Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Smash Bros Brawl Stages

In this post, I will show some of my self made Brawl stages here on this blog. Even better, you will be able to download and play them as well. I made about 20 stages by now, but I will only show you the best of them. At least for now, maybe I'm going to release some more later. Well, the stage builder is actually pretty limited, so don't expect anything on Unreal Editor level. When I started creating levels with Brawl's stage builder, I randomly placed some structures, I wanted to use, and built the rest of the level around it. Sounds lame, but some of the results were pretty good. An example for one of those maps is "Sector 23", you can see below. I also built a lot of smaller Battlefield type of stages, but while they are good, they are nothing special at all. However, I soon realized that the stages from the stage builder are not only lacking in visuals but in something else too. What's it, what makes a Smash Bros stage a real Smash Bros stage? Right, it has to be connected to a certain game or franchise, or else it doesn't feel like part of the whole SSB universe. That's why I concentrated on creating some stages, which are related to other games. Unreal Tournament, Metroid Prime Pinball and Tetris specifically.

  • Name: Sector 23
  • Comment: -
  • Size: Medium
  • Music: Sector 1
  • Download

This is one of my stages, which was created by random input, I've mentioned above. But it's actually pretty nice, there are a lot of ways to go and run. Music is Sector 1 from Metroid Fusion, which why I've named it "Sector 23". I picked the 23 because of obvious reasons.

  • Name: Deck 16
  • Comment: Unreal Tournament
  • Size: Medium
  • Music: Yell "Dead Cell"
  • Download

In Nintendo's first attempt of allowing the creation and sharing of user created content, of course the one game has to be honored, which was groundbreaking in this field and even brought custom content to video game systems: Unreal Tournament. You have to use your fantasy here, but this stage is meant to be the original Deck 16 in cross-section. The ramps are there and one of the structures is used for the small catwalk, where the Shield Belt was placed. Because there is no bio waste acid or other hazardous fluid availabe in the stage builder I used spikes on the ground level. Too bad it's not possible to use your own mp3 files or I would have used the original "Go Down" theme for the stage. Instead one the Metal Gear tracks is played, which comes close to the techno style music from UT.

*updated on January 14th, 2009* I got rid of unnecessary walls and the stage is now of medium size for better gameplay.

  • Name: Smash Pinball
  • Comment: -
  • Size: Medium
  • Music: Main Theme (Metroid)
  • Download

To be totally honest here, I saw this stage somewhere on YouTube and reconstructed it by myself. So, it's basically not my idea, but still a good stage though. The idea is simple, the stage is built like a pinball table. There are conveyors on the lower level, which lead to a pit, springs to push you up as well as ice and falling blocks on the upper level. Everything is always on the move in this stage, which makes pretty fun and intense gameplay. The music track is the guitar version of the Brinstar theme, which is played in Metroid Prime Pinball all the time. Plus the whole space station theme shows, that I had Metroid Pinball in mind, when I built this stage.

  • Name: Tetris Terror
  • Comment: -
  • Size: Medium
  • Music: Tetris Type B
  • Download

This idea is definitely the most obvious one. I mean, when you first start the stage builder and see all those square blocks, you first think about making either a Mario or a Tetris map. Nintendo even put remixed versions of the original Tetris music in the game, though there is no official Tetris stage, so the whole thing screams practically after one. And there are a lot of them out there. So, this is my version of this idea, plain-colored with a lot of falling blocks to fit the Tetris concept. Actually the falling blocks can be used as a nice strategy here, if you let them crumble in the right moment, they can push down or hinder your enemies. I had a lot of fun playing this stage with some buddies, but be prepared for a lot of suicides.

  • Name: Tetris Terror 2
  • Comment: -
  • Size: Medium
  • Music: Tetris Type A
  • Download

This is my newest stage, built it yesterday. And, as you have with no doubt surmised, it's again about Tetris. This time, it's multi-colored and more solid. Only the big square block is a falling one, the others are either ice or normal blocks. Again there's a ladder and some moving platforms to help you moving between the blocks.

To play the stages, simply download the files in the \private\wii\app\RSBP\st directory on your SD card. Enjoy.

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