As a follow-up to this post, let's take a closer look at the list of confirmed returning stages in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and what would still be missing. Overall the game has the potential of featuring over one hundred classic stages and hopefully this is goal, which the developers are chasing.
However, an interview with Famitsu confirmed that not all stages will be returning (source), so we shouldn't be hoping for a complete collection.
Here's a list of all confirmed classic stages appearing in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, sorted by the Smash Bros. games where they first appeared (source):
If you count it all together, you get 79 classic stages in total. That's a lot! A lot! Anyway, it's not entirely clear, which version of the PictoChat stage we're getting. But it might that this is something like "PictoChat X", which combines both version, similar to Flat Zone X.
Now, let's compile a list of classic stages that still aren't in Ultimate, but may have the potential of returning as well. Of course we want to break the magic 100 here, so it has to be at least 21 more stages:
- Peach's Castle (64)*
- Kongo Jungle (64)*
- Mushroom Kingdom (64)
- Rainbow Cruise (Melee)
- Yoshi's Island (Melee)*
- Brinstar Depths (Melee)
- Fountain of Dreams (Melee)
- Delfino Plaza (Brawl)*
- Mario Bros. (Brawl)
- Pirate Ship (Brawl)*
- Hanenbow (Brawl)
- Golden Plains (3DS)
- Paper Mario (3DS)
- Rainbow Road (3DS)
- Dream Land (3DS)
- Mute City (3DS)
- Woolly World (Wii U)
- Jungle Hijinx (Wii U)
- Orbital Gate Assault (Wii U)
- Gamer (Wii U)
- Windy Hill Zone (Wii U)
Look at that. Exactly 100. First of all, it's likely that most stages from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U will return. The obvious exceptions are Miiverse and Pyrosphere, but for the rest there is no good reason not to port them to Ultimate. They are already in HD and probably only require little work.
This includes some returning stages from Smash 64, Melee and Brawl, which have been marked with an asterisk in the above list. In case of Kongo Jungle (64) there is even additional evidence that this stage might return: they brought back Kongo Jungle from Melee, but renamed it to "Kongo Falls".
Another stage that has evidence going for it would be Brinstar Depths, since they have a remix of Kraid's Lair music already on the official page. This could be for the other Brinstar stage from Melee, however.
It would also be nice to have most of the 3DS stages returning and see them on the big screen for the first time. In case of Golden Plains there was the coin counter mechanic that might prevent this stage from returning, but they could just put the coin counters above the character avatars.
The rest would simply be nice to have, which even includes obscure stages like Hanenbow. But this stage was the only representation of Electroplankton in Smash and it was interesting in its own way. Also, since all stages will get Battlefield and Omega variants, even the "bad" stages would be nice to have in the end.
One stage, which didn't make the list, but would be a really awesome throwback, is the Metal Cavern from the original Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64. You couldn't select the stage originally and it was used for Metal Mario fights, but it's really simple and would certainly excite fans for finally being playable whenever you want.
Now, let's go through the stages that would still be missing in the end:
- Planet Zebes (64)
- Sector Z (64)
- Mushroom Kingdom (Melee)
- Icicle Mountain (Melee)
- Poké Floats (Melee)
- Mute City (Melee)
- Rumble Falls (Brawl)
- Pac-Maze (3DS)
- Pyrosphere (Wii U)
- Miiverse (Wii U)
The three Nintendo 64 stages have all been prototypes for similar stages in Melee: Mushroom Kingdom, Brinstar and Corneria. Especially Sector Z seems completely obsolete here, even though it's quite larger than Corneria. Planet Zebes is somewhat different from Brinstar, but not really enough that it needs to be there. It would also be confusing to have two stages that look almost identical, but maybe a similar layout could be used for a hazard-less variant of Brinstar, where you can't destroy parts of the stage.
In case of Mushroom Kingdom, the N64 original seems like the more interesting version with its warp pipes, so this has been chosen here over the Melee version.
The Mute City stage in Melee also feels like a prototype for the Port Town Aero Dive stage. Plus, there is a more interesting Mute City stage in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS. So, this one didn't make the cut, but it's still possible that they might bring it back nonetheless. Of all the stages on this list it seems like the likeliest.
It's also possible that they might bring back the two vertical scrolling stages, Icicle Mountain and Rumble Falls, but quite questionable. They aren't generally favored, while they would require a good deal of work to remake. And they probably wouldn't fit as well with 16:9 screens, which favor a horizontal layout. There's also the question, how the hazard-less variants would look like. For the horizontal scrolling stages, like Mushroomy Kingdom, they could simply use a fixed section of the stage, but here they probably would have to offer something like the Battlefield or Omega variants in order to make it work.
Pac-Maze was a special stage, which took advantage of each player having his own screen on the Nintendo 3DS and like with the vertical scrolling stages it is also questionable that this will return in Ultimate, though possible. They could just create a new version of the stage that works without the gimmick. In any case, Pac-Man deserves something better than Pac-Land.
Miiverse is dead and so is the stage, unless they create fake Miiverse messages for it. However, this wouldn't be worth the trouble for a Battlefield clone, unless they want to show off some of the best Miiverse messages from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U... It's certainly a piece of Nintendo history, but it's probably not a good idea to keep people reminding what they are missing.
Pyrosphere was excluded here for the Ridley boss, because it might be weird with Ridley being playable (and a lot smaller). But they could create a spiritual successor that reuses some assets like the smaller enemies, e.g. a "Biosphere" stage. Maybe they could even put Baby Ridley in the background, riling the monsters up. Of course they could also bring back Pyrosphere without the boss, but this would be a boring stage.
Poké Floats is another candidate, where instead of bringing the stage back, they probably should make a new version, "Poké Floats 2", using some modern Pokémon for it.
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