Melee Adventure Mode VS The Subspace Emissary

[Rhubarbo]

I just completed the SSE today, and I must admit, it was a giant disappointment. If an excessive amount of time was devoted to completing this, I think that the development team was really screwing up their priorities.

What I'm here to argue about is that the SSE should have been a beafier version of Melee's Adventure Mode. Here are some good aspects of the Adventure Mode.

Pros:
-Builds levels based on the rich worlds of Nintendo characters
-Doesn't make up anything

Let's look at the cons of this mode:
-Too short
-No story
-No cut scenes

Now, to build a successful mode for Brawl, what should have been done??? Take Melee's Aventure mode and start to add cut scenes to it. Develop a story. Introduce Ganondorf, Bowser, Dedede or Master Hand as a villain for example. After the opening cut scene, drop the character you CHOSE (more on this later) into a level actually based off Nintendo's games with Nintendo enemies. Simply add more cutscenes as you progress through levels and place a plot twist before the ending.

Simple enough, no? This concept would have been much more superior than the SSE where nothing but the characters are based off Nintendo games. The leveles you go through are all so generic. Even though some of them are inspired by other games, they end up feeling bland and boring. A few minor cameos would have even been appreciated. Are they there...no. There are some exceptions like the Sky World (which is based off what the land of Kid Icarus is portrated like in Brawl, not even the native game) and the Forest from Zelda (which is completely bland by the way).

Also, the think about the SSE is that it doesn't develop it's characters properly because it attempts to cram 32 characters (Wolf, Jigglypuff and Toon Link don't have story line relevance) into one story with equal roles. What should have been done is have series of story lines that you choose to play from a select screen. So, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, DK, Diddy, Wario and Yoshi for example, would all be in the same story. The stories of course would be much shorter but would at least adequately develop their characters. To unite all characters, their could be one final series where the worlds collide and everyone must fight one common enemy (WHICH HAS TO BE MASTER HAND).

Speaking of which, why was Tron the final boss in Brawl? God, that was literally the most un-inspired way to end a Smash Bros game. Smash Bros is about uniting worlds together, but the SSE feels like it brought a bunch of characters into a random place based off an amateur fan fic. This is kind of like seeing Tails flying off a building with a serious expression on his face (Sonic Adventure). That just doesn't fit.

What are your thoughts?

P.S. I have already started a Smash novel that is a story+game. Essentially, you read the story, then when you reach a certain point, you are posed with a challenge that you do in Brawl in VS Mode. If you complete the challenge, you continue reading on. There are also branching paths depending on certain conditions.

 

[DarkShadowRage]

I stopped reading at "no cutscenes"

 

[kr3wman]

I stopped reading at "no cutscenes"

He's talking about the Melee Adventure mode...

But you make a certain point. Melee's Adventure Mode is the complete opposite of the SSE.

 

[M.K]

^Yeah, what was up with that? Although I agree, the new enemies were hugely bland and repetitive. The levels were just...nature. That's it.

 

[flyinfilipino]

Guess there'll always be something to complain about .

 

[Rash]

The only interesting part of Melee's Adventure Mode was the first stage. Since the release of Melee I've wanted more similar sidescrolling experiences. SSE fulfills the desire. It's the superior Adventure Mode.

 

[RedMage8BT]

Melee's Adventure got repetitive VERY quickly. Subspace actually has me coming back. It's a full-fledged side-scrolling adventure, and the cutscenes add more meaning and badassery to it.

 

[SFJake]

I stopped reading at "no cutscenes"

Wow, learn to read in the first place. Hilarious.

---

I somehow agree with you. SSE was disappointing in a way.. it was lacking. The cutscene are awesome, but the thing is lacking and very, very repetitive.

The fact that it didn't make any sense isn't what really bothers me, though I indeed would've liked to have more personal things in it, more personal adventures. The guys here just all came out of nowhere for no reason and thats all the depth there was to it. Kinda disapointed.

Did the SSE once, will not do it again. I think they should've considered wasting at that time on something else.

 

[NintendoWarrior]

SSE is much better than Melee's adventure mode hands down.

 

[Chaosblade77]

I doubt I will do SSE again after I get 100% completion on it.

Melee's adventure mode was tedious because you had to do it with so many characters and it was the same boring thing each time. It was fun at first, because you had cool, side-scrolling levels like Mushroom Kingdom and even the Zelda dungeon, but it totally dropped off and ended up just like classic mode with an extra challenge here or there (eg. climb the Ice Climber's stage just so you can fight them, or fight 2 little DKs just to fight a big one).

SSE picked up from there at actually made it a side-scrolling game, what adventure mode started off as and probably what it was intended to be. Cutscenes were an added bonus, some were funny, others gave a sense of story (as in, there was almost one).

I think if they attempt something like this in the future they need to take it one step farther, and make it into something really worth playing again. Even if the characters don't speak, add text explaining what is going on and add depth to it. Options in the plot so it's not linear. If you could take different routes in the story and have multiple routes to conclusions that slightly differ (with different stories to get to them based off your choices) it could be something people would actually want to play many times.

That is where SSE failed... it's extremely linear and there is no real plot. If there is a Smash 4, it's possible that we might get something to that effect, since each Smash game seems to add something new in that manner. SSB64 started with nothing, Melee got adventure mode, Brawl got a beefed up adventure mode, maybe next time we get that full fledged game.

 

[2L84U]

I just hope I get the cutscenes and my stock back when I play it again.
(at some points stock is not replaced when you play the stage the 2nd time)

Miss Melee's adventure.

 

[Mikau et al]

I just completed the SSE today, and I must admit, it was a giant disappointment. If an excessive amount of time was devoted to completing this, I think that the development team was really screwing up their priorities.

What I'm here to argue about is that the SSE should have been a beafier version of Melee's Adventure Mode. Here are some good aspects of the Adventure Mode.

Pros:
-Builds levels based on the rich worlds of Nintendo characters
-Doesn't make up anything

Let's look at the cons of this mode:
-Too short
-No story
-No cut scenes

Now, to build a successful mode for Brawl, what should have been done??? Take Melee's Aventure mode and start to add cut scenes to it. Develop a story. Introduce Ganondorf, Bowser, Dedede or Master Hand as a villain for example. After the opening cut scene, drop the character you CHOSE (more on this later) into a level actually based off Nintendo's games with Nintendo enemies. Simply add more cutscenes as you progress through levels and place a plot twist before the ending.

Simple enough, no? This concept would have been much more superior than the SSE where nothing but the characters are based off Nintendo games. The leveles you go through are all so generic. Even though some of them are inspired by other games, they end up feeling bland and boring. A few minor cameos would have even been appreciated. Are they there...no. There are some exceptions like the Sky World (which is based off what the land of Kid Icarus is portrated like in Brawl, not even the native game) and the Forest from Zelda (which is completely bland by the way).

Also, the think about the SSE is that it doesn't develop it's characters properly because it attempts to cram 32 characters (Wolf, Jigglypuff and Toon Link don't have story line relevance) into one story with equal roles. What should have been done is have series of story lines that you choose to play from a select screen. So, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, DK, Diddy, Wario and Yoshi for example, would all be in the same story. The stories of course would be much shorter but would at least adequately develop their characters. To unite all characters, their could be one final series where the worlds collide and everyone must fight one common enemy (WHICH HAS TO BE MASTER HAND).

Speaking of which, why was Tron the final boss in Brawl? God, that was literally the most un-inspired way to end a Smash Bros game. Smash Bros is about uniting worlds together, but the SSE feels like it brought a bunch of characters into a random place based off an amateur fan fic. This is kind of like seeing Tails flying off a building with a serious expression on his face (Sonic Adventure). That just doesn't fit.

What are your thoughts?

P.S. I have already started a Smash novel that is a story+game. Essentially, you read the story, then when you reach a certain point, you are posed with a challenge that you do in Brawl in VS Mode. If you complete the challenge, you continue reading on. There are also branching paths depending on certain conditions.

Generally agree with you. There should have been more of the original games and less of this hass-***** ingenuity. The new enemies are boring and unimportant, the levels seem too generic, and the entire plot overall seems pointless.

The only thing I don't agree with you on is the equal roles. Yes, they tried to make every character just as important as the next, but ones series in particular ended up dramatically more involved in the plot than any other. It is for this reason alone that I will never again play a Kirby game. The injustice of it all.

 

[Rhubarbo]

I doubt I will do SSE again after I get 100% completion on it.

Melee's adventure mode was tedious because you had to do it with so many characters and it was the same boring thing each time. It was fun at first, because you had cool, side-scrolling levels like Mushroom Kingdom and even the Zelda dungeon, but it totally dropped off and ended up just like classic mode with an extra challenge here or there (eg. climb the Ice Climber's stage just so you can fight them, or fight 2 little DKs just to fight a big one).

SSE picked up from there at actually made it a side-scrolling game, what adventure mode started off as and probably what it was intended to be. Cutscenes were an added bonus, some were funny, others gave a sense of story (as in, there was almost one).

I think if they attempt something like this in the future they need to take it one step farther, and make it into something really worth playing again. Even if the characters don't speak, add text explaining what is going on and add depth to it. Options in the plot so it's not linear. If you could take different routes in the story and have multiple routes to conclusions that slightly differ (with different stories to get to them based off your choices) it could be something people would actually want to play many times.

That is where SSE failed... it's extremely linear and there is no real plot. If there is a Smash 4, it's possible that we might get something to that effect, since each Smash game seems to add something new in that manner. SSB64 started with nothing, Melee got adventure mode, Brawl got a beefed up adventure mode, maybe next time we get that full fledged game.

Well, this is what I was trying to say. Melee's Adventure was superior in concept.

 

[Riolu]

I prefer the SSE in every way to Melee's Adventure mode. At least the SSE isn't the exact same thing every time.

 

[Monshou_no_Nazo]

From a gameplay standpoint, Subspace Emissary wins. More fleshed out levels with platforming challenges (a lot of the platforming challenges are not tacked on either), and all of the enemies, as uninteresting as they are in looks, all have different ways of moving and attacking, even the R.O.B and Primid variations were significantly different in how they punished you. Bosses are not as great, since they can just take a beating and go down. The real challenge of bosses comes from Boss Mode, I am assuming.

When people complain about enemies, I am honestly shocked the first thing they don't complain about is the fact that they use Mario enemies in Donkey Kong Country inspired levels. I would think this would bother MANY, MANY people, and now that I mention it, I fully expect fans to be enraged. Not that I mind, but I fully expect many people to mind.

 

[Kye L]

Some people could probably argue why Melee is better than Brawl pretty well.

This is not the right way to do it, though.

 

[Soluble Toast]

I was disappointed that the levels were so generic. I remember reading somewhere that the SSE levels were " rich in Nintendo nostalgia" lolwut.
None of the levels looked remotely like their respective series. Except possibly the Jungle level. That represented DK quite well.

I honestly expected more Nintendo enemies also. Ganondorf was a major villain. Why didn't he have an army of Moblin's like Bowser has Goombas and Koopas. Ridley could've brought Space Pirates with him.

It's all "could've"

In a way, I prefer SSE. It just gets repetitive. i think it wouldn't be so repetitive if we could see famous Nintendo landmarks in the background of certain levels, certain characters appearing every now and then like Toad did in Melee's adventure mode.

 

[absox]

I found both of them tedious... Subspace emissary got boring pretty quickly, takes wayyy to long to beat, and by then you've already unlocked all the characters (well unless you have the attention span to play the same thing for 8 hours straight)

Melee's Adventure got repetitive VERY quickly. Subspace actually has me coming back. It's a full-fledged side-scrolling adventure, and the cutscenes add more meaning and badassery to it.

 

[Eddy01741]

SSE before the maze was awesome, the maze itself was 30% of the whole thing basically. All the maze did was replay all the things I already did, and defeat each character one on one. Tabuu was really annoying, he wasn't like.... a puzzle to beat or anything, he just had like... 10 1hko moves that really annoyed me. However, overall, it was still way better than melee's adventure mode.

 

[Shackel11]

SEE >>> Adventure mode.

Every time it got repetitive, a good cutscene and a character interduction stopped me from turning it off. Maze = 60% But it was actually FUN to me. Most people at this point would probably be "OMFGLOLUHADFUN" and stuff like that but WAIT! Guess what? The levels are filled with "Nintendo nostalgia" in a way. It's the level itself. It's KIRBY STYLE. The final level is a METROIDish level. God, I can't see ANY of you playing a Kirby game, ever.

 

[majora_787]

I just completed the SSE today, and I must admit, it was a giant disappointment. If an excessive amount of time was devoted to completing this, I think that the development team was really screwing up their priorities.

What I'm here to argue about is that the SSE should have been a beafier version of Melee's Adventure Mode. Here are some good aspects of the Adventure Mode.

Pros:
-Builds levels based on the rich worlds of Nintendo characters
-Doesn't make up anything

Let's look at the cons of this mode:
-Too short
-No story
-No cut scenes

I beg your pardon? Your saying SSE has no story, and is too short, as opposed to MELEE'S? Are you ****ing ******** or what -_-

 

[SAMaine]

Actually, Link fought in a forest with a puzzle mechanic, which I thought fit him well.

And about the whole Kirby overrepresentation, what did you expect from Kirby, Meta Knight, and King Dedede?

Kirby's all like "I'm going to beat King Dedede! Ooo, shiny thing! Yum!"
Meta Knight's all like "I want my ship back!"
King Dedede's all like "I have a contingency plan for just such an emergency!"

That's how they are in the Kirby series, King Dedede especially, since he almost always has a situation well in hand until Kirby ruins it for him or King Dedede is possessed by the villian of the game. And it's the same way with most of the heroes in SSE... They do things you expect them to do in their canon games.

 

[Mechageo]

This is what I heard:

P.S. I have already started a Smash novel that is a story+game. Essentially, as soon as my Time Machine is ready, I will go back in time and replace Sakurai as the creator of Super Smash Bros., using my superior ideas.

 

[Rash]

I think the SSE's stages were sometimes appropriate and sometimes not. Skyworld, the Forest, and the Jungle stages all made perfect sense for Pit, Link, and Donkey/Diddy Kong. And I guess the Bomb Factory made sense for Samus too, because she's been in similar settings before (Space Colony or Frigate Orpheon?).

Not only that, but the stages are beautiful. I love the Forest. It feels very much like it could've been an area in a Zelda game. The field in the background of the Forest looked like it could've been Hyrule Field. Etc.

The only stage I really didn't like was the Ruins, to be honest.

 

[blooagga]

The only interesting part of Melee's Adventure Mode was the first stage. Since the release of Melee I've wanted more similar sidescrolling experiences. SSE fulfills the desire. It's the superior Adventure Mode.

100% agreed. I also liked hyrule temple

 

[SAMaine]

I also defend Tabuu's existence as the final boss, because there NEEDED to be an enemy that would unite the various Nintendo characters to fight against, and Tabuu serves that role well. I really wanted to see more foes from the various games... I mean we've got Bowser, Ganondorf, Master Hand, Porky Minch, Rayquasa, and Ridley being on the same side, so the minor enemies should be from The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Earthbound, and of course Master Hand's own forces, as well as Super Mario Bros. Adding that to the Primids and the R.O.B. Squads, and it actually would feel like the villians of various Nintendo worlds were uniting, and that the heroes had to unite to stop them... Then you can have Tabuu show up to unite the heroes and villians against him.

 

[Zek]

Melee's Adventure mode doesn't even deserve to be compared to SSE. It was basically just a second version of Classic with a Mario stage thrown in. SSE should have taken more environments from actual games(those themed stages have to come from somewhere) but other than that it's superior to Adventure in every conceivable way.

 

[MRogue]

I liked SSE more than Melee adventure too, but I can agree with many of the OP's points. I love a good story when it comes to gaming, and I place a higher value on it than most people I know. For the most part, I enjoyed the SSE story, but I was disappointed with many of the things mentioned.

For instance, when it was first announced on Dojo, I thought the "choose between two princesses" update meant that there would be branching story lines, a larger emphasis on choice throughout the game, etc. Unfortunately, it amounted to little more than changing one fight.

As it stands, the only reason I find myself replaying Subspace is to experience it at different difficulty levels (and to relive the cut scene nerdgasms, but I digress). What should have been done, is depending on what character you chose at the beginning (Mario or Kirby), your perspective on the entire story would be changed. This would have made way for more character development by focusing on one or two characters at a time (like the OP said), and also by doing so, they could have made it a lot shorter; I give points to the development team for deviating from the "Object X of your affection has been kidnapped, go to Y amount of places to retrieve he/she/it" formula, but those last couple hours are just tedious.

If you were to also isolate each individual character/character group's story, it would eliminate some of the randomness of it all. Lucario conveniently placed on top of a mountain? Excusable, but maybe we could have got a small stretch of story to explain why. This case is more of a nitpick compared to the way Sonic enters though. "LOL HEY GUYS I WAS JUST PASSING BY AND I SAW YOU WERE SCREWED." <<< This did not work for me.

By the way OP, post when you finish that story of yours; I am intrigued :O

 

[~tgm_Zeej]

SSE's only disappointments for me were the lack of Toon Link, Wolf, and Jiggs in the actual storyline, and the random appearance of Sonic instead of him being in the story like Snake.

 

[xl Lan lx]

SSE's only disappointments for me were the lack of Toon Link, Wolf, and Jiggs in the actual storyline, and the random appearance of Sonic instead of him being in the story like Snake.

Agreed.

I loved SSE, but wish that Sonic, Toon Link, Wolf, and Jiggs had a better storyline.

 

[Insurance Salesman]

Personally, I think the SSE was FAR superior to the Melee adventure mode. More enemies and enemy types, more stages, more variety, an actual story, and the fact that it was an actual challenge all helped it be, in my opinion, a worthy companion to the multiplayer mode.

Not to say it was perfect, however. The fact that the generic subspace enemies were the ONLY ones you fought kind of dissappointed me. I mean, it would have been interesting to see them in certain situations (like if Master Hand came to send some enemies as an ambush) or in the last levels, but through the whole game? Not to mention that Bowser had his own army, but every other villain was forced to use generic enemies. This may be a nitpick, but I was also pissed that Bowser's army showed up in DK themed levels. I mean, they could have at least put in a couple different types of Kremling troopers, as they had appeared in Mario games before...

Not to mention that I hated the final boss. The whole time you played through the mode, (unless you had the ending spoiled for you. GAH!) you thought you were fighting the bad-***, awesome Master Hand. At the end, thought, you realized your main enemy was a stupid-looking blue man. I would have lived with it then, but then he showed that he had BUTTERFLY WINGS! WTF! I mean, a man with butterfly wings beat the Master Hand?! Come on, Nintedo, you can at least think of a better ending boss!

These are all nitpicks, however, and I have to say that I think the SSE was much better than the Melee adventure mode.

 

[Ghetto Anthony]

WOW. I've been lurking these forums for the past week or so. I didn't think you morons were going to be able to complain about EVERYTHING in the game, surely you'd enjoy SOMETHING about it. Apparently not.

Please shelf the game, throw it away, or give it to me.

 

[Rhubarbo]

WOW. I've been lurking these forums for the past week or so. I didn't think you morons were going to be able to complain about EVERYTHING in the game, surely you'd enjoy SOMETHING about it. Apparently not.

Please shelf the game, throw it away, or give it to me.

Well, I should certainly be allowed to complain. I remember when the SSE was announced. The way the Dojo portrayed it, I assumed the story would focus around living and refusing to be turned into trophies. The way it was shown, you would have thought that the Subspace Army was more of a ruler that was trying to enforce their rules and the Smash cast of heroes were rebels that were trying to live.

The story turned out to be much more shallow in mostly all aspects.

-Bosses have no strategy surrounding them
-Enemies are generic
-Levels are repetitive and un-inspired
-Story progression is too linear

 

[Bendu]

SSE is much better than Melee's adventure mode. I think that's all we can ask for. It is the singe-player mode of a FIGHTING GAME.

Play it once (or more if you really enjoyed it a lot) and then enjoy multiplayer. Then stop moaning.

Also, there's pretty much nothing about Melee's adventure mode that is desirable for anything in the future. And "basing levels off of franchises" isn't something to be taken from that Adventure mode. It's just an approach. Melee's Adventure mode pretty much just needs to be forgotten.

 

[6footninja]

IMO neither one of the adventure modes, melee or Brawls, were fun.

 

[pyro363]

Look at it this way. Melee's adventure mode sucked so why would they do the same thing for brawl. I thought it was a jump to a good adventure. You guys probably just don't like either how long it was or the fact that no one talked. Well i don't know about you guys but i liked the adventure mode. It was good because it is the only place you will se people like mario and link together in an actual story based game. I think it was good for brawl so if the new smash bros game ever comes out they at least have something to work with.

 

[S0crat3s]

I liked SSE much more than Adventure Mode, it took everything I loved from Kirby SuperStar and beefed it up a bit...Besides, just because YOU weren't satisfied with SSE doesn't mean that it sucks or is inferior to Adventure Mode...^_^

 

[Mama]

I'm sure if you expected SSE to be a story line for each individual character you chose then it'd be disappointing but come on what the fu_ck do you expect from a Smash Adventure mode? For what its worth I think the SSE was great. Loads better than Melee's bland adventure mode. You seem to be unable to understand what was going on in the story line at all though but I'm not going to spoil it for the people who haven't played the game yet.

But seriously, this is a fighting game. Not an adventure game. If you go into SSE expecting a ton of character development, a plot as deep as any 1 player game, and rich magical environments then not only are you an idiot but also an unrealistic thinker. When you play this game, its assumed that you're going in knowing who everybody is. No point in developing character personalities when you already know each of the characters from their own series. SPOILER WARNING: And the Final Boss in this game was someone from another dimension (or sub space) who was going around collecting worlds for himself pretending to be master hand. He's the only one who lacked any sort of character development since nobody knows who he really is. Bottom line, get the fu_ck over it and grow up.

EDIT : Reading your post again you actually sound more like a person who is just addicted to writing fan fiction....I'm assuming you looked at the SSE as the answer to your dreams and were expecting to have the story line as thick as what you write in your off time. Especially seeing as how you expected to see character development (I laugh at that notion). I'm satisfied with Multiplayer mode. SSE is an after thought for me even though I do think its cool (and fun when you do co-op)

 

[Takeshi245]

Subspace Emissary is better than the Adventure Mode in Melee since it actually has a better plot, is more fun to play, is actually longer, and is overall more entertaining. Also, I like how you can unlock all the characters this way instead of all the versus matches you would have to go through or the things you would need to do on Classic mode. There's also more funny cutscenes like Peach and Sheik randomly pulling out teacups to offer Metaknight.

 

[ron561]

The only thing good i see about SSE was a quick way to unlock the characters..

the cut scenes look nice as well..

but SSE was boring,felt like a chore after awhile.