While it may have been delayed into the beginning of Fall, a stream of new content for Super Smash Bros. continues to flow from Nintendo’s outlets, whether it’s official releases, YouTube, or through Masahiro Sakurai and the Miiverse. While both the console and handheld versions of the upcoming brawler will feature the same cast of characters, several stages will be unique to both platforms. Late last week, game director Masahiro Sakurai revealed yet another 3DS-exclusive stage through Nintendo’s online Miiverse community. The handheld version of Smash Bros. will receive an exclusive stage based on the popular Tomodachi Life sim. Taking a few pages from the Luigi’s Mansion stage found in Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii, the Tomodachi Life stage is set within a three-story apartment complex featuring six individual rooms. The interior of each apartment is shown whenever a player enters; the outside wall of the complex blocks the interior view when no players are inside. While many previous stages have featured some kind of gameplay quirk or stage hazard, the Tomodachi Life stage includes an element of visual randomness. According to Sakurai’s post, each time the stage is selected, the rooms are randomly arranged and will feature many different themes. For an added personal bonus, Miis that are currently saved in the player’s 3DS will occasionally show up as tenants in the apartments. Transforming stages are among the fan-favorites, including the likes of Poke Floats (Melee), Pokemon Stadium (Melee/Brawl), PictoChat (Brawl) and WarioWare (Brawl). A new transforming stage was revealed this morning through Sakurai on the Miiverse, and will be exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS version of Smash Bros. For the first time in the Smash universe, the Paper Mario franchise will have its very own stage, entirely made from paper. Strong winds are blowing throughout the match, causing the environment to shift and even “blow it away”. Sakurai also states that the Paper Mario stage acts like a pop-up book, as the entire arena “transforms when it folds over and opens up again”.
Even with the release of Super Smash Bros. for 3DS only months away, Nintendo is still unveiling new content. As it looks like we’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to platform-exclusive stages, what others would you like to see? What classics- if any- would you like to return for the 3DS version of Smash? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
