Slashdot Mirror
The Many Secrets of Smash Bros. Melee
Via Joystiq, N-Philes has an article delving deep into the secrets of Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Gamecube. A Developer Mode is accessible within the game which allows for battle tweaking, setting changes, and access to dozens of otherwise inaccessible battle maps. From the article: "Notice the stage is completely horizontal. Not only that, it's easily the longest fighting arena in Super Smash Bros. history (with the exception of the Home-Run Contest stage). Along the stage lie several moving platforms and multicolored grounds with different amounts of traction when walked across. It's clear that HAL used this area as a virtual playground to experiment with several different aspects of gameplay. Did you take note of the background? Confused? So is everyone else. The background is a giant picture of a pub. If you look closely you can spot several people enjoying tall glasses of beer atop the bar and tables. Despite the fact that it seems a little strange, it somehow adds to the illustrious prestige of Super Smash Bros. We wouldn't have it any other way."
5 pages of all the wonderful things you can do with developer mode. Practically change anything you want in the game, get up to 6 player controlled characters, new levels, new models, new music, whatever you want. And not a single mention of how exactly to access it.
Until you get to the forum link on page 6 and even then, a forum user (not the author) points out that you need action replay and specific codes to do 95% of what the article describes.
Hi. I appreciate that gscentral.com was linked for credit at the end of the article, but that seems to confuse the reader into thinking that N-Philes did the work. This is not true. I hacked the debug mode (amongst other codes for SSBM) in the summer of 2003. I would appreciate it if you could mention this better on Slashdot and tell Joystix to give credit where it is due. From a bystanders' perspective, it appears that they hacked the codes and made these discoveries as to what the debug menu is capable of. Nothing could be further from the truth, as a good few hackers spent a month testing everything years ago. The original source is crucial for credibility of your site, as others were also credited incorrected for the discovery of the Citadel in GoldenEye. To set that matter straight, it was Krijy who found it, and Zoinkity who made it fully playable. (Aside, the fact that I am no longer affiliated with gscentral.com is important, so I'd much rather the link go to gscentral.org, where the site is now being updated regularly.) Thank you for your full cooperation, Rune
Look here
I will agree with you on Virtua Fighter, but Capcom's late era 2D fighters lacked the depth of their mid-era 2D fighters. Their last offering, Capcom Fighting Evolution was not all that deep because it boiled down to tons of Darkstalker character rushdown. Capcom vs. SNK 2 wasn't all that deep since it devolved into A-Groove Sak, Blanka, Bison, K-Groove Sagat, Blanka, Cammy or C-Groove Sagat teams (stupid Sagat crouching fierce punch).
Capcom's deepest 2-D fighters (IMO) were:
Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
Vampire Saviour
Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
and to a lesser extent, Street Fighter Alpha 3
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is an odd exception because Capcom threw so much in the game that it became deep because of the raw amount of stuff in it, not necessarily on a technical level.
As for Smash Brothers, considering it was designed as a party game, it is surprisingly deep, although nowhere near as deep as the deepest 2D or 3D fighters.
Yes, the article itself is pretty low on details on how to access this debug menu, but after some googling, I found this (from http://ssbm.detstar.com/debug/):
If you have an Action Replay, Super Smash Bros. Melee already exists in your list of preset game codes... However, those SSBM codes will only work with SSBM version 1.0.
So, how do you figure out what version you have, to decide which codes to use? Take your Melee disk, and turn it over to the shiny side. Hold it directly in the light, and search for tiny text on the dark ring. You'll have to experiment by holding your disk at different angles in the light, until the text is visible.
Eventually, you should be able to find text that says "DOL-GALE-0-xx".The "xx" will actually be a number, which tells you which version you have. The -Det Erest messing around with textures - version numbers are below:
00: Version 1.0
01: Version 1.1
02: Version 1.2
Here are the codes to access the Debug Menu:
v1.0:
77H8-Y4CD-H4VRY
JR3K-U29H-U6BH
v1.1:
69KC-WJGT-V09F5
P5A0-GP46-M8EB7
v1.2:
VBF7-P9Y6-2788D
TDA5-YA0R-8947W
PAL:
7X1H-THWE-401YB
47K3-GPZC-DBY82
Those games are deep, sure. And the things shown in this article don't make Super Smash Bros. Melee deep.
But it is astoundingly deep, and it can be argued that it's deeper than those games you mention, if just because:
1. It's not a straight, left-right fighting game. Of course there are 3D fighters like Tekken and SoulCalibur, but they're still essentially about a 2D plane. Smash Bros. provides a lot more territory to make use of, and vertical attacks play a much larger role in the game.
2. Instead of depleting a health bar, Smash Bros' lose condition involves being knocked off the stage. You can even be at maximum damage (999%) and survive an attack. Thus, the direction in which you throw your opinion is as important as the amount of damage you do. Similarly, you can lose with very little damage. Knocking a player out of an area is an inherently deeper play mechanic than getting an arbitrary number high/low enough.
3. Smash has a shield/dodge system that can allow a player to absolutely rule if mastered, but can be played entirely without it. (For my money, SoulCalibur's Guard Impacts are slightly cooler, but it's still neat.)
4. Sheer variety of characters. Smash has one "character" that's actually two that play completely differently from each other, Zelda/Sheik, who can be switched between using a special move. There's also a character (Ice Climbers) who's actually two guys you play at the same time, and the "trailing" climber can die independently of the main one. Kirby has a special move that can become completely different depending on who he's fighting against (26 options). Yoshi doesn't have a triple jump, Kirby and Jigglypuff have many jumps. Peach has a move that gives her an item to throw, and can also float in midair and attack from that position. Fox is ultra-fast, but actually falls faster than other characters. Mario/Dr. Mario has a move that reverses an opponent's direction, which is evil to do to someone trying to recover from a fall. And Jigglypuff, of course, has Rest, which screws you over if it misses, but can instantly kill multiple opponents if it hits.
Of course there other fighting games that have some (though not this much) variety, and variety alone doesn't make a game deep. But the thing about Smash Bros. Melee is that it's still balanced despite it all. That takes an amazing amount of play testing, and genius game designers. That's what makes them great.
Hell I know players who swear by the *original*, N64 Smash Bros. And these games came from Nintendo and HAL Labs, neither of which had made a fighting game before. Very cool.
Of course, what I always wonder is - why hide them? Oh are you afraid your players might, y'know, have fun playing with the game?
The issue is most of these "extras" would *not* be fun for the average person, and would in fact lead to a lot of people questioning whether they got a finished game. (In fact, they'd be right to ask.)
There are 29 complete stages in SSBM, and apparently more than 60 with the developer menu. But that doesn't mean those 30-some odd extra stages are anywhere close to being finished or even very playable. They may be test stages with incomplete graphics, they may be buggy, unbalanced, or just not worthy of being in the game quality-wise.
Some of these customizations were obviously disabled to protect the brand. Dark Link? That's probably something Nintendo just didn't want people to be able to play as at this point in time, anymore than Disney would want you playing a game as "Evil Nemo" or something. Maybe you don't agree with their decision, but you should hopefully be able to understand it.
A lot of these options are also in there to help marketing departments. How do you think publishers get screenshots? It's a combination of actually playing the game (yes, they do actually play!) combined with a bit of manipulation through the developer controls. For example, in a certain actual game I won't name, the publisher might select a particular vehicle to drop in front of the character, then select a rocket launcher and blow it up. They will then put the game in slow-motion, turn the character so he's running away from the explosion, then pause. Then they will unlock and set the camera (with camera controls that mimic those of a real camera, including optical effects) and take a screenshot.
So, there are a combination of reasons why these various things are in the game. Some are just tests. Some are things that were intended to be in the game but either didn't work right or were never finished. Some were intended to help market the game.
But none of them are really worthy of being in anything you might call a "finished game". If Nintendo had released this game with all this stuff unlocked, you'd have been charitable calling it a beta. Closing this stuff off allows users to only see the final, polished product.
Look at it this way. Every filmmaker shoots about 50 hours of film for a feature, or thousands of hours for a documentary. Why not just include all of it in the final film, with no editing? Wouldn't be very interesting or exciting to watch, would it?
Knowing what to edit out is as important as knowing what to put in.