Kirby and Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai is showing no signs of slowing down thanks to his YouTube channel, where he shares insights on his history in the games industry and gives out advice based on past experience.
His newest video, however, is a bit more simple, but it’s a rather lovely showcase of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s fantastic variety of stages. Between Battlefield — the Smash Bros. series classic — and the final game added to the game via DLC, Hollow Bastion (from Kingdom Hearts), there are a mammoth 115 stages to battle it out on. And all of these stages are fantastic representations of the games and series’ that they originate from.
Sakurai lets the stages and the visuals do the talking, but in a short introduction, he muses over the feat of squeezing 115 unique stages (without considering the Omega and Battlefield forms):
“Making them work on Nintendo Switch with eight fighters on-screen at 60 frames per second really didn’t give us much leeway. Still, through recreating the worlds of so many different games, it feels like Smash Bros. Ultimate has incredible breadth for a single title.”
The video then goes through a large number of the stages available in Ultimate. Some of the close-ups show us how the effects and hazards work in-game, while others highlight little references and Easter eggs that we might have missed as we’re busy showing our friends who’s the best at Smash Bros.
With some stages, like Delfino Plaza, Yoshi’s Story, and Flat Zone X, it’s a chance for us to look at how the stage is “set up” in the wider world of the game, or software, that it comes from. Flat Zone X is literally on a Game & Watch, after all, and behind the Delfino Plaza stage, you’ve got the whole town, perfectly recreated. It’s the same for many flying stages such as Corneria and the Halberd. The camera zooms out from the main stage, instead showcasing the backdrops as they change while the stage itself flies through the skies.
Not every single stage is shown off here, but almost all of them get a little snippet showing off some of the cool features we might have missed. Sakurai believes that these stages — which were all created with great love, care, and attention to detail — “should prove great reference for any aspiring game artists”. And we think we agree.
What do you think of this overview? Do you have a favourite stage in Smash Ultimate? Let us know in the comments.