese Morse Code, it's Re, so that unfortunately doesn't have any leads either).

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

Upon defeating Dedede's clone, you'll arrive in The Swamp! Specifically, the section filled with Springs and islands atop water.

Climb your way up the cliffside and make your way to the left underneath the wooden spikes. Jump across the spikes on the other side, dodge the Clyux, and land on the springs to bounce up to an Orange Cube!

Along the left cliff of this plateau is another Shadowy Door.

Vs. Falco (Clone)

Falco's stage is a bit strange with the four platforms more off to the sides with the farthest ones level with the main platform.

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

Upon defeating Falco, you'll arrive inside the bonus room from The Swamp. The one with the bomb block that reveals an item underneath the bombable blocks. This time, there are some healing items on the far side you can use to heal up and an Orange Cube safely on the ledge to the right. Collect the healing items if you need them before breaking the block or they'll fall into the pit below. Of course, breaking the blocks will reveal a trophy on the obscured ledge. Don't forget to grab the Orange Cube reward, too, before leaving!

The next door will carry you to the section of The Swamp with barrel cannons firing you from island to island. You're starting in the middle of a fork from here, so I recommend heading to the right first. Blast your way to the island on the far right for a shadowy door.

Vs. Fox (Clone)

Fox's stage features three platforms spaced out widely, with the ones on the left and right hanging over the pits.

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

Once you've defeated Fox's clone, you'll return to the island. Now you can take the barrel canon to your right to blast your way back to the starting position, allowing you to head to the left this time. Take the launchers that'll fire you to the left and dodge the ones that'll take you to the right, especially the rude Minecart at the very end that'll take you right back. At the far end is another Shadowy Door.

Vs. Meta Ridley

Okay, to be fair, I suppose Captain Falcon's gunship did fly into Subspace. It can be assumed that maybe Tabuu was able to take it from there, especially after Captain Falcon was turned into a trophy. Fair.

Anyway, the Meta Ridley fight here is just the same as it was before, except there's no time limit this time, so kick his ass! Again, you have more freedom with the characters you can fight him with so you might be able to better exploit his notable weakness to Ice. If not, Electric and Water are also stronger than normal!

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

Defeating Meta Ridley will bring you back to the Warp Zone in The Cave.

As we can see from the map, there's still more to uncover down here, so let's head back to The Path to The Ruins and this time proceed to the left edge.

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

Depending on your character, this section might be a bit easier or tougher, Characters like Ness or Zelda with easily controlled projectiles are ideal, as are characters with high air control like Kirby. Otherwise, just do the best you can to hit the buttons and turn off the fire jets as you make your way to the left. At the far end is a shadowy door.

Vs. Bowser (Clone)

Bowser's stage features two slightly slanted platforms but it's nothing crazy.

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

Defeating Bowser will return you to The Path to the Ruins, with the shadowy door gone. Time to make our way back to the Warp Point!

We're getting closer every second! The rest of the shadowy doors look to be near the Swamp Warp Point. There are two doors we haven't touched here yet, so here we go!

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

Jumping up to the top-right corner of the Swamp Warp area, we can find a shadowy door!

Vs. Duon

It's Duon! If you happen to be playing as Pokemon Trainer, you can use Squirtle to exploit Duon's weakness to Water. Otherwise, take him out as normal! Of course, characters with Counters and Deflectors are nice to have for this fight. Duon also seems to have less health than his initial fight, so you shouldn't have any issues with him... them?

But... wait, hold on, hold on! What the hell! The Halberd was shot down! It was never swallowed up by a Subspace Bomb or entered Subspace at all! Sigh, okay, maybe it entered Subspace at some point while it was under the control of the Subspace Army and Tabuu was able to replicate it as a result? But if he's capable of that why fight so hard to keep the Battleship at all? Why wasn't this ship deployed at any point? And why bother with the Halberd if you're just going to create those Subspace Gunships instead anyway? I suppose there was an unspecified amount of time that passed while everyone was reverted to trophies... Listen man, it's tiring filling in these plot holes. Let's just keep playing along and pretend we missed something.

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

After defeating Duon, you arrive at a replica of the Battleship Halberd with a stage pulled from Battleship Halberd Exterior. Right away, I simply dropped down and entered the door directly below to make my way into the Battleship Halberd Interior.

Heading down to the bottom left and taking the ladder to the secret bunker below, there's a shadowy door.

Vs. Snake (Clone)

A clone of Snake, huh? Pfft, like that would ever happen.

Snake's stage features platforms in an inverted battlefield formation, but the two side platforms are slightly tilted inward.

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

Upon defeating Snake's clone, you return to the Battleship Halberd Interior with the shadowy door gone. Make your way back to the main area and take the central ladder down to find an Orange Cube and a door proceeding deeper!

This door leads to a new section of Battleship Halberd Interior prominently featuring an elevator! Run along to the right side of the top floor and you'll find a Save Point!

It looks like there's at least one shadowy door ahead this way.

Taking the elevator to the middle floor reveals a locked door to the left. To the right is a vertical shaft you can drop down to find a key inside. Alternatively, you can wall jump up to this key from the bottom floor if you're using a character capable of that, but dropping in from above is generally easier.

Funnily enough, you can skip the key entirely if you're lucky enough for one of the enemies to drop a Smart Bomb like I was. On the bottom floor to the left, there's a Bomb Block that you normally can't reach. It's supposed to be a return path, but if you throw a Smart Bomb at the corner, the explosion will be large enough to reach the bomb block and open the way toward the door! But the intended path is obviously to grab the key, unlock the door, break the bomb block from above and drop down to the room with the Shadowy Door where you can break that bomb block normally.

Vs. Mr. Game & Watch (Clone)

Mr. Game & Watch's stage features four platforms in a rising staircase pattern starting from the right side and climbing up to the left. I find this a bit of a missed opportunity to reference something like Manhole or Oil Panic with the arrangements of the platforms. Oh well.

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

Upon defeating Mr. Game & Watch, you'll return to the Battleship Halberd Interior with the Shadowy Door missing. Looks like we'll have to take the other door at the Swamp Warp to get to the other two.

Now we make our way back to the Exterior and cross to the front of the ship where we'll find another Shadowy Door!

Vs. Meta Knight (Clone)

Meta Knight's stage features six platforms surrounding the main platform, giving Meta Knight a lot of freedom with his jumps.

Music: Snowman (EarthBound)

After defeating Meta Knight, you'll arrive in a section based on the Ruined Zoo. Now, I understand that this is where Pokemon Trainer is introduced so the Team Galactic Music makes sense, but I've gotta say hearing Snowman playing in this environment tells me this would've been really fitting music for at least a part of the level during Story Mode. I wish this was the music they played here!

Anyway, use the spring to jump over the tall spikes ahead but then keep low to find an Orange Cube right next to the water!

Proceed all the way to the far end, skipping the first door, until you arrive at the shadowy door at the far end.

Vs. Ness (Clone)

Ness' stage features two more slightly slanted platforms... This is similar to Bowser's except these are slanted inward instead of outward.

Music: Snowman (EarthBound)

Upon defeating Ness, you return to The Ruined Zoo. Now we can circle back around and enter the door on the other side of the building!

This leads to the interior of the abandoned building which I can't believe I never recognized before as some sort of penguin exhibit! It's a little sad after noticing that. This is, of course, the interior section of The Ruined Zoo. Make your way to the left to find a Save Point in an original section of the room. There is a button to open the shutter on the other side allowing you to slip in to access the save point.

Again, I forgot to take a screenshot here, but I did visit the savepoint!

Proceed left, break through some blocks, and you'll reach a door that leads to the Porky Statue section. There's no rematch with the Porky Statue thankfully, you'll just be running through this section backwards while fighting through various enemies. And at the far end is another shadowy door.

Vs. Porky

It's Porky! This might be your chance to exploit his weakness to Darkness and Aura attacks! He also has notably less HP than the first time you fought him... I guess I was wrong when I said most bosses had more HP here. They mostly seem to have less HP with only the early bosses having extra HP. Slight mistake on my end. In addition, though, this version of Porky has a strange resistance to Indirect Specials the original lacked. An odd change as he is the only boss whose resistance table changes specifically for the Great Maze.

Music: Snowman (EarthBound)

Weirdly, after defeating Porky, the game returns you to the Porky Statue section, but the door doesn't disappear. Taking this door will return you to The Forest section with a new door in the middle of the forest outskirts section, right next to the Gamyga. And so, we make our way back to the Warp Point.

Music: Step: Subspace (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

We only have two more Shadowy Doors remaining! Let's finally take the lower door that's right in front of you!

Music: Jungle Level (Donkey Kong Country)

This is the vertical drop from The Jungle! There's a ladder here allowing you to climb up and down. On the way down, you'll spot lines of Quark Mines. You'll have to either burst the bombs with projectiles, jump to the gaps, or time your descent to pass through the gap while the moving ladder is in place to allow you to pass through. At the bottom of the drop is a shadowy door.

Vs. Captain Falcon (Clone)

Captain Falcon's stage features an inverted battlefield formation with platforms slanted outward. I wanna say this is a formation that's seen in Port Town: Aero Dive, but I could be mistaken on that front.

Music: Gritzy Desert (Super Mario Land)

That's Olimar's ship in the background! Oh, just don't say anything... Yes, after defeating Captain Falcon, you spawn in the beginning section of The Path to the Ruins. This area is surprisingly large with not much in it. Just make your way to the far right to find the Shadowy Door against the wall.

Vs. Olimar (Clone)

Olimar's stage features two conjoined platforms, but they're higher up than Link's. I suppose it's supposed to give Olimar a place to pluck Pikmin. Once we've taken him out, we've cleared the way to Tabuu's gate!

Music: Gritzy Desert (Super Mario Land)

Upon defeating Olimar's clone, we return to The Path to the Ruins and this door is gone.

And that's it! Finally, we are finished with the Great Maze! Now all that's left is to make our way back to Tabuu's door. The easiest way to get to it is from the Swamp Warp Point. Simply take the lower left door and cross through The Swamp, taking the top door at the end. It's hard to miss with the giant purple arrow pointing to it.

Music: Save Point (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

Once you return to Tabuu's Gate, you'll find that the door opens to reveal Tabuu's wings... are we prepared for such a tough opponent?

As we approach Tabuu, his wings appear once again as he prepares another powerful attack. But, to his surprise, one final challenger approaches from out of nowhere. A blue blur speeds through his wings, shattering them like glass before it stops to taunt him. This is Sonic the Hedgehog!

With Tabuu's wings damaged, he's incapable of finishing off all the fighters at once with a single attack. With this handicap in play, we actually stand a chance!

       

  

   

   

        

   

To begin the final battle, you get to choose not just four, not even five, but a whopping six fighters! I of course decided to go with the newcomer Sonic, but also the remaining characters I felt had the biggest beef with Tabuu.

     

Sonic, R.O.B., Ganondorf, Bowser, Meta Knight, and Kirby. While there are certainly other characters more involved than Kirby here, I think it's fitting to include him since slaying gods seems to be a weekly thing for him.

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

Vs. Tabuu

Prepare yourself for what is by far the most challenging boss fight int he entire game: Tabuu. He's already difficult on low difficulties, but as the difficulties go up his attacks become far more powerful to the point where almost every single one is an OHKO on any character on Intense. And his speed also increases as the difficulty rises, too.

Tabuu is fougth on on a large Final Destination-esque platform like most bosses. But he'll warp around and use various attacks. His positioning telegraphs what attack he'll do next, so take note of his position every time he warps into place. This is especially important on Intense as you will not have time to react after the attack begins before you're dead. You get six stocks for this battle and you very well might need them. Tabuu has the most health out of any boss in the game and he has no weaknesses or resistances. So throw your strongest attacks at him whenever you see an opening, but don't get too greedy with your DPS or you'll quickly regret it. Get your damage in and dip!

Tabuu will frequently teleport in flashes of light around the stage, keeping up with him to deal consistent damage is really difficult while he's in a warping frenzy. Try to get some chip damage in whenever he appears near you but watch out for when he prepares to attack!

One of Tabuu's attacks is a fake-out, he'll look like he's just teleporting away, but he'll leave in an explosion rather than a harmless flash of light. Be careful to stay away while he's doing his explosive warp attack!

Another attack will have Tabuu surround himself in electrons that'll pulse electricity, damaging anyone around him. If you can, try to throw some projectiles his way as he'll be completely stationary during this attack.

Another attack will have Tabuu appear at the far end of the stage and throw a Chakram-like weapon at you. Jump over it to dodge, but don't get cocky! It'll come back around like a boomerang so be prepared to dodge it again!

Another weapon he'll pull out is a Gaster- I mean, a sort of Dragon Head that fires a laser beam. This attack seems to be the inspiration for the Dark Canon's design. Jump to avoid the laser!

Another attack from off stage that he can do is shoot out a string of bombs that will all flash with light before exploding! Simply get away from the lights before the bombs explode, this one's pretty easy to evade and get some damage in.

Sometimes Tabuu will transform into a giant spearhead and charge the stage. If you can sneak a shot in, you can hit him even in this form to damage him! But prioritize dodging, obviously!

Another of Tabuu's scarier attacks is his Chain Whip. He'll telegraph it heavily by slinging it over his head, but try to jump in time to avoid the whip as he swings it at you or you'll get snagged and slammed into the ground, likely KOing you.

One of Tabuu's fastest attacks is one where he creates a sword and swoops down across the stage. Being his fastest attack, this is the one you want to be most ready for. If you're unsure which attack he'll go for when he appears on the side, anticipate this one as, even if you're wrong, a lot of his attacks from this position can be dodged by jumping anyway.

One of the tougher attacks to dodge is this one where Tabuu grows immensely in size and fires laser beams from his eyes at the stage. Try to time your jumps to dodge the alternating lasers from the far end of the platform. You can damage him during this attack, but you're likely to get hurt in the process. Thankfully, due to most of Tabuu's attacks being OHKOs anyway, taking damage from the lasers might not be all that bad. It's actually pretty impressive to end up with high percentage against him.

One of Tabuu's stranger attacks is to appear in a random position and fire duplicates of himself off in various directions. It's best to just keep your distance here and focus on evading, but he is perfectly still so you can damage him if you find an opening!

Sometimes he'll appear overhead and fire a massive explosion down toward the platform. Simple enough to avoid, just move out of the way!

Somewhat similar to his whip, Tabuu can change forms into a strange golden symbol. If he collides with you in this form, he can trap you and slam you into the ground for massive damage. Don't get caught in it!

Tabuu also has a combo attack where he'll appear in front of you and assault you with a barrage of slashes. Get away and, if you do, he actually leaves himself really open for attacks from behind, so get that damage in!

Above all, though, is Tabuu's Off Waves. While his wings were broken by Sonic, he can still use this attack in this weaker form and this is by far Tabuu's most deadly attack as this one is a guaranteed OHKO on any difficulty above Easy and the only way to dodge it is by taking advantage of I-frames during dodging or rolling. The most consistent way to dodge them is to do side dodges (pressing down while shielding). As he extends his wings, he'll fire three extremely powerful waves. If you learn to dodge only one of Tabuu's attacks, this is definitely the one. Learn the rhythm of his waves in order to consistently dodge them or you'll lose a stock every time you see this attack.

All in all, you might find yourself struggling to defeat Tabuu if you're not prepared. He's a massive outlier in difficulty compared to the other bosses in the game, even Meta Ridley who is otherwise by far the hardest. None of the other bosses come close to matching Tabuu's raw power and speed. It's almost dizzying to keep up with him!

And as his HP gets lower, his attacks become even more powerful, so be wary of that, as well!

Upon defeating Tabuu, we're greeted with a sequence of Brawl's theme. Displaying the latin lyrics as well as their translation! The song is literally about two singers singing about a legendary warrior they both feared and revered until they met each other, became friends, and discovered that friend was the warrior they'd previously feared and that realization amkes them feel completely unstoppable. I think the narrative parallels with the events in the Subspace Emissary are pretty obvious. There are a lot of unlikely allies found throughout this story, legends meeting other legends, and sworn enemies fighting alongside each other. It's actually a really beautiful song if you think about it.

As the song plays out, we see a shot of all the characters we've rescued. Ignore the ones we haven't recruited yet, again, we'll get to that soon. They're all standing at a cliff overlooking the sea and a bright light looming over it where the Isle of Ancients once was. While defeating Tabuu restored the majority of the world, the unfortunate reality was that the explosion from the Subspace Bomb Factory was so powerful that the island itself was completely destroyed with no hope of ever returning. But, quite frankly, nobody seems worried. The world is back to normal and the future can be built in any way these heroes want!

After that, we're treated to the credits! Man, what a beautiful story! I completely forgot how awesome the Subspace Emissary was and how sad it is that we've yet to see anything like it return in Smash Bros. I would absolutely love a new game to follow suit with the Subspace Emissary and create an truly epic campaign with a newer cast! Of course, we're still not done with Brawl at all. Let's not forget that we only did the SSE so soon because there's a lot of stuff we can unlock from clearing it! And, of course, we're not even done with the SSE at all! Next time, we'll be jumping back into the Subspace Emissary and seeing what's different now that we've completed the story!

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

Oh, yes! And of course, let's not forget our new recruit: Sonic! It feels a bit silly to give him stickers now that we've nearly completed the Subspace Emissary but, what the heck, we may as well, right? Most of Sonic's best attacks are treated as Spin attacks, so that's definitely what you want to lean into the most. In addition, his Arm and Leg attacks can be pretty good as well.

Sonic The Hedgehog (Sonic The Hedgehog) - Body, Spin Attack +22

Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic Adventure 2: Battle) - Direct Specials Attack +20

Wave the Swallow (Sonic Riders) - Arm Attack +19

Mila (Hotel Dusk: Room 215) - Leg Attack +5

Brier (Yoshi Touch & Go) - Launch Resistance +7

Mona (WarioWare: Touched!) - Slash Resistance +4

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

Jill (Drill Dozer) - Electric Resistance +4

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

And that's that! We've finished the main story of the Subspace Emissary, but there's a little bit more postgame stuff in the mode to finish up before we move on to covering Lucario and the other things we've unlocked! See you back here, soon!

[Aura]

The Subspace Emissary Cleanup

Upon clearing the game, the world map will return (mostly) to normal! All of the Subspace Bomb explosions except for the one containing the Subspace stages will be gone, an dyou can revisit any previous stage, even ones that were previously missing like Midair Stadium due to being swallowed up by Subspace. We can go back to any of these stages and use any characters we like now! Upon replaying stages, no cutscenes will play so some of these levels actually become a little bit harder since you don't get a free stock refresh between scenes, so be wary of this difference!

Now that we've defeated the final boss and collected all the secrets up until now, we should have 100% completion, right? Well, not quite. Upon defeating Tabuu, your percentage will be, at most, 97%. And when you return to the map screen, you'll notice three stages that were previously completed now have green flags indicating that there's a secret we've missed! But how is that possible? Surely these stages were complete before!

No, you aren't crazy, and yes, the game is kinda gaslighting you. Because after defeating Tabuu, three new secret doors have appeared in three of the stages: The Forest, The Ruins, and The Swamp. Let's start with the earliest one, The Forest!

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

Source: IGN

Stage 9: The Forest (Revisited)

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

   

I decided to enter The Forest with Sonic first since he probably gets shafted the most out of anyone in the Subspace Emissary. At least, so far. Followed up by Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf.

While going through this section, I wanted to touch up a bit on Co-op play in the Subspace Emissary! Long story short, most game modes in Brawl are designed for co-operative play. In the Subspace Emissary, a second player can join in at any time by pressing start or plus on another controller. Doing so will give the second player control of the character selected for your second stock.

While playing through the actual story, anytime you would be selecting your characters to play as, the first player would select all but one character while the second player gets to select whichever character they want to start with. The second, third, etc. characters chosen by the first player are shared stocks between the two players. When either player dies, they take control of the next stock.

Some sections have you playing as only one character. Co-op is surprisingly available in these sections as well, the second player will simply play as the character's first alt costume. It's a bit strange having two Marths running down the fortress.

In instances where you have to choose one character to face the other, like in Mario v Kirby or Meta Knight v Lucario, the first player selects the character and both players play as that character. I think it's a bit of missed opportunity that they don't pit the two players against each other, but I suppose it's to preserve the difficulty of the stages. Ironically though, you're actually putting yourself at an advantage by doing this anyway as a lot of these fights end up being 2v1's.

While playing in Co-op mode, the game generally follows gameplay similar to Kirby Super Star where the camera follows Player 1 and only Player 1 can enter doors. If left behind, Player 2 will warp back to Player 1's location in a glowing light. In general, Player 2 is just a helper who will be dragged along on Player 1's adventure.

It might seem like Co-op gives you an objective advantage, but there are some downsides. For one, if there are no more stocks and Player 1 dies, it's an instant game over regardless of whether or not Player 2 is still alive and well. Meaning you're essentially down a stock. In addition, bosses are given a bonus multiplier granting them additional resistance to all attacks to compensate for the increased amount of damage. On that note, if you want to do a much more challenging run, you can start Co-op mode with an inactive second controller! This will give you a harder time against all of the bosses, one fewer stock, and for a bonus challenge, you can play on Intense as well!

Anyway, with that aside out of the way, I don't have any intention of playing Co-op mode here. I just decided to bring it up here because this is by far the quickest new door to find. Just head a little bit in and you'll notice a door that wasn't there before right along the main path! Let's go in!

Upon passing through the door, we're no longer in the Forest anymore. This is the Great Sea from the Pirate Ship stage! And who's here but Toon Link, ready to challenge us?

The game actually chugs a lot here, I assume it's due to the fact that the game has to completely change modes because all the typical rules of the Subspace Emissary are off here. You're thrown in a single 1v1 against Toon Link with whatever character you were already playing as.

  

Music: Dragon Roost Island (The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)

I'm not sure if Sticker effects are applied during this fight, but considering you only get one stock and items like Smash Balls and Assist Trophies spawn during this fight, I don't believe stickers take any effect during these fights at all. If you lose a single stock, you'll lose the match but it's not a game over. You'll clear the stage, but you'll have to go through again in order to defeat the character.

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

Upon defeating Toon Link, you'll clear the stage and he'll join the team!

Yes, this is exactly how the remaining characters are added to your roster. That's right, after literally everything in the game is done, this is where you get to recruit the last three missing characters. What a goddamn crime.

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

Toon Link's sticker build is, unsurprisingly, almost identical to Link's. The only real difference here you might notice is that I've simply gotten a lot better with sticker efficiency, so I can place a lot more stickers on a single trophy than I could back when I first recruited Link.

Hector (Fire Emblem) - Slash Attack +27

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

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

Perry (Super Princess Peach) - Direct Specials Attack +6

Rusl (Zelda: Twilight Princess) - Explosive Attack +11

Jill (Drill Dozer) - Electric Resistance +4

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

Anyway, for the rest of these bonus doors, we're just going to be running through the stages normally. None of these doors are particularly hidden they're just right along the main path.

Stage 14: The Ruins (Revisited)

Music: Underground Theme (Super Mario Land)

   

The next stage with a postgame door is The Ruins. I brought Toon Link along for this one since he's pretty much getting shafted. Other than that, I brought Star Fox's Fox and Falco along with Diddy Kong who seemed to team well with them during the story.

This door is located in the vertical shaft with the lift carrying you down through crystal spikes. At the bottom of the shaft is the door leading to your new challenger.

It's Wolf on Lylat Cruise!

Music: Star Wolf (Star Fox 64)

  

Just like before, we'll need to defeat Wolf in a 1v1 match in order to recruit him. Simple enough!

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

Upon defeating Wolf, he'll join the team as well! Though I have a hunch his location was unintentionally mixed up with the next character's for reasons I'll explain a bit further down. Anyway, Wolf himself is an incredibly powerful character in the Subspace Emissary. With the right Sticker build, his claws can tear through just about any enemy in seconds and he as a lot of attacks that use them! This is because his claw attacks are treated as both Slash and Arm attacks. By nature of being buffed by Arm attack, they're also buffed by both Arm Attack + and Arm, Leg Attack + stickers separately. I'm pretty sure Wolf is the only character who can have so many attacks buffed with three different stickers like this, though there may be others I've overlooked. I've certainly noticed here with Wolf, though. So I strongly recommend making your build focused primarily on these three qualities above all others as it's really fun to just tear through enemies with him!

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

Commander Kahn (Elite Beat Agents) - Arm Attack +18

Medli (Zelda: Wind Waker) - Leg Attack +9

Kammy Koopa (Super Paper Mario) - Direct Specials Attack +8

HP Pot (Magical Starsign) - Indirect Specials Attack +4

Golden Fox (F-Zero GX) - Energy Attack +5

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

Ana (WarioWare: Touched!) - Slash Attack +4

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

Source: IGN

Stage 18: The Swamp (Revisited)

   

This one is probably the one hidden the deepest in the level. You'll have to fight through the entire intro stage as well as the fight with the Giant False Diddy Kong until you arrive at the part with the islands over the water. Play along until you reach the ambush with the two launchers that launch you off screen. Clear the ambush but don't jump into the barrel canons ahead. Instead, hop into the water and swim along to the island that now holds a door that you'll otherwise blast right past. If you accidentally pop into a canon, you can use the blue barrel canon to blast yourself into the nearby Jyk. And if you miss still, you can pop yourself into the air with the next blue canon and try to make your way backwards, it'll require swimming a longer distance, though.

Through this door is Jigglypuff on Pokemon Stadium 2! You might've been wondering why it took so long for this character to appear when she's normally the first character you unlock being unlocked simply from clearing Classic Mode in Smash 64 and Melee. No, I didn't just forgt about her. For some reason, Jigglypuff is set to be among the last characters you unlock in this game. Even outside of unlocking her through the Subspace Emissary, her standard unlock requirements require you to clear the story mode of Subspace Emissary anyway! That was part of the reason I figured it was best to just play out the rest of the Subspace Emissary as the entire playthrough is necessary just to unlock this one character. I think it's kinda funny how that worked out. But honestly, I do think I would've played through the SSE either way because it's a massive part of this game's identity and it does involve Pokemon elements, too! Granted, if this wasn't an unlock requirement for Jigglypuff, I definitely would've saved the SSE for the grand finale of the game. But since it was, I figured I may as well use it to cover the unlock requirement for Lucario as well. It was going to break up the Classic Mode runs either way, I figure it's more natural to separate the default characters from the hidden ones.

Music: Pokemon Center (Pokemon Red & Green)

  

And if you want to talk about getting shafted, how about being the last of the three characters you unlock here? If you didn't miss any secrets along the way, there is literally nothing left to do with your final character! Anyway, defeat Jigglypuff in this 1v1 in order to have her join your team!

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

Jigglypuff is a particularly odd one. I'm not really sure what to recommend for her beyond Arms, Legs, Specials Direct, Body/Spin, and a little bit of Head. Maybe Launch or Flinch Resistance? Jigglypuff is a very direct fighter with no projectiles at all, so I suppose there's no other way to go for it. I didn't really put much thought into her, honestly.

Pokemon Trainer (Pokemon Series) - Arm, Leg Attack +13

Mouser (Super Mario Bros. 2) - Arm Attack +20

Noki (Super Mario Sunshine) - Leg Attack +12

Copper (Animal Crossing: WW) - Body, Spin Attack +12

Celeste (Animal Crossing: WW) - Head Attack +6

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

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

Now then, what was that about me suspecting Jigglypuff and Wolf's locations were swapped from the intention? Well, there's a surprising amount of evidence here! It's all circumstantial, mind you, but I think there's enough there to build a pretty solid case.

For one, all three of these characters were added late in development. That's the reason they all feel kinda shoe-horned in at the tail end of the mode. Sonic was, too, for that matter, but he was I guess a bigger deal than these guys so he got the privilege of literally coming out of nowhere right before the final boss. Anyway, being added late in development and being completely disconnected from the narrative of the story might mean the devs didn't feel the need to pay as much attention to the surroundings.

Beyond that, the three locations do line up with the three characters. The Forest is where Link was originally recruited, The Ruins was where Ivysaur and Charizard were both recruited, and The Swamp was where Falco was recruited. It makes sense, in turn, that Toon Link would be placed in The Forest, Jigglypuff would be placed in The Ruins, and Wolf would be placed in The Swamp, this way they're paired with stages where you got other characters from their franchises. Makes sense, right? Except, in the final game, Wolf is found in The Ruins and Jigglypuff is found in The Swamp. None of these locations really seem to fit any of these characters. If I were to choose a location for them, I'd say Toon Link would be found in The Swamp since it's the closest thing to the sea in an actual level, Jigglypuff would be in the Plains or The Lake Shore, and Wolf would be in the Battleship Halberd Exterior. Why would Wolf be in the ruins, or Jigglypuff in the Swamp? Beyond the pairing with other characters, these locations are entirely arbitrary, making it seem all the more likely these three locations were intentionally selected.

But that still doesn't say much. Maybe they intentionally swapped them around to avoid being too predictable? Quite frankly, if that were the case I'd just put them in stages entirely unrelated to their franchises. And why would they leave Toon Link out of this weird shuffle?

But if you're still not convinced, I think the most significant piece of evidence is the order these cutscenes are listed in the Subspace Emissary cutscene list in the Movies section in-game. The cutscenes are listed in the order "Toon Link Joins the Brawl", "Jigglypuff Joins the Brawl", and "Wolf Joins the Brawl" Hence why they're numbered 102, 103, and 104 above. But this doesn't line up with the order of the stages they're found in: Stage 9, Stage 18, and Stage 14 respectively.

There are a lot of oddities with the placement of these characters beyond just suddenly being warped to a pocket dimension of their respective stages (For the record, none of these environmens match up with any stage in the game, so that's going to be weird no matter where they're found). But if you make the simple change of swapping the locations of Jigglypuff and Wolf around, it all falls into place. The cutscenes are listed in the order the characters appear by stage number, and each character is found in the same stage as another character(s) from their franchise.

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

Anyway, that's it for the Subspace Emissary! We can now save our game and have a file at 100%! But I think it's a little lame to just leave things like that, right? I mean, we only beat the game on Normal difficulty and we just unlocked these three characters and barely used them! Well, we just played through the entire story and I just addressed that we can't get any of the boss trophies the first time through... What do you say before we call it quits here on the Subspace Emissary, we give these new recruits something to do by going around the world and collecting trophies from all the bosses?

We've battled all the bosses twice, but this time let's take it up a notch and raise the difficulty to Intense! Not only will this give us a look at the bosses from a higher difficulty where they're actually a lot more threatening, but as mentioned before the higher difficulties will make Trophy Stands spawn more frequently! This should reduce the amount of time we have to spend waiting for a stand to spawn after reducing the boss' health.

Some general tips: You aren't limited to one Trophy Stand at a time. Feel free to hold onto one Trophy Stand and chip away at the boss' health with your special moves. If a second one spawns, feel free to throw the first at the boss for a chance for a lucky early victory! But sometimes it can take a while for those stands to appear, so don't take them for granted when they spawn early. Try to keep them around for as long as possible and try not to die with one in your hand.

Second, make sure to get rid of any items that can potentially damage the boss. The worst feeling in the world is getting the boss down to low health ready to be trophied and then they end up swinging right through a Koopa Shell and killing themselves. Koopa Shells, Uniras, Sparks, and any Explosives. They're all incredibly dangerous with the capability of enabling the boss' suicide. If any of these items appear, go out of your way to throw them off the stage as far away from the boss as possible. Most bosses have a way to quickly move from one side of the stage to the other, so be careful not to throw it when they're about to switch sides. I find the Explosive Barrel to be the scariest item for this purpose since it's so heavy and difficult to move away. Also be wary of picking up items like the Franklin Badge, Screw Attack, and Super Spicy Curry as they can cause a lot of accidental damage during their duration. Kirby, Dedede, and Wario are actually really good for this as they can simply eat the item, deleting it from existence altogether. Just be wary that inhaling Curry will still use the item, so don't do that!

To further reduce the risk of the boss dying prematurely, try to avoid weakening the boss to the point where they're one poke away from death. Instead, leave a comfortable buffer so that they can survive one explosive hit. Their health at that point should still be low enough to consistently trophy them, but they'll also be able to take damage in those unfortunate circumstances where a bomb spawns right in the way of their attacks. You might have a risk of failing to capture their trophy after hitting the stand, but it's far better that you fail by game over than fail by premature victory. If you game over against the boss, you can simply try again from the start of the boss fight. If you fail by killing the boss prematurely, you'll proceed with or clear the stage and have to play through the entire stage again to get another chance. Some bosses are right at the start of the stage, other bosses are a decent length into the stage. This can get especially aggravating against bosses like Meta Ridley that are at the end of a long and difficult stage.

As you get better at surviving against these bosses, you'll pretty consistently reach a point where you'll just be surviving until either a Trophy Stand appears and you win or a bad item spawn kills the boss. This is usually the point where you'll start wanting to rip your hair out. To boost your odds, it's a good idea to have a team of four characters with Trophy Stand Drop Rate + stickers, but I didn't want to peel any of my stickers off of the builds I'd already made, so I suffered through with the reduced trophy stand rate. Playing on Harder difficulties does cause Trophy Stands to spawn more frequently, but I'd actually recommend playing on Hard or Very Hard rather than Intense because, even though Trophy Stands will spawn less frequently, it'll be a lot easier to survive any hits from the boss and you'll be more likely to get to those damaging items before the boss can hit them. The boss with also have less HP meaning you'll be able to soften them up for the stand a lot faster, too.

With all that out of the way, it's time for our final lap around the world.

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

   

Our first boss is Petey Piranha! This one's as simple as they come. It's a bit into Stage 1: Midair Stadium after the fight against Kirby/Mario and the introduction of the Subspace Army, so even if you fail it's not really an issue. You may be a bit confused initially due to Petey not having a health bar himself. All you need to worry about is weakening one of the two cages and throwing a trophy stand into the cage you weakened. I recommend focusing on only one cage in order to reduce the chances he kills himself on a bomb or something. If the item only damages the cage you're not focusing on, it won't affect you at all and you can continue your attempt. Petey is by far the easiest boss to survive against since all of his attacks are right at his feet. Just simply move to the other side to avoid all of his attacks. If he's already weakened, there's no point in staying near him. Once you've got your Trophy Stand, there will be lots of easy opportunities to win! If you weakened Zelda's cage, wait for him to jump to the right side and throw a trophy stand from the left side, and vice versa if you weakened Peach's cage. Even if you miss the cage and just hit Petey himself with the stand, it should still work as if the stand had hit both cages at the same time.

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

   

Up next is Rayquaza from The Lake. He's a bit more challenging to survive against than Petey and it's a lot easier for him to suicide on items, especially considering it's a run-off stage so there's no way to easily discard of items without getting right up close to the blast zone yourself. Once you've got him weakened up and have your trophy stand in hand, try to hit him while he's on the ground between attacks.

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

   

Porky is the first really boss that gave me a lot of trouble. He comes in a bit into The Ruined Zoo and he's far more dangerous on Intense difficulty with all of his attacks coming out a lot faster. I honestly have no idea how to dodge his orb of lightning attack, either. It's far too fast and it often kills me at unexpected times! Even when you have him weakened, surviving against him on Intense is incredibly difficult, it's so easy for him to just kill himself on incoming items, and worst of all, his dash attack can just carry a Trophy Stand right off screen and you can do nothing about it. Even when you do have your Trophy Stand, he moves around so much that it's hard to get a good shot in. On top of all of this, Porky comes after the Porky Statue. Thankfully, you can't turn the Porky Statue into a trophy (that would be a nightmare). The Porky Statue trophy is obtained elswhere in the game and there's a whole level you'll have to complete after obtaining Porky's trophy, too. Good luck!

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

   

Galleom is next! Strangely enough, you can't actually fight Galleom in The Wilds after beating the game. Instead, you have to fight him in The Ruined Hall. That's fine enough, though, because he has significantly less health there. He's violent and powerful, but not too difficult to deal with. As always, the most threatening thing about Galleom is his tendency to kill himself on items. He's not nearly as difficult as Porky, though. Try to dodge one of his attacks and then hit him with the Trophy Stand while he's cooling down! He's got an entire stage dedicated just to him, so there's nothing too frustrating going on here.

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

   

Ridley is one of those bosses where he's mainly frustrating just because of how much shit you have to trudge through if he ends up dying prematurely. He's located in The Research Facility Part 2 (The one with the dark section in the very beginning). This stage has you play through the intro section, fight the two False Samus which are even more annoying on Intense difficulty, then play through the whole section after Samus obtains her Power Suit including the section with the rail lifts that move at lightning speed on Intense! You basically have to have the path through the later part of that section memorized or death is inevitable. All the while you've got Cymuls all over the place getting in your way at the worst times. Oh yeah, and no stock refills the whole time so you're pretty much bound to game over at least once each time you take on Ridley.

And Ridley himself is another boss that's prone to suicide due to his attacks that make sure to scrape along the entire platform. Lovely. In addition, he moves around so much it can be really hard to discard of dangerous items without Ridley flying right into them. Make sure to hit Ridley with the Trophy Stand while he's above the platform, too. If his trophy falls into the pit, it'll be treated like you defeated him but you won't get the trophy and will have to replay the entire stage again.

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

   

Duon shocked me with how extremely difficult he was to obtain the trophy for. There are a lot of factors that can go wrong here. For one, it's a pretty challenging boss fight on its own. Duon is a pretty oppressive force on the stage, taking up the majority of the stage's real-estate, he's huge and difficult to jump over, and he has attacks that reach pretty far as well as carry him across the stage. The gun side's laser is hard to dodge from a stand still while the blade side has that annoying attack where he gets right up in your face to slash you repeatedly. Both of these attacks end up killing me a lot. But by far the most terrifying attack Duon can do is his the one where he fires missiles from the gun side's shoulders. These missiles are normally an attack you enjoy facing against, as you can simply lead them back to him to damage him. But what if he's already low on health?

These missiles do a large chunk of damage to Duon and he loves firing them and dashing directly into them from across the stage. This is by far the most suicidal boss in the entire game. Thank god Battleship Halberd Bridge is a stage dedicated exclusively to his boss fight because it would be a nightmare having to play through the entire stage leading up to him every time he kills himself.

And, just like Porky, he has a tendency to carry Trophy Stands to the edge of the stage. The worst part is that he doesn't just push them off. He'll push them until they teeter on the ledge giving you the hope that you might be able to grab it before it falls off, but then any one of his attacks causes him to bow down slightly which is just enough to lower his hitbox and nudge that stupid Trophy Stand right off the ledge.

Of course, this is also just as detrimental for dangerous items like bombs, and of all bosses, Duon is probably the most susceptible to accidental damage from the Franklin Badge and Screw Attack items, too. I can't tell you how many times this asshole killed himself while I was just waiting for a Trophy Stand to appear, or how many times I watched those Trophy Stands get pushed right off the cliff. Or how many times I just died because I had no way of getting over him with the amount of airtime I had to spend keeping his own missiles from hitting him. The worst failure of mine was one time where I actually did manage to hit him with the trophy stand, but got knocked back to the blast zone in the same move. R.O.B. was able to recover to the platform because the Blast Zones disappear after the boss is defeated, but because I was so far away, I couldn't get back to the platform in time to collect the trophy before the screen faded to black! Dammit!

This one fight took me the majority of my playtime this session to get and it was not at all the boss fight I expected to be the most challenging. But with a lot of persistence and even more screaming, I eventually managed to get this one. What a nightmare.

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

   

And form one difficult boss to by far the most infamous one: Meta Ridley. I've already gone on a whole tangent about just how rough this trophy is to claim. Meta Ridley is at the end of what I honestly believe to be the single hardest stage in the game on Intense difficulty, The Subspace Bomb Factory Part 2. That might be a stretch since it's been a while since I've played every stage on Intense, but this stage is chock full of all of the most obnoxious enemies. Autolances' attacks reach a shocking amount of space around them and they're often not alone. There are R.O.B. Blasters that fly around like flies, peppering you with lasers and you'd better swat them or they'll keep hitting you while trying to deal with the tougher Meta Primids and Autolances. You've got Cymuls all over the place, R.O.B. Launchers' Missiles have never felt so persistent, and there is lots of room for accidental death. Did I mention the Floows? Yeah, Floows are a nightmare on Intense being immune to projectiles and also being a lot faster and dealing a ton of damage in one hit. Beyond that, you have that massive wave of enemies before shortly after the point where R.O.B. normally joins your party. Oh, but of course you don't get a restock so you're more likely just going to get obliterated after any lives you've lost to this point unless you're lucky with item spawns. And even after that, you still have the whole escape sequence which is much harder on Intense. And that's all just the level itself.

Now, I do want to add a bit to this to mention that none of this headache is actually necessary. As it turns out, to compensate for the time limit during the Meta Ridley fight, Trophy Stands always drop at an increased rate against Meta Ridley, even on Easy difficulty. Still, I wanted to fight all the bosses on Intense even if it meant an aneurism or two.

Meta Ridley himself is... surprisingly easy. Look past the visual flare and actually focus on the functional parts of this boss fight and you'll quickly realize that Meta Ridley is actually a lot more calm than most bosses in the game! Sure he has some potential instant kill attacks, but he spends a lot of the time hovering idly by and letting you get some free bot shots in. He has a few attacks that scrape along the surface of the Falcon Flyer, but they aren't actually that common so it's not very frequent that you'll accidentally kill Meta Ridley prematurely. No, getting killed by Meta Ridley isn't what's at risk here. It's the 2-minute time limit that's going to cause issues. Even with the increased spawn rate of Trophy Stands, you're not at all guaranteed to even get one to appear before the time limit is up and even if you do, Meta Ridley spends a lot of his time off-stage over the pit. The biggest threat here is the trophy falling into the pit and causing the fight to be "won", forcing you to replay the entire long-ass stage from the very beginning. This happens a lot. To minimize the risk, I recommend throwing the trophy stand up whenever Meta Ridley is about to attack. Again, it's always better to outright fail than to win the fight but fail to get the trophy. If you throw the trophy stand up from the middle-left section of the stage whenever Ridley starts flying upward, a few of Ridley's attacks will swing him right into the trajectory of the stand, dropping the trophy safely onto the Falcon Flyer for you to collect! I think this is the best approach. Even if you miss, there's a chance you can catch the stand in midair on its way back down.

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

     

Oh, but we are not done yet. Our final stop is Tabuu at the Great Maze. Thankfully, you don't have to redo the entirety of the Great Maze, just make your way directly to his gate from the Swamp Warp Point. On Intense Difficulty, the challenge against Tabuu is mainly just survival, but there's a bit of a threat of him suiciding on items as well. Particularly with his Spearhead attack and his melee combos. On Intense, Tabuu has a lot of health to chip away at and a lot of attacks that can kill you instantly. Just like beating him the first time, you mainly wanna focus on learning how to dodge all of his attacks first and foremost. I strongly recommend a lot of characters that buy themselves a lot of airtime. Even though they're lighter and more easily KO'd, a lot of his attacks will KO you anyway regardless of your weight or percentage. Once you've gotten good at dodging Tabuu's various attacks, which, trust me, you're definitely going to want to get good with cough cough foreshadowing future game modes, it's only a matter of stalling for time until you can get that glorious Trophy Stand to spawn in. Once that's in your hands, simply wait for Tabuu to finish warping and throw that stand to claim your trophy! Once again, be careful not to throw the stand at him while he's over a pit, but failure via premature victory isn't so terrible here since there's not a whole lot of level between the Warp Point and Tabuu. The most threatening thing in your way are a couple of Cymuls that can easily be leaped right over and some Koopa Paratroopas.

   

   

And with that, we have all eight Subspace Emissary bosses captured in trophies! We've now ensured the Subspace Emissary can never come back again so long as we keep all of these monsters locked away. Not that there's any threat of them ever coming back, right? I mean it's not like any of these guys have any chances of ever joining the roster or anything like that. They're all just far too big.

In all seriousness, it was fun collecting all of these trophies! Extremely stressful at some points, but actually gathering up these trophies is really satisfying and I think that was very much a fitting finale to the Subspace Emissary that actually gave our three bonus characters something to do which was nice. Anyway, next time, we won't be playing the Subspace Emissary and we'll be back to covering our unlockable characters!

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

  

Oh, and of course, speaking of unlockable characters, all three of these bonus characters were hidden characters that are now unlocked after they join your team in Subspace Emissary, so there's that as well!

[Aura]

Now that we're done with the Subspace Emissary, it's time to get back to the original task of simply covering our Pokemon characters! As I mentioned before, Lucario is strangely enough always going to be the first Pokemon character you unlock even though Jigglypuff is typically. We'll cover Jigglypuff's unlock requirements later on to clarify why that is, but it involves clearing Subspace Emissary which automatically unlocks Lucario in the process.

However, aside from just recruiting the character in the Subspace Emissary, every character can be unlocked with an alternative method. In Lucario's case, you'll have to clear every stage in Target Smash!! This isn't quite the same as unlocking Dream Land in Melee, however. Due to the way Target Smash!! is handled in Brawl, there's only 5 different stages that need to be completed. This can be accomplished in two ways. Either you can simply play Classic mode on Easy, Normal, and Very Hard, or you can just play Classic mode once and then complete the rest by selecting Target Smash from the Stadium menu!

This mode opens up to you after playing the bonus round once in Classic Mode. From here, you can play Target Smash on any difficulty with any character without having to go through Classic Mode.

I might dabble in this mode a bit more after the fact, but for now, I'll be using the two Pokemon characters we would have if we were playing on a new file to unlock Lucario. We've already seen a few of these target stages thanks to them showing up earlier in Classic Mode, but here they're actually relevant to Lucario's unlock requirements and I felt it necessary to show these off.

Music: Target Smash!! (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

The Easy mode features the largest targets and a background based on The Lake form Subspace Emissary. I used Pikachu for this stage. Pikachu's Thunder Jolt is paramount in getting a good time here as a well placed jolt will travel along the walls and smack the targets while you move into position to hit the next one. There's not much to say about this stage at all.

 (Squirtle)

The Normal Difficulty stage is themed after The Wilds from Subspace Emissary. The green targets are slightly smaller and there are items strategically scattered around! The items help serve to make these harder stages accessible for any character. But, in my opinion, their presence only makes this sorry state of Target Test feel that much more redundant. You're not even using characters' individual abilities to break the targets when you're given a standard way of breaking the targets!

Anyway, I decided to treat Pokemon Trainers' three pokemon as different characters for the sake of this to avoid redundancy. This time, I went with Squirtle. The general route you want to take is to hit the first target overhead, leap up to grab the Smart Bomb on the platform above it and throw it to break either the target in front of you or above you depending on which of the two is harder to break with your character's moves then break the other one, climb up to the next platform and throw the fan to hit the target above it. Then break the next target on your way to the Beam Sword. Pick up the Beam Sword, jump, hit the target next to it, throw the beam sword to hit the target in the top-left corner, grab the Cracker Launcher, drop down, blast the rolling crate specifically to the left and while it rolls down the hill, turn around and shoot the target behind you. The Rolling Crate should roll down and hit the two targets at the bottom.

Note: That Mushroom is a Poison Mushroom, so it's actually a hinderance in all this.

 (Ivysaur)

The Hard difficulty stage is themed after The Swamp and features a more complex system of platforms to work around to break smaller, yellow targets. Routing for this one is a little less scripted, so it leaves a bit more room for experimentation. Some characters might benefit from breaking the target in the top right first by clipping an attack through the right wall, other characters might find it easier to just drop down outright and go backwards. Most of the time, I find myself taking the launcher at the start, grabbing the Smart Bomb, throwing it at the two targets ahead (to the right) and hoping it isn't a dud. Then move to the left and grab the ray gun. Hit the two targets nearby, jump and shoot the target up above from a distance, drop down and shoot the next two targets, cruss under the wall to the right side, jump over the spikes to the conveyor belt and throw the gun up to hit the target, break the target below the spring, then jump up to take the spring and up to hit the final target in the top right.

In Ivysaur's case, navigating these stages can actually be pretty challenging. His Vine Whip can't actually tether to the ledges for some reason, but they can be used to smack some targets at odd angles which can be a boon. Ivysaur particularly had issues getting to the spring at the end. Perhaps a more efficient route could be used for him than what I tried.

 (Charizard)

The Very Hard stage is icy and features a background that calls to mind The Glacial Peak, but is the only one whose background seems to be completely original for Target Smash. Perhaps this was an early background for that stage before it was decided to make it look more like a typical mountain rather than a remote location? Anyway, the targets here are even smaller and Orange in color. Most of them are moving back and forth as well. One of the targets (the one seen here half-way submerged in the ice, third target from the right) is moving around the stage in a large circle. Be sure not to miss it on its way around or you'll be missing out on some time. There are no items on this stage, and I'd actually argue that I think this is the hardest of the five stages, even more so than the Intense difficulty stage, due to the Icy physics and many moving targets. Generally the best approach is to hit the target to the top right first, then take care of the rest of the targets in a counter-clockwise direction. After hitting your third target, the target moving in a large circle should pass through soon, so be prepared to catch it on your way to the fourth target. The fifth target is moving back and forth along the long hallway here, so you might be able to hit it with the same attack as the one above it to save some time. The Sixth target might be harder to reach, but you can usually take it out with an air attack before jumping up to the other side. The Seventh target might be your fourth target if you have a character with an attack that can clip through the wall to hit it. Otherwise, it'll only pop out on the right side for you to jump and hit. The ninth target dips into the ice above it, so you'll have to time your jump to hit it as it's quite a ways up there! And finally, the tenth target is by far the most awkward to reach. Depending on your character, you might need to drop down to it from above or jump up to it from below. It's a dangerous jump either way.

The Intense difficulty stage is set in the Ruins. It features the iconic red targets we all know and love! Depending on your character, the Cracker Launcher to the right of the starting area might be more critical to you. You can grab it, shoot the target ahead of you, leap across the platforms to the left to blast the next target, take the platforms to hit the next two on the way down, blast the one at the bottom left from the platform (or throw the launcher itself if you're confident), then leap up to the Beam Sword, throw it up to hit the target overhead, clip an attack through the wall to hit the target on the right, catch the Beam Sword as it falls and throw it again toward the two targets to the left. Alternatively, you can jump in yourself to deal the final blow to those two targets.

If you don't already have him unlocked via the Subspace Emissary, then after clearing your final Target Smash, Lucario will approach you for a challenge!

  

Music: Victory Road (Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire)

In this case, you'll need to defeat Lucario on the stage Spear Pillar in order to unlock him! Of course, if you fail this fight, you'll be able to get him to challenge you again anytime you complete Target Smash!!, so make sure to choose your best fighter and give it another go!

If this is too much for you, then Lucario can also be unlocked simply by playing 70 Vs. Matches. 

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

Now that we've discussed his unlock requirements, let's take a deeper look at Lucario in Brawl, shall we? As always, you can click his link for even more detail than what I'll be focusing on. But I'll be summing up the information here.

Lucario is another newcomer from the Pokemon franchise! He's a standalone fighter this time, meaning he'll be a bit easier to cover in detail than Pokemon Trainer. Lucario has a special gimmick in his aura ability which will power him up if he's falling behind in battle! Lucario's aura will kick in to amplify the strength of just about all of his attacks when he's at high percentage, low HP in Stamina, or in a lower position such as when down on stocks compared to his opponent. I'm sure there's a lot of complicated details in how this works, but the basic gist is that Lucario gets far more powerful the further behind you are in the battle. In extreme cases, his attacks can be as powerful as Bowser and Ganondorf! And that's terrifying with his speed and dexterity! Of course, this Aura ability can backfire and leave him incredibly weak if he's in the lead, so pace yourself and don't get cocky!

Lucario's standard attacks all have extended reach thanks to his aura capabilities. Lucario will punch you right in the soul.

Lucario's standard special is his Aura Sphere. Perhaps the easiest way to tell how strong Lucario's aura is at any given moment is to not ethe maximum size of his Aura Sphere. This attack can be charged like Mewtwo's Shadow Ball in melee, but its maximum size depends on how strong Lucario's aura is.

Lucario's Side Special is Force Palm which can be used as a mid-range attack, but if used up close, can grab an opponent and knock them away.

Lucario's Down Special is Double Team. It's a counter! At the time, this wasn't exactly an overdone thing, it was generally seen as a Fire Emblem thing. But the concept fit with Lucario! He dodges an incoming attack with Double Team and counters with a slide from the left or right. Honestly, this is a terrible counter in my experience. It's possible I don't use it right, but it always feels far too slow to come out to be useful. When I do manage to successfully avoid damage, I rarely land the counterattack.

And as for his Up Special, Lucario uses ExtremeSpeed to launch himself through the air! You actually have a lot of control over his movement and can even do a full U-turn! But the movement is quick, so be sure to think ahead! Lucario is capable of wall clinging as well, so that can certainly prove useful in your recovery attempts.

 

Here are Lucario's three taunts.

 

And for Lucario's Final Smash: Aura Storm! He'll leap to the top of the stage, focus all of his aura, and fire it downward at the stage in a concentrated burst of energy! You can move the control stick to angle the beam to the left or right to try and chase your opponents with the beam. Once they're trapped in the beam, you can lift them higher into the air to make KO's easier, too!

Lucario comes with five different colors. His default color is treated as his blue color for Team Battle. It follows suit that he'd have a Red and Green color as well in which his blue fur is tinted the color while the fur on his abdomen matches the given color. There's also an icy blue color and a black and white color which are both really nice! The black and white color has always been my favorite. I suppose they didn't want to stray too far from Lucario's blue coloring for a similar reason to Sonic's, that being they wanted it to match up with the colors of his particle effects without clashing too much. I can't say I fully agree, especially with a character like Lucario, but I'm not the one in charge of these decisions so maybe there's reasoning beyond what I know.

And that's it for Lucario! Now it's off to Classic and All Star!

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

Classic Mode

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

Stage 1

 

 

Stage one was a pair battle where I teamed up with Ganondorf to fight Link and Shiek on Bridge of Eldin. Nothing too fancy.

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

Stage 2

  

Stage 2 was a standard fight against Donkey Kong on Rumble Falls. It was pretty easy to bully him out of being able to climb the stage.

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

Stage 3

  (Ivysaur)

 (Giant)

Stage 3 was my first Giant battle, I teamed up with Ivysaur to fight a Giant Lucario!

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

Stage 4

   x 10

What the hell is with this game and pitting me against a Team on literally the largest stage in the game!? Clearing Team Lucas is just as difficult to do in a timely manner as Team Ness, dammit! RIP any chances of fighting Crazy Hand with this run.

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

Bonus Stage 1

We've already been through this song and dance before.

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

Stage 5

 

 (Giant)

Up next I teamed up with King Dedede to fight a Giant Kirby on Halberd! Again, Kirby being giant really just makes him a bigger target to beat up, so away we go!

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

Stage 6

   (Metal)

Stage 6 was my Metal challenger! I'll always take Metal Olimar over Metal Snake any day.

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

Stage 7

  

This was a surprisingly standard fight so late in the game, but I fought Fox alone on Lylat Cruise.

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

Stage 8

 

 

On Stage 8, I had another pair battle. This time I teamed up with Luigi to fight Mario and Bowser on Mushroomy Kingdom! Hey, finally, a new stage to talk about!

Mushroomy Kingdom is a bizarre and surreal take on World 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. I believe the idea behind this stage's surreal aesthetic was that Super Mario Bros. is such an old game now that this area has been left untouched for decades and is now overrun with dust and dirt. But really, it kinda just makes for a weirdly bland-looking 1-1. Anyway, this stage is an autoscroller that scrolls through an infinitely looping remake of 1-1. Being an autoscroller, and a 1-1 remake, there are a lot of pipes that you can pin your opponents against until they get unfairly carried off the stage because autoscrolling levels are very fun and incredibly balanced.

Of course, if items are on, then you can hit the ? blocks or any hidden or invisible coin blocks to spawn additional items just like on Peach's Castle!

If you've only played recent Smash games, you might be surprised to know that Brawl actually had an exclusive second variation of Mushroomy Kingdom based on World 1-2! Normally, this stage randomly chooses between the two forms, but if you're selecting the stage, you can choose which version you want by holding different buttons. Holding Y or X on a GameCube or Classic Controller, C on the Nunchuck, or A if using the Wii Remote alone will cause the stage to load in the 1-1 variation, while L or R, Z, and B respectively will cause the 1-2 variation to load instead. While this is neat and all, I don't think it's difficult to figure out why the 1-2 variation never came back. This is simply an absurd stage to fight on with all the walls, ceilings, and jagged edges. It's a cluttered mess.

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

Stage 9

   x10

On Stage 9, I got to fight Team Ice Climbers! While not nearly as bad as Team Lucas, these little ones are still annoying because of the stage. It took an embarrassingly long time just to KO the last foe after dispatching most of them fairly quickly.

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

Stage 10

  

Sonic was next! I fought him on Green Hill Zone! And that's another new stage!

Green Hill Zone is a rather annoying stage to fight on as well. Not only is the entire stage this awkward slope that works well for a Sonic game but not so much for a fighting game, but the middle sections of the stage collapse after taking too much damage, leaving an awkward pit in the middle of an already awkwardly shaped stage! And just to add insult to injury, it's a run-off stage, too. The checkpoint lamppost will appear randomly and if you hit it, it'll spin around based on how hard you hit it and damage any other players that touch it while it's still red!

I don't wanna rag too much on this stage though because, visually, it's really cool! I don't think you could design a visual that just screams Sonic. ...It's a shame that these days Green Hill is so massively overused in Sonic games. At the time, this was a really nostalgic aesthetic! The latest Sonic games at this point in time were Sonic 06 and Sonic and the Secret Rings, so Sonic games were generally going in a grittier, more realistic direction and straying farther from its cartoonish routes. It was certainly a surprise to see the classic games called back to like this!

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

Bonus Stage 2

Of course, you can't forget the second bonus stage. Do I really need to note these? Well, this one I suppose I should because I embarrassingly ended up SDing here due to a misinput on my way to one of the final targets. Oh well, it happens to the best of us.

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

Stage 11

   

Now for Stage 11 we have our battle royale with Pit, Samus, and Captain Falcon!

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

  

And finally, we have our fight with Master Hand and, of course, we're not fighting Crazy Hand here today after that atrocious display at New Pork City. One of these days I won't get my Team battle there. Hopefully not in the same run that I do get Metal Snake.

And of course, here's Lucario's Congratulations screen and Trophy!

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

All Star

Again, not really much to say in the All Star side of things. I was nearly able to clear the whole thing until I wound up falling into a really cheap KO at the very end where I jumped too high with a Bunny Hood and got zapped out of the air by Pikachu's Thunder for a low % KO. Ya just gotta hate that stuff when it happens. But, I powered through and made it to the end.

And here is Lucario's Congratulations screen for All Star as well as his Aura Storm trophy! Man, these Final Smash trophies are so cool!

With all that out of the way, next time we'll be dabbling in the unlock requirements for Jigglypuff which are actually kind of absurd compared to what they normally are...

[Aura]

And now we have our final Pokemon character, Jigglypuff! As I've previously alluded, her unlock requirements are surprisingly complex to the point where she is, by nature, one of the last characters you'll unlock in the game. Of course, her first method of unlocking is probably the easiest: Simply recruit her in the Subspace Emissary and she'll be unlocked outside of it, too. But what if you want to unlock Jigglypuff in the traditional manner without playing Adventure Mode?

Well, tough noodles. In order to unlock Jigglypuff by her traditional unlock requirements, the first condition is that you first have to clear the Subspace Emissary by defeating Tabuu. Why? I honest to god could not tell you. But the only alternative method of unlocking her is simply playing 350 Vs. Matches.

After clearing the Subspace Emissary, though, you still have to complete additional requirements! And that would be: You need to clear 20 event matches, which means we'll have to dabble in Event Match mode. The especially weird thing about Jigglypuff's unlock requirements being so different this time is that there is another character that has her traditional unlock requirements. Instead of Jigglypuff, you unlock Marth for clearing Classic Mode for the first time. And even among the characters only available after completing the Subspace Emissary: Toon Link also requires you to clear Classic Mode. I just can't get over why they made Jigglypuff so weird this time around. But whatever, let's get on to completing the requirements by starting up Event Match mode!

Welcome to Event Match mode! This mode is mostly the same as what it was in Melee. When you first start the game, you'll only have the first 10 Event Matches available to you. But as you meet various conditions, you'll unlock more.

One of the biggest changes to this mode from Melee to Brawl is that you can now select Easy, Normal, or Hard for your difficulty setting whereas before, a lot of Event Matches in Melee were quite infamous for being really difficult. There is another significant difference, but we'll cover that later on. Anyway, right off the bat, it's clear that 10 event matches isn't going to be enough to meet the 20 match requirement for Jigglypuff. So naturally, we're going to have to at least unlock the next 10. Thankfully, that's easy enough as just completing 8 of these missions will unlock Event Matches #11-20.

So, it looks like in order to meet these conditions, we'll need to play through all of these 20 events! Note: We'll come back and revisit this mode to more thoroughly cover the Pokemon-related event matches. But for now, we're just focusing on unlocking Jigglypuff.

===========

Event #01: Two Trouble Kings

 

This first event match is a direct follow-up to the first event from Melee. In Melee, it was a 1v1 between Mario and Bowser. But here, Bowser's brought backup! Now it's a 1v2 with Mario against Bowser and King Dedede! Everyone has only one stock, so don't get KO'd!

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

Event #02: Landmaster Ignition

 

This is an event that's more about setting a high score than actually clearing the event. In fact, you pretty much have to try to fail this one. You play as Fox with 1 stock and have to survive against Sheik and Meta Knight for a limited amount of time within which you have to score at least one KO. Sounds like a reasonable challenge, right? Well, the catch is that you start the match with a Final Smash active and ready to use. Fox's final smash being one of the most overpowered in the game. He calls down a Landmaster which he can use to simply hover other players right off the top of the screen as well as send them flying with barrel rolls and blasts from its massive canon. And you don't even just get one of these things. As soon as the one Landmaster ends, you instantly get another! This is just a feel-good event if I've ever seen one.

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

Event #03: Pink Ball Repulsion

  

This one's a reference to Meta Knight's Revenge from Kirby Super Star. You have to play as Meta Knight and defeat Kirby in a 1v1. You get 2 stocks and Kirby gets 1. How is this fair, exactly? Well, the main gimmick is that you have to defeat Kirby before the platform lands on the deck of the Halberd. But that should be easy enough, you are by far the most powerful character in the game here.

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

Event #04: Cleaning House in Skyworld

  

This event is a bit of a silly one. Pit has to destroy all of the destructable terrain in Skyworld. Oh, hey, I haven't talked about this stage yet, have I?

Skyworld is pretty self explanatory. What you see is what you get, really. It's just a series of stone platforms floating on top of clouds. Most of these platforms can take damage from attacks and will crack and eventually break after sustaining enough damage. Only the platform at the very bottom that floats along is unbreakable. When the platforms are broken, you can still stand on the cloud, but you'll slip through if you stand on the cloud for too long and if the panel is broken that also means there is no ledge to grab when trying to recover.

Under normal circumstances, these panels will regenerate over time, but in this particular event match, they don't. While trying to destroy all the panels, Wario will be pestering you, but he's really not that much of a problem. You can ignore him for the most part while you destroy the terrain. The event is completed once the last panel is destroyed.

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

Event #05: Become the Champion!

  

This is a 1v1 mirror match between Pokemon Trainers on Pokemon Stadium 2. Both of you have 3 stocks. Keep in mind the three pokemon do have type matchups, so try to always switch into the Pokemon with a type advantage and avoid fighting at a disadvantage!

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

Event #06: Super Bowser Bros.

   x3

This is a fairly funny stage that reverses the roles of Bowser and Mario in Super Mario Bros. Your goal is to survive to the flagpole at the end of Mushroomy Kingdom while three Marios are constantly pestering you. You only get one stock while the Marios will spawn infinitely. However, you can boost your high score by killing as many Marios as you can while traveling through the stage. The only thing that makes this event remotely challenging is Bowser's lack of mobility on a stage he's terrible for. If you get greedy trying to kill Marios, you might find yourself unable to get over a pipe in time. All in all, this is a fairly fun (and funny) event.

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

Event #07: Diddy Kong Panic!

   (Tiny) x15

This event is a small reference to Diddy Kong Racing... or perhaps Mario Kart Wii? You'll be fighting against a squad of tiny Diddy Kong on Mario Circuit. Just smack them all away, they're all tiny so they're especially easy to KO!

Mario Circuit is another stage I've yet to cover. It's a Mario Kart stage! Shy Guys are in the middle of a race, so try and stay out of the road when they're passing through! You can watch their positions on the map. Sometimes they'll drive in down the center of the stage, other times they'll fly in from left to right. Be careful not to be in the air when they start coming from the left or you'll have a hard time dodging them! Alternatively, you'll want to keep your opponents in the air ahead of time if you know they're coming. An arrow will warn you when they're coming from the sides, but you can see them turn the bend in the background if they're coming down the middle.

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

Event #08: Go! Triple Finish!

  

This is a 1v3 pitting Pikachu agianst Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard on Pokemon Stadium! Pikachu has 2 stocks while all three of them have 1 stock each.

And no, that is not a typo. Even though the portrait for the event clearly shows Pokemon Stadium 2, this event actually takes place on Pokemon Stadium, that's right, the Pokemon Stadium from Melee does indeed return here in Brawl! I'll always prefer this much tamer version of the stage to the Brawl iteration. I don't think there's anything to talk about here, but like the other Pokemon stages, I'll definitely give this stage its own spotlight further down the line.

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

Event #09: The Monster Beneath The Earth

 x2  (Giant)

This is an event on a soft timer. You play as Ike initially against two Diddy Kongs on Castle Siege. If you fail to defeat the two Diddy Kongs by the time the stage transitions to the Underground area, an extremely powerful Giant Donkey Kong will spawn in which you'll also have to defeat. This DK will likely take you out in one shot, so try to win this event early!

Castle Siege is a strange stage that starts out on top of a castle. It seems simple enough on the surface.

Eventually, the stage will transition.

Inside of the castle, there are two statues holding up platforms. These statues can be destroyed after they sustain enough damage, destroying the platforms they're holding as well. The two banners hanging over the stage can also be walked on. This interior has walk-off blast-zones which can be used for early KO's.

And after another transition, the fight will eventually be brought to the underground beneath the castle. The fight here takes place on a teetering rock over a pit of magma. It's this part of the stage that Giant Donkey Kong will spawn if you haven't finished this event by then.

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

Event #10: All-Star Battle Regulars

       

This stage is a classic endurance round against Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu in that order: The original 8 fighters from Smash 64! You can play as any character you wish here, so I went with Lucario. You get 2 stocks to all of these guys' 1 stock. As you defeat each one, another will spawn in their place until you've defeated them all!

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

Event #11: Yoshi's Rainbow

   x6

This is a cute, albeit somewhat frustrating event where you'll have to fight six Yoshis. But it's not enough to just beat them, no. You'll have to KO them in the order of the colors of the rainbow! Red, Pink, Yellow, Green, Light Blue, and Blue. You play as Ice Climbers and only get one stock, so do all the Yoshis. Thankfully, the Yoshis themselves take more knockback than usual, so they're easily KO'd.

Rainbow Cruise is another stage returning from Melee! The stage will start on board the Rainbow Cruiser. A standard enough stage until the cruiser crashes into a platform ahead, pushing you onto an autoscrolling course where you'll have to jump from platform to platform to avoid being left behind. The course follows the path of the rainbow in the background until you ultimately end up dropping back down onto the ship from above.

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

Event #12: Sleeping in the Eggs

 

This event lets you play as Yoshi and tasks you with the objective of getting both Pikachu and Kirby in eggs at the same time using Yoshi's Standard Special. This one can be a little bit annoying due to the tiny reach of Yoshi's tongue, but with a bit of persistence you can get it!

The confusingly named Yoshi's Island is another stage we haven't covered yet. It is perhaps the most basic of the new stages, I'd say. The central platform teeters slightly and Fly Guys will fly through, sometimes carrying food.

As you fight on the stage, the seasons will change in the background, but it doesn't affect anything beyond aesthetics. It's a real cute stage, though!

Every now and then, a Blarggwich will pop up holding a platform. This platform will persist extremely briefly but just might sav eyou if you're trying to make a recovery!

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

Event #13: Dragoon Strike

   x3

This is a fun one. It pits Kirby against three Warios with the task of KOing them with the Dragoon by collecting three Dragoon pieces, the only item that will spawn. If you're lucky, you can get all three Warios with a single shot! Otherwise, it might take two or three tries to kill them all. Try to be patient and see if they'll line up better if you wait a bit longer! Kirby gets 2 stocks while each of the Warios gets only 1 stock with the added stipulation that killing them without the Dragoon will not cause them to lose a stock and they'll simply respawn.

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

Event #14: Sproutrage of the Flower Pikmin

 

You've just gotta love a stage that encourages camping and nothing else. This stage pits you as Olimar against Pikachu and Pokemon Trainer on the Distant Planet, but your opponents spawn infinitely. Your task is to keep your Pikmin alive until they all reach full bloom! Of course, right away you'll have to pluck Pikmin until you have six. This stage is pretty simple though, strangely enough, your high score is determined by time even though there's a hard limit to how fast you can do this since it takes 40 seconds for each Pikmin to reach a flower. I suppose they expected it to be harder to keep your Pikmin alive? Anyway, just keep dodging your enemies and staying away from them and you should be good to go.

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

Event #15: The Hammer of the King

 (Tiny) x3

 (Giant, Metal)

This stage pits you, a tiny King Dedede, alongside two other tiny King Dededes, against one giant, metal King Dedede on Smashville. It's pretty self explanatory. This might seem like an intimidating opponent, but Dedede is pretty heavy already, especially when metal. Metal Dedede is going to have a hard time recovering, especially if you bully him off the stage with constant aerial attacks. He drops like a rock! I don't even think the allies are necessary for this fight, honestly.

Smashville is a bit of a strange stage based on Animal Crossing: Wild World. It's strange because, obviously, there are no characters from this franchise playable in game. Yet, here we are. This stage is about as basic as they come. It's a long flat platform with a single platform that floats in overhead from the side. Occasionally, balloons carrying food items will float in as well which can be popped with attacks to collect their food. The villagers that appear in the background are also random.

The most interesting aspect of this stage is that its lighting will change to reflect the time on your Wii's system clock, just like in the actual game!

And if you tune in at the appropriate time, K.K. Slider will even host a concert right in front of your fight! Talk about attention to detail!

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

Event #16: Power Suit ON!

   x3

This event gives you a simple task: Collect a Smash Ball and use your Final Smash to restore your Power Suit! All the while fending off three other Zero Suit Samuses trying to do the same thing. All of this is on Frigate Orpheon.

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

Event #17: Super Waterfall Climb

   x2

Survive to the top of the climb on Rumble Falls! You're scored based on how many times you KO Ice Climbers along the way. The catch here is that the scrolling speed is always at its max speed, so you'll have to constantly be moving to keep up with it! Farore's Wind is incredibly helpful here since the screen will keep scrolling as you warp, allowing you to basically earn free distance.

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

Event #18: Dark Link Duel

  

A classic if you've ever known one. This is a Stamina battle pitting Link against Dark Link on Bridge of Elden, an event in reference to Link's Adventure, which was also Event #18 in Melee. Just hit Dark Link enough to take him out! Or, if you're feeling cheeky, try to combo him off the edge of the screen. It is a runoff stage, after all!

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

Event #19: Wario Bros.

 

Wario here is facing off against Mario and Luigi on the Mario Bros. stage. Everyone's got two stocks and it's just a standard stock brawl! Take 'em out!

As the name implies, Mario Bros. is a stage based off the original Mario Bros. arcade.

Shellcreepers and Sidesteppers will spawn from the pipes at the top and make their way down the screen. You can hit them from below like in the game, or hit them with attacks to flip them over. Once they're flipped, you can pick them up like items and throw them at enemies for insane knockback!

Green and Red Fireballs will also spawn occasionally, so make sure to steer clear of those!

The Pow Block at the bottom can be used to flip all the enemies on screen over. You can use this either to flip over an enemy for you to grab or to flip an enemy an opponent is about to grab back over to surprise them. Once an enemy gets back on its feet, it'll change color and move a lot faster, making it much more dangerous.

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

Event #20: All Star Battle x1

       

Now it's time to reverse the roles a bit! We're facing off against 8 Brawl newcomers that are available from the start! Not all of them, though. For some reason Ike and Dedede are left out of the group. Maybe they were going to be hidden characters early on? Anyway, you once again get to choose any character to face off against these 8 characters on Battlefield.

Of course, since I used Lucario to fight the Smash 64 roster, I'll use Pikachu to fight these guys. I think it's fitting, right?

I never really did talk about Battlefield this time around, did I? Brawl's Battlefield is the first one to not take place in a cosmic-like void. Instead, it has a more earthy look to it that would go on to inspire future Smash games in general art design for their takes on the iconic stage. Battlefield here is perhaps the single most iconic stage design for Smash Bros. as many stages incorporate its base structure in various ways. A main platform with three smaller platforms hanging overhead.

As the fight goes on, the stage will go through a day/night cycle dynamically, just for the devs to flex their fancy new lighting skills.

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

And after all of that, we finally have our chance to fight Jigglypuff!

  

You'll fight Jigglypuff on Pokemon Stadium 2 and, once she's defeated, she'll be unlocked! If you fail, you can get her to challenge you again by completing any Event Match again.

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

And now, we can finally talk about Jigglypuff! Only to say... not much has changed. Well, on the surface, anyway. Most of Jigglypuff's moves are functionally the same as they were in Melee, but Jigglypuff was hit hard will all sorts of nerfs. Gone are her days of S tier in Melee and she's easily one of the worst characters here in Brawl. The biggest crime is her Rest which not only does she have a harder time landing in this game, but it is far, far less powerful here than in Melee. 

As always, click her name in order to see all the technical details on SmashWiki.

 

Here are Jigglypuff's three taunts!

 

As for Jigglypuff's Final Smash? It's Puff Up! Jigglypuff inflates really large... and that's pretty much it. This Final Smash is incredibly useless as Jigglypuff can't even move while large. You'll need to position yourself very strategically when using this move in order to actually wall anyone out of recovering.

Even Smash Dojo notes the obvious weakness that this Final Smash is effectively useless on larger stages. It's embarrassing, really. But, on smaller stages, Jigglypuff can hog up a lot of real-estate with this attack and disrupt everyone.

As for Jigglypuff's colors, she mostly gets a completely new set of hats! She keeps her Hibiscus from Melee, which was my favorite. Her Blue Bow is now a sunhat with a blue ribbon around it, her green sash is now a green sleeping hat, and her crown is now Leaf's hat from FireRed and LeafGreen! An interesting touch is that the blue sunhat outfit is colored to resemble Jigglypuff's shiny form! A bit ironic considering its default color has always been mistakenly colored in a way that resembles its shiny form more than its regular form. The White and Green outfits, however, more strongly resemble Jigglypuff's more typical blue eyes.

Anyway, since there's not much else to talk about, let's get on with Classic Mode!

===========

Classic Mode

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

Stage 1

 

 

For the first battle, I teamed up with Ganondorf to fight Link and Toon Link on Bridge of Eldin. With Jigglypuff's various air attacks, I found it easy to carry them both right off the edge of the screen!

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

Stage 2

  

 (Giant)

For the second stage, I paired up with Donkey and Diddy Kong to take on Giant Yoshi on Yoshi's Island. Another easy win due to Yoshi being such a big target with no recover ability after squandering his midair jump. Poor guy just can't catch a break.

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

Stage 3

 

 

For the next round, I teamed up with Pikachu to take on Lucario and Jigglypuff.

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

Stage 4

   x15

Oh, finally a team battle that isn't absolute garbage on this stage! I was able to take out the 15 Marths no problem at all on Castle Seige!

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

Bonus Stage 1: Target Smash!

Since I was actually doing pretty good on time, I actually just dropped off and didn't bother with the bonus round. I'm not here for points, I'm hoping to see Crazy Hand by the end of this!

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

Stage 5

  

On Stage 5 I fought King Dedede at Halberd!

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

Stage 6

   x15

It's team Zero Suit Samus! That's a new one. I fought them on Frigate Orpheon.

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

Stage 7

  

Another straightforward fight against Flaco!

-----------

Stage 8

   (Metal)

Ah! A classic, Metal Mario! I wish I could've fought him on Battlefield like in Melee, though. I suppose it is noteworthy that I fought him on the 1-2 version of Mushroomy Kingdom this time!

-----------

Stage 9

   (Giant)

For the next stage it was me against Giant Mr. Game & Watch on Flat Zone 2! Ah, I guess that's a new stage, huh?

Flat Zone 2 is an evolution of Flat Zone from Melee. Rather than just being a single screen that meshes together various games, Flat Zone 2 cycles through various Game & Watch titles to reference, though it still keeps the iconic manhole concept for the initial screen that's otherwise pulled from Fire. This is a mostly empty flat stage with run-off edges. You can stand on the ledges of the building on the left where various people are jumping out to be caught by the firemen on the ground. Periodically, a character will appear at the top-right corner (referencing the Game & Watch's alarm clock functionality), alerting that the stage is about to change to another game.

One of the games that can appear is Oil Panic! This stage features two platforms overhead and two characters wandering around their cars. If you hit them on accident, they'll get angry and hit you back, and they can be shockingly strong, too! Watch out!

Another game referenced here is Lion in which most of the battle takes place inside this cage with zookeepers trying to keep you inside using chairs at either side of the cage. They'll move up and down and they'll knock you back pretty far if you touch them.

Finally, there's Chef in which food will drop down from above and a chef will run around trying to bounce the food back up and keep it off the ground. If any of the food hits you, you'll take damage. There are a couple of Manhole-inspired platforms on this stage, too.

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

Stage 10

  

It's Wario again!

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

Bonus Stage 2: Target Smash!!

And once again, I completely ignored the bonus round and took the fastest route I could straight to the pit.

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

Stage 11

   

And for our battle royale, we have Peach, Fox, and Charizard as opponents! Nothin' too crazy here!

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

Finsal Stage: Boss

 

Vs. Crazy & Master Hand

And, finally, I was able to encounter the secret boss Crazy Hand! Unlike in Melee, Crazy Hand appears from the start! Also unlike in Melee, I found this fight to be shockingly simple.

Fighting these guys together can be a truly intimidating sight, but I find their attacks rarely combine in unfair ways the way they did in Melee. I only got KO'd once as Jigglypuff and that was due to a really stupid greedy maneuver on my end. We've already fought Maser Hand quite a bit and there's not much new in regards there, but Crazy Hand is the much more interesting foe here. He has a lot of strange attacks. His pokes deal different elemental damage with each hit, the last one freezing you, so make sure to avoid it! He has another attack where he hovers over the senter of the stage and drops bombs from his fingertips! Another technique has him crawling along the ground like a spider and another still has him drop to the ground and flail around violently. He has a variety of other attacks that try to fake you out but for the most part he's really not all that much different from Master Hand.

Alongside his own individual attacks, Master and Crazy Hand together have some attacks they can only do when together. One has them clap repeatedly across the length of the stage, making it difficult to evade if you can't stay in the air for long. Hanging on the ledge does provide some safety, though! Another attack has Master Hand Signal for a punch from Crazy Hand. This one leaves them both incredibly wide open and is really heavily telegraphed, so you're not really likely to get hit by it. And their last one involves two punches flying in to collide with one another.

Anyway, as per usual, the easiest way to go about this fight is to prioritize one of the hands over the other. Your best bet is probably to focus on Crazy Hand first since he's by far the more unpredictable of the two. Once you've eliminated one of them, the second will be a lot easier to eliminate.

And with that, I've completed Classic mode as Jigglypuff!

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

For clearing Jigglypuff's Classic Mode, you're rewarded with this Congratulations screen of Jigglypuff singing at Pokemon Stadium 2 and her trophy!

===========

All Star

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

And lastly, we have All Star. Again, nothing much to say about this, though I did have to use a continue due to getting combo'd into oblivion against Ness and Lucas. Ironically, this was the exact round I told myself "Maybe I should use that Heart Container after this one..." Oh well, you win some you lose some. I have a feeling we'll be coming back to All Star anyway... hint hint.

For clearing All Star with Jigglypuff, we earn this congratulations screen of the two singing along with K.K.'s music, and Peahc dancing along to all of it! How cute! And of course, Jigglypuff's Puff UP Trophy as well, with Pikachu and Charizard there for a sense of scale! I'm not a fan of the final smash from a practical standpoint, but I do think this trophy is pretty funny, not gonna lie.

===========

And that's it for Jigglypuff and our coverage of all the Pokemon characters. Next time, we'll be moving right along to the stages!

[Aura]

  

Now that we've covered the four characters from the Pokemon franchise, it's time to start covering the stages! As mentioned in the introduction to this game, there are three Pokemon stages, two of which are hidden and need to be unlocked.

Pokemon Stadium 2

From the very start, the only Pokemon stage available to you is the new Pokemon Stadium 2! Inspired by the similarly named stage from Melee, this stage has an identical formation of platforms and similarly transforms to reflect different types. A symbol will appear in the background indicating which type of stadium the stage will change to reflect.

The first of these stages I'll be covering is the Electric stadium. As you can see, these stadiums are a bit more dramatic than the ones in Melee. They also include some spectating pokemon! Electivire appears here along with a Magnezone that'll occasionally pop up on the right side. These pokemon don't affect the battle at all. The Electric stage features three platforms and on either side of the main platform is a conveyor belt that moves pretty quickly toward the edge. You'll want to stay away from them because it can be pretty awkward to get up from the ledges while these conveyor belts are going.

The Flying stadium is completely flat with powerful gusts of wind blowing upward. The wind will push you high into the air and it takes a long time to drop down. There's no avoiding this wind as it covers the entire length of the stage. Aerial combat is incredibly important here! Spectators here include Skarmory, Drifloon, and Hoppip!

Up next the Ground stadium! There's a giant pile of dirt here and a stone spire with platforms built into it. There's a Helix Fossil embedded in the spire as well as what looks to be a fossilized Kabutops in the ground. Spectator pokemon include Dugtrio and Cubone!

Finally, the Ice Stadium is exactly what you'd expect. The stage is covered in ice and you'll be slippeing all around the stage! Try to stick your landing firmly or you'll move a lot more than you'd like. Snover and Snorunt appear here as spectators.

I'm really not too much of a fan of this stage compared to its Melee counterpart. I find most of these transformed stadiums to be a bit too intrusive on the gameplay. It was exciting when the game was new just to see new types represented in the stage, but for actual gameplay? Gimme the Melee stage any day.

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

Pokemon Stadium

Speaking of its Melee counterpart, the original Pokemon Stadium is also unlockable here! It's a hidden stage that's unlocked simply by playing 10 brawls on Pokemon Stadium 2. If you want to unlock it quick, you can simply play 1 stock brawls and Self-Destruct right away by running right off the edge. But 10 games isn't long at all. This stage will transform into any of the four forms that were in Melee. Below I'll be showing screenshots from Melee (Sorry, SmashWiki doesn't have any from Brawl, but they look more or less exactly the same).

The Grass stadium! There's two platforms supported by wooden scaffolding and a tree branch protrudes into the stage that serves as an additional platform.

The Fire Stadium features a burning hut and forest. The tree on the left is a little awkward to fight around while the house on the right offers a more standard location to fight as a single flat platform hanging over the ground.

The Water stage features two platforms being shot into the air by water fountains on the right! On the left is a windmill with blades that provide rotating platforms.

The Rock Stadium features a mountain formation with metal platforms protruding from it. This is probably the most intrusive of the stages due to the large cliff on the left side that can make returning to the fight fairly awkward.

Overall, this is probably my favorite of the Pokemon stages in this game. A bit ironic considering this is the only one that wasn't made originally for this game. Maybe it's my nostalgia for Melee speaking, but the other two stages made for Brawl are a bit more frustrating.

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

Now then, as for our last stage, unlocking it requires a few hurdles. It's a bit odd since unlocking Lucario through traditional means involves battling him here, yet unlocking Lucario is part of the requirements for unlocking this stage.

In order to unlock the final Pokemon Stage, you'll need to clear an event that lies beyond Event #20. So, let's look into the unlock requirements for the next set, shall we?

     

On top of completing 18 of the 20 events that precede it, you'll also need to unlock the characters Captain Falcon, Lucario, Luigi, Ness, Marth, and R.O.B. Of course, the most efficient way to accomplish this is to simply play through the Subspace Emissary through Stage 29: Subspace to have Luigi and Ness join your team. At this point in the story, you'll automatically have all of these characters unlocked. But, if you're stubborn like me, you might want to unlock them before touching Subspace Emissary. So let's cover their alternative unlock requirements. Of course, we'll be skipping Lucario since we've already covered how to unlock him.

The easiest of these characters to unlock is Marth. I've already mentioned that his unlock requirement is as simple as clearing Classic Mode for the first time.

  

Upon completing Classic Mode for the first time, Marth will challenge you on Castle Siege. Defeat him to unlock him.

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

Luigi is unlocked in a similar manner, you simply have to clear Classic Mode without using a continue.

  

Upon accomplishing this task, Luigi will challenge you at Luigi's Mansion.

Luigi's Mansion is another stage I haven't covered yet, so here it is! There isn't much of note on the outside of the mansion, just two small platforms that float up and down along its sides and a balcony at the top that you can stand on.

If anyone is inside of the mansion, you'll see the interior of it like so. The platforms on the right and left are solid while the portion across the foyer is thin and can be jumped through to reach the second floor from the first. The pillars support the ceilings above them and can also provide shielding from projectiles.

Once they'v esustained enough damage, the pillar will break and the portion of the mansion it's holding up will collapse! 

If you're feeling destructive, you can destroy the entire mansion leaving the whole stage as one massive flat platform.

While the pillars interfere a bit, and it can be annoying to KO people when they're bouncing between the ground and ceilings on the first floor. But I do think this stage can be pretty fun to play on regardless.

Eventually, broken portions of the mansion will be rebuilt by ghosts! So nothing in this stage will be permanently destroyed.

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

Captain Falcon is also similar to the other two, but his unlock requirements are a little bit more specific. You'll need to clear Classic Mode on Normal difficulty or higher in under 12 minutes. While I can't confirm whether or not I've completed this task with anyone else, by nature of having fought Crazy Hand as Jigglypuff, I can confirm that I had to have beaten it on Hard mode within at 9 minutes.

  

Upon satisfying these requirements, you'll have to fight Captain Falcon on Port Town: Aero Dive!

This is another stage we've yet to cover! This stage is an evolution of Mute City from Melee. Instead of just zooming along the track, though, this stage is more a traveling stage similar to Delfino Plaza.

Of course, most of these stopping points are along the track! And you'll have to stay out of the way of the machines racing through the track! Due to the more dynamic movement of the platform, you might be knocked into parts of the track while the platform is zooming around. It will damage you but it might save you from getting KO'd!

There are some other locations that are iconic to me, personally, but aren't pictured on the Dojo or Smash Wiki article, sadly. One of which is on top of one of the floating ships and another is on top of a building--not every stopping point is along the track!

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

Ness is one of the weirdest characters to unlock. It's not tied to any particular accomplishment but rather... reflecting 10 projectiles. The fastest way to accomplish this is to play a 1-stock mirror match of Fox. Simply hold your reflector up to block your opponent's blaster shots. If you're stuck against the AI and have no friend or second controller, then I recommend playing against an AI with Superspicy Curry and deflecting that way.

  

Upon accomplishing this task, you'll have to battle Ness again on Onett.

Onett is a stage returning from Melee. What you see is more or less what you get. The most significant detail here is the Drug Store in the middle which, if you land on the verandas enough times, will collapse, spilling you to one of the platforms below. The other most notable detail here are the cars that'll speed by. You'll be given a warning with an ! sign that appears warning youf rom what direction the speeding car will arrive from. Make sure you're not on the ground when it passes by!

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

Lastly, there is R.O.B. who is unlocked simply by collecting 250 different trophies.

The easiest way to collect new trophies is by playing the Coin Launcher in Trophy Mode! This is Brawl's successor to the Lottery from Melee. Rather than simply sticking coins into a machine hoping to get new trophies, you instead get to play this little shooter minigame. Various enemies will approach and you'll need to blast them away by launching coins at them. Coins, of course, can be earned from just about any mode including Subspace Emissary. As you blast away enemies, you'll unlock bonuses such as stickers and additional coins, and your frenzy meter will build up.

Periodically, a trophy will appear in the mixture. You'll need to shoot it with multiple coins to earn it! Once the trophy is sparking, it takes one more hit!

When you fill up your frenzy meter, you'll be able to fire coins rapidly and three trophies will appear in a line. Blast away!

You'll also need to make sure you shoot down any missiles before they reach you or you'll lose coins. Your fired coins will also be wasted if they fall into a pitfall, so avoid that, too!

You can also get trophies from various other modes. You can of course get them from Subspace Emissary, they'll sometimes appear during All Star Mode, and you can earn them by clearing modes like Classic and All Star with new characters! You don't strictly have to rely on the Coin Launcher to gain them, so look to other modes to gather some trophies while you rebuild your coins!

  

Once you've collected 250 different types of trophies, R.O.B. will challenge you on Mario Bros. after the match.

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

Once you have all of these characters unlocked and have completed 18 events from events 1-20, you'll unlock event matches 21-29. With that, we finally have access to the event that is necessary to unlock our last stage.

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

Event #25: The Aura is With Me

 

This match pits you as Lucario against Ness and Sheik on Spear Pillar. The catch is that Lucario is at 182% from the start! This seems scary, but this means Lucario's aura is at max power, allowing him to knock out Ness and Sheik with relative ease. Upon completing this event, Spear Pillar will be unlocked!

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

And now, we can finally talk about this stage! Spear Pillar, the peak of Mt. Coronet in the Sinnoh Region. The main platform here has two platforms floating up and down above it on the left and right side. Underneath the main platform is a small cave that you can retreat to for safety if you're at high percent.

 

The stage doesn't seem like much on the surface. Like Pokemon Stadium 2, some spectator pokemon can appear! The Lake Guardians Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf will occasionally make appearances in the background!

But more importantly, another guest can appear in the background of the stage who's much more than just a spectator.

 

Dialga and Palkia can appear on these pedestals! And these behemoths will be interfering with the battle in various ways!

Both of these pokemon can destroy portions of the main platform.

 

They can also fire powerful beams either vertically along the stage or horizontally through the cave at the bottom, punishing any campers down there. Dialga's lasers are blue while Palkia's are Pink. I suppose these are supposed to be Hyper Beam?

As Time and Space are distorted during the fight, the stage might appear to tilt slightly.

Palkia can make this effect far more dramatic with Spatial Rend, flipping the entire stage upside down, mirroring the screen, and even reducing the effects of gravity! While the stage is upside-down or the screen is mirrored, your controls will feel reversed! These maneuvers will probably cause some misinputs immediately when they begin and end.

Dialga, predictably, can affect the flow of time using Roar of Time, causing the fight to temporarily play out in slow motion. He can also jump into the stage and roar, damaging anyone nearby and launching them away! He's a bit more aggressive than Palkia, but not quite the most aggressive.

That's because a third pokemon can appear here, one that is far more terrifying than either of these two... it's Giratina, right? No, of course not!

That terrifying third pokemon is Cresselia! If this thing appears, prepare for some salt because while Cresselia forgoes the shared effects of Dialga and Palkia such as tilting or destroying parts of the stage, it makes up for them by firing Psycho Cut in various ways. The crescents that form over its head will be fired either straight ahead in a series of attacks or around in an arc like a boomerang across the top, bottom, or through the cave. It's really hard to tell where these attacks will go and the biggest issue with all of this is that these crescents deal a ton of damage and knockback and are very likely to kill you if you touch them.

In my opinion, Cresselia is the number one thing that completely ruins this stage. I feel like its attacks are far too oppressive and take away from the actual fight. Why is it even here? It's not found at Mt. Coronet! Nobody invited you, Cresselia!!

As long as Cresselia isn't in the picture, Spear Pillar would probably have to be my favorite Pokemon stage in the game, even if it doesn't lend itself well to competitive play due to the cave that encourages camping. I just think Cresselia is by far the most obnoxious part of the stage and it really just sours my mood whenever it appears instead of Dialga or Palkia.

==========

Anyway, that's the last of the three stages in Brawl! Next time, we're going to explore some more miscellaneous stuff, starting with the Challenges screen! There are some Pokemon-related challenges found there that I want to cover.

[Aura]

Challenges

Today we're going to be looking at Challenges mode. This is a section of the game that has since become pretty standard fare with Masahiro Sakurai's games going forward, including every Smash Bros. game from here on. Essentailly, this is an in-game achievement mode that generally functions the same way. When you start the game, it's completely blank like this.

But as you play through the game's various modes and accomplish achievements, the windows will break open unlocking prizes inside! These prizes can be Trophies, Music Tracks, Stickers, even Stages and more!

After a window is broken, the two windows horizontally adjacent to it become transparent and you can see the silhouette of the prize behind it as well as the actual objective that needs to be completed in order to obtain that prize.

Some windows will even include Golden Hammers in them that can be used to smash open other windows without completing the achievement! These are generally better spent on the grind-heavy challenges because these hammers can't be used on the most difficult challenges such as clearing specific modes on Intense difficulty. (News to me, though, for those of you with the PAL version of the game, all challenges in that version can be broken with Golden Hammers, so you can get the hardest prizes in the game basically for free!)Those have to be broken through sheer skill alone. However, you may not want to use your hammers at all. You'll only get five total in the whole game, so make them count!

Over the years, my brother and I have completed every challenge in the game. It's no secret that I've been using an old save file this whole time, but still, that doesn't mean I can't simply complete specific challenges again. On this board, there are a small handful of challenges with Pokemon-related prizes that I wanted to complete for this thread.

A lot of the Subspace Emissary trophies and stickers we couldn't obtian in the SSE itself can be obtained through this mode. Some of these rewards are related to game modes we haven't covered yet.

The first of these is a task we've already completed in the process of "unlocking" Jigglypuff: For clearing Event #08: Go! Triple Finish!, You'll unlock the track Road to Viridian City (From Pallet Town/Pewter City) (Pokemon Red & Blue). This song plays in the stage Pokemon Stadium 2 and its frequency of appearance can be adjusted in the My Music menu. Additionally, you can play the song in Sound Test or here in the Challenges menu!

Another challenge we've already completed is obtaining 200 stickers. These stickers add up real fast as you play through the SSE, but if you want to grind them out, there's a couple ways to go about it. You can of course get them through the Coin Launcher, but I think the best means of obtaining stickers involves exploiting a certain mode we'll be covering soon.

After obtaining 200 stickers, you'll unlock Pokemon Center (Pokemon Red & Blue)

 

Of course, the unlock requirements for the two hidden Pokemon Stages Pokemon Stadium and Spear Pillar are listed here as well, but we've already covered those.

The Pichu trophy is the prize for clearing All Star Mode with no continues. To accomplish this, I strongly recommend playing on Easy Difficulty as the difficulty is irrelevant and even on Easy difficulty it's not unlikely you could get screwed over at some point during the long endurance challenge with a bad bomb spawn or something.

To further improve your chances of success, I recommend following the general mindset: Use a Heart Container if your percentage is above 100%, and you're about to go up against a non-solo opponent. In general, on Easy, you should be able to get down to Ness & Lucas or Marth & Ike before you should feel pressure to use your first heart container. Though depending on how things play out, you might want to use them a bit earlier. If you find yourself in roughly the 180% range, you might want to take a heart container early because even a stray hit might send you flying. But in general, if you're against a solo opponent, as long as you combo them well, you shouldn't take too many hits. The AI is really stupid and gets launched really far at low percent on the easiest difficulty. Your mileage may vary, though, depending on how skilled you are with the character you're playing and what difficulty you're playing on... More on clearing All Star on higher difficulties in a bit.

Now this is the challenge that took me so long to make this post. Among the Pokemon rewards is a Plusle & Minun trophy which requires you to obtain Final Smash trophies for every character in the game. This means two things: One, in order to complete all of the pokemon-related content in the game, we do in fact have to unlock all of the characters in the game. Two, we have to play through the longest mode, All-Star, with every single character. Technically I suppose we should've already covered all these unlock requirements before covering All-Star, but fuck it. So, let's get down to the remaining unlockable characters.

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

To unlock Falco, you'll have to clear 100 Man Brawl, same as Melee. We'll cover Multi-Man Brawl in a future post in more detail, but long story short, you'll need a little bit of luck and a character that can stay alive for a long time. Difficulty doesn't matter, though, so you'll probably want to play on Easy mode.

  

After clearing 100 Man Brawl, you'll be challenged by Falco on Lylat Cruise.

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

In order to unlock Snake, you'll need to Brawl on Shadow Moses Island 15 times.

  

Upon completing the 15th brawl on Shadow Moses Island, Snake will challenge the highest ranking human player.

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

 

In order to unlock Ganondorf, you can clear Classic Mode with either Link or Zelda on Hard difficulty or higher. Hard Mode is essentially Melee's Normal difficulty, so this isn't quite as challenging as it might sound. You'll just have to play a bit more seriously than on Easy.

  

Upon clearing Classic Mode, Ganondorf will challenge you on Final Destination.

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

To unlock Mr. Game & Watch, you'll need to clear Target Smash on any difficulty with 30+ different characters. That is, the same difficulty needs to be cleared with 30 characters, not 30 characters clearing across various difficulties. Again, Easy difficulty is the best way to go for this since it's the fastest.

  

Upon clearing Target Smash with the 30th character, Mr. Game & Watch will challenge you on Flat Zone 2.

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

Sonic can be unlocked by clearing Classic Mode with 10 characters or brawling for over 10 hours.

  

After completing either of these tasks, Sonic will challenge you on Green Hill Zone.

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

As alluded to before, Toon Link can be unlocked as simply as clearing Subspace Emissary and then clearing Classic Mode with any character.

  

Upon completing this task, Toon Link will challenge you on Pirate Ship.

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

Lastly, to unlock Wolf, you'll need to clear another mode, Boss Battles, that we're not going to detail just yet. You'll have to use Fox or Falco. I recommend doing it on Easy since, again, it's the fastest method. It's a mode that isn't unlocked until you clear the Subspace Emissary, though.

  

Upon completing this task, Wolf will challenge you on Lylat Cruise.

Of course, detailing everyone's unlock requirements in the process of unlocking everyone is even more redundant than normal since you have to clear Subspace Emissary anyway in order to unlock Wolf and Toon Link, meaning everyone else except Jigglypuff and potentially Ganondorf will already be unlocked by default before you even have a chance to unlock them. And at that point, you may as well just dip in and unlock these three through Subspace Emissary, too. But, I want to comprehensively cover all the possible unlock requirements for these characters. Not everyone plays the game the same!

Of course, there's always the additional alternative of grinding out quick Vs. Matches to unlock all the remaining characters. By the time you reach 450, you'll have received challenges from every unlockable fighter.

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

Now that we've covered all the hidden characters, it's time to get everyone's final smash trophies! And this is where the bulk of my time went last session, it carried me all through the night trying to binge through all of this, so I had to take a break and finish up the rest of the challenges today.

  

   

    

    

   

   

   

  

Upon Clearing All Star with each character, you'll obtain their Final Smash trophy. We've already shown off all of the Pokemon Final Smashes, but here are the trophies depicting everyone else's final smashes! Smashing, isn't it? As you can tell, not every character has a totally unique Final Smash, but similar ones do have properties modified so that they're functionally slightly different. For example, Falco's Landmaster can hover longer than Fox's and is more fuel-efficient, lasting longer but with a weaker cannon while Wolf's Landmaster has a stronger cannon but is far less fuel efficient and consequently has a much shorter duration. And yes, as strange as it may be, Falco and Wolf do both use Landmasters despite Star Wolf never using Landmasters in any iteration and Falco being an ace pilot. Usually differences are more subtle, though, like Zelda and Sheik's Light Arrows launching targets at different angles.

As much time as it takes to get all of these trophies in one sitting, I do have to say these are by far the coolest trophies in the game. I loved gathering them all up as a kid.

While completing the task to unlock Plusle and Minun's trophy, you're likely to also unlock the Kyle Hyde trophy from a similar challenge to clear All-Star with every character. What's the deal with this, you might ask? Well, I was confused myself at first, but these are technically two separate tasks. As it turns out, clearing All Star in Co-op mode earns you two final smash trophies at the same time, meaning you can technically get the Plusle and Minun Trophy twice as fast! However, clearing All-Star in Co-op mode stores your high score in a separate slot. Clearing All-Star with every character entails playing as each character in Solo mode.

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

Perhaps the biggest hurdle in terms of difficulty among these Pokemon-related challenges is the Mewtwo Trophy's challenge: Clear All-Star on Intense Difficulty. This is, as you can imagine, one of the most challenging tasks in the game. But, thankfully, you are permitted continues, which I used a lot of. All Star is a whole different beast on Intense difficulty as even Solo matchups aren't nearly as free. Make sure you abuse items where you can because your opponent sure as hell will. Also keep in mind that sometimes a weapon is more useful when thrown as a projectile than actually being used as a battering weapon. The Home Run Bat may have the most powerful Smash attack in the game, but the wind up takes so long you're not likely to hit anything with it. The knockback just from throwing the thing will often serve you a lot better. Try to use Explosives whenever they spawn to avoid them (quite literally) blowing up in your face later in the fight and under no circumstances should you ever allow your opponent to get a Poke Ball, Assist Trophy, or Smash Ball lest you never regain stage control again.

Some interesting trivia about this Mewtwo trophy is that it's often speculated that this trophy depicts the model that would've been used for Mewtwo as a playable character. Perhaps this even would've been his classic mode trophy? Mewtwo is one of the "Forbidden seven," characters with remnants in the final game's code implying that they were planned at one point in development but cut at the last minute. Other characters include Roy, Dr. Mario, as well as three newcomers: Toon Zelda, Toon Sheik, who likely would've been a clone of Zelda and Sheik in a similar vein to Toon Link, and Dixie Kong who Sakurai would later reveal was planned to be paired with Diddy Kong in a manner similar to Zelda/Sheik and Pokemon Trainer, where Diddy and Dixie would tag each other in like in Donkey Kong Country 2. Dixie is probably the saddest of these cuts as she to this day has yet to make an appearance in Smash Bros. If these characters weren't cut, they likely would've been given the same treatment as Toon Link, Wolf, and Jigglypuff in the Subspace Emissary as these three characters were also very close to joining this list and making it the Forbidden 10!

You might be wondering why I only listed 6 characters from among the forbidden 7. That's because I personally don't think the 7th file refers to a particular character. The file is of the name "Pra_Mai" and I've been wondering when to bring this up. This might not be the most opportune time, but I suppose I'm already talking about these characters, so I might as well mention this and quash this rumor that's been echoed for a long time.

Some people excitedly speculate that "Pra_Mai" is referring to "Prasle and Mainun," romanizations of the Japanese names for Plusle and Minun. While this is an exciting idea to imagine, a whole new newcomer introduced in Brawl to represent Gen 3 and Double Battles, and Plusle and Minun being characters that really do make sense to be considered for inclusion, I really don't think these characters are what this file is pointing to.

As noted on Smash Wiki, anytime Pokemon are referenced within the internal files of Brawl, they always use official romanizations of the Pokemon's Japanese names. The official romanization of Plusle and Minun are Prasle and Minun, not Prasle and Mainun. In addition, if Plusle and Minun were to be a 2-in-1 character like Ice Climbers, Plusle and Minun would both have their own file, as Nana and Popo do. It's possible these two characters would interact as one entity rather than two, and that's why they'd be combined in this way. Maybe they'd hold hands and one would use Helping Hand to power up the other's moves, but that just seems like a bit of a stretch when you consider it fails to represent the whole gimmick of the two pokemon being two weak pokemon that become strong when paired together. There's no doubt in my mind that these two characters would be implemented in a manner similar to Ice Climbers, where the two become stronger the closer they are together, and when one gets KO'd the other one becomes significantly weaker. I just can't imagine these two being implemented as a single entity, though I can't quite say it's an impossibility.

After all, it's not like there's no evidence to support that Plusle and Minun could've been planned. For one, there's their trophy that's unlocked in a manner related to All-Star, similar to Mewtwo. But I just don't think there's enough evidence there to confidently suggest that Pra_Mai refers to Plusle and Minun together in a single file.

I have to wonder what the game could've been like had Brawl's development gone as smoothly as planned? What would these characters be like? What would be their roles in Subspace Emissary? Would there be even more charactes we've never heard anything about? What about Geno from Mario RPG? Maybe Midna? Dark Samus? Perhaps no characters would've been cut at all and we even would've gotten Young Link and Pichu back? It really captures your imagination, doesn't it?

Anyway, that's it for Pokemon-related challenges. Other than those, we do have challenges related to modes we've already covered which I won't be going out of my way for. I think our next task will be revisiting Event Match and clearing the remaining Pokemon-related events.

===========

Challenges related to collectibles

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

Collecting Stickers

 

At 500 Stickers, you'll unlock the Dr. Eggman Trophy from Sonic Adventure DX. For collecting all stickers, you'll earn the Stickers trophy.

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

Trophies

 

For collecting trophies of all fighters, you'll obtain the Creeping Chrysanthemum trophy from Pikmin 2. For collecting 500 trophies, you'll get the Baby Peach trophy from Yoshi's Island DS.

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

Songs

  

The Walky trophy from Kirby's Dream Land is obtained by collecting 50 or more hidden songs. Ballyhoo and Bigtop's trophy from Mario Party 8 can be unlocked by collecting 75. For collecting all songs, it's K.K. Slider!

===========

Challenges related to Vs. Mode

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

Playing hours of Brawls

  

For playing 30 hours of Brawls, you'll unlock the Timer Trophy along with a Golden Hammer! For 50 hours, you'll get Main Theme (Super Mario 64) which plays on Delfino Plaza. For 100 hours, you'll unlock Ashely Robins's trophy from Trace Memory.

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

Getting KO's

  

For getting 500 KO's in Brawls, you'll get a Party Ball trophy. For 1,000 KO's, you'll unlock the Cracker Launcher trophy. For 2,000 KO's it's the Gulliver trophy from Animal Crossing.

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

Playing as specific characters

   

The Luigi's Mansion stage can be unlocked by playing as Luigi 3 times in Brawls. Big Blue from Melee asks you to play as Captain Falcon 10 times. For playing as Donkey Kong 20 times, you'll get 75M. For playing as Kirby 20 times, you'll get Green Greens (Melee)

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

Playing on specific stages 10 times

        
Playing on Frigate Orpheon 10 times will unlock the song Multiplayer (Metroid Prime 2: Echoes) to play on the stage. Norfair will unlock Ending (Metroid), Green Hill Zone will unlock His World (Sonic the Hedgehog [2006]), Castle Seige will unlock Power-Hungry Fool (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance). On Mushroomy Kingdom, you'll get Underwater Theme (Super Mario Bros.) which only plays on the underground variation. Frozen Hillside (Kirby's Air Ride) will unlock after playing on Halberd 10 times. Dream Chaser (F-Zero X) comes from Port Town: Aero Dive. Snake Eater (Instrumental) (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater) is unlocked from Shadow Moses Island. Playing on Melee stages 10 times will unlock Jungle Japes (Melee).

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

Subspace Emissary Progress

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

  

Ike's Theme (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance) is unlocked when Ike is recruited in The Subspace Emissary (Stage 8: The Battlefield Fortress), The Franklin Badge trophy from Earthbound is unlocked after recruiting Ness in The Subspace Emissary (Stage 29: Subspace). The Ancient Minister trophy will be unlocked after clearing Subspace Emissary along with a Golden Hammer.

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

Unlocking hidden content

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

Hidden characters

   

Simply for unlocking Toon Link, the Pirate Ship stage will be unlocked automatically. Likewise, Game & Watch will unlock Flat Zone 2 and Sonic will unlock Green Hill Zone. For unlocking all hidden characters, you'll unlock Menu 2 (Super Smash Bros. Melee) as a possible theme for the main menu.

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

Hidden stages

For unlocking every Melee stage, you'll unlock Princess Peach's Castle (Super Smash Bros.: Melee) which plays on Rainbow Cruise.

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

Challenges related to general Statistics

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

 

Across all modes, upon swimming a combined total distance of 300kms across all characters, regardless of mode, you'll unlock the Kapp'n Trophy from Animal Crossing: Wild World. After reaching a combined walking distance of 10,000m, you'll unlock Tails' trophy from Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

===========

Challenges related to Classic Mode

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

Clearing Classic Mode.

 

Master Hand's trophy comes from clearing Classic Mode with 20 characters. Paper Mario's trophy from Super Paper Mario can be unlocked by clearing Classic Mode with every character. Of course, Easy Mode is the way to go to make this quick.

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

Clearing Classic Mode on specific difficulties

    

Clearing Classic Mode on Easy difficulty unlocks the Running Chibi Robo Sticker. Icicle Mountain (Super Smash Bros.: Melee) which plays on Summit is unlocked on Normal alongside a Golden Hammer! Credits (Super Smash Bros.) which plays on Final Destination is unlocked on Hard difficulty, Striker Mario's trophy from Super Mario Strikers: Charged on Very Hard, and the Crazy Hand trophy can be unlocked on Intense difficulty.

==========

Challenges related to Target Smash!!

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

Clearing Target Smash on specific difficulties

    

For clearing Target Smash on Easy Difficulty, you'll earn the Apples trophy from Kirby's Dream Land. On Normal Difficulty, you'll earn the Peanut Popgun trophy from Donkey Kong 64. On Hard, you'll get the Wario Bike trophy from WarioWare: Mega Micrograme$. On Very Hard, it's the Rocketbarrel Pack trophy from Donkey Kong 64. On Intense, you'll earn Title (3D Hot Rally) which plays on Mario Circuit.

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

Clearing Target Smash on specific difficulties with 10 of characters.

    

Clearing Target Smash on Easy Difficulty with 10 characters will unlock the Stafy trophy from Densetsu no Stafy, Normal Difficulty will unlock the Pellets Trophy from Pikmin. On Hard, you'll get Ashnard's trophy from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. On Very Hard, you'll get the Musketeer Daltania trophy from Chosoju Mecha MG and on Intense, you'll unlock the Outset Link trophy from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

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

Clearing Target Smash on specific difficulties with all characters.

    

For clearing Target Smash on Easy Difficulty with all characters, you'll unlock the Super Scope Trophy. On Normal Difficulty, you'll unlock the Blast Box trophy. On Hard, you'll get Silver's trophy from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). On Very Hard, you'll get King K. Rool's trophy from Donkey Kong Country. On Intense, you'll find Gray Fox's trophy from Metal Gear Solid.

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

Setting specific record times in Target Smash!!

    

The Palutena's Bow trophy from Kid Icarus, though it's really more of a Smash-original design, can be obtained by clearing Target Smash on easy mode in 15 seconds. For Normal difficulty, you'll unlock the theme of Excite Truck which is played on Mario Circuit. Beat Hard in 20 seconds to unlock the Ray MK III trophy from Custom Robo: Arena. The Cardboard Box from Metal Gear Solid requires Very Hard difficulty in 32 seconds. The Combo Cannon Trophy from Kirby Super Star will be unlocked for clearing Intense Difficulty in 30 seconds.

===========

Challenges related to Event Matches

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

Clearing a specific Event

          

You'll unlock the Halberd Trophy for clearing Event #03: Pink Ball Repulsion. The Palutena trophy is obtained by clearing Event #04: Cleaning House in Skyworld. The Legendary Air Ride Machine (Kirby's Air Ride) which plays on Halberd is unlocked from Event #13: Dragoon Strike. The Red Pikmin trophy from Pikmin is unlocked from clearing Event #15: Sproutrage of the Flower Pikmin. King Dedede's Theme (Kirby's Dream Land) which also plays on Halberd is unlocked from clearing Event #17: The Hammer of the King. Hidden Mountain & Forest (The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past) which plays on Bridge of Eldin is unlocked for clearing Event #18: Dark Link Duel. The Mario Bros. stage is unlocked for clearing the Event #19: Wario Bros. Fire Field (F-Zero) which plays on Port Town is obtained from Event #24: Come on, Blue Falcon! For clearing Event 28: The Flower Blooms in the Echoes, you'll unlock the stage Hanenbow from Electroplankton. The Song of Storms (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) which plays on Pirate Ship is unlocked for clearing Event #37: The Pirate Airship. Event #38: The Wolf hunts the Fox unlocks Star Wolf (Star Fox: Assault) which plays on Lylat Cruise.

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

Clearing a specific event on a specific difficulty

Great Temple/Temple (Zelda II: The Adventure of Link), which plays on Temple (Melee) can be unlocked by clearing Event #33: Advent of the Evil King.

===========

Challenges related to All-Star

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

Clearing All-Star

 

For clearing All-Star with 10 characters, you'll unlock the Gekko trophy from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. And as mentioned previously, Kyle Hyde's trophy from Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is obtained from clearing All-Star with all characters.

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

Clearing All-Star on specific difficulties.

   

For clearing All-Star on Easy difficulty, you'll unlock Tal Tal Heights (The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening) which plays on Pirate Ship. On Normal, you'll earn the Phyllis Sticker from Animal Crossing: Wild World. On Hard, it's Birdo from Super Mario Bros. 2. On Very Hard, you'll earn the Dyna Blade Trophy from Kirby Super Star.

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

Note: Some challenges I'll be excluding until we reach the mode the reward is related to. I'll mention them when they're relevant.

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

Ooh boy, that took a lot longer to detail than I expected.  The important thing to note here is that none of what I've listed in that previous section is important to me. Anything criteria I've met is solely in the process of unlocking Pokemon-related stuff. Anyway, there are a few stages mixed in there that I guess I should go ahead and detail real quick as well.

Big Blue is a Melee stage from the F-Zero series. Similar to the Meta Ridley fight, you mainly fight on the back of the Falcon Flyer as it hovers over a high-speed F-Zero race. You can land on the vehicles underneath as well and various platforms and other vehicles will float in overhead for you to jump on as well. Eventually, the Falcon Flyer will fly off leaving you completely at the mercy of whatever happens to be around. It's certainly a chaotic stage that can be loads of fun but by no means good for competitive play.

Green Greens is another Melee stage, this time from the Kirby series! There are two piles of star blocks that will fall from the sky with a bomb block mixed in. Youc an attack through the star blocks, but the bomb blocks will explode! Of course, Whispy Woods in th emiddle will blow you to the side if you aren't careful and he'll occasionally shake his leaves to drop Apples on the ground. Some of the apples can be eaten to heal you while others are hard enough to be picked up and thrown as weapons!

Jungle Japes is a pretty standard stage from Melee with a main platform and two smaller paltforms on either side. It originates from Donkey Kong 64. Unlike in its Melee iteration, you can swim in this game. Ironically, this actually makes it harder to recover if you fall in the water due to the time it takes you to surface and the rapid current of the river. Clap Traps will also occasionally be carried through by the current and will spike you down if you get hit! Stay away from the water at all costs!

Last but not least is the completely original stage: Hanenbow. What is this? Well, Hanenbow is from a weird game called Electroplankton that was less a "game" so much as a music toy for the DS. It was a collection of miniature modes that each focused on different little creatures called Electroplankton. One of these kinds of electroplankton were Hanenbow which would swim across the water's surface, launch themselves off of the leaf on its surface, and bounce along the leaves from the stems overhead. As they bounced, soft notes would play and the leaves would turn redder and when all the leaves turned red, a flower would appear! There was no objective in any of the modes in Electroplankton, it was just an interactive sandbox more or less that focused on playing around with sound.

This stage is a faithful recreation of the Hanenbow mode in Elecroplankton. As you can probably tell from this shot of the stage, it's a little too faithful. There isn't a main platform at all. All of those leaves are the only ground in the stage and they're all thin platforms. As you attack them, they'll wiggle and turn red. Little Hanenbow will also bounce around the stage and turn the leaves red and, just like in Electroplankton, when all the leaves on a stem turn red, a flower will appear at the top. But it's ultimately meaningless. There's also no music outside of the sound the Hanenbow make, though I will say the sound itself is quite surreal and relaxing.

Oh, and don't try to swim in the water. It's not real water. What a strange place.

==========

Anyway, that's it for this update! I've spent way too long covering this already. Next time we turn our attention back toward Event Matches because there are a few more Pokemon-related event matches there we haven't touched on!

[Aura]

Event Match

Now we return to this mode! As mentioned before, there are a small handful of event matches that involve pokemon characters. The majority of these, we've already done in the interest of unlocking other pokemon-related content in the game. Events 1-20 were completed to meet Jigglypuff's unlock requirements and Event #35: The Aura is With Me was completed in order to unlock Spear Pillar. To recap from Melee, I'm considering any event that involves a character from the Pokemon universe in any way as a "Pokemon-related" event, even if it thematically doesn't actually pull from Pokemon at all.

Even with the scope broadened like that, there's really not any events we've missed so far. I'll be playing through all the ones we haven't covered yet. Every event I'll be playing on Normal as I assume "Normal" is considered the standard difficulty level by name.

=========

Events 1-10

These events are available from the start of the game.

Event #05: Become the Champion!

  

Noted previously, this stage is a standard mirror match between Pokemon Trainers with 3 stocks each. The obvious idea is that it's supposed to mirror a 3v3 Pokemon battle, but you can freely switch between your pokemon even after they get knocked out. To fit with the theme, I try to avoid using a pokemon that previously got knocked out. Keep in mind that Pokemon Trainer's pokemon all have vulnerabiliities, so try and use the pokemon with the type advantage! I've noticed the AI doesn't seem to change pokemon much, if at all, so this should be pretty easy to maintain.

Event #08: Go! Triple Finish!

  

A 1v3 as Pikachu against Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard. You get 2 stocks while each of them gets only one stock. As the opponents are cleared out, winning should be pretty simple. Squirtle should be the easiest to KO due to his weakness to Electric attacks coupled with his light weight.

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

Event #10: All-Star Battle Regulars

       

An endurance round pitting any character of your choice against the 8 standard fighters from Smash 64. You fight two at once. I used Lucario, since being a hidden character from Brawl makes him the antithesis to this selection of characters.

==========

Events 11-20

In order to unlock these events, you simply have to clear all but 2 of the above events. Difficulty doesn't matter, so feel free to do it on easy if you want.

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

Event #14: Sproutrage of the Flower Pikmin

 

This match pits Olimar against Pikachu and Pokemon Trainer who seem to be arbitrarily chosen, maybe just due to their elemental attacks to make use of the Pikmin's immunities? Anyway, you have to pluck Pikmin until you have six and then wait for their flowers to bloom which takes around 40 seconds. All the while dodging Pikachu and Pokemon Trainer's attacks while keeping your Pikmin alive. Your opponents have unlimited stock, so you'll just have to avoid them.

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

Event #20: All-Star Battle x1

       

Another endurance round against eight opponents, this time newcomers from Brawl! They are Wario, Meta Knight, Pit, Zero Suit Samus, Olimar, Lucas, Diddy Kong, and Pokemon Trainer. When I did this event it was in the process of unlocking Jigglypuff, so I played as Pikachu as the closest alternative.

Funnily enough, the name for this event seems to have been lost in translation leaving to a humorous implication that the all star battle is somehow being multiplied, or perhaps a stylistic choice to go for an x rather than a #. But the truth is, Brawl's Japanese name is 大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズＸ or "Great Fray Smash Bros. X" So it's likely a more accurate localization of this would be All-Star Battle Brawl 1. It's just named after the game the characters here originate from.

Worth noting, there actually is an All-Star Battle Melee as Event #34, but due to both of the Pokemon newcomers form Melee being cut here in Brawl, it isn't actually Pokemon-related here.

==========

Events #21-29

In order to unlock the next set of events, you'll once again have to clear all but two of the above events as well as unlock Captain Falcon, Lucario, Luigi, Ness, Marth, and R.O.B. The simplest way to accomplish this is, of course, clearing the Subspace Emissary. Or you can follow their individual unlock requirements noted above. This is where we start to cross into the realm of new event territory.

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

Event #25: The Aura is With Me

 

This is a 1v2 featuring Lucario against Ness and Sheik. The catch, of course, is that Lucario's percentage starts at 182%, maxing out his aura capabilities but also putting him in critical condition and making him easy to KO. Try to keep your distance and fight Ness and Sheik off with the extent of Lucario's reach.

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

Event #27: Three-Beast Carnage

  (Giant)  (Giant)  (Giant)

This match is a bit of a follow-up to the Melee Event #25: Gargatuans which pit Giant Bowser against Giant DK on Fourside, with a tiny Peach and Mario to emphasize how huge they are. Here, you're playing as a normal-sized R.O.B. thrown in the middle of a free-for-all between these three kaiju in New Pork City. In general, it's best to just dodge to the side and let the AI fight it out for a while. If you're lucky, the Ultimate Chimera might even hop in and take them out for you!

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

Event #29: All-Star Semifinal Regulars

   

This is another endurance round, though pitting you against only four opponents, it's really nothing special. The roughest part of this event is that it's set on Yoshi's Island (Melee) of all stages. This is a terrible stage to play on due to the awkward slopes, the run-off edge, and the awkward footing all around. It's also a weird one. What does this stage have to do with Smash 64? Couldn't we have used a stage like Battlefield or something at least derivative of a stage from Smash 64 like Corneria or Green Greens? Anyway, suffer through the terrible stage and clear out your foes to win. I went with Pokemon Trainer following the same logic as before.

Yoshi's Island (Melee) is a stage from melee not to be confused with the various other stages named Yoshi's Island that are actually named after Yoshi's Island games. This Yoshi's Island pulls from the name's routes in Super Mario World making it an awkward stage that further confuses the line between the Super Mario Bros. and Yoshi's Island universes which this one is listed as despite pretty distinctly being from a Mario series game. Anyway, as mentioned above, there are two slopes here. One leads off-screen on the right side and the other is a pipe leading off a cliff to the left. There is very little flat ground on this stage. The yellow blocks will spin if attacked, causing anything or anyone to fall through. Of course, that includes the yellow blocks in the middle. This stage is fanservice for Super Mario World and other than that does nothing good. Can you tell that I'm not a fan of the fact that this stage has somehow returned in every Smash Brothers game since Melee?? This stage's absence is one of the few pros the 3DS version of Smash 4 has over the Wii U version.

==========

Events 30-40

In order to unlock the next batch of events, you'll need to clear all but 9 of the above events. In addition, you'll also have to unlock all characters which means you'll have to have beaten Subspace Emissary as well unless you've grinded out Vs Matches to unlock everyone.

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

Event #35: The Visitor to Flat Zone

  

This stage pits you, Mr. Game & Watch, against three  mysterious visitors: Peach, Toon Link, and Jigglypuff who all have a filter like Dark Link's to make them appear as silhouettes resembling Game & Watch characters which is actually a really clever use of the effect! Anyway, these guys are all hostile! Everyone's got 1 stock so it can be easy to get wiped out if you aren't careful in the beginning.

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

Event #39: All-Star Battle x2

       

This time you're up against 8 more Brawl newcomers. Most of these being hidden characters! King Dedede, Ike, Lucario, R.O.B., Toon Link, Snake, Sonic, and Wolf are all here to party. Since I couldn't use Jigglypuff before, I figured this would be an appropriate time to use her in Pikachu's place. The fight takes place on Skyworld which is another stage I'm not too terribly fond of. I feel like the main platform is a bit too safe with all the ceilings overhead and it takes too much time to break the platforms in order to remove that protection, especially with how quickly the platforms regenerate. Regardless, I was able to clear this fight on my first try with relative ease. Nothing too terribly complicated.

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

And that's it for the Pokemon-related content in Event Match! Though I do want to at least note the final couple of event matches.

Event #40: The Final Battle

This event is a parallel to Event 51: The Showdown in Melee except the difficulty is downplayed. You're pit against Ganondorf, Bowser, and King Dedede on Final Destination, with King Dedede taking the place of Mewtwo and Bowser taking the place of Giga Bowser, though if he gets a Smash Ball you could certainly relive that experience for a brief while. All fighters here have two stocks.

Event #41: The FINAL Final Battle

Upon clearing all events 1-40, you'll unlock the true final event: Event #41. This event also parallels The Showdown from Melee, this time featuring heroes rather than villains! You'll be facing off on Final Destination against Mario, Sonic, and Snake, with Mario being Giant as a further parallel to Giga Bowser in Melee. Again, everyone's got 2 stocks. Be careful not to get combo'd and take them all out fast!

==========

Co-op Events!

Before I dip out for the day, I also want to address Co-Op events! Remember how I mentioned that nearly every mode in Brawl is designed to accommodate for two player co-operative play? Well, that includes Event Match as well! There is a selection of 21 Co-Op event matches that are mostly distinct from the main line. These can be a bit harder to play as I don't have anyone to play them with at the moment, but maybe I'll find around that. In order to unlock events #09-13 you'll have to unlock Captain Falcon, Lucario, Luigi, Ness, Marth, and R.O.B. while unlocking events 14-20 requires clearing 10 of the previous events plus unlocking the rest of the characters. And of course, Co-op Event #21 requires you to clear all Co-op events #01-21.

Among these events, of course, there are more Pokemon events that I unfortunately won't be playing because I have no friends.

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

Co-Op Event #02: Master the Pokemon Tag Battle

 

 

This mission parallels Event #05: Become the Champion! In it, Player 1 will play as Pokemon Trainer with three stocks while Player 2 will play as Pikachu with one stock. It's another mirror match on Pokemon Stadium 2.

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

Co-Op Event #14: The Dark Guardians

 (Tiny)  (Tiny)

 (Giant)  (Giant)

This one's a parallel to Event #27: Three-Beast Carnage. You'll be playing as a Tiny Ganondorf and Wolf against a Giant Donkey Kong and Charizard. Everyone has 1 stock.

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

Co-Op Event #16: JIgglypuff's Great Comeback

 

 

This is an interesting event! You play as Jigglypuff and Mr. Game & Watch against Ness and Lucas on Castle Seige. At the start of the match, you're at a distadvantage as Jigglypuff and Game & Watch start out tiny while Ness and Lucas start out giant. However, as the stage transforms, you'll grow while your opponents shrink until, at the end, you end up with the advantage. While you're small, try to take advantage of Ness and Lucas' larger size to combo them more easily and avoid giving them a chance to hit you at all. You might even be able to carry them right off the stage for an early KO! Otherwise, just focus on staying alive. Everyone only gets 1 stock.

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

Event #21: The True All-Star Battle

       

   

       

      

       

As you probably could've guessed by the title, this is an endurance challenge against all of the playable characters in the game. It's all of the all-star battles put back to back and taking place on Battlefield. To make things fair, each of these opponents have an increased launch rate, but it's still not quite free. Be careful not to take too much damage as you fight your way through this flurry of enemies! Note: Pokemon Trainer, Samus, and Zelda each only have one stock even though their individual forms are commonly treated as different characters. You'll fight one form chosen at random. Of course, you can choose any character you want for this one. I think for thematics, I'd ideally choose Pikachu and Lucario, the first and latest pokemon characters added to the roster.

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

And that's that! All in all, I think I have to say Brawl's Event Match mode is a little bit disappointing. A lot more of the matches here are more straight-forward stock matches and there aren't very many particularly unique events compared to Melee's. I mean, Melee's event matches had matches that used special AI types for the enemies and even entire stages that were exclusive to the Trophy Tussle events! It's clear to me that a lot more imagination was put into Melee's events than Brawls. Brawl does have some unique events, but it's nowhere near as fleshed out. I did notice, however, that there seemed to be more unique events among the Co-op events. Maybe I'll find a way to revisit these one day...

Anyway, that's it for Event Match! Next time, I'll be exploring Multi-Man Brawl. See you there!

[Aura]

Multi-Man Brawl

It's time to start looking into Stadium Mode! At least, beyond just Target Smash!! Even though Multi-Man Brawl isn't the next option in the list, I think it's the next big source of gameplay. However, this mode is more or less unchanged from Multi-Man Melee. It has some notable differences, but it's pretty much the same idea. You select a challenge to take on and are thrown into a fight on Battlefield against an army of weak enemies. 10-Man and 100-Man Brawl task you with defeating the specific number of enemies, while 3-Minute and 15-Minute Brawl task you with surviving the specific amount of time against the onslaught of enemies. Endless Brawl tasks you to see how many enemies you can kill before you get overwhelmed and Cruel Brawl is just like Endless but, as its name implies, the enemies are absurdly difficult.

You may have thought this mode was missing in this game after playing Classic Mode and noticing there wasn't a stage dedicated to a team of 30 enemies like these. It's an odd omission, but no, this mode is here and it's fully functional. But as mentioned, it is slightly different from what you're used to.

In Smash 64, you fought the Fighting Polygon team. In Melee, you fought the Fighting Wire Frames.

Here in Brawl, you have the Fighting Alloy Team! These guys are like the Wire Frames but there's a bit more variance to them.

The Red Alloy is similar to the Male Wire Frame from Melee, it's fighting style is modeled after Captain Falcon.

The Blue Alloy is similar to the Female Wire Frame from Melee and its fighting style is modeled after Zelda.

In addition, there are two more!

The Yellow Alloy fights a lot like Mario.

And the Green Alloy fights like Kirby, complete with the extra jumps! I strongly recommend prioritizing these guys because they have a deceptively long reach compared to the others and I find them hitting me from a lot further away than I expect.

Just like the Fighting Polygons and Wire Frames, these guys aren't nearly on par with typical fighters. They don't have any special moves and can only perform standard attacks. In addition, they can't pick up any items. But, don't think you're in the clear to just leave items lying around just because you're not interested in using them yourself... Because every 10 enemies, or at specific time intervals in the endurance rounds, you'll be faced with an actual fighter as an opponent! Complete with all of their special moves and capability of using items!

Of course, as always, in Multi-Man Brawl, all enemies are extremely easy to launch. Even basic tilt and air attacks are often enough to KO them. Even the rival fighters that spawn in are just as vulnerable to being launched. The real difficulty of course is staying alive when the numbers start becoming overwhelming! You aren't just dealing with two or three opponents at once like normal. Up to five enemies can appear at a time! But the real threat in Multi-Man Melee was always the items that could potentially spawn in really bad locations to ruin your day, like explosives spawning right in the way of your attacks! These enemies might seem easy, but you'll quickly find that by the end of the tougher challenges your percentage will rapidly climb to the 100's before you even notice. Avoiding damage is a lot easier said than done when dealing with so many enemies, and those bob-ombs, gooey bombs, motion-sensor bombs, Smart Bombs, Explosive Barrels, you name it are all sources of extreme anguish during Multi-Man Brawl! The worst part is sometimes you'll end up getting hit because you accidentally picked up an item you didn't even notice.

Needless to say, my goals in this mode are pretty straight-forward. I'll be playing through the challenges with obvious end goals, but I'll merely play the endless modes a little bit.

 x 9 

Starting with 10-Man Brawl! I decided to use Jigglypuff here since this is clearly the easiest challenge and I figured Jigglypuff would probably be the hardest to use in this mode. I also figured I wanted to use the Brawl newcomers for the more challenging stages. Anyway, I was able to tear through the 10 enemies easily enough. Of course, the final opponent was a mirror match. I don't know if this is always how this works or if it was a crazy coincidence, but that's what happened!

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

 x 90 + 10 Rival Fighters

Up next was Pokemon Trainer with 100-Man Brawl which was significantly more difficult, namely because of the stamina mechanic with Pokemon Trainer. His Pokemon get tired over time, so you have to pay attention for when your attacks start to get weaker. For this reason, I recommend starting with Squirtle and switching into Ivysaur and Charizard after the previous pokemon gets tired. This way, you play as the lightest character at your lowest percentages and the heaviest character at your highest percentages. Of course, every 10 alloys, a rival fighter will appear. Kill them quickly because you don't want them getting their hands on your valuable items! And you certainly don't want those items used against you, either! Once I had the strategy down, it took a few tries, but I eventually made it through to the end. Unfortunately, I didn't take note of which characters spawned in on my successful runs, so I can't tell you exactly what characters I saw were. Same can be said for all further challenges in this post.

  

Clearing 100-Man Brawl in under 4 minutes will unlock the song Multi-Man Melee 1 (Melee) which plays on Battlefield. Clear it within 3 minutes and 30 seconds to unlock the Ryuta Ippongi sticker from Ouendan 2. And if you can clear it with all characters, you'll unlock a Blue Alloy trophy. This is one challenge I'm pretty sure we used a golden hammer on way back when. This challenge just sounds like a nightmare and is surprisingly hammer-compatible!

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

   (3 Minutes)

Up next was Pikachu with 3-Minute Brawl. Whereas 10- and 100-Man Brawl task you with clearing out a set number of enemies and score you based on time, these next challenges are the opposite. They task you with surviving a set amount of time against swarms of Alloys and score you based on how many enemies you defeat! 3-Minute Brawl isn't nearly as challenging. Feel free to go full aggro and kill the enemies as they spawn in.

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

   (15 Minutes)

Finally, there was Lucario with 15-Minute Brawl and let me tell you, 15-Minute Brawl took a biiiit longer than 15 minutes to clear. I probably ran through a similar rant in Melee, but long story short, this mode can go straight to hell. It might not seem like it's asking much to just see how many alloys you can KO in 15 minutes until you realize that 100-Man Brawl is already pretty challenging and is typically cleared in between 3 and 4 mintues. With that in mind, this is essentially something like 450-Man Brawl if you're going full aggro. Obviously, that approach isn't going to work out quite as well.

The only way I've been able to find to reach beyond the 9-minute mark is to stall out as much as I can. In general, I find that camping under the left or right platform is a really safe place to be as the Alloys have to approach you from the middle of the stage or above. With their approach options limited, it's easy to protect your position. Especially if you can fortify it with items like the Bumper or Unira. But sometimes you have to compromise your position. If an explosive spawns in, you want to get rid of it or risk it becoming a problem later on, especially if it's a bob-omb. You definitely can't stay cowering under the platform forever, especially after a rival fighter spawns in because they can snatch up any items that have piled up and cause all sorts of chaos.

So, rather than just camping out as long as I can under the platforms, I'll mix it up with the occasional aggro approach. One thing I've noticed is that there seems to be a "calm before the storm" period before the game spawns a rival fighter. During this period, only two alloys will spawn at a time. Right before the rival spawns, only one alloy will spawn at a time. So, you want to fight off the alloys until only two are out and no more are spawning. At this point, you want to switch into a more evasive approach and hold out for as long as you can. Pick up the most useful items you can find as you dodge around the two alloys and try to avoid fighting them unless it's necessary. I do, however, recommend disposing of items you don't plan to use rather than leaving them to disappear on their own. But Assist Trophies I simply recommend picking up regardless. It might kill the two alloys and spawn in a larger number, but it's better to risk that than a rival fighter spawning right on top of that assist trophy and you having to deal with one of those things, too!

In short, the winning strategy is to evade and stall for as long as you can if there are 2 or fewer Alloys, but go full-aggro if there are 3 or more Alloys in play. In addiiton, I recommend again singling out Green Alloys over the others. Maybe your mileage may vary, but I personally found myself dying to Green Alloys more than any other alloys. But regardless of that, explosives were by far the number one killer. Make sure you maintain stage control.

Eventually, after several hours of trying, I eventually made it through to the very end!

If you can survive a 15-minute Brawl, you'll unlock the Green Alloy trophy!

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

   (Endless)

In Endless Brawl, you're given the simple task of KO-ing as many Alloys as you can before you're KO'd yourself. There's no specific end goal so I didn't pull my hair out over this one, I think I got around 67 kills with Lucario before dying in a very stupid way.

 

If you can KO 50 enemies in Endless Brawl, you'll unlock the song Mach Rider (Melee) which plays on Port Town: Aero Dive. And if you can KO 100 enemies, you'll receive the Yellow Alloy trophy!

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

   (Cruel)

And finally, there's Cruel Brawl which is just as impossibly difficult as Cruel Melee. The script is flipped and now you're the one that gets launched easily. Meanwhile these guys still spawn up to five at a time and quickly gang up on you. Surviving for more than even a minute is nearly impossible.

 

If you can defeat 5 enemies in Cruel Brawl, you'll unlock the Red Alloy trophy. If you can defeat 10, you'll unlock the Liquid Snake trophy from Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. And if you can complete all of these challenges without using a Golden Hammer, you're insane because I cannot fathom getting more than single KO here. That said, there is an exploit with King Dedede that makes it a little bit easier you might be interested in if you want to do this one legit.

===========

And that's it! Next time, it's off to explore some other modes! I'm not sure if I'll be focusing on any particular mode or just rapid-firing through some more miscellaneous stuff, we'll just have to see. Brawl has quite a lot of content to cover before we get to our finale mode!

[Aura]

So today's going to be a bit of a grab bag of various other smaller modes scattered throughout the game that I don't think are quite substantial enough to warrant a whole post individually. Unless I discover there's something I'm missing, this will be the last post before the finale of Brawl and we move on to our next title.

Home-Run Contest

Back from Melee, the basic premise of this mode is unchanged from Melee. You start on a platform with a Home-Run Bat and a sandbag. Your objective is of course to beat up the sand bag and get its percentage as high as possible in 10 seconds. At the very end, you smash it with the Home-Run Bat to send it flying as far as you can!

However, there is one major quality of life improvement in this iteration that makes this mode far more playable than its counterpart in Melee.

There's a barrier around the edge of the platform! When the sandbag is about to fly off the platform on accident, the barrier will usually knock it back onto the platform. While you can certainly exploit this to build stronger combos against the wall, you don't want to use it too much. Bouncing the sandbag off the barrier too frequently will cause the barrier to shatter like glass. The barrier will also shatter if you launch the sandbag through it with considerable force as well, so don't get too reckless with your choice of attacks, you want that last hit to be a strong one with either the Home Run Bat or something like Ganondorf's reverse Warlock Punch. But if the sandbag is in a really nice spot and you feel the need to hit it early with the home-run bat, you can smash right through the barrier.

Of course, at the last second, the barrier will automatically go away, giving you the opportune moment to launch the sandbag as far as you can.

For most characters, a solid strategy is to simply pick up the home run bat and throw it at the sandbag a lot, try to get it to land on the right edge of the platform, and start charging a smash attack with the bat right at the tail-end of the timer (The game lets you finish your fully-charged smash with the bat even if time is up). Using this strategy, most of the characters on this save file have around a 17,000m record. I'm sure if you properly utilize each fighter's unique strengths, you can probably get much higher scores. But I've never been particularly good at stringing together and improvising consistent combos so anything uniform across the roster is helpful to me!

You can usually tell when you get a solid hit in because as the sandbag flies through the air, the sky will fade to sunset and nighttime before it lands. If you can launch it really far, they day/night cycle will continue as the bag continues to soar.

Home-Run contest can also be played in co-op mode! But just like other modes, your co-op record is tracked in a separate slot from your solo records with tracks individual records for each character.

Co-op offers some incredibly absurd combo potential. Take a look at this one featuring two Ganondorfs. Yes, it's nearly two minutes of the sandbag soaring through the air completely offscreen.

There is also a competitive Home-Run Contest mode where two players will take turns launching the sandbag to see who can hit it the farthest!

=========

Of course, there are Home-Run Contest-related challenges, too! Some require overall records while others require total records across all characters.

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

Challenges Requiring specific records

  

The Boo Sticker from Mario Tennis can be obtained by hitting 300m. 400m unlocks Clu Clu Land, which plays on Summit. For 500m, you'll get the Home-Run Bat trophy.

-----------

Challenges requiring total records across all characters

     

While not requiring a specific record, you'll unlock the Sandbag trophy after playing Home-Run Contest with every character! You'll likely unlock this one while in the process of unlocking the others in this section, so I grouped it here. The Bumper Trophy requires a combined total of 5,000m across all fighters. The Xananab trophy from Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber requires 8,000m. For reaching 10,000m, you'll get Shy Guy's trophy from Super Mario Bros. 2! For 12,500m total, you'll earn Ai no Uta (French version) which plays on Distant Planet. This song is interesting because it's not actually from a game, but it was used prominently to promote the original Pikmin and became a top-selling hit single in Japan. It's a really pretty song, and though I'm not sure what the significance of specifically this french version is, it's really pretty, too! Anyway, your ultimate reward for Home Run Contest is the Golden Hammer trophy which requires a combined record of 15,000m. Considering there's 35 characters, that really just means you need an average of 439m across the entire roster. It actually isn't that bad at all considering you can pretty easily get that by just a few hits. I guess I just really cared about my high score as a kid.

==========

Training Mode

Yes, yes, this mode returns here in Brawl as well. It's the closest thing to a debug mode you can access without hacking and it functions more or less the same as Training always has. Outside of the training menu, this mode plays like a standard brawl, but there's no stocks or time limit. Players will respawn infinitely. There's also no items that spawn in naturally. The key here is the pause menu which will now bring up the training menu!

You can set the speed to run faster at 1.5x speed, or slower at 2/3, 1/2, or 1/4 speed. These can be great for learning frame data and the like and practice recognizing visual cues to assist with timing.

You can spawn in any of the items available, though sadly my childhood favorite activity of spawning in a whole bunch of pokeballs is capped dramatically here, as this game only allows you to spawn three pokeballs at a time. This is useful for practicing combos with items, or just playing around for the heck of it.

You can set the number of CPU opponents to 1, 2, or 3, you can set the AI behavior to remain idle, walk back and forth along the platform they're on, jump in place, run away, to attack with standard AI behavior, or to be controlled by a second player. You can use these various behaviors to help practice dealing with various tactics. Note that regardless of AI behavior, outside of "control," the AI will always try to recover and even use their recovery attacks in order to get back onto the stage if they fall.

You can also set the CPU's damage from 0% - 999% to practice combos at various percentages. The AI's percentage will reset to this number every time the menu is brought up with the pause button. They'll also spawn in with this percentage if they're KO'd.

You have the camera option which will allow you to set the camera to behave like normal or zoom in on the player.

Turning Help on will display information on the side of the screen detailing the current settings, the amount of damage the previous landed attack dealt, as well as counters for how many consecutive hits and how much damage your current combo has dealt. The consecutive hits info is saved as a statistic, with your record being listed. And, you guessed it, I'm bringing this up because there are challenges related to it!

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

Challenges related to Training Mode

 

The Banana Peel Trophy is obtained by reaching 10 consecutive hits. The Ouendan trophy from Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! is unlocked by reaching a combined total of 400 consecutive hits across all characters.

Getting these consecutive hits can be a bit tricky as the game is really strict about what does and doesn't count as "consecutive hits." It seems that if the opponent has room for directional influence at all, even for just a single frame between attacks, the hits aren't counted as consecutive. It's incredibly brutal to get high numbers. But thankfully, Brawl allows a cheese strat that makes getting these trophies really easy. It's as simple as using the Smart Bomb item! Spawn in a Smart Bomb, stand next to the AI, throw the bomb so that you both get trapped in the explosion, then bring up the training menu and keep spawning Smart Bombs. The bombs will spawn inside of the explosion and instantly blow up, perpetuating the combo infinitely, allowing you to easily reach 999 consecutive hits with any character. This cheese strat is fixed in future games, but for now this is by far the easiest approach.

===========

Alternative Brawls

There is one type of Brawl that I haven't touched on yet. While you have your timed matches in which all players compete to see who can win the most KO's or your stock matches where you compete to see who can remain the last man standing, there is one further ruleset returning from Melee. I'm, of course, referring to Coin Brawl.

Coin Brawl

This mode is simple enough, as you damage other players, coins will fall out of them! Collect the most coins and you'll be the winner! In Brawl, there are some bills mixed in with the coins, too! Copper coins are worth 1, silver are worth 3, gold are worth 6, and bills are worth 10! If you get KO'd, you'll lose half your coins (but no more than 100) and a bunch of coins will shoot out onto the stage for other players to grab. This can be a fun, wacky mode but I don't know if I've ever met anyone who plays this mode more than once or twice. Maybe the mode has a cult following, though, because it continues to stick around for a little while longer!

There are a few challenges related to Coin Brawl.

For playing 10 Coin Matches, you'll unlock the Smash Coins trophy!

 

Collecting 1,000 coins in Coin Matches will unlock the Tom Nook trophy while 5,000 coins will unlock the song 0² Battle from Kirby 64 which plays on Halberd.

This takes quite a few Coin Battles, doesn't it? Well, I think a certain mode down the line in this post will help out with that a little bit. If you're not the biggest fan of Coin Brawl, I've got something for you!

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

Special Brawl

Remember how Melee had Special Melee? You know, things like Stamina Melee, Super Sudden Death, Lightning Melee, etc.? Well, how about Stamina Mega Flower Curry Heavy Slow ANGLED Brawl? What, that doesn't exist? Are you sure?

Yes, if you're bored of standard Brawls all the time, you can spice things up with various mixtures of wonky rules to have some really weird battles! Rather than each of these options being limited to just one option at a time, you can mix and match them to your heart's delight! The rules are split into categories with at three options. You can turn modifiers to that category off to keep things normal in that realm, or you can select one of the other two options.

For Stamina, you can choose 300% to mimic Super Sudden Death in which characters will fly around from the lightest touch, or Stamina which is quite the opposite where players won't get launched any further regardless of how much damage they take, but that's because the focus is more on reducing their HP to zero like a more traditional fighting game. Beyond this, you can actually set the exact percentages and Starting stamina of each player separately like a handicap. But this can be exploited...

For Size, you can set fighters to be giant or tiny.

For Head, you can set it so players have either a flower on their head, causing everyone to constantly take damage over time, or bunny hoods causing everyone to jump all over the place!

For Body, you can set players to be Metal or Invisible. Note that the Cloaking Device item isn't in Brawl, so this is the only way to get this effect here!

For Status, you can set it so that everyone is permanently breathing fire like they just hate a bowl of Superspicy Curry or a permanent Franklin Badge where projectiles are useless!

Gravity can be set to light or heavy, adjusting how high all players can jump and how fast they fall.

Speed can be set to slow or fast, affecting how fast things play out.

And the Camera can be set to Fixed, where it stays in place at the center of the stage regardless of where the action is, or angled where the camera views the stage from a rather wonky angle. Depending on the camera position, some details of the fight might be obscured.

If you're looking to grind out KO's, this mode can be incredibly helpful! Just grab a second controller, leave that player inactive, play on Fast Stamina Brawl, select a small stage, and rush in to get a fast kill! Repeat over and over from there.

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

Tourney

Yes, Tournament mode from Melee makes its return, although as far as I can tell, it's not accessible with a single player, so I wasn't able to participate in one this time around. According to the Smash Dojo, you can play it alone against AI opponents, but when I tried, it told me I'd need a second controller. Maybe there's something I've overlooked, but I find this mode to be strangely confusing compared to the Tournament mode in Melee. Anyway, Tournament mode is more or less the same, but the Winner Out and Loser Out options are now separated into a different mode.

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

Rotation

Rotation mode allows for more than four players to actively participate in a session! You simply set up how many players are present and how many players you want per match, and let the game sort out the rest. And if someone isn't available at the moment, you can set them as away and they'll skip their turn! It's just a convenience feature. It's nothing you can't do in the standard Brawl mode yourself, but arranging things so that you don't have to go through the hassle of manually setting your name every time your turn comes up is nice!

===========

Wi-Fi

The biggest addition to Brawl that I think had the most people hyped up was Wi-Fi compatibility! This was the first Smash Bros. game to have online play and it... okay, it was kinda trash. But the ability to play with players all around the world was unheard of for this series and it was really exciting to be able to play with your friends over the internet for the first time! Am I dating myself if I bring up Skype voice calls? How about Userplane? What a weird era for the internet the 00's were.

Anyway, when you connect to Wi-Fi, there are two options: With Friends or With Anyone.

Under With Anyone, you have three simple options: Spectator, Basic Brawl, and Team Battle. The last two are pretty self-explanatory.

But Spectate allows you to watch other players' battles and even bet on who you think will win! You can earn a lot of coins this way!

By registering your friends' codes, you could play online with friends!

You can even assign messages to your taunts when playing with friends, a great way to slip your own personality and in-jokes in there! Since these are your friends, there's no need to worry about bullying or anything like that, after all.

While waiting for a match to begin, you're given a waiting room where you can practice some combos on a sandbag!

But not everything is limited to just Brawling each other.

Both Home Run Contest and Multi-Man Brawl can be played online with friends as well! Oh yeah, I think I actually failed to mention this in the Multi-Man Brawl section, but that mode has co-op functionality too in which two players fight up to four enemies at a time.

Unfortunately, Wi-Fi is pretty defunct now. There are third party ways around it, but no official way to play any of these online games any longer. It's a sad story I'll be echoing a lot in this era.

==========

The next section to cover is the vault where we can view our collection of trophies, stickers, as well as any replays, screenshots we've saved among other things.

Trophy Gallery

You can view all of the trophies you've collected in detail here.

Just like in Melee, each trophy come swith a blurb detailing some lore or other information about what the trophy depicts as well as a game or two they've appeared in, usually listing the trophy's origin but sometimes there are errors. The console the game was released for is usually displayed next to the title, but you won't be seeing things like the PlayStation or Sega Genesis logo here. Sorry, Snake and Sonic!

Trophy Hoard

This is where you can view your collection of trophies! They appear to be lined up on some sort of fortress? A weird place to keep your Nintendo merch, but I guess some people really like their amiibo collection. If you hold up, down, left, or right while the hoard loads, you can get it to appear in different formations.

Try as I might, I couldn't actually find any screenshots of the formations you can get the trophies to load, so I took some photos of my own! As far as I can tell, I'm the only person to have posted images of these, even on YouTube! I guess it's just not "secret" enough for people to want to document online?

Holding up will have these trophies posted in a "pyramid" formation.

Holding Down will arrange them in an "Inverted Pyramid" formation.

Holding left arranges them in "Straight Rows"

Holding right arranges them in "Staggered rows"

And holding your controller's default shield button arranges the trophies in a "Spiral" formation.

If you press A here, you can enter Diorama mode.

In Diorama mode, you can place up to four trophies and arrange them to take photos! You can select from four different backdrops as well. It's a little bit limiting, but they say limitation breeds creativity!

Here's an example shared on the Smash Dojo!

Of course, I went ahead and made one pulling from the Pokemon franchise. Maybe you can use this mode to pretend certain characters are playable... Oh well, at least we have Homebrew! I mean... future titles...

Sticker Album

Trophies aren't the only collectibles in Brawl! Of course there's a section where you can look at all of your stickers, too! Where trophies are exciting to collect to see detailed statues of your favorite characters and items from various titles, stickers are exciting to collect because, despite just being flat pngs of official art, they all actually have a gameplay application in the Subspace Emissary! Granted, once you've done everything there is to do in the Subspace Emissary, there's not much more to use these stickers for, but it was still fun to assemble them for the best builds I could manage!

Sticker Center

This is essentially the Sticker counterpart to the Trophy Hoard's diorama mode. Arrange your stickers together in whatever silly way you can imagine!

There's no gameplay application to this one, it's just for cute collages and the like.

The devs seem quite fond of decorating these little sheets of paper. You can select from several backdrops including a screenshot of the stage Battlefield! Once again, you can kind of pretend that your favorite characters are playable by placing them there!

I tried to place every Pokemon sticker in the game on a single sheet and... wow, there were a lot more than I thought. Here's a beautiful collage of as many as I could fit! I crammed them all in there but some are definitely upstaged. But as you can see, stickers are capable of overlapping here! But when I tried to take a screenshot of this one, the game crashed... I'm not sure if it's because I used too many stickers or if there was a problem with my system, but you may want to play it safe and, er, don't put cram this many stickers into one image.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I used every Pokemon sticker in the game and they're all at least very partially visible here. Can you find them all? Are there any I'm missing? Maybe I'll give out ecchicredits to anyone who can point them all out and/or correctly name any I'm missing. Some of them are really sneaky!

Stage Builder

Brawl is the first game to support Custom Stages! Using the stage builder, you can create stages by piecing together various smaller parts into one large stage, and then save the stage for play in Brawls! As you can probably imagine, this mode is immensely helpful in clearing out certain challenges and can help you save a lot of time grinding for them, too.

When selecting a stage, you can select one of the three sizes: Small, Medium, or Large; Three backgrounds themed after locations in the Subspace Emissary: The first one is the loosest connection as it doesn't seem to resemble anything in particular, but the mountains do resemble the ones seen Outside the Ruins or in the background of The Plain. The other two, though, prominently resemble background elements in The Ruins and The Research Facility. Lastly, you can select any Music track you have unlocked. They're sorted by series. Remember that every song from Melee is listed under the Smash Bros. franchise rather than the respective franchise the song is pulled from.

Once you have your settings selected, start building!

As you build, you can test out your stage as well. Though the only character you can use while testing it here is Mario, so it may take some further testing outside of the stage builder to make sure it works well for characters that are bigger or less mobile like Bowser and Ganondorf, keep them in mind!

The different backrops actually provide different options for Structures and patterns for floor pieces as well. Get as creative as you can with them!

In general, this mode is going to be full of all kinds of janky, awkward stages to fight on. So they're really only here for chaotic fun. But that doesn't mean a skilled hand can't create a well-designed stage! Sometimes less is more with features like this.

Let's break down the parts in your basic kit, shall we? Many objects have three variations based on the selected theme. These are listed in the order of Mountain, Ruin, and Chamber from left to right. All parts can also be flipped horizontally and can be scaled up in size. Block-shaped objects generally grow from 1x1 to 2x2 to 3x3, but some objects such as spikes get wider, scaling from a 1x2 to 2x2 to 3x2 area. A lot of objects also look very ugly when stretched out like that, so watch for that if it matters to you!

==========

Backdrops

----------

Mountain

Ruins

Chamber

========

Floors

----------

  

Platforms

These are thin platforms which can be dropped through by pressing down. When increased in size, these platforms stretch wider horizontally.

----------

  

Diagonal Platforms

These are slanted platforms that the player can drop through. They can be used to elevate a player without making them jump. When increased in size, these platforms stretch wider, causing them to incline/decline more gradually. You can take advantage of this to create the illusion of a slope!

----------

  

Short Platforms

These platforms are a little bit more unwieldy. Rather than being at the top of the tile, they're in the center, and they leave tiny gaps between them. They can be used if you want to make small platforms that are more difficult to jump across. They can be stretched wider by scaling their size up, but they'll always have those gaps at the edges. If you want smooth thin bridges, use regular platforms!

----------

  

Blocks

Blocks are your standard building material for custom stages. They provide fully solid cube-shaped terrain that can't be dropped through. They can serve as grounds, walls, ceilings, anything you want them to be! If you scale them up, they'll remain proportional, but pairing large blocks with small blocks looks really ugly because their textures won't line up. Try to keep things uniform!

----------

  

Stair Blocks

These are essentially the block equivalent of diagonal platforms. When their size is increased, they're stretched horizontally providing for more gradual inclines.

-----------

  

Ramp Blocks

Ramp Blocks are functionally identical to Stair Blocks, but they provide smoother edges and, when scaled up, they scale more proportionally rather than stretching horizontally. They might fit better on top of larger blocks.

-----------

  

Long Ramp Blocks

If you want Ramp Blocks that stretch like Stair Blocks, they've got you covered with that, too! These blocks start out stretched across two tiles and can stretch even further to reach across up to four tiles!

=========

Structures

Structures completely change between backgrounds. I'll try to group similarly-shaped structures together but not everything is 1:1. These objects are more or less functionally identical to blocks but their collision might contain a bit more variance with inclines in parts or parts that you can walk through. They generally take up additional space to prevent clipping or odd interactions with large characters. Their main purpose is to provide some additional scenery to your stages and bring a bit more life to them.

The Mountain's structures are generally more nature themed, the ruins have mysterious ancient structures and the chamber has strange machinery.

-----------

  

Stone Table, Rubble Heap, Machine

  

Stump, Ramp Pillar, Round Platform

The Ramp Pillar is placed with these two mainly because the Ruins background doesn't really have any structures that are comparable in size to these two. Like I said, these aren't going to be quite 1:1.

Hollow Tree

The Hollow Tree provides a solid platform at the top that serves as a ceiling if the structure is placed on ground. 

  

Dead Tree, Machine Crate

This structure is a vertical wall with two platforms on either end. As thin as the branches might seem, you can't actually drop through them, making this a pretty awkward set piece to fight around. I'm gonna be real, I'm pairing the Machine Crate with this one here because, honest to god, I don't know what else I'd put here. It's got two weird prongs on either end similar to the Dead Tree's branches.

Mushrooms

The Mushroom here is a cute little structure that provides three thin platforms that can be stood on.

Pillar

 

Ancient Ramp, Watch Platform

The Watch Platform has a slope at the edge allowing you to walk up to a flat platform at the top from flat ground below. The Ancient Ramp doesn't provide as smooth of a transition.

 

Broken Lift, Tunnel

These structures provide a ceiling and a floor beneath. They generally look better when placed on solid ground, but they do serve their purpose like this.

===========

Features

These are more mechanical parts of the stage. Parts that move or interact with the player in ways beyond just being static collision objects! Unlike the other categories of parts, these always look the same regardless of theme.

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

Vertical Moving Platforms

These are thin, moving platforms that can be used to help players reach higher ground! As they increase in size, they become wider and carry players higher, too.

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

Horizontal Moving Platforms

These platforms slide from side to side and can help carry players across gaps. When increased in size, they become wider and reach further horizontally.

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

Ice Blocks

These blocks are slippery and make it easy for players to trip! When scaled up, they stretch out horizontally unlike most other blocks.

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

Drop Blocks

These blocks will drop down if you stand on them long enough, like the ones from the Subspace Emissary! You have to have empty space underneath them. They'll become larger as you scale them up like regular blocks. But that also means you'll need more empty space beneath them, too.

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

Spikes

These serve as ceilings from below and damage anyone who lands on them from above! Sometimes it takes a dangerous hazard to pressure people away from a certain area! Or perhaps you want to orchestrate a trap to make wracking up damage easy on your stage. Spikes require at least one tile of open air above them. When scaled up, they stretch wider horizontally but don't get any stronger.

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

Ladders

Ladders can't be scaled up or down. Instead, you can place attach them vertically to make them as tall or short as you like! These restrict fighters' mobility but help them zoom up high or down low really quickly.

===========

Ah, but those are not all the parts in the game. You might have noticed some gaps missing. That's right, there are unlockables related to Stage Builder, and all of their unlock requirements involve building and playing on custom stages! Each set of Edit Parts consists of a new structure for each background and a new feature.

===========

    

Edit Parts A

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

To unlock these parts, you'll have to play 10 or more times on Custom Stages in Brawls.

Stones

While it doesn't have a slope on it, I think I would pair this one with the Ancient Ramp and Watch Platform because, paired with them, it is vaguely similarly shaped.

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

Stacked Pillars

I would probably group this one with the Dead Tree. They're both solid objects that wall players off and are a bit awkward to work around, though they aren't particularly similarly shaped.

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

I-Frame

Another strangely-shaped object. This one I think I'd have to pair with the Mushrooms. The top of the platform is drop-through like the mushrooms and it is vaguely mushroom-like in shape. The main difference is that the central wall in the middle is solid, so you have to jump over it to get to the other side.

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

 

Since Springs are symmetrical, they change color when you rotate them! They function like the springs in the Subspace Emissary. When you land on them, they'll bounce you upward. Consequently, they need open air above them to be placed. When scaled up, they stretch horizontally. Larger springs will bounce you higher!

==========

   

Edit Parts B

To unlock this set of parts, you'll need to create 5 different custom stages.

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

Withered Cave

This one would undoubtedly be paired with the Broken Lift and Tunnel as it is functionally identical. You might've been confused why the Hollowed Tree wasn't grouped there, this thing is why!

-----------

Ancient Crate

That's the name SmashWiki provides for this thing, but to me it looks more like one of the houses from the Wet Dry World Skybox in Mario 64. Anyway, the floor on the left might seem thin enough to drop through, but it's solid as can be. I think I'd group it with the Hollow Tree since it looks like it would make for a nice ceiling. Quite frankly, there aren't any structures that particularly resemble it so I don't think anything will fit well into that group.

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

Server Tower

This one undoubtedly is grouped with the Pillar. It's the exact same size! Though it has a small slope on the top the Pillar doesn't have, it's otherwise the same thing.

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

Conveyor Belts

These conveyor belts again function like the ones in the Subspace Emissary. They'll carry anything that lands on them in the direction they're spinning. Of course, they require space above them. As they're scaled up, they'll stretch further horizontally.

==========

   

Edit Parts C

To unlock these parts, you'll need to create 15 custom stages in the stage builder!

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

Baboon Statue

Again, that's the name Smash Wiki gives this thing, but it looks more like a human than an animal to me. Anyway, this thing takes up the same amount of space as the Pillar and Server Tower which is why I'm grouping it with those instead of the Dead Tree. That said, the Baboon Statue doesn't cover quite as much vertical height as the pillar and server tower.

-----------

Old Room

What an ominous structure. Something about this one is weirdly unsettling to me. It's just a thin platoform that drops you into a hollow box with a solid floor and walls. Not sure what, if any, practical advantage you can get out of trapping yourself in a box like this provides. It's not like you can put anything inside the room unless an item happens to spawn in there. Anyway, I think I'd group this one with the Mushroom and I-Frame mainly because of the presence of the drop-through platform at the top.

-----------

Machine Roof

Another part I'm not really sure what to do with. I guess I'll group it with the Hallow tree and Ancient Crate because it, too, looks like it would make for a nice ceiling.

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

Rotating Platforms

These things also come from, say it with me, The Subspace Emissary. These are the ferris wheels! They provide four thin platforms that will rotate around. They take up a lot of space but are actually one of my favorite parts in the game!

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

So that's that for unlockables related to Custom Stages, now let's get to making some Custom Stages of our own!

I went ahead and made three stages, a small, medium, and large one.

First of all, remember how I said earlier that I have a way around playing a bunch of coin battles?

Well say hello to Stonks, the coin factory!

The concept of this stage couldn't be simpler. There are three spikes positioned directly under ceilings and a bunch of conveyor belts funneling everything into a single corner.

All you need is a second controller, but preferably more. Let the conveyor belts carry one player into position while the rest of the players hop into position on the spikes. They'll take rapid damage and their coins will fly everywhere! The Conveyor belts will funnel whatever they don't pick back up into the player in the corner. At this point, you can go AFK for as long as you want.

After just 1 minute, we were able to collect over 1,000 coins total! Unfortunately, these aren't the same coins as the ones used in the Coin Launcher, so you'll still have to grind those out by playing the game.

My other stage, Farm, is similar in nature.

The stage is also a bunch of conveyor belts funneling everything into a single corner.

This one requires a bit more prep and it's not quite AFK. But the idea is that this is a stage designed to help you grind out stickers and CDs! Simply set your Item Switch to include only Sandbags and set their spawn rate to high.

Just let the conveyor belts carry you into position again, wait for the sandbags, and start beating them senseless! Due to the design of the stage, it's hard for anything to fly out of position. If you want to do this a bit more efficiently, use three controllers on a 2v1 Team Brawl! Have one player like Lucario hold his Aura Sphere out, or some other attack that can constantly damage, and leave them idle. Then have the teammate standby, with friendly fire off, and simply mash A to pick up anything that drops at their feet. You'll get tons of stickers and easy CDs! Because Sandbags are the only items set to spawn, you'll only be getting stickers and CDs to come out of the sandbag.

As for my actual stage, I quickly slapped together some structures and called it a day. This isn't exactly my finest work, but I wasn't feeling particularly inspired at this point. Anyway, I decided to make this stage themed after Team Galactic. That's not exactly... obvious from the way the stage looks here, but there's really only so much you can do to theme a stage around a specific game. Still, I could certainly do better. Maybe I'll come back to this sometime. Probably not but, who knows.

Anyway, I tried to make use of scaling and objects. In hindsight, I probably should've used more features and fewer structures.

Anyway, once you're done building your stage, you can name it, leave a brief description, and confirm the music you want to play on it. Then save the stage. After saving it, you can continue editing it or quit to go and play it!

And so, I went and did a quick Brawl on my custom stage! And it was just as horrible of an experience as you'd expect it to be. But, it's all functional! That's the important thing: It works.

=========

Masterpieces

Now this is a mode I spend a ridiculous amount of time playing as a kid: Masterpieces. This menu tucked away in the vault is a selection of demos of various Nintendo games that were available on the Wii's virtual console. None of these games are Pokemon-related, so I won't spend too much time on any of them, but they all start at specific points in the game. Some of them already have save data that are a decent ways in the game. You only get a brief amount of time to play. If you wanted to play longer than the alotted time, you'd have to buy the game off the Wii Shop Channel. I'm sure there were probably ways to hack the game and disable these trial timers, but that would basically be piracy. I'm sure nobody ever did that... For a lot of players including myself, this was their first experience with a lot of Smash fighters' origins.

It's really fun to play some of these over and over again to see how far you can get in the time limit!

The games included by default are:

0:40 of Ice Climber for the NES, the furthest I remember getting was to the bonus round at the top of the first level!

1:00 of Super Mario Bros. for the NES, I've never been able to clear the second level.

2:00 of The Legend of Zelda. Due to the nonlinear nature of this game, there's actually quite a lot of different things you can do in the alotted time. But in terms of objective progress, you generally have enough time to grab the sword and rush to the first dungeon. If you're quick, you can get a little ways into the dungeon, especially if you use the glitch to skip the first key door. But you probably won't have enough time to reach Aquamentus.

1:30 of Kid Icarus for the NES, I wanna say I was able to clear the first stage at one point by rushing really fast through the stage, but I can't honestly say for certain as my memories might be clashing with memories of the actual Virtual Console version which was my first time fully experiencing this game!

2:00 of Kirby's Adventure for the NES, my record was getting a little bit past Poppy Bros. Sr., I believe. You can sacrifice some potential progress for the sake of gameplay variety by taking the chance to play the bonus game instead between levels.

3:00 of Super Metroid which starts from the title screen with two save files. One that starts you at the intro sequence of the game. Due to the duration of the cutscenes that surround Ridley and the escape sequence, the timer usually runs out shortly after landing on Zebes on your way to getting the Morph Ball. The other save file starts you significantly later in the game in Norfair.

3:00 of Star Fox 64 for the N64. Due to the on-rails nature of this game, there's not really much you can do to cover anymore ground in 3:00. It's not even enough time to clear Corneria!

But that's not all! There are challenges you can complete throughout the game that unlock additional Masterpieces for you to enjoy!

0:30 of Donkey Kong for the NES can be unlocked for having 10 hours of playtime! This version starts you at 75M presumably to show the origins of the stage. It barely gives you enough time to actually clear the stage. I believe my personal best led me to the start of the final level, but time ran out right before I could actually do anything.

0:40 of F-Zero for the SNES can be unlocked by recruiting Captain Falcon in the Subspace Emissary. This one starts you right at the start of the Mute City I race as Blue Falcon in Grand Prix mode. Better get going! 40 seconds isn't enough time to even finish the race, though, I don't believe.

2:00 of Super Mario World for the SNES can be unlocked for playing on Yoshi's Island (Melee) 3 times and I've gotta say this is by far the one I've played the most. 2:00 is a lot of time for a game like this! The game starts you off in Yoshi's Island 2. You have a couple options for gameplay variety. Of course, your first option is to rush through the levels and see how far you can get. On a really good run, I was able to reach the autoscrolling section at the end of Iggy's Castle! Unfortunately, that segment is a hard wall to your progress due to being a slow autoscroller. I seem to recall time running out shortly before the first masher dropped. Your other option is to die immediately to the koopas at the start of the stage and take the other route on the world map to head toward the Yellow Switch Palace. This wastes some time, so you can't get as far in the game, but it does pass you through Yoshi's Island 1 which is the stage Yoshi's Island (Melee) is based on. I suppose the intention of starting you on Yoshi's Island 2, though, is that it's the stage that introduces Yoshi. Ironically, it's a lot faster to completely ignore Yoshi and just rush to the end of the stage.

1:30 of Super Mario Bros. 2 for the NES can be unlocked by winning 5 brawls with Peach. This one starts you at 1-1 with Peach selected. If you die, you can choose another character. But I suppose the intention of this one is to show the origins of Peach's floating ability and where her turnip plucking attack comes from.

Finally, perhaps the craziest masterpieces in the game, is a whopping 5:00 of Ocarina of Time which can be unlocked by playing as Toon Link 10 times. Unfortunately, due to the slow nature of the game, there's not actually a whole lot you can do in that 5:00. Crossing Hyrule Field alone takes up a large portion of your time. There are two save files, one that starts you as Young Link at the very beginning of the game just after the intro cutscene allowing you to run around and find the Kokiri Sword and Deku Shield. By the time you reach the Great Deku Tree, you'll probably be out of time. Alternatively, there's a save file that starts you out at the start of the Adult Link section where you do start with Epona's Song, but you don't really have much time to do anything with her. You do not start with the Hookshot and by the time you get it, you're pretty much out of time. Without the hookshot, there's pretty much nothing objective you can do as an adult.

But wait! There's more!

What's that? I hear you ask. There's more!? But that's all that I've ever played!

Yes, well, if you're lucky enough to have a Japanese version of the game, there are actually two entire Masterpieces that were cut from the international version! What the hell!

The first of these is 3:00 of Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem for the Super Famicom. While it certainly would be nice to be able to play a demo of Fire Emblem as a kid in an era where I still thought of Fire Emblem as nothing more than a game about a bunch of dudes with swords, it definitely makes sense that this wasn't included in English since... there wasn't an english version of this game.

The more baffling decision to cut here is 5:00 of Mother 2 for the Super Famicom. The reason for this I suppose is that Mother 2 is actually a strange inclusion, given that it was never actually released on the Wii Virtual Console. It's quite possible its inclusion in the final build was a mistake. Maybe they planned to release it but ran into licensing concerns and had to drop the idea, and didn't include it in the international version of Brawl to avoid confusing people. But man I really wish I had the chance to experience this game when I was much younger. Earthbound was such an enigma to me as a kid because it was a game that was before my time and always so elusive. I wonder if I would've enjoyed it as a kid? I can definitely imagine certain parts of that game stumping child me.

===========

Chronicle

This mode isn't much, it's just a list of games for various Nintendo consoles. As you collect stickers and trophies that reference different games, those games will be added to the Chronicle! The specific list of games here differs by region, of course. And there are some inaccuracies and missing titles due to licensing and whatnot. But, this is a pretty solid list of games from the Game & Watch all the way up to Wii. It even includes Virtual Boy titles! But, there isn't anything Pokemon related here you can't see on the first page of this thread, so there's no tmuch else to talk about here.

===========

Album & Replays

Right, I suppose I should talk about these things. You might have noticed me mention screenshots and replays in passing. Well, there's not much to say about them. You can take screenshots at any point in just about any mode. In addition, after finishing a match, you can often save replays of Brawls and other modes such as Target Smash!!, Multi-Man Brawl, and Home-Run Contest. You can save albums to system memory or the SD card, and you could send screenshots and replays to your friends as well as Custom Stages! Additionally, once per day, you could submit a screenshot, replay, and custom stage to Nintendo and receive another from another player! Of course, this functionality is no longer available.

==========

Good lord, that is a lot more content than I thought I was going to have to cover. But I do believe that is everything I wanted to talk about! Man, was Brawl packed with content! Maybe I shouldn't have tried to rush through all of this in one post, but none of it is really directly related to Pokemon, is it? I didn't want to make too many posts about non-Pokemon stuff in All the Pokemens. But would you believe we're still not done? That's right, we've still got one final mode that unlocked way back when we finished Subspace Emissary. It feels like forever ago at this point, doesn't it? Yes, I'm of course referring to Boss Battles: The toughest challenge Brawl has to offer.

[Aura]

Boss Battles

Upon clearing the Subspace Emissary, a new mode will be added to the Stadium menu: Boss Battles. And this is by far the biggest horror this game has to offer. Remember how I said I'd cover Wolf's unlock requirements? This mode is what you'll need. In order to unlock Wolf, you have to clear this mode with Fox or Falco. Of course, requiring this mode means you also have to clear Subspace Emissary, of course.

When you jump in, you'll be met immediately with a boss. This can be one of 9 different bosses including the 7 from Subspace Emissary as well as Master and Crazy Hand who will both have Subspace Emissary style health bars. Perhaps you were at one point meant to fight them in story mode?

After you defeat the first boss, you'll be brought to a rest area like the one from All Star with the projection of the next boss and three heart containers. If you're playing Co-op, there will be five heart containers you'll have to share. Any defeated bosses will appear in the background as trophies. And on the 10th stage, you'll always fight the final boss Tabuu.

Each of these bosses are weaker than they were in story mode to accommodate for the lack of stickers here, but don't think this mode will be a walk in the park, either. An endurance round of all 10 bosses in the game is extremely challenging and it takes a lot of practice to get good enough to confidently take down any of the bosses while minimizing the amount of damage you receive. You only get one life and if you die once, it's game over--there are NO continues. And there's a challenge for clearing this mode on every difficulty as well as clearing it with every character. This mode truly is the game's ultimate test.

One good thing to note is that items won't spawn. This does mean you can't get certain helpful items, but it also means there's no risk of a bomb spawning right next to you as a massive liability. I think it's nice.

The plan here is simple enough. I'll be playing through this mode on every difficulty from Easy to Intense, each time using a different character.

-----------

For easy mode, I'll be playing as Fox since I need to clear with him in order to meet the unlock requirements for wolf. On easy mode, this mode is nothing to write home about. Depending on how well you know the bosses, it might take a couple tries, but it's not going to make you want to pull your hair out.

Congratulations screens in Boss Battles aren't determined by the character you're playing as, but rather the difficulty level. They're all base don various bosses' introductions in the Subspace Emissary. The one for Easy mode depicts Petey Piranha!

  

If you haven't unlocked him through Subspace Emissary, upon clearing this mode with Fox or Falco, Wolf will challenge you on Lylat Cruise. Defeat him to unlock him!

Upon clearing Boss Battles on Easy difficulty, you'll obtain the Subspace Bomb Trophy.

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

Jigglypuff was up next for Normal difficulty. She lacks a lot of power, but her multitude of jumps allows her to stay in a boss's face and hound on them for a long time and still be able to recover when she's knocked away. Just don't get too greedy because she is light enough to be KO'd at low percents! That's why I chose her for such a low difficulty.

The Normal Mode congratulations screen depicts Rayquaza!

For Clearing Boss Battles on Normal mode, you'll unlock the Shadow Bugs trophy.

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

Pikachu was the one I used for Hard mode and this one gave me a lot of trouble. Pikachu's moveset is mostly filled with Electric attacks meaning he'll struggle a bit more against bosses with resistances. Notably, Rayquaza who gave me a lot of trouble going forward... Admittedly, though, the damage multipliers aren't really all that noticeable in practice. The more important factor his how well you can dodge the enemy attacks. Pikachu's light weight and lack of easy recovery options like Jigglypuff made Pikachu a difficult character to clear this mode with.

Hard Mode's congratulations screen depicts Galleom!

For clearing Boss Battles on Hard mode, you'll unlock the Dark Canon trophy.

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

Very Hard mode is where the game starts to get serious, but Lucario is really well-equipped to deal with this mode! His aura ability really changes the way you think about using Heart Containers. You might find yourself taking on greater risks to take advantage of his increased DPS. In addition, Lucario's Double Team attack is incredibly useful for evading damage where other characters would be shit outta luck. But you still have to recognize the attack coming because the slow start-up might cause you to take the hit instead. Master the timing and you can take out bosses really quickly! Though you'll probably feel less brave at 100%+. Don't neglect those Heart Containers just because you benefit from high percentages! Know your limits and use one up before a tough boss!

Very Hard difficulty's congratulations screen depicts Master Hand on Tabuu's chains.

Upon clearing the stage on Very Hard difficulty, you'll unlock the Porky Statue trophy.

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

For Intense difficulty, I decided to go with Pokemon Trainer. And let me tell you, Intense difficulty on this mode is a whole other beast. Hard and Very Hard took me a few tries, but Intense really made me want to snap my controller in two. First of all, I've already explained the double-input issue with my controller, I believe. But the game sometimes eats my inputs or misinputs a second button press, sometimes causing me to waste my double jump or stop me from charging a smash attack. Coupled with the standard actual skill issue misinputs like accidentally using up specials when I was trying to use a side special, this is an incredibly frustrating experience. But couple that with a long line of Intense difficulty bosses and you have a recipe for disaster...

Anyway, I chose to use Pokemon Trainer for last mainly because of Charizard. As much as I'd love to give Squirtle and Ivysaur their well-deserved spotlight here, Charizard is by far the best equipped for all of these bosses. I've mentioned before that his Rock Smash shreds through the boss' HP and killing bosses quickly is incredibly important! The downside of course is that his large size and weight make it incredibly difficult to dodge attacks with some attacks I swear being utterly impossible to avoid. But with a little bit of luck and far more practice, you can eventually power through and defeat Tabuu at the very end!

If you're skilled enough to clear the mode on Intense, the announcer will exclaim "Wow! Incredible!" instead of "Congratulations!" and the congratulations screen will depict Tabuu.

And for clearing Boss Battles on Intense difficulty, you'll unlock the Galleom Tank Form trophy.

===========

Now let's go over my actual strategies here. Now, note, this is based off my own personal experience and your mileage may vary, but I made a quick tier list of the bosses. Most of my advice ahead is going to be based on my experience with Charizard on Intense.

First of all, if you start the mode against anybody in the bottom two tiers on intense difficulty, I strongly recommend just quitting out and starting over. As mentioned before, the bosses get tougher as you get deeper in and you fight them in random order. You want those low-tier bosses in the late game since they're easy to survive against. It's the five upper-tier bosses you want to fight early. You'll want to face the lower-tier bosses preferably when you're at high percent so you can squeeze in one extra round before using your next Heart Container.

Before we jump into specific bosses, I want to go over some basic general tips:

Be patient, don't get greedy. It's always better to prioritize not taking damage over dealing damage. Sometimes you're just not in a good position after getting hit or dodging an attack to get a hit in on the enemy. You'll get more chances to hit if you survive. But every percentage counts when healing isn't free! And with no continues any hit could spell the premature end of your attempt!

Beyond that, you generally want to ration out your Heart Containers strategically. Don't just eat a Heart Container every time you reach 100%, it's a waste! Ideally, you'd be skilled enough to never end up in a compromised position and defeat all of the bosses going forward without taking a single hit, but that's just unrealistic. Instead, take note of which bosses you struggle against, how confident you are in dealing with the next boss, and which bosses you've yet to face. Only use the Heart Container if you feel like you need it for the next boss and try to consider if you might need the heart container more for another boss coming up ahead!

You generally want to try and save one Heart Container to fight Tabuu at 0%. But if you're unlucky with the boss order, you may find yourself needing that last Heart Container a bit early. That might be okay. A lot of Tabuu's on Intense will kill you instantly even at 0% anyway, so having high percentage against him doesn't really mean too much of a disadvantage. I generally try to push myself to reach the midway point (5 bosses defeated) before using my first heart container, but if I've cleared a lot of the toughest bosses early on, I might use it a bit earlier since I'm more confident in my ability to handle the rest.

Oh, and your shield? Don't even bother. On Intense difficulty you may as well be protecting yourself with a sheet of paper. That thing will break instantly to just about any attack. Try to dodge or just take the hit. It's generally better than your shield getting broken and getting hit by an even stronger attack that should be easy to dodge.

Now it's on to specific boss strategies. Being an endurance round changes the way you fight a lot of these bosses compared to SSE, so let's start with the low tiers and work our way up, shall we?

Let's start with what I consider to be the freest of the free. Believe it or not, it's Ridley and not Petey Piranha! Ridley telegraphs all of his attacks so clearly that as long as you're careful, you're never going to get hit at all. Just wait for him to attack, jump in with Rock Smash, then rinse and repeat. I say he's easier than Petey Piranha because he leaves himself extremely open to attack during some of his own attack animations! Like when he lands on the platform from above, while he's grinding his tail against the ground, and most significantly, during the attack where he flaps his wings to blow you away. You can get all sorts of free hits during these attacks and he still goes through a cooldown phase before his next attack letting you get in yet another hit and it's all completely safe as long as you make sure to dodge the attack! Very few of Ridley's attacks will actually catch you by surprise, especially after you learn all his tells. There are a few tricks you'll need to learn, though. Like, when he's about to swoop in from the side of the screen, make sure to jump really high so that he tries to hit you in the air and not along the ground. He comes in at variable speeds, so it can be hard to jump over him, it's best to bait him into missing entirely.

Petey Piranha is also a boss you can consistently beat without taking any damage at all and it's incredibly embarrassing when you inevitably do. Often it's because you tripped at a bad time or you clipped the very edge of his hurtboxes. But as long as you're patient with this boss, you don't even really need to watch for his tells. He only has three attacks. Swooping with the left cage, swooping with the right cage, and jumping into the air either to the other side of the platform or in place. Simply stand back, wait for him to swing, jump in with Rock Smash tryign to hit both his head and the nearest cage at the same time, then dip out with a roll before he swings again. Don't get greedy, as long as you get one hit in, you're good. Going for a second is likely to get you hurt and while Petey himself isn't hard, every percentage matters in a mode like this! And if you're at high percent, don't underestimate the power of his attacks! He may be an easy boss, but his attacks are just as capable of killing you if they hit as any other boss! The only way you're going to die against Petey is if you get cocky. Respect his strength and keep your patience.

Master Hand is the last of the freebie bosses. You've fought him a million times and I'd honestly say he's easier in Brawl than his Melee counterpart. Rock Smash really tears through his HP and the only attack you really need to watch out for is his drill attack which can do a lot of damage. Most of his attacks can be easily dodged simply by jumping off the platform or jumping into the air, and he leaves himself open a lot.

Crazy Hand is pretty much more of the same with Master Hand, but I find him a bit more difficult overall and I'm not really sure if I can put my finger on why. I think some of his attacks come out a lot quicker and he doesn't leave himself open for as long or something to that effect. All I know is, I actually did die to him far more frequently than Master Hand so I'm pretty confident there's something tougher there.

I really wouldn't recommend using a Heart Container on any of these bosses, though Master and Crazy Hand can get some cheap shots in if you're unlucky, so I don't recommend pushing your luck if you're already doing good on progress.

Meta Ridley is the next toughest boss, I'd say. A lot of his attacks are highly telegraphed and you can generally get a few Rock Smashes in between attacks. But again, just focus on not being greedy and prioritize not taking damage over getting hits in. I've found Meta Ridley's most aggravating attack to be the one where he fires a rapid stream of fireballs which he fans out across the entire length of the platform. If you aren't in a good position, this attack is difficult to dodge and it comes out really quick. Try to dodge roll through the stream of fireballs or jump up above them. If you're on the left side of the platform, you can jump off when he shoots under himself and slip some free hits in. But if you're on the far end of the platform, note that the attack ends before he reaches to the right edge of the platform a second time, so try to camp out there after dodging the fireballs. It's very easy to take stray hits here, though. This attack has ended a fair number of attempts for me.

Additionally, on the attack where he grabs the falcon flyer and drags it down while shooting fireballs, if you're quick enough and do enough damage, you can stop the attack prematurely. But most of the time you're better off just retreating to the far end of the platform and jumping to avoid getting dragged offscreen. The third fireball will rarely reach you on the right side, it'll usually explode when the flyer is released and crashes into it, but be prepared to dodge it just in case.

Galleom is a huge mixed bag. I never really know how confident I am with him. I've stressed how immensely powerful a lot of his attacks are, but a lot of his attacks are also really easily dodged. If he does the right string of attacks, it can be incredibly difficult to avoid taking damage, though. I find that he seems to take a lot of damage from Rock Smash, so my strategy is generally to just rush in will high aggro and hoping for a quick kill. But a lot of his attacks are really deadly so be prepared to dodge a lot, too!

Sometimes Galleom goes down quick, other times you'll go down quicker when he hits you with an attack. I think if you're at low percentage, you shouldn't have any issues, but at moderately high percentage, you might struggle. I'd meter your progress when deciding whether to use a Heart Container against him. If you're satisfied with the bosses you've beaten so far, go ahead and heal up. If you've got some scary bosses ahead, just try to push through.

And now we're getting into the realm of bosses that are scary to fight no matter what percentage you're at. The rest of the bosses you want to fight as early as possible because the more health they have, they more likely it is you won't be able to kill them before they rack up a ton of damage or KO you outright. If you're at high percent, heal up as soon as you see any of these bosses. These are the three bosses that scare you into fighting other bosses at higher percentages to save your heart containers.

Rayquaza is probably the easiest of these three, but his Fly Attack when swooping in from the sides of the screen can be really tough to dodge. Surprisingly, though, his most dangerous attacks are his tail swipes! They come out so quickly that there's never really a safe opportunity to go in for a Rock Smash! And his Thunder attack can just go fuck itself. I have no clue how to dodge it and it'll really hurt your percentage bad! Rayquaza is easy to underestimate, but he's rough. At round 9, I've had him take me out from 0% just because he used Thunder Twice and I couldn't dodge his tail swipes in time! If you get him early, he doesn't have as many chances to use his dangerous attacks, so you can typically push through with a lot less damage.

Porky is such a weird boss to me. Sometimes I can kill him without taking damage. Sometimes he uses that stupid electric orb attack and takes me from 0 to FUCKING 178 BECAUSE I GOT CAUGHT INSIDE THE ORB WHAT THE HELL.

Seriously, if Porky uses that lightning orb, I cannot for the life of me find a consistent way to dodge the attack. Just make sure you don't get caught in the orb itself or you will die a painful death. Remember how I said it probably wasn't a good idea to stand on him before? Well, actually, I found that standing on top of him is a really good way to get in a ton of damage quickly. As long as you watch for the tells of the lightning orb and get off of him whenever he starts to hover in the air before he electrifies himself to strike the ground with red lightning, it's actually pretty safe up there! The worst thing that can happen is he hits you with his rapid stab attack, but it's generally pretty easy to DI above him from that attack and just land back on top of him again. But, that rapid stab attack as well as the lightning orb are big contenders for why I strongly recommend healing up before this fight. This guy has so many quick, tiny attacks that can kill you easily. But, if you're lucky, it can also be really easy to just kill him quick enough that he can't even do any of his dangerous attacks. If it wasn't for just how much damage he can build up so quickly, he'd probably be in the lower tier with Galleom and Meta Ridley, but you can go from 0 to 100's in seconds against him. It was a nightmare to get his trophy and it's a nightmare to fight him in Boss Battles.

And speaking of nightmares, none hold a candle to the unholy abomination that is Duon. I've already expressed my grievances with how difficult a lot of their attacks are to avoid, but for the life of me I absolutely cannot find any good positioning to fight these guys from. You would think it'd be something simple like stay away from the blade guy and stay up close to the gun guy, but that is far from accurate. When up close, it's near impossible do dodge the gun side's gunfire. While far away, the blade guy will do that annoying attack where he rolls up to your face just to slash you three times and it's such a pathetic-looking attack it's embarrassing how impossible it is to avoid. And of course reversing the idea is an even more terrible idea. The Blade boss will just slash you into oblivion and the Gun guy will shoot at you with that laser attack that feels impossible to dodge! Not to mention if you're far away you're not damaging him. The only recommendation I have for this boss is to heal up if you're high on percentage, and bite the bullet with the damage you're inevitably going to take here. Hope it isn't too much and you can carry on afterward. If you're really unlucky, this boss alone might pressure you into using two heart containers. But hey, at least you can redirect those missiles into him for some extra damage.

One character I see recommended a lot for Intense Boss Battles is Fox, actually, and this boss alone tells me exactly why. You can deflect a lot of the gun side's attacks and, coupled with Fox's blaster, standing at far range actually seems a lot more viable here. Fox might not have nearly as many issues with this fight as Charizard. But Fox has his own set of problems. Mainly, he's a lot lighter than Charizard and is probably going to struggle more against bosses like Porky.

And finally, we have Tabuu who is always the final opponent you have to face. While this version of Tabuu is a lot weaker than his story mode counterpart, the gap is significantly lessened in Intense. His Off Waves still OHKO you here and most of his attacks will still kill you at whatever percent you might be anyway. Don't. Get. Greedy. Tabuu's attacks are so incredibly overpowered that you want to make sure you're always prepared to dodge them. If you've rationed your Heart Containers out well, hopefully you've saved your last one for this fight and didn't have to use it for the 9th round. Otherwise... well, good luck!

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

Anyway, I do have to make a confession here. I did not actually finish this mode on Intense Difficulty. I found it way to frustrating to complete. I've done it before and have the record to prove it, but I was reaching the point where I was getting way too tilted way too quickly and just wasn't having any fun. Sometimes it's good to take breaks, but I don't want this series to get hung up on just this one mode, so I'm just going to have to walk away. Maybe I'll come back to this game sometime down the line and try to finish up where I left off, but for now, I'm gonna admit defeat on this one. It's a rough game mode. I had two really good runs. One where I had a Heart Container saved for Tabuu but my goddamn controller ate my jump input and forced me to enter the fight with 86% (in some parallel universe, that was probably my winning run). The other good run I had somehow managed to save all three of my heart containers to the last three fights! But that was the run where I got killed from 0% by Rayquaza. I swear to god this game is trolling me.

===========

  

There are also three additional trophies related to Boss Battles. The Subspace Gunship trophy can be unlocked by clearing the mode with 10 characters. The Jyk trophy is unlocked by clearing the mode with 20 characters, and the Winged Tabuu trophy can be unlocked by clearin git with all characters.

As you can see, all of these trophy rewards from Boss Battles are related to Subspace Emissary cutscenes or enemies/forms that can't be obtained with Trophy Stands. I think clearing Boss Battles with every character is a far easier task than clearing Boss Battles on Intense with a single character, quite frankly. You can, of course, play on Easy Mode to get all of these trophies.

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

Anyway, that finally wraps up Super Smash Bros. Brawl! This game was packed with all sorts of content! I'd honestly forgotten just how much there was to do in this game. It's been really nice to pick this game up again and it was a surprisingly nostalgic experience for me. I'll never forget the morning my brother surprised us with a Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl that he managed to get for us as a late Birthday Present (Don't forget, the Wii was an incredibly high-demand item and was sold out everywhere for a long time. It was difficult to get your hands on!) That was probably the most excited I'd ever been for a new video game in my life and it was really cool to relive this game in this way, going back in time like it was a brand new experience. Granted, I'm a lot older now and know a lot more of the ins and outs, but at the end of the day, this game has remained unchanged since the day it released. That's something you just don't get with a lot of modern games.

Anyway, sentimentality aside, this game did a lot of really cool things that Smash Bros. has never quite done again since. Here's hoping that's a line that doesn't age well in the future. The Subspace Emissary is unlike anything else in gaming history, it's like the Marvel Cinematic Universe of video games and man I really want to see something like it again. Maybe the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie will slowly build into something like that? Who could say? But even beyond that, the amount of boundaries broken among the newcomers, and the sheer amount of newcomers, was also unprecedented! Brawl had very few clone characters and even among characters who typically played similarly, extra attention was paid to make sure they felt different in their own ways. The roster would of course mostly be overshadowed by its successors, but for the time things like third parties were groundbreaking! And Assist Trophies! Truly anyone could appear!

This game may not have been the best for competitive play, but I think it's easy to let bitterness about that fact get in the way of how much fun it can be to just sit back and have silly chaotic fun with all the weird items, wonky stages, and bizarre game modes. Some of these things really make you wish you could go back to simpler times, no?

Well, time doesn't go backward, only forward, and we'll have to leave some things behind as we do! In the mean time, I'd better start practicing drawing circles again for our next game...

[Aura]

Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia

On March 20th, 2008, Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia was released in Japan for the Nintendo DS! As you can probably guess from the title, this game is a sequel to the original Pokemon Ranger. This game is available on Wii U virtual console, which is set to be shut down Marth 27th, 2022. So if you want to buy it there, get it soon! I happen to have the game physically, so I'll be playing that version instead! I think the higher resolution of the gamepad screen might've actually made the game slightly more difficult due to the fact that I had to physically move my stylus a longer distance to cover the same length as a simple DS screen. Not that that's a major complication since there are settings to more accurately represent the proper aspect ratio on DS Virtual Console for Wii U.

Since I can't seem to find any videos of the title screen, I'll use the E3 trailer for the game instead! Note that there may be some elements in that trailer that defer from the final game.

Anyway, this game is more or less the same basic concept as the first game. I'll let story details fill themselves out, but long story short, you'll be starting out a bit earlier in your career here than you did in the previous game. This time we'll get a good look at Pokemon Ranger School where our new protagonist will be training to become a Pokemon Ranger! Of course, just like in Fiore, Pokemon Rangers in Almia differ from Pokemon Trainers. They temporarily capture pokemon with their Capture Stylers to calm them down or assist them in missions to help people and pokemon in need!

Worth noting, I'll be playing through this game completely blind with only experience from the first game to go off of. The first game was a bit frustrating at points but overall really fun and I've heard good things about the sequels, so I'm looking forward to the many improvements these games offer!

Being the first Pokemon Ranger game since the release of Diamond and Pearl, as you can probably imagine, Almia is prominently filled with pokemon from Generation IV.

 

Just like before, we have our choice between genders. We all know I generally prefer to female character designs, and this game is no exception!

Right away, we're tasked with a capture! We have absolutely zero context, but we have a styler and we have to capture the Pikachu in front of us! Naturally, capturing with a Capture Styler works more or less the same as it did in the first game, just draw enough loops around it to capture it. But there's one major difference here. In the previous game, you had to draw enough loops around the pokemon in one go. If your line broke either through the pokemon moving through it or attacking it, you'd lose all your progress toward capturing it. This was a source of tremendous frustration for a lot of the tougher captures and made Pokemon Assists pretty much mandatory for a lot of them. Here in Almia, you'll notice a small meter underneath each pokemon. As you draw loops around them, the meter will slowly fill up and the pokemon will be successfully captured once you've filled that meter! If the line is broken while you're trying to capture the pokemon, the meter won't immediately reset! You'll have a brief window of time to get back to drawing loops before the meter begins to deplete.

Pikachu will not only run around but occasionally Thundershock at your capture line. If these projectiles hit your capture line, the line will be broken and your styler will receive damage! The number and meter at the bottom of the screen indicate how much health you have left. If your Styler breaks, it's game over!

After successfully capturing the Pikachu, we'll see that we're in some sort of training facility with a man named Kaplan who begins a mischievous-sounding laugh before welcoming you to their secret army: Team School, with you having now gained permission to keep your School Styler as proof of membership. He then adds the sinister line, "Together, we shall rule the world..." before a woman named Mrs. April steps into the scene, telling Kaplan off for teasing us with his performance. Apparently this is a thing this man likes to do to tease any newcomers to the school.

What we've really just done is pass the entrance exam for the Ranger School! Mrs. April is here to lead us to our classroom. I guess we're starting right away!

Ranger School

Mrs. April leads us out of the training building we were just in, across the school yard, and into the main school building.

 

Despite what we looked like in the intro, our outfit is a little bit different here, we're currently wearing the Pokemon Ranger School uniform! We're obviously not a ranger just yet, so we can't wear the official Ranger uniform.

Music: Ranger School (Day)

As we're led to the classroom, we're introduced to the class and are given a chance to introduce ourselves. Apparently we've just recently traveled to Almia from Fiore, the region the first game was set in! I suppose we came here to study in order to become a Pokemon Ranger, but this school is evidentally also for "Operators" and "Mechanics" as well. Since today's our first day, Mrs. April makes the day a free-study day to give us a chance to meet our classmates and explore the school.

As everybody else goes about their own business, Mrs. April catches you up on everything she's taught your classmates so far. Essentially, this is some tutorial stuff as well as exposition on what the capture styler is, how it's used, and what it's used for. All stuff we knew about from the first game. As for new stuff, I'm not sure if this existed in the previous game, but there's now a button on the bottom left of the touch screen that allows you to switch the top screen between a map of the surrounding area and a list of your current friend pokemon. The styler menu is also now opened from a designated button on the touch screen rather than clicking on the styler bar. Admittedly, I do prefer the way the styler bar looked in the original where it was visually indicative of the Capture Styler itself rather than just the raw information, but I think the way the info is portrayed in this game is a bit easier to digest, especially when we get into health expansions.

As for what's on the Styler Menu, the top screen displays our ranger stats, as well as our styler's level and how close we are to our next level, as well as sections for what I assume to be our current mission and quest name. On the bottom screen is several buttons we can use to navigate to different screens. The "Styler" screen is a bit curious, it's completely blank right now but it looks like we might be able to obtain upgrades for our styler over time and there might be some degree of customization? There's a release menu where you can freely release any friend pokemon, there's your ranger browser which stores info on every pokemon you've captured, there's a Mission, Map, and Quest screen which all seem functionally identical right now, but I can only imagine the Mission and Quest screens will highlight the location of such Missions and Quests. Maybe you'll be able to roam more freely in this game? There's also an options screen, a glossary, and a quick save feature which you can use to save at any point.

Of course, right away I'm running into a pretty annoying criticism about the start of this game. It's doing a lot of telling me what I can do and not a whole lot of just letting me do it. These sorts of tutorials are always a little bit annoying, especially in sequels where they tend to frontload a lot of info on you from the beginning. But I suppose even the first game had this problem a bit early on. I thought this game literally opening up with you capturing a pokemon meant it might be quicker to the action, but it's seeming more like we're going to have to go through quite a lot of dialogue before we can actually get into any action at all.

Mrs. April then asks another student, Rhythmi to show you around the school. But as soon as Mrs. April leaves the room, we're surrounded by the other students who all seem interested in speaking with the new kid! One of them, Keith, opens up by trying to tease you about how long it took to capture Pikachu for the entrance exam, but Rhythmi quickly shuts him up and encourages you to ignore him since he just likes to gloat. She then goes on to explain her own interests at the school. Instead of training to be a ranger like Keith, she's training to be an Operator, which she goes on to tease makes it so that she'll be ordering Keith around!

Before starting the tour, Rhythmi warns you about another professor at the school: Mr. Kincaid who is incredibly strict about the rules, so it's important to be wary of him whenever he's around.

In the back of the classroom is a save machine where we can, of course, permanently save our progress. Though we do also have that Quick Save option if we need to quickly put the game on hold in the middle of a mission.

The game controls like the last one. You can move around with the control pad or drag the stylus around to move. The latter is recommended because you'll be prominently using the Stylus throughout the game anyway and you can tap on objects to interact with them. But, if buttons are more comfortable for you it's an option. You can walk around and Rhythmi will follow you. Talk to the students to your heart's content, you can even talk with Rhythmi and she'll have a few things to say, like how she thinks Keith sees you as a serious rival or how she's never been to Fiore. Once you're done looking around, make your way out of the room to start exploring the school!

The main hall of the school has four rooms, and there's also a staircase at the far end leading up to the second floor and down to the basement. The exit to the school is to the south end, but we can't leave while school is in progress!

If we head into the room across the hall, we'll find Mr. Kincaid's class. There are a few more students in here to talk to, including a generic female student who jokingly introduces herself as if her name was, literally, "Female Student." I really forgot about these games' sense of humor and this definitely got a laugh out of me!

The room in the north-west corner is the library, which Rhythmi adds is also dubbed "Keith's nap room," she really loves making fun of that guy, huh? In here, we'll find a character named Ponte who seems to be slacking off in the library, skipping out on Mr. Kincaid's class. Notably, there were two empty chairs in that classroom, but only one of the chairs belonged to a student who was accounted for by another who claimed they were studying in the library. I'd say that's this guy, except I think it's more likely the student in the back, Isaac, who has the masterful introduction of "Both my IQ and my height, in centimeters, are both 163. Apparently he's such a good student that he has special permission to study independently in the library.

The room on the opposite side is the Staff Lounge where we'll find Mrs. April making her lesson plan for tomorrow as well as Principal "Lamont Splendidocious" which is simply the most fantastic name I've ever heard. But he mostly just goes by Mr. Lamont.

If we try to take the stairs to the basement, Rhythmi will stop us and tell us Mr. Kincaid's lab is down there, but students aren't allowed there without permission. Upstairs is the student lounge, where the boys' dorms are located to the west and the girls' dorms are located to the east. The school's caretaker, Janice, is found here. There's also a recharge station where you can repair a damaged styler and another save station. Rhythmi will stop us from going into the dorm rooms right now, she doesn't actually have any dialogue if you try to slip into the opposite sex's dorm, though...

As we head back downstairs, the bell rings, meaning we can go outside!

Outside, Rhythmi points you to the training room where you passed your entrance exam and explains that's where Mr. Kaplan and Mrs. Claire will teach us about Capturing Pokemon and using their Field Moves to clear targets, she also points you to a few boxes in a clearing to the east where students "practice target clearing." I mean, I've played the first game, that's not exactly the difficult part, but maybe it just comes naturally for us protagonists, huh?

Rhythmi asks you if you know about clearing targets, and this seems like a perfect opportunity for a yes/no moment to skip a completely unnecessary tutorial. But instead, she decides based on our "expression" that we have no idea how to play because we're an idiot baby child who hasn't played the first game. So we have to head on over there so that we can get some experience and walk through an obnoxiously dragged out tutorial about capturing pokemon and using their field moves to clear targets and oh my god is it annoying. I mean, I might be exaggerating a bit here, but it was kind of annoying that I have still done nothing but mash through text this far into the game. I literally had to capture a pokemon at the very start! Why are they forcing a tutorial on me now??

 

Anyway, for the capture tutorial, we're given a brief glimpse of Bidoof and Pichu. I've already explained how capturing works, but this tutorial also shows us how damage works and how to run from an encounter if our styler is close to breaking.

After that, our next tutorial will show how to use that Bidoof Mr. Kaplan had just captured's field skill, Crush, to break the nearby crate. I called this skill "Rock Smash" before, and I do think that's a better name for the skill, but apparently Crush is the official name, so I've gotta get used to calling it that. Evidently, rather than the power of the skill being represented by a number of icons, there's only one icon indicating its type and a number indicating its level. I don't know if this might mean we'll see levels above three, it might, but I imagine this is more of a more concise information display deal.

Music: Chase

Anyway, after our tutorials, when we leave, we'll find Janice struggling with a bunch of Bidoof! They're running all over the place! It looks like it's time to capture some of them to help Janice by calming them down! Keith comes out to see what all the ruckus is about and he ends up turning it into a competition to see who can capture more of the Bidoof!

        

There are seven Bidoof running around in a frenzy and we have to quickly scamper around to try and capture them all! Finally, we get some more hands-on action! They may all just be Bidoof, but it's better than just watching a scripted tutorial play out!

Bidoof are really easy to capture, they just mosey around and don't seem to attack much if at all. They provide a Normal-type assist and their field move is Crush Lv. 1. Though it's worth noting we don't get to use these guys' assists just yet. Just like in the previous game, pokemon you capture from scripted events like these don't join your party. They just run off once you've captured them.

But from individual captures, we notice our next change here! While you can no longer draw additional loops around a pokemon to gain bonus exp, you'll instead gain additional exp for individual accomplishments like capturing pokemon quickly, without breaking your line, or without taking damage, and you'll even receive a letter ranking of your capture! S rank is the highest rank, so aim for that!

When you level up, your Styler's power and/or energy can increase by a variable amount. It's not clear if there's a cap on the amount you can increase these stats, but it definitely seems worthwhile to get as much Exp as you can! Energy refers to the amount of damage the Styler can receive before breaking and causing a game over while higher power reduces the amount of loops you have to draw to capture pokemon.

Music: Peaceful Aftermath

   

    

After capturing four of the Bidoof, Keith will have caught the rest. His five will beat your four, and of course that'll go to his head. I tturns out the Bidoof were in a frenzy because Janice had accidentally stepped on one of their tails. She promises to make it up to them with tastier treats than usual!

After Janice leaves, Keith admits that he was surprised at how well you did. Maybe he was even worried he'd might lose? After this, Rhythmi is reminded that there's one more place she hasn't shown us yet and it's her favorite place: Ascension Square. It's through the path to the southeast of the school. But let's not get ahead of ourselves! There are some other pokemon around here to capture! Now that the Bidoof fiasco is finished, we can do some exploring of our own!

   

There are a few pokemon that can be found wandering the schoolyard. Of course you can find Bidoof, but you can also find Taillow, Budew, and Pichu! Taillow provides a Flying assist and a Cut Lv. 1 Field Skill while Budew offers a Grass assist and a Tackle Lv. 1 Field Skill. Although, because we're not official rangers yet, we can't actually use any of these assists. So we'll cover what those are like later on.

Taillow is a bit more annoying to capture as flying types typically are. It flits around a lot, so it can easily break your line. It'll also shoot gusts of wind that can damage you if they hit their line. But, due to the way captures work now, they're a lot easier to capture. It also feels like the line in this game starts out a lot longer than it did before. Maybe it doesn't increase with level ups anymore to compensate.

I didn't notice any attacks from Budew. It doesn't move much at all so it was really easy to capture.

Pichu can be captured really quickly, too, so it's not much of a threat. But it will occasionally shoot thundershock out which can break your line. Most importantly, Pichu is always good to have tag along as it can recharge your styler! It has a Lv. 1 Recharge skill which I believe charges 10 units. You can use its recharge skill instead of releasing it. It's always good to have these guys so you can recharge instead of uselessly release a pokemon. You can also capture them and immediately recharge without having to release any of your pokemon! I don't believe that was a possibility in the previous game!

If you use Bidoof's Crush skill, you can break the crates in the clearing, but nothing comes of it. You can use Taillow's Cut skill to cut down the wooden gate at the top of the hill, and it leads you to a suspiciously Bonsly-shaped tree, but we'll need a Soak skill to do anything with that. So I suppose we're done here for now and we'll just need to head down to the southeast exit to make our way to Ascension Square.

As you arrive at Ascension Square with Keith and Rhythmi, you'll stop at a large statue depicting the Ranger symbol. Rhythmi will mention that Principal Lamont told her that a pledge made to dear friends in front of this statue will surely hold true. And that concludes the tour of the school. Rhythmi expresses her gratitude to meet us and hopes to be our friend for a long time, Keith of course wants us to be his friend, too. That's when the school's bell rings signaling the end of the day, so everyone returns to the school to rest up.

Music: Ranger School (Day)

During the night, I suppose this brief section differs depending on whether you're playing as a boy or a girl, you'll either speak to Keith or Rhythmi in your dorm. They'll ask you about whether or not you write letters and it's revealed that you've already been writing letters to your little sister in Fiore! How sweet! After chatting around with the students in the dorm, you can speak with Keith/Rhythmi again and they'll suggest sneaking out of the dorm. This is where you'll meet up with a group of kids including Rhythmi/Keith who seem to have arranged a "test of courage" for you. Apparently this is something the students do for every new kid. Some sort of initiation to test how courageous you are. They've hidden their stylers in the first floor of the school and task you with going to retrieve their stylers and place them at the door to Mr. Kincaid's lab in the basement. Since it's not safe to go alone, they'll also send the person seated next to the new student. In this case, it's Keith. Once we're ready, let's make our way downstairs!

Music: Ranger School (Night)

The atmosphere of the school is a lot creepier in the middle of the night, and you might be even more surprised to stumble across... Pokemon?! Even Keith is initially spooked by their presence!

In the center of the first floor hallway is a Bidoof! This little guy's gonna be helpful, so you're going to want to capture him.

Anyway, the four stylers are hidden in the for rooms on the first floor. You can do them in any order, but let's start with Mrs. April's classroom!

  

Inside this room is a bunch of crates, many of which contain pokemon. You'll need to use Bidoof's Crush skill to break the crates open. and reveal their contents. The crate in front of the chalk board is the one that's holding the styler you're after. That's one down, three more to go!

    

Mr. Kincaid's classroom includes some Zubat!

Zubat is pretty easy to capture, but watch out for its SuperSonic, it can damage your styler! Zubat provides a Flying assist and Cut Lv. 1.

The Styler you're after in here is on a shelf at the far end of the room, you'll need to slip past or capture the Zubat to get to it.

In the library, you're a bit walled off. All that's in here is a Pichu. You'll need to use a Bidoof from elsewhere to break through one of the crates ahead and push forward.

Behind the first set of crates is another set of crates. This time, there's a Bidoof back here for you to catch to break through the second set more easily. The styler you're after is on a desk at the very back of the library.

And the final styler is in the staff lounge, where its location isn't immediately apparent. But once you capture the lone Pichu in the room, it'll drop the Styler, the little sneak!

With the four Stylers collected, it's time to make the push deeper into the basement.

You'll need to bring another Bidoof to the basement to break one of the crates first and foremost.

Behind those is a Zubat that will be needed to cut through the wooden fences right in front of it.

As we arrive at Mr. Kincaid's Lab door, but as we approach, we hear the spooky voice of a pokemon... Keith hurries us to plonk those stylers down so we can get out of there already, but as we go to put them down...

   

Four Ghastly appear before us causing Keith to let out a loud scream!

Ghastly are a little bit tougher than the pokemon we've captured up till now, and there are four of them here! They'll occasionally teleport around and use Lick to try and damage your line. Thankfully, they aren't quite as annoying as they were in the first game since their teleportation won't foil your chances of capturing them, but you'll definitely have more trouble with these guys than anything else this early on. If nothing else, the high numbers will be problematic. Try to single them off if you find it too tough to capture them all at once!

Ghastly provides a Ghost Poke Assist and the Field Skill Psy Power Lv. 1. That looks like a new one! But this is a scripted encounter, so that doesn't really mean much as they'll just disappear.

Unfortunately, Keith's scream when the Ghastly appeared alerted Mr. Kincaid who was inside his lab! He comes out of the lab, fuming, and yells at us for being in the basement where we aren't permitted! We hastily retreat to our dorms after getting yelled at! We did complete our homemade ranger mission, though, so I'd say that's good day's work!

After we turn in, we get to read a letter from our little sister!

Quote

To Big Brother/Sister,

Thank you for writing! And congratulations for getting into the Ranger School!

I have news for you, too.

Mama and Papa are talking about moving over there!

From Little Sis.

Sounds like we might be able to see our family soon enough!

Anyway, the next morning in class, Mrs. April gives us a sneak peak about what we'll be doing next! There's an outdoor class today and it seems there's a guest speaker: A professional Pokemon Ranger! Apparently Keith's been looking forward to this so much he's thought up 38 questions to ask! Little does he know I became a top-ranked Pokemon Ranger in Fiore and saved the world from several apocalypses! But, woe, that would be in another life. We've gotta work our way up from the dirt once all over again here.

Anyway, in my session, I continued playing a little while beyond this point, but in hindsight, this is a good stopping point, I think. Next time we'll continue onward with our school life and see where it takes us! Hopefully I'll have a better idea of how things are structured in this game going forward. It's not always clear right away in a blind game where I should and shouldn't stop playing. Sometimes it warrants playing a bit ahead.

[Aura]

Ranger School

We're starting off right where we left off last time! It's another day of Ranger School and this time we're off to an outdoor class where we'll be meeting with a real Pokemon Ranger!

All of the students have gone ahead to Ascension Square, so we'd better get going! Once again, we can get there by taking the stairs to the southeast. Keith and Rhythmi are waiting up for us at the top of the stairs, so we've gotta get a move on!

The students are all gathered around a Pokemon Ranger who Principal Lamont introduces as Crawford, a graduate of the school and official Pokemon Ranger of Vientown.

Crawford introduces himself to the class and shows off his Partner Pokemon, Budew.

   

He also shows off his current squad of friend pokemon; a Swellow, Bellossom, Cherubi, and Combee.

Mrs. April buts in to weirdly start roasting Crawford's afro out of nowhere. How rude! But she doesn't hesitate to move things right along to the Q&A portion. Crawford is an official ranger, after all, so there's no telling when he'll need to report for duty.

One student asks Crawford why he became a Pokemon Ranger, which Crawford answered quite plainly: He loves pokemon and wanted to befriend them! I'm not sure why that would drive you to being a ranger who has to say goodbye to his pokemon on the regular as opposed to a trainer, but I suppose he probably has his reasons. Beyond that, he also states that being a Pokemon Ranger is simply a cool job.

Another student asks Crawford what kinds of pokemon are difficult to capture, which Crawford responds to by bringing up Psychic and Ghost-type pokemon who tend to teleport around to evade capture.

Rhythmi chimes in with her question next. She asks Crawford if she'll become an Operator! This is a question that confuses Crawford a bit since he's only just met Rhythmi, but he affirms her by letting her know that she'll become an Operator! This excites her, but Keith decides to but in calling to question the validity of such a question, asking if she's confusing the Pokemon Ranger for a fortune-teller. And yet, he turns right around and asks a near-identical quesiton. Will he be a pokemon ranger? Crawford asks him the same question, "aren't you confusing me for a fortune-teller, too?" But he assures Keith that his string will shines through and that he's sure he'll make it, suggesting he might even end up better than himself!

Keith tries to ask another question, but another student cuts him off, only one question each! She asks Crawford if he's ever made any mistakes, to which Crawford replies that's all there was when he started! He then goes off explaining various clumsy mistakes he's made such as spilling juice on his styler or trying to capture a Poke Doll.

Another student asks what the best part of being a ranger is, which Crawford answers is the smiles he gets to see after a job well done.

Yet another question is asked, has Mrs. April ever gotten mad at him? Crawford answers at least once a day, but Mrs. April turns that claim down. "Now you know that's not true," she starts, "It was at least three times a day!" she corrects. Gotta love that degree of sass. But she also adds that Crawford was a wonderful student who could keep his classmates' spirits high with his kindness and sense of humor.

As she spoke, Crawford's Styler begins to ring with a voicemail! It's a message from his operator, Barlow, about a Mantine that was injured after colliding with a cargo ship. Another ranger, Luana, is already on her way to the site off the shore of School Island, but they'll need Crawford's help.

Music: Crisis (Call to Action)

Unfortunately, it seems our outdoor class has to be cut short as Crawford has to respond to the call. Luana arrives at the dock to pick Crawford up and, with the students cheering him on, he leaves to go and rescue the Mantine!

With the outdoor class over, most of the students make their way back to the schoolhouse, leaving us alone with Keith and Rhythmi. Together, we all make a pledge to make our dreams come true at the Pledge Stone, where pledges made between friends are sure to come true!

And at the end of the day, we're met with another letter.

Quote

Dear Big Brother/Sis,

Thank you for writing!

Reading about the outdoor class was really exciting!

Oh, and we are going to move out there!

We're looking for a house now.

From, Little Sis.

Damn, how fast is this postal service??

Music: Ranger School (Day)

The next morning, Mrs. April updates us on the situation with the Mantine mission. The Ranger Union took the Mantine in to nurse it back to health and it was returned to sea this morning!

Beyond that, Mrs. April proceeds with the lesson plan for the day. Today, she'll be speaking about the teamwork between rangers and operators. Rangers go where there are no roads to guide them, so it's the operator's job to be that guide.

Operators speak to Rangers through the voicemail function of their stylers. Our school stylers apparently lack this voicemail function, but Mrs. April has with her two official Ranger Stylers to demonstrate the voicemail functionality. For the demonstartion, she has Rhythmi play the part of the operator and Keith the part of the Ranger, but then notices that Keith is... missing from class? Well, since Keith has yet to arrive, she gets us to play the role of ranger instead.

We need to split up in order to demonstrate the voicemail functionality, but as we move to the other end of the class, Mr. Kincaid enters the room and announces that all of the school stylers have been stolen from the staff room! But upon noticing Keith is uncharacteristically late to class, Mr. Kincaid immediately proposes that Keith might be the one who stole the stylers.

Rhythmi immediately jumps to Keith's defense. He may be a prankster, but he's no theif! While Mr. Kincaid responds by bringing up Keith's disregard for school rules, Mrs. April tells him off for going against his own preaching. It's wrong to cast suspicion on others without proof. Mrs. April and the rest of the students offer to go look for Keith and the missing Stylers. This leaves Rhythmi and us with our Ranger Stylers, so we'll be able to use voicemail to contact each other and search more efficiently!

 

Strangely, there are now pokemon roaming around the halls even during the day!

As we look around the rooms, we won't find Keith anywhere, and the staircase to the basement is completely barricaded off! There's no going down that way. As soon as we head upstairs, we receive a voicemail from Rhythmi asking us to hurry to the front door, so let's quickly make our way there!

At the front door, we find Rhythmi talking with Janice who found a styler out in the yard while preparing to feed the Bidoof. Rhythmi suggests we head out to search the yard for more. They might give us a lead!

We head outside to the yard and find a styler sitting right in the center of the field! And after searching around a bit more, we find another at the top of the stairs leading south of the school. As we go to pick it up, Rhythmi says she hears voices ahead, so we continue forward to investigate.

Music: School Road

Down the stairs, we find Keith butting heads with a stranger! Keith explains that he saw this theif run off with the stylers from the staff room!

Music: Trouble

The theif panics at the sight of three people cornering him and immediately tries to flee, but he turns and ends up running face-first into a tree, dropping the remaining stylers he'd stolen.

Beyond that, a Slakoth falls from the tree and lands on his head! He can't see and the slakoth is too heavy for him to get off! Keith laughs at him for this, picks up the stylers, and suggests we leave, but Rhythmi scolds him for that view, explaining that it's a ranger's job to help people in need. So, we step in to capture the Slakoth of course!

And just as you'd expect, Slakoth is extremely slow to move. But it will occasionally try to slash at your line to try and break it, but that seems to happen very rarely. It's really easy to capture this guy, so go ahead and do it! Its assist type is Normal and it provides a Cut Lv. 1 Field Skill, but this one is of course going to be released immediately.

Upon rescuing the thief, he thanks us. Mrs. April arrives on the scene to find us all and Rhythmi explains the situation to her. The theif apologizes and explains that he had always had a dream to become a Pokemon Ranger, but never took any initiative to pursue that dream in his life. He thought he had gone on too long and that he'd missed his chance, so he thought that maybe if he had stolen a Styler he could do something about his negligence! Mrs. April scolds him for this view and insists that anyone can join the school as a student, even an adult.

The thief confesses that, even though he only went in to take one styler, he wound up unable to stop himself from stealing them all. Mrs. April tells him once again that he's being greedy and that he needs to go home and really think hard about what it is he wants to do. With that, Mrs. April allows the thief to go home without any sort of punishment beyond that lesson. He seems to be affected enough. I don't know if I totally agree that's the right way to handle the situation, but maybe it'll work out positively in the end? Or maybe we'll never hear from this character again, who knows?

We return to the staff room where Mrs. April explains the situation to Principal Lamont and Mr. Kincaid. She commends us for our ability to capture the Slakoth so well, she could tell that our feelings were true by the Slakoth's smile. She also commends Rhythmi for her trust in her friends. And she informs Keith that he needs to learn to trust his colleagues more as there's only so much a ranger can do on his own, but even still, he did do a good deed by pursuing the criminal. Keith, though, doesn't seem to be paying attention. He seems to be focused more on his own frustrations about the thief getting off scot free.

Principal Lamont adds that, just like the thief today, perhaps we all have shadows in our hearts. He suggests that the important thing is to never give in to that darkness. He explains that a book in the library describes the term "vatonage," an ancient word in the Almia region that means "to reawaken light that has been submerged in darkness." Judging by the game's subtitle, I think it's pretty easy to guess that is some pretty heavy foreshadowing. Lamont proclaims that today we all shine with the brilliance of gems and asks that we never lose that shine.

With that, we're sent back to our classmates.

Quote

To Big Brother/Sis,

Thank you for writing!

Voicemail! Voicemail!

We chose where we're going to move!

It's a place called Chicole Village in Almia.

We can see you when you graduate!

From, Little Sis

The next morning, Mrs. April opens up class explaining that today we'll be starting our 1-day Internships to get real hands-on experience as Rangers, Operators, and Mechanics! Keith and us are going to the Ranger Base in Vientown where Crawford works. Rhythmi explains that, since she's trying to become an operator, her internship is located at the Ranger Union. But it's quite a distance, so she can't spend too much time talking! It looks like it's down to just us and Keith!

And once again, I think this is a good place to stop. Again, I'm hoping I can get a better feel for the pacing of this game soon, but for now, I'm not entirely sure where exactly I should stop or keep going. The previous game had save prompts between missions that made for pretty easy to identify stopping points for individual sessions. But in this case, it seems you can only save at designated save points and not between cutscenes. I might be wrong about that, but I've yet to encounter a save prompt yet and we're about an hour into the game at this point and we've passed a few points where I feel like a save prompt would feel natural. I just wanna get a feel for how much progress I can comfortably write about with this game. Sometimes these posts can take a long time to write up if I have to cover a lot of ground and dialogue. I haven't quite caught up to where I left off in my last session, but I think it's fitting to leave what's coming up to the next post. This one was more cutscene centric.

And on that note, I must apologize for the lack of visual aids. I had this same issue in the previous game, but it seems like sprites of the characters are hard to come by. You might have noticed that Rhythmi is the only character I've put the sprite for. That's because, strangely enough, she seems to be the only character so far who has her sprite on Bulbapedia, and I don't see anywhere else that I can find these individual character sprites. I hope the lack of sprites isn't too upsetting! If you really need to see what the characters look like, as well as a bit more seamless focus of music, I am using Japancommercials4U2's playthrough of the game on YouTube as a refresher for what I've played through previously to make sure I'm getting all the detail from cutscenes and stuff. You can never know for sure ahead of time what lines of dialogue are important foreshadowing or what kinds of characters will become more important in the future with story-driven games. So I generally don't want to leave any stone unturned! But at the same time, I also don't want to bog these posts down with a bunch of unnecessary detail, either. It's a complicated balance, one that I'll hopefully be able to strike as I continue this playthrough!

Anyway, on that note, next time, we'll head off with Keith to the Ranger Base in Vientown to begin our internship and get some real-world experience as Pokemon Rangers for a day! This sounds huge!

[Aura]

Ranger School

It's finally time for our internships! Rhythmi's already made her way to the Ranger Union to get experience as an operator while Keith and us are off to Vientown! So, we make our way out of the school and south toward the school's gate where we captured the theif who made off with the stylers before.

 

When we arrive, we find a man clinging to a tree to avoid two Bidoof trying to jump up and reach him. Keith mentions his name, Little Tim. He's evidently afraid of pokemon, even small ones like Bidoof. The Bidoof clearly just want to play, but he's terrified and insists they're trying to maul him! So of course, we've gotta get to capturing!

However, as I tried to capture this Bidoof, I couldn't help but notice it seemed a bit tougher to capture than most Bidoof I've caught up until now. It seems like pokemon might vary in strength in this game! If that's the case, I think I'll have to wait up and see what this game is like in the later stages to decide if it's a good thing or not. I could see it going either way. It could be a time saver to mainly make pokemon that used to be difficult to capture a lot easier to capture as you return to old areas. Alternatively, it might be used as an artificial difficulty factor that makes you feel obligated to grind out to higher levels... I've pretty much exclusively heard good things about this game, though, so I'm willing to doubt there'll be any major issues. It's just a possibility that concerns me at this point.

Music: Peaceful Aftermath

Upon capturing the Bidoof together with Keith, Little Tim offers his sincere thanks for helping him. After Keith introduces Little Tim to us, he thanks us again and tells us we're welcome to stop by the small dairy farm he owns in Vientown. And with that, he walks off toward Vientown. Now we've gotta get going!

Music: School Road

 

There's a Budew and Taillow down here as well as a tree we can tackle into with Budew.

By tackling the tree, we can find Slakoth, of course!

There's also a boulder blocking a cave, but it requires Crush Lv. 3, so that looks like a late-game thing.

Just as we make our way out the school's gate, Mrs. April stops us to see us off. She's also already received word of our heroics with Little Tim and compliments us on our ability to work together rather than compete.

 

On the other side of the gate, we'll pass a Budew and Pichu.

School Road

As we continue onward, we arrive at School Road the appropriately named road connecting Vientown to the Ranger School!

As we cross the bridge just outside, we stop when we come across a little girl who seems troubled. She's looking for her big brother! 

Shortly after, Ponte and Isaac arrive, and Isaac reveals that this little girl is his little sister, Melody! Melody is happy to see her big brother, but Isaac scolds her for leaving her Pueltown by herself. Melody apologizes, but Isaac calms down a bit to explain that he just worries over her because she's still a child. He introduces Meldoy to us and decides to walk her home. Issac seems like a good big brother!

 

As we continue forward through the rather linear path, we soon stumble across a Taillow and Buneary!

Buneary is a new encounter! It bounces around a lot making it a little more difficult to capture, but thanks to the changes to the capture mechanic in this game, it's not really that much tougher. It'll also occasionally charge forward with a tackle, so be careful not to let it damage your styler!

Buneary provides a Normal Assist and Crush Lv. 1 field skill.

Vientown

We soon arrive at the humble little village of Vientown! But we don't have any time to look around, we've gotta head straight for the Ranger Base!

Music: Ranger Base (Depot)

Hey, it's the same theme from the first game!

When we arrive inside the ranger base, it's surprisingly quiet inside. But after calling out, the operator at the desk apologizes and explains that everyone in the base had to depart on a critical mission. Of course, they've been expecting us for our internship, so this must have been quite the crisis! The operator agrees and starts to explain something about a Bidoof, but she couldn't even bring herself to say it. However, before leaving, the leader of the ranger base left a parcel with the operator as well as a letter for us which assigns a mission to us right from the start!

The letter provides our mission: Retrieve the extremely important parcel and deliver it to Breeze Hill west of Vientown. After reading the letter, the operator carefully hands us the parcel and asks us to be careful not to tip it on its side and to never, ever flip it upside-down. In order to reach Breeze Hill, we'll have to pass through the beach.

Of course, in the Ranger Base, we can save and we can talk to the operator if we need our Styler recharged. Otherwise, it's out to the mission!

Music: Vientown

Now that we're back outside, we can take a moment to talk around the town, we can even find what I assume to be Little Tim's farm, the Little Big Farm with a Miltank in the farm! Apparently something called "Milk Pudding" is really popular in the household. Another house seems to be the home or workshop of a woodcrafter, who has a giant wooden sculpture of a Pikachu in the corner! And the third house is home to a little girl named Mimi who wants to be a Happiny when she grows up... real cute and all, but the obsession seems to be getting a bit out of hand... she's completely surrounded by other Happiny and her parents seem to be either encouraging it or concerned, I can't quite tell... Mimi refers to herself in third person, so it's even a bit weirder at that...

If you dip just south of Vientown, you can't get very far before being turned around, but there is a tree you can Tackle to find another new pokemon! This time, it's Seedot who provides a Grass Assist and Tackle Lv. 1 as well. Seedot's a pretty standard capture as well.

Though we probably shouldn't be neglecting our duties too much. As far as I can tell, there isn't anything of particular importance around town, so we may as well just head West toward the beach.

It's not far at all before we reach Nabiki Beach where we'll find a couple who apparently met here. Apparently there's a legend that people who meet here, you're bound to become close friends. I suppose you can't be closer friends than boyfriend and girlfriend, huh?

  

Just a bit further ahead, we'll run into a man named Mr. Woodward who is surrounded by pokemon: A Starly, Munchlax, and Pachirisu. He's feeding the three pokemon and seems quite friendly with them. He can immediately guess by our uniforms that we must be the 1-Day Interns from the Ranger School and he gives us a quick quiz about Partner pokemon. We already know most of this from the previous game, but there seems to be one key difference here in Almia: Rangers can actually have multiple partner pokemon here! However, you're still only permitted one to go out with you at a time. That's interesting, it seems like there will be multiple Partner Pokemon available to us in this game rather than just one like Plusle/Minun in the original. That would certainly be nice as it would help in dealing with pokemon that aren't resistant to the specific type of partner you have. It seems like a natural progression, quite frankly. I like the idea! I can't wait to see what kind of partner pokemon this game has to offer...

Anyway, Breeze Hill is just around the corner from here. When we arrive, we find the rangers from the Vientown Base who seem to be on standby, including Crawford from the outdoor class! The leader of the Vientown Base, Barlow, meets with us when Keith nervously greets them. We carefully deliver the parcel as expected. But as soon as we deliver this extremely-important parcel for this critical mission... Barlow turns around and announces that lunch has arrived! Lunch?!

Yes, as it turns out, this is a little prank Crawford devised like to pull on us interns here at Vientown and they've all been on the receiving end. Barlow congratulates us on completing the mission and following instructions well.

He introduces himself and his partner pokemon, Makuhita.

Another ranger, Luana, introduces herself and her partner pokemon, Buneary. She admits that she fell for the same prank when she was an intern, only the lunch was completely messed up from her carelessly swinging it around.

Lastly, Elaine introduces herself. She doesn't have a partner pokemon because she's a mechanic.

And after introductions are over, it's time for lunch! The parcel we delivered is a big meal meant to welcome us! So it's not like it's some mean-spirited prank.

It seems a bit strange, but once you're done chatting with everyone, you want to turn around and try to leave to continue the story. At this point, the boy of the couple we saw earlier comes rushing up to Breeze Hill requesting help from the rangers!

Music: Trouble

Evidently, a bunch of pokemon at the beach suddenly turned mean and started attacking his girlfriend! They have her surrounded and won't let her go! So, of course, it looks like the rangers have to step in! Barlow instructs us to come along as well.

    

Down on the beach, the girl is surrounded by the three pokemon Mr. Woodward was feeding earlier as well as two Shellos. Mr. Woodward is dumbstruck by the strange behavior of the pokemon, insisting they're docile and friendly normally!

Barlow splits up the work. Crawford and he'll capture the Shellos while he tasks us, Keith, and Luana with capturing the other three.

Rookie Mission: Sooth Pokemon on the Beach!

As we rush in to rescue the pokemon, Mr. Woodward shouts after us and continues to insist they're good pokemon. He insits that they're all friendly and reliable, that if he were a ranger he'd be honored to have them as his partner pokemon.

As we approach the pokemon, we find Crawford and Barlow already at work capturing the Shellos, but Keith and Luana seem to be hesitating. Luana can't quite figure out which pokemon expects her to help and Keith is getting nervous because of Luana's confusion. So, it looks like it's up to us to make the first move! Surely that'll rile up Keith's competitive spirit and make Luana's decision easier once Keith's taken action.

  

So, we have a decision here that seems... moderately important. I'm trying to avoid looking too far ahead, but from what I'm understanding, the pokemon we rescue here will become our first Partner Pokemon, but we should be able to obtain the others we don't capture here later on, too. Now, as much as I'd like my first partner pokemon to be a type other than electric for the sake of variety compared to my partner in the original game, I just don't really think Starly or Munchlax are particularly interesting pokemon to consider my main partner. I think Pachirisu is a much more fun pokemon to include. So that's the one I went with!

So it's off to capture Pachirsu! It's not much different than Pikachu, occasionally firing off Thundershock in various directions. It hops around a bit, but it's a pretty simple capture. Pachirisu provides a special Electric-type assist that differs from the typical Electric-type "Recharge" assist. But it also has no field skill.

Music: Peaceful Aftermath

Upon capturing Pachirisu, we find that Keith and Luana were able to successfully capture the other two, and the five pokemon are calmed down! After assessing the situation, and with Elaine verifying that no people or pokemon were injured, everyone releases the pokemon they captured back into the wild! Except, Pachirisu doesn't seem interested in leaving...

The couple approaches us and thanks us for our help. They explain that they heard strange noises from the sea and saw a cargo ship pull away. That was when the pokemon suddenly attacked! They suggest the pokemon might've been startled by the cargo ship. Just to be safe, Barlow tasks Crawford and Luana with sweeping the beach to make sure there's no foul play involved here. Barlow then turns to us and congratulates us on completing our first mission and thanks us for our help.

And with that, it's mission clear!

To make up for their prank, Barlow offers to stay back with the others to clean up after the lunch and sends us and Keith back to the base ahead of them.

Vientown Ranger Base

Back at the base, it's already near sundown. We say our goodbyes and, just as we're about to head out the door, we're surprised by a familiar face: It's Prof. Hastings from the first game! He enters the room and recognzies our outfits as Uniforms of the Ranger School. He explains that another girl arrived at the Ranger Union on her 1-day internship as well. It sounds like Rhythmi arrived safely! Although he claims her name was "Misery" or "Something like that." I... guess it's close enough?

With that, Prof. Hastings sees us off, having memorized our faces, he hopes to work with us in the future!

We leave with Keith only to find the Pachirisu I captured earlier waiting for me outside! Of course, if you chose a different pokemon, it'll be here, instead. Barlow and Crawford come out when they notice something's up and immediately recognize that Pachirisu must really like us after the capture! However, we aren't officially rangers yet, so unfortunately, Barlow can't permit us to have a partner pokemon yet. It's disappointing, and he allows us to spend some more time with Pachirisu, but we'll have to release it before we return to the school.

As we cross the bridge back to the school, we have to stop and say goodbye to our poor little friend. But shortly after, Rhythmi comes running up to us! We catch up a bit, with Keith explaining we went on an actual mission! But he claims it was "top-secret," so he can't say anymore... I'm not entirely sure where that comes from, it seemed pretty public to me. But I guess it's just a way for Keith to try and look cool. Rhythmi mentions that she went through a lot, too. She mentions that Prof. Hastings kept mistaking her name as "Misery," but she decides it's best to catch up later, as it's going to get dark soon! So, we hurry off to the school together!

Quote

To Big Brother/Sis,

You're going to be graduating soon!

Did you hear our news?

The three of us are very close to you now because we all moved to Chicole Village yesterday!

From, Little Sis

So, I'm starting to fall under the impression that a lot more than just a single day is passing between these scenes that have been playing out recently. After all, we seemed to hit it off really quick with Keith and Rhythmi and we're already graduating! Not only that, but if this was all one day after another, then that means our family has not only decided to move, but found a place and moved in all within the span of a single week! And we've also enrolled and are now graduating within that same week as well... Yeah, clearly, a lot more time is passing than I initially thought, but to be fair, I think the game does a pretty poor job of conveying that information.  Couldn't there have been some sort of indication of the passage of time beyond inference?

Ranger School

Anyway, we next cut back to our graduation day at the Ranger School! We are officially graduating! This is the last time we'll be meeting Mrs. April in the classroom. She sends us all off to say our goodbyes and we'll all have to gather int he main hall when we hear the bell.

And with that, we can save and that's where we're gonna leave off for the day. Next time, we'll proceed with the graduation ceremony and become official pokemon rangers! Maybe we'll even get to see Pachirisu again?

[Aura]

Ranger School

It's graduation day! Since there's no lesson today, we can take our time to explore the school one last time and say our goodbyes to everyone! Apparently, we're going to be joining the Vientown Ranger Base and working under Barlow! Keith and Rhythmi, on the other hand, are sadly being stationed in Fiore. So it looks like we'll be separated from our friends for quite a while.

As we step out into the main hall, we can find flowers and drapes all throughout the hallway. It really feels like the end of school life, huh? Even though we haven't spent much time getting to know our classmates, it's actually pretty emotional running around talking to people. Even the nameless NPCs have some pretty sweet dialogue.

Evidently, with Mr. Kincaid's recommendation, Isaac is joining a corporation known as Altru Inc., the key energy producer for Almia who seem to be striving for clean energy to replace oil...

Anyway, as we step outside of the school building to look around the schoolyard, the bell will begin to ring, signalling for everyone to gather in the main hall for the graduation ceremony.

Everyone is now gathered in front of the staircase in the main hall, including the faculty. Principal Lamont is standing in front of the stairs giving his speech to the students. He keeps his speech brief, with a single request from all of the students of the school: "Please don't forget to smile."

After his speech, Principal Lamont gives up the stage for Mr. Kincaid to call forth the valedictorian: Isaac, of course, who also gives a speech to thank the staff, pokemon, and the school's resources on behalf of everyone at the school for all they've helped with.

And finally, for the conferring of graduation certificates. Mrs. April calls us to the stage as a representative for the graduating class. Our friends cheer us on as we step onto the stage, but as we begin to move, a loud noise shakes the whole school! It sounded like... an explosion from the basement!? Mrs. April tries to keep everyone calm while Mr. Kincaid goes downstairs to check on what happened. But something seems to be going wrong and, before Mr. Kincaid returns...

 

Music: Crisis (Call to Action)

Two Tangrowth emerge from the basement! Of course, Keith is right there, just as ready to capture the Tangrowth as you. But if you take a quick detour to speak with Isaac, it seems like he might have an idea of what these things came from... it must be related to whatever experiment he was doing in the basement, but he seems to reject whatever he was thinking as impossible.

Anyway, we've gotta rush in and put a stop to those Tangrowth!

Vs. Tangrowth

This is our first boss fight of the game! They seem to work differently than previously, which admittedly I think is a pretty important distinction. As you might've guessed, with the changes to the capture system in this game, bosses now have distinct boss meters at the top of the screen. Tangrowth here has significantly more HP than any bosses we've battled up until this point. But of course, just like with regular pokemon, we don't have to capture it all in a single line like the first game would demand of us.

Tangrowth here will run around the screen and occasionally fire off PoisonPowder. This powder will damage your styler, of course, and it fans out in a wide range in front of him, so make sure to lift your stylus if it's about to cross your line! You can use similar strategies to what we'd employed in the previous game to try and capture it in one go, or you can take your time and slowly widdle away at his health between attacks. Either way, you've gotta circle him quick while he's vulnerable because he'll attack again!

Tangrowth provides a Grass assist, of course, along with the Tackle Lv. 2 Field Skill. But of course, these Tangrowth aren't going to be tagging along with us. And with that, Keith and us have successfully captured the Tangrowth, calming them down, and saving everyone at the graduation ceremony!

Music: Ranger School (Day)

Strangely, the whole fiasco is kinda just swept under the rug. Principal Lamont checks in with Mr. Kincaid to see if he's okay, Mr. Kincaid is at a loss for what happened or where the Tangrowth came from, and after confessing the lack of an explanation is disappointing, we just... carry on with the ceremony like nothing happened?

Mrs. April once again calls us to the stage as representative of the graduation class and we receive our graduation certificate!

And with that, our graduation ceremony is complete.

Quote

To Big Brother/Sister,

Congratulations! You graduated!

How was the graduation ceremony?

You don't need to write back, though.

Because tomorrow, we can meet and talk in person!

From Little Sis.

And the next morning, we awaken not in the school dorm, but by our sister!

Chicole Village

This is our first chance to see our family, and what a cute little girl! She seems excited that today's our first day as a Pokemon Ranger, but she also reminds us that we'd better get going and not be late!

We step downstairs to meet with our family. They seem to be really satisfied with the new house! Our sister tells us she's calling the house the "Partner farm" because "mommy and daddy get along so well"... That's a bit of a strange thing to name your house, but I guess naming your house anything is also a little strange, isn't it?

Anyway, after we leave the house, we can take a moment to explore our new hometown. If we head straight south of our house, we'll find some farmland and a small area that seems like it might be a great place for Pokemon to populate... hmm....

We can talk to our neighbors around the village, too. The lady next door seems to live alone, but there are hints around that indicate she must have a son. Other than that, the house in the northeast is home to a boy named Kyle who seems to be a really big fan of Riolu as there's all sorts of Riolu-related items inside. But Kyle himself seems a bit shy.

Everyone seems pretty friendly! And there's a save machine at the northern exit to the village. This is where I think we'll be stopping today. I know we haven't done much, but I wanna make sure I set a reasonable pace for this game. So far it's giving off the impression that it might be incredibly dialogue heavy and I want to make sure the more complicated parts of the story aren't too difficult for me to summarize. That said, I can also see this game just having a pretty boring introduction and things picking up a lot faster as we progress.

Anyway, next time we'll report for our first official day of Ranger Duty!

[Aura]

Spoiler

Chicole Path

The image of Chicole Path is concealed with a Spoiler Tag because, of course, the Bulbapedia and Serebii images of the location both happent o contain rather heavy spoilers for pokemon we've yet to meet. The pokemon in question aren't too much of a surprise, but I don't really want to show them without spoilers just yet regardless. If you peek at the spoiler tag, I'm sure you'll understand why. This is the same reason I used Serebii's image of School Road instead of Bulbapedia's.

Anyway, last time we graduated from Ranger School and explored our family's new home in Chicole Village. Now it's time for us to head north to Vientown and report for duty at the Ranger Base!

The pokemon that were here previously are no longer available, the game probably doesn't wanna distract you too much from your reporting to Vientown, but I'm sure they'll be available again later on, so off we go!

Vientown Ranger Base

As soon as we arrive in Vientown, we run into Luana who was so excited to see you that she came out to wait for you! Together with Luana, we make our way to the Ranger Base for our official recruitment!

As soon as we arrive, we're greeted by the rangers of Vientown who welcome us aboard and urge us to go change into our new Ranger Uniform!

 

So finally, we're now wearing our official Ranger Uniform! Now we truly look the part of a Pokemon Ranger protagonist! No more school uniform!

And in official recognition of our status as a Pokemon Ranger, we receive an official Pokemon Ranger's Capture Styler! We already know of one feature this Styler has over the School Styler, that being Voicemail functionality. But there's more to it! Barlow explains that the Ranger Styler will enable us to use Poke Assists!

With this, Crawford shows off a brief demonstration of how to use Poke Assists to help with a capture. In doing so, he uses a Blastoise's Water assist.

The Water Assist is pretty much the same as in the first game at first, but its functionality is slightly different. It seems a bit nerfed compared to the original. Originally, the bubbles would trap pokemon caught by them, making them incredibly easy to capture while they were trapped. But in this game, the bubble gives them a "slow" status, slowing their movement rather than trapping them in place. I think it's a fair trade-off considering keeping a pokemon in place isn't as important due to the new capture mechanics and the Water assist was by far one of the most powerful assists in the original game due to completely stopping pokemon caught within it. It kinda made a lot of other assists totally meaningless. To compensate for this nerf, the bubbles also contribute to the pokemon's capture meter, so hitting the pokemon with the bubble not only slows them down, but reduces the amount of loops you need to hit them with. In addition, allowing the bubble to grow large before flicking it into the target will fill the gauge even more! Furthermore, hitting a pokemon with an assist they're vulnerable to will increase the damage they take as well, but the damage will be reduced against a pokemon that's resistant to it.

That last part isn't explained here, but it can pretty quickly be inferred after playing around with these assists going forward.

After the demonstration, Barlow gives us a formal introduction to the team before explaining to us that things have been weird around Vientown recently ever since the incident at the beach. So it looks like we've got our work cut out for us.

Anyway, our first mission is an incredibly simple one: Go with Crawford and Deliver the Vien Tribune, a local newspaper printed by the Vientown Rangers, to everyone's homes in Vientown and Chicole Village.

Mission 1: Deliver Vien Tribune!

This mission is incredibly basic. It's essentially what we've already done, roaming the two villages and visiting each house. So why don't we take a brief detour to explore the surrounding environments, too?

Up north, the road is still blocked so there's not much to do there.

School Road

   

We can head East of Vientown across School Road to find some of the pokemon we captured before. But now, we can use their assists!

Buneary provides a Normal Assist!

The original game didn't have a Normal assist, Normal-type pokemon simply didn't provide Poke-Assists at all making them a lot less useful than typed pokemon. But in this game, Normal-types do have their own assist! The Normal Assist will increase the power of your styler as well as its line length! Of course, nothing is weak to Normal Types so there are only pokemon that resist the assist. Keep that in mind.

Taillow provides a Flying Assist.

The Flying Assist is more or less the same. If you draw a loop, a tornado will appear in the middle. And as you continue to loop around and around, smaller tornados will fling around the screen. Each tornado will contribute to the pokemon's capture gauge when they collide.

Pichu is an electric type, but its assist isn't the Electric Assist. Rather, it's Charge.

The "Charge" Assist is just an in-battle version of the regular charge ability used as a Field Skill. It simply recharges your styler if you find yourself in a dangerous situation.

Finally, we have Budew with the Grass assist.

The Grass assist is just like the original game's. The line leaves tall grass in its wake. Any pokemon walking into the grass are slowed down, making them easier to circle.

Anyway, once you reach the far end of School Road, you'll find the gates to the Ranger School are closed. Now that we've graduated, I suppose there's no reason to go back to school, huh?

Vientown

Anyway, it's time to return to Vientown and start actually doing our job. We stop by the three houses to deliver the Tribune. In the Little Big Farm, we finally meet Little Tim and his wife, Big Bertha! They of course remember us coming to their rescue fondly and are happy to see we're a ranger in their hometown now!

When we go to deliver the tribune to Woodward, it seems he's not home again, so we'll need to make our way to Nabiki Beach to deliver his copy.

Nabiki Beach

When we arrive on Nabiki Beach, we find the Pachirisu we captured before! It immediately recognizes us and excitedly runs up to us! Woodward then approaches, explaining that Pachirisu has been waiting for us for a long time now. How sweet! Crawford suggests that, now that we're an official ranger, we can accept this pokemon as our partner pokemon!

Crawford then provides us with a demonstration of how to use the Partner Pokemon's assist. Just like before, your partner pokemon's assist can be used as many times as you want. It's never released! All you have to do is fill the partner gauge by looping pokemon!

The Electric assist differs from typical Electric-types' charge abilities, but isn't quite the same as Plusle or Minun's Discharge in the original. With Pachirisu's Electric Assist, you can tap parts of the screen to call down a thunderbolt that increases nearby targets' capture gauges and paralyzes them, freezing them in place and making them easy captures.

 

Of course, if you captured Starly or Munchlax, this would be the pokemon you would be receiving as your first partner. This is where it's made clear to me that Pachirisu's electric assist is probably not unique to it. There might simply be electric-types out there that don't charge your styler and just have the Electric assist like Pachirisu. Because Starly and Munchlax just provide the standard Flying and Normal-type assist. It would seem weird for only one partner to have a unique assist. Even still, I don't regret choosing Pachirisu because up until this point, it's still the only one with a new assist that we can't get anywhere else.

I've honestly gotta say, Munchlax has got to be the most boring of these starting partners, huh? But regardless, eventually, we should be able to get them all!

Anyway, with our partner Pachirisu tagging along, it's time to get on with our mission! We deliver the Tribune to Woodward and make our way back to Vientown to head south toward Chicole Village.

  

Along the way to Chicole Village, we can find the Budew are back! This is a good opportunity to capture Seedot if you haven't already, as it's less out of the way this time.

Chicole Village

Back in Chicole Village, we've got four more homes to deliver to, including our own! Our next-door neighbor mentions that she has a son about the same age as Crawford. But he hasn't quite kept in touch... Could this be foreshadowing a villain of some sort up ahead? Let's hope not!

Of course, as Barlow suggested, this is a great opportunity to show off our new uniform to our family at our home! Everyone praises how great the uniform looks on us, and our mother of course asks Crawford to be careful with us. She wouldn't be a good mom if she didn't worry over us, huh? And with that, our task is complete! Now we've just gotta report back to the base!

Vientown Ranger Base

Once we return, Barlow notices our partner pokemon. He doesn't remember at first, but after Crawford jogs his memory, Barlow remembers the way the Pachirisu reacted when we first captured it! Recalling that it kept following us around the whole day, Barlow mentions it seems like an ideal partner! So, we've got the official blessing from Barlow himself this time! Looks like we've got our partner for good!

With that out of the way, we turn in for the night here at the base.

The next morning, Barlow gives the rundown of some recent events. Apparently, Mr. Woodward has reported strange noises coming from Marine Cave on Nabiki Beach. Of course, this sounds similar to the story of the events preceeding the moment the three pokemon Woodward was feeding went berserk! So, Barlow tasks Crawford and us to go investigate these strange noises. Right away, we've got our second mission!

With that, we'll save up and next time, we'll get to work on our next mission! See you then!