Smash Bros 3 Site Goes Live.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:17 pm

Hot damn the updates have sucked since Sonic.

Oompa Star · Post by **Oompa Star** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:24 pm

The updates will get better. Have faith.

Yami CJMErl · Post by **Yami CJMErl** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:34 pm

Screw you, the PictoChat stage was awesome.

Sakurai's probably just making sure he covers all the stuff people are finding in the E for All demo anyway.

Black Rook · Post by **Black Rook** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:00 pm

Tomorrow's update better be "E for All demo available on Wii Virtual Console for free!"

Shadow Hog · Post by **Shadow Hog** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:21 pm

God, would I love that. I think we both know that'll never happen, though. Not until, like, December or something. That'd be a nice Christmas present. :)

Anyway, I'd sure like me a new character or even just a confirmed oldbie, yes.

Black Rook · Post by **Black Rook** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:22 pm

Well, maybe not the full E for All version of the demo, but at least something. Maybe just one stage with Mario and one of the new characters.

FlashTHD · Post by **FlashTHD** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 11:39 pm

Zeta wrote:Hot damn the updates have sucked since Sonic.

Nag nag nag.

But i'll grant you as much as the stages are ass. I got to watching some YouTube vids yesterday, and until then it hadn't really hit me how horribly underwhelming they are. I was under the impression that Castle Siege was a pretty wide-open level ala the castles of the first two; nope. It's a tiny tiered platform suspended inbetween wide expanses of nothing, as large as the Mushroom Kingdom stage from the original game at best. They also had me believing you took the fight into the lower levels when the floor gets blasted out from under you...naw, too much sense in that! Instead the level goes all WHOOOSH with everybody falling and suddenly you've warped to the new environment. Yeah, that's so like Fire Emblem.

The rest, excluding Rumble Falls (Infinite Glacier 2) and Shadow Moses (the only original one; go figure, they had Konami design it) aren't as deceptive: either a moving stage or the Battlefield model mixed up, plus maybe shapeshifting terrain. Norfair came off to me as the better of these with the insane lava behavior, but again it's floating platforms in front of a pretty backdrop. And if New Pork City is the best they can do for "big" stages, then this game is in trouble.

This isn't an N64 game we're talking about here, and yet whoever's designing these stages has felt the need to regress the game back that far. Melee's stages felt like true places and were always, save the obvious Battlefield retreads, interesting. Now, if go to look at this page, it quickly hits you that everything bleeds same-y. The wild use of source material is there. The smart layout detail isn't, and with three months from release there's no way they'll get better.

Only figures - any series that goes for the trilogy (and wasn't Sonic in the early 90's) has to do a major facefault somewhere by #3.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:14 am

Yeah, all of the stages have great backgrounds. But the wide-open areas like Hyrule Temple are always the most fun. These are just overwhelming, usually being some variation of one big platform and two small platforms in mid-air.

Post by **Esrever** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:23 am

Still, there were always plenty of stages like that in Melee, in addition to the larger or more unusual ones. One would assume they aren't going to show off all the biggest, coolest stages now, leaving only the more boring ones as "surprises" for when the actual game comes out.

Dasher · Post by **Dasher** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 6:41 am

Funny I was thinking of how boring the stage design was for Break the Targets in the last games. Now look at what I found! Man, If only those were actual stages! they are that cool! But none the less I am happy that break the targets looks so great! oh and you can use items in there too! so far no pits in these levels, I bet some will have them.

This level needs Azure Lake's theme heheheh.

Cool grass land stage, I like how the targets have different colors now.

This one looks nifty, I love wastelands can wait to test them out with Sonic. As you can see this is the pause screen supposedly thats the whole layout so you can see where the other Targets are.

Another anouncement is that you can record up to 3 minutes of your battle and share it with others. Basically you can replay your battle and share that video with friends? something like that.

Isuka · Post by **Isuka** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:09 am

Those stages look like a blast to play... at least in a Worms game.

I wonder what kind of demo for this game could be stored in less than 512 MiB. A single, watered-down stage, no more than two characters and some three or so modes to test it?

FlashTHD wrote:Only figures - any series that goes for the trilogy (and wasn't Sonic in the early 90's) has to do a major facefault somewhere by #3.

Devil May Cry would have almost being safe from this if it wasn't for the fact that Dante is so almighty, there's no tension or fear in the third one.

Yami CJMErl · Post by **Yami CJMErl** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:40 am

They could always make it some sort of demo-disc pack-in with the end-of-year issue of Nintendo Power...

FlashTHD · Post by **FlashTHD** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:47 am

Esrever wrote:Still, there were always plenty of stages like that in Melee, in addition to the larger or more unusual ones. One would assume they aren't going to show off all the biggest, coolest stages now, leaving only the more boring ones as "surprises" for when the actual game comes out.

I think you missed this:

Melee's stages felt like true places and were always, save the obvious Battlefield retreads, interesting. Now, if go to look at this page, it quickly hits you that everything bleeds same-y.

Shit, when you look at this, even most of the variations on Battlefield feel genuinely rooted into where they're at for one reason or another. They have yet to pull this off with the stages shown thus far in Brawl, and with the themes they've used up already, that's sad. Stages like Lylat Cruise and Skyworld wouldn't be nearly so bad if things were better balanced.

I don't like the target tests being taken outdoors - the backdrops are blah and it shatters the whole surreal atmosphere of things, but multiple maps and replays are red hot.

They could always make it some sort of demo-disc pack-in with the end-of-year issue of Nintendo Power...

Nintendo's not publishing it anymore, so it won't be so easy.

Yami CJMErl · Post by **Yami CJMErl** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:49 am

Wait...so there's no magazine, period?

Even when Nintendo DID publish it, they rarely included demo discs...

FlashTHD · Post by **FlashTHD** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:16 pm

Future US bought 'em out. It'll keep going and even gain a 13th issue at year's end, but the trade-off is they lose their exclusive official connection to NoA. Which means, among other things, no more player's guides :(

Sniffnoy · Post by **Sniffnoy** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:11 pm

Isuka wrote:Those stages look like a blast to play... at least in a Worms game.

Hell yes! (Probably) not being tailored to the characters, though, is somewhat disappointing... chances are some characters are going to be just straight up better at the courses than others. Although, it is interesting that different characters would presumably use different paths.

FlashTHD wrote:Future US bought 'em out. It'll keep going and even gain a 13th issue at year's end, but the trade-off is they lose their exclusive official connection to NoA. Which means, among other things, no more player's guides :(

What... but... but that defeats the whole point! Why?!

Post by **Esrever** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:07 pm

Flash, for the record, it wasn't that I missed what you said, I just don't really think that it's true. Platforms suspended in midair is one of the game's standard motifs in melee, too. I don't think Dream Fountain or the DK river stage were any more or less grounded in their settings than their equivalent-styled stages in Brawl.

I just think the stages you are worried about are just the ones intended to be the successors to those kind of environments, just like the Pictochat and Warioware stages are successors to rapid-changing stages like Pokefloats and Game and Watch, or like Rumble Falls is a successor to forced-scrolling stages, or like Shadow Moses Island is a successor to the enclosed stages. Besides, they've only revealed 16 stages or so, probably only roughly half of what will be in the final game (there were 24 new stages in melee, after all)... and I imagine they are saving some of the bigger or more unusual stages to show off later.

Wooduck51 · Post by **Wooduck51** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:18 pm

The lack of innovative level design must be the result of the conspiracy

I find the outside target test refreshing; hours of the same background and music while I was trying to complete everybodys melee target levels and I would become violently irritated.

FlashTHD · Post by **FlashTHD** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:36 pm

Esrever wrote:Besides, they've only revealed 16 stages or so, probably only roughly half of what will be in the final game (there were 24 new stages in melee, after all)... and I imagine they are saving some of the bigger or more unusual stages to show off later.

I'm not getting that feeling, but whatever.

Post by **Esrever** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:50 pm

It's a sort of loving feeling. Have you lost it?

Yami CJMErl · Post by **Yami CJMErl** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:51 pm

FlashTHD wrote:Future US bought 'em out. It'll keep going and even gain a 13th issue at year's end, but the trade-off is they lose their exclusive official connection to NoA. Which means, among other things, no more player's guides :(

FUCK

That's why I loved Nintendo Power--who better to get a guide from than the people who MADE the game (in a manner of speaking)?

I was wondering why they didn't make guides for MP3:C and LoZ:PH...Now I have to rely on crappy PRIMA for information. DAMMIT!

Shadow Hog · Post by **Shadow Hog** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:07 pm

Eh, Nintendo might find a way to publish it themselves - or to work directly with Prima/BradyGames/whoever.

Locit · Post by **Locit** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:43 pm

Oh darn, Nintendo's propaganda pamphlet isn't actually run by Nintendo anymore. What a shame. Granted they haven't been quite as bad in recent years as they were in earlier times, but I view this as good, if not something I care too much about.

They always did have such nice screenshot spreads, though.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:13 pm

That's why I bought it. They were the most aesthetically attractive gaming magazine of all time, with tons of great screenshots and official concept art. : (

j-man · Post by **j-man** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:24 pm

Oh, cheer up. There's always that inter-net.