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."

Comments

Time for a rating change!

[niskel]

The ESRB said nothing about alcohol consumption in it's packaging warnings. Now I am offended that I have let my child play such filth. I will see HAL in court!

Re:Time for a rating change!

[Hott of the World]

Hot coffee? Ohh no, its BOOZE! Call Jack at once! Think of the Children!

Easter Eggs

[turtled]

I love when games add things in, and I just busted this game out yesterday. This'll come in handy tonight.

Re:Easter Eggs

[Pxtl]

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?

PC titles often come with a full devkit. Console titles? If you're lucky, you can pick your character. Yay customisation.

Re:Easter Eggs

[Paladin128]

The average console user is a LOT less tech savvy than the average PC gamer. These things are hidden for lots of reasons:

1) lack of time for QA -- some stuff is buggy, and doesn't make the final cut. If it can cause the game to crash, it shouldn't be accessible to end users. Period.

2) Breaking game balance -- if some characters in a fighting game, for example, are simply too good, and make the game not fun to play, they shouldn't be allowed.

3) Flavor -- sometimes some stuff used in early stages is really dumb, or the vision on the project changes. If something doesn't fit, it shouldn't be in.

Re:Easter Eggs

[badasscat]

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.

So how do we do this?

[fireduck]

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.

All I have to say is...

[Anonymous Coward]

In under a year we played enough Super Smash Brothers to actually break the gamecube. We burned out the optical drive and had to buy a new one. Our save file has close to 2000 hours on it now. Talk about crack in video game form!

Comparing Smash Brothers to other fighters, let alone other video games, is totally unfair. It's like comparing Firefly to other TV shows; you simply do not put professionals on a list full of amateurs, it is not fair to anyone involved.

The real beauty of SSBM is that it is in many ways an invisible game - the simple controls and wide variety of moves allow you to strip away the "game" and simply fight your friends, brain to brain. The exaggerated nature of the combat makes it absolutely HILARIOUS to play as well. If you can watch a Donkey Kong vs Bowser "Giant Melee" with high items set to "Giant Mushrooms only" without laughing, you are a stronger man than I.

When SSB Online comes out on Revolution that will be the end of all of my hobbies and probably my job too. A bittersweet day!

Hyperbole or ignorance?

[Intellectual Elitist]

"I always believed [Super Smash Bros. Melee] was the deepest fighting game of this gaming generation, but from then on, I was convinced it was the deepest fighting game ever."

I guess this guy's never played a Virtua Fighter game before. Or any of Capcom's later-era 2D fighters. Geez.

Re:Hyperbole or ignorance?

[MilenCent]

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.

Re:n-sider?

[Runegscentral.org]

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

Re:Watch out! here comes ESRB

[Iriel]

Actually, what you can add into a game and Hot Coffee were two completely different things. The reason for that is because Hot Coffee was already completely assembled: models, responses, sounds and everything. The only part of the game that was actually hacked was a few lined of code in the PC version to allow that part of the game to be accessed. In case anybody needs clarification, think of it like this:

In SSB:Melee, you have to meet certain requirments to 'unlock' features in the game. Hot Coffee was a feature that was already built into GTA:SA, but the requirment to get it was never set, so you could never unlock it. All the 'hackers' did, was fill in that line of code. (It's over simplified, I know)

The reason you can't change the rating for a game that somebody added content to is because the distributor never lisenced that content and never created it to begin with. Users had to have built it and found a way to plug it into the game. GTA:SA's Hot Coffee was already good to go if you changed a few lines of code.

I think it will become too stupid to enforce things like this, though, when hackers could possibly remove a model from the character to leave them exposed, when that would normally violate the terms of use to begin with. Games are always trying to look more realistic and enforcing something like this could only hold them back.

Re:How do you access?

[yanos]

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

Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker has something similar.

[pnice]

There are 14 test rooms you can access if you use an Action Replay on Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. You can find them at codejunkies.com

Screenshots of the test rooms can be viewed here:
http://www.zeldavortex.com/index.php?do=viewarticl e&id=18

Re:n-sider?

[blincoln]

Nothing could be further from the truth, as a good few hackers spent a month testing everything years ago.

I ran into similar lameness when I hacked the debug menus for the PS2 versions of Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance (available on my site, for the curious). As soon as you post something like that, people start cutting and pasting it into forums and websites as if that's the hard part. Some of them even get upset if you challenge them on it, along the lines of "dude i get credit for posting it here first."

Amusingly enough, a friend of mine in the UK took my work and used it to make similar things for the PC versions of the games, and a lot of people assume that *I* had something to do with that other than showing him how it worked on the PS2.

My method now is to make sure that before I tell anyone about a new hack, I post it on my site (which is up permanently), then post it on a couple of forums with timestamps so there's a definite record that can be looked up later.

Nice work on the SSBM codes. I think I'll actually pick up a copy of that so I can try them out =).