How I would Reboot Super Smash Bros. Part 4: Mario & Zelda Stages

A couple of months back, I wrote some speculative articles imagining what a reboot of Super Smash Bros would look like, covering Mario and his friends, along with the Zelda franchise. With the full unveiling of the next game in the popular franchise imminent, I thought to revisit this series, starting with stages to correspond with the first ten characters in my renovated roster.

First is Mario's stage. Given how this reboot focuses Mario more on his 3D platformers, his stage would be based off of one of them, namely Super Mario Galaxy. This stage would play completely differently from previous stages due to its fully realized premise: it would be on the entirety of a planet with its own gravity, and the gameplay would revolve around launching players out of the planet's orbit. The premise of the stage, referred to as "Gateway Galaxy", would create two interesting wrinkles in its matches: it would be the second stage to loop back onto itself, making for interesting combos, and its focus on launching other players into and beyond orbit would make for more drawn-out confrontations.

Luigi's stage would be more traditional, revisiting a concept from the original N64 title. That game had a stage based off of the Mushroom Kingdom from the original Super Mario Bros, complete with pixel art. (It also just so happens to be Luigi's stage from that game, so things work out.) It honestly baffles me that this premise for a stage never was revisited, so I would fix that. It would be a reimagining of the stage, using different elements from the series, maybe even basing it off of Super Mario World as opposed to Super Mario Bros. Even within that NES game, there is so much more that could be done to make the stage more interesting, like using the castle as a platform, adding enemies as hazards, and making some blocks breakable.

I proposed Waluigi as a wacky character to represent Mario Party, Mario Kart, and the Mario sports games. Needless to say, his stage would also be quite wacky and hectic. Mario Party has yet to see any representation at all in Smash Bros, so this could fix that with a stage based on the Mushroom Mix Up mini game from the original. The stage would function similarly to the mini game, in that platforms would become unusable depending on the color of flag that a background toad raises, though to keep things balanced, the flag that toad raises would probably have to correspond with the platform that falls, as opposed to that one being the only platform remaining.

For the last main Mario character, Paper Mario's stage would be a bit of a curveball, considering it is not from his own series. Bowser's cruiser (not pictured due to technical difficulties) would lend itself to competitive play due to a simple design: the fighters would have their brawls on the flying fortress's wings and elevated main platform. Provided that this game would add a feature to remove hazards for that competitive play, perhaps Fawful could come in to create some havoc during the more casual matches.

Donkey Kong would offer a stage based off of the mine cart levels from his series. As such, the fighting would occur within a scaled-up mine cart, which progresses through a set of obstacles, which the fighters would have to dodge as the fight progresses. Perhaps the platform tilts as the cart goes up and down slopes, as well.

Yoshi's stage would be a bit simpler. It would be based on the first phase of the Baby Bowser fight from Yoshi's Island, being a somewhat simple stage with the twist being that any attack that hits the ground would create a shockwave that moves the stage, possibly knocking opponents off their feet or even dealing damage.

Wario Inc. was a great idea for a stage that showcases what the Warioware series is all about: the microgames. His stage in this game would work off of that same idea, though with some different challenges.

Since most of the 2D Zelda games are top-down, it would be challenging to translate a locale from one of them into a stage for Classic Link. However, the second game for the NES, subtitled The Adventure of Link, has side scrolling portions, such as the North Castle, where the game begins. A modern rendition of this stage would be pretty straightforward: it would be a platform with a raised area in the center, matching how its in-game appearance would be in HD.

Moving on to the Link from the more modern games, his stage would be based off of Ocarina of Time's opening location: Kokiri Forest. It's various platforms and environments lend themselves to a stage that draws its appeal not from some unique hazard or gimmick, but from its interesting and varied design.

Finally, Breath of the Wild's Link would require some serious elbow room to feel at home in a stage, so that's exactly what he would get by making the Great Plateau into a stage. In order to fully capture the spirit of the game, it would have to be the largest stage in the franchise to date, boasting many landmarks of the starting area, such as the Eastern Abby, the Temple of Time, and Mount Hylia. The stage may even be on such a large scale as to warrant split-screen for individual encounters between players.

With that, we are up to date with stages for each of the ten characters discussed so far. As E3 comes hurting at us, I will continue to post articles in this series, and maybe some on other topics as well. Sorry about the lack of pictures for most of the article; I had technical difficulties. I'll try and see if I can fix it, though! See you all later with another article!