Things that sucked about The Subspace Emissary

[Boo Destroyer]

I thought I could stir up some more discussion on these parts of the board, get something going. At the risk of pulling a Teev here...

Remember how in the days of the Dojo, we all got so excited for what this adventure mode had to offer us? But then we get to it all finalized…While we all like Smash Bros. as a way of getting together most of Nintendo's biggest hits, this huge part of the game doesn't even take advantage of that. I know a lot of you were just as disappointed in SSE.

Some of you may have noticed that I've bitched about this mode in the past at times, but here I'll get more into just how bad it really was.

There was the abundant amount of cutscenes, and how well played out they were, but that was exactly the reason everything else about SSE suffered. Too much production time went into those that it didn't even do any favors for the quality of SSE as a game.

Note that it didn't even have anything like franchise representation in mind.
Seriously, it's like they just took the characters and threw them into someone else's world. The only things that made Subspace Emissary "Smash Bros." at all were the characters you play as, the occasional Mario enemy (as few as they were), and the five (!) Nintendo-relevant bosses (two of which were the same motherfucker retooled).

It was all just randomly thrown together without even a shred of rhyme or reason or any second thoughts put into it; Like they just went "Eh, screw it" and dashed right through it as hastily as they could without thinking twice about it. A poor man's Kingdom Hearts, if you will. (Yeah, I just went there) Was the Brawl team(s) not experienced enough to push it further or what?


Overall Gameplay

Poorly designed and poorly thought out all over. No, Nintendo, using the Smash Bros. engine for a side-scrolling format does not work at all. When you're caught in a group of enemies and want to move on, getting thrown to the side of the screen and KO'd doesn't bode well for a side-scroller. Use the HP system instead.

Level design was terrible too. Aside from the bland look, a lot of them did nothing to stand out. They weren't even designed to take advantage of any character abilities. Way too long, way too many enemy waves to deal with (Even being scroll-halted to do so in most cases). No replayability and no challenge either.

The Great Maze can fuck all the way off. No, I don't want to retread parts of every previous level in the game for who knows how long just to finish it already. Enough said.

All this coming from someone who went through SSE a few times, back again to collect everything remaining in there, and never touched it again. Ever.

The World/Setting

Or at least as close to a "world" as barren and empty shit like "The Desert", "The Plain", and "The Glacial Peak" can get. There were literally only two or three exceptions to this, but that was it.

Nobody wants to know about this Tabuu and Ancient Minister stuff. (At least in a game like this) Was it really too much to include more stuff from actual Nintendo titles and try to blend them together into whatever works? (Even the map screen itself was completely unorganized beyond belief) This was where Melee's adventure mode was so much better.

Enemies

You know this one by now. All these retarded-looking "Primid" dipsticks (among others) and only a few Mario enemies.

While I understand the need for a unique kind of enemy force and that Smash Bros. needed something to supplement its gameplay, way too much stock was put into it. Smash Bros. isn't necessarily about blatantly cramming in every Nintendo game ever made, but where were any of the Zelda enemies, Metroid enemies, Kirby enemies, Kid Icarus enemies, and so on? Does the gameplay with most of them in their original games not work as well in Smash Bros. or what? This would have made the trophy stand-catching experience much more enjoyable, but no…

Speaking of, they should have saved all these Subspace guys for Kid Icarus: Uprising instead; Could have worked a lot better in a 3D environment too. Hell, a lot of the enemies in that game look and feel a lot like the rest of these Subspace guys anyway.

Not only was the choice of enemies way off, but even their AI/programming was atrocious. Kirby and King Dedede can't even swallow them, Yoshi's B button tongue special only regularly attacks them… (I'm not even joking. Try these and see for yourself.)

Bosses

Now I'm still in disbelief over this one. It's like they weren't even trying on this:

-The most sporadic Mario boss of all (Lame Piranha Plant that nobody likes)
-The most random choice of Pokemon (I still question Rayquaza as a boss here. Not enough Pokeball space in Brawl or what?)
-Villain of a random franchise like Mother/EB (I guess he was okay, but still)
-TWO RIDLEYS
-Nothing from Zelda (Okay, they're always different with damn near every game most of the time…)
-Nothing from Kirby
-Who the HELL are Duon and Galleom?

And you're probably wondering, how does a boss selection like THIS make any sense at all? And why were they the only ones? (And why so few of them? Is it because of stuff like the Great Maze and Boss Battles mode? Maybe?) Either way, I don't see how a choice of bosses like this doesn't make anyone go "…That's it? Really?".

The gameplay with them wasn't even interesting either. Just run right up to them and keep recklessly hammering away at them until all their stamina is gone while avoiding the occasional attack. Boring.

There were some points in some levels that could have been a good spot to face even more bosses, but those were used up by either fighting waves of enemies or regular fights. Who actually wants to fight a giant shadow Diddy Kong?

And then there was the final boss, who was this stupid fucking Dr. Manhattan lookalike with butterfly wings. You've gotta be kidding me. Did they really just think that this was a good idea? No. Just no.

This or the enemies. I can't tell which is the bigger insult of the two.

Miscellaneous

Even the sticker power-up thing didn't make any sense. I don't know where to begin on this one. Did these really help for anyone? Even on Intense?

There are a few parts where you can make different decisions that could affect the rest of the adventure. Mario/Kirby in the beginning, Peach/Zelda from Petey Piranha, and Meta Knight/Lucario. Say, could this possibly entail some sort of "choose your own adventure" deal?!
Except…no wait, it's just an even bigger waste of cutscene space, involving nothing but some characters switching places. (I had to start a new file for THIS? Fuck off.)

The Story

I'll give you just this short version:

The fact that they had to write a whole section on the Dojo that says, "We're sorry we're so horrible at storytelling, so here's an explanation of it all AFTER you beat the game!"

If you have to resort to something like that, then you've done it all wrong.





Yeah, that's as far as I'll go now.

Now I'd be all for a new, improved adventure mode in the next Smash Bros. I'd be cool with that. (Namco-Bandai can do it!) But it seriously needs to be miles better than the awful, half-baked abortion that is SSE. "Come join all your favorite Nintendo characters as they fend off against an enemy force that nobody's ever even heard of before! Save for a few exceptions! All in this dry, barren world with nothing notable on it!" Ugh…Better than Melee's adventure mode? That too had a ton of faults, but they were nowhere near on the same level as SSE in terms of being effortless and poorly executed.



tl;dr SSE had tons of potential for something big with tons of Nintendo-relevant goodies, but it all ended up getting wasted on that godawful Tabuu bullfuck. They weren't even trying worth shit on the Nintendo/Smash Bros. part of it. A complete waste of effort, disc space, and development time. It's like they didn't actually enjoy working on this part of Brawl.
They should have used said Tabuu nonsense in Kid Icarus: Uprising instead. No, better yet, that game was basically Sora Ltd.'s way of apologizing for this disposable, half-finished clusterfuck. And perfectly acceptable, at that.

...Or maybe it was all just my inner wanky fanboy expecting too much out of it.

The only other thing that I do give it credit for is that it made "real characters" out of R.O.B. and Mr. Game & Watch. If you know how those two really work, then the Subspace premise isn't too bad. Just would've been a lot less hated if it was used in a different game, so says the general consensus.

[Shrikeswind]

I disagree on three points.

1) Though yes, they really, REALLY needed to have more enemies from past Nintendo games, I do believe that there needed to be some original enemies. I was quite fond of the Primids, myself. And I don't know, but I think the only problem with Tabuu was his design.
2) I liked the Meta Ridley fight. It is defiant of your general rule that you stand in a corner and pummel the boss, then duck when it attacks, because even the slowest falling characters can't just pummel him. Did I like the other battles? No, not really. But that Meta Ridley was the best boss fight in Brawl who wasn't a glove. (That said, I agree: 2 Ridleys, five originals, zillions of shadow clones, and Great Maze were stupid. Petey Piranha did not feel like I was fighting Petey Piranha. Rayquaza was a green Gyarados with arms and any Pokemon fan knows it. Ridley should have just been the Meta Ridley fight as regular old Ridley.)
3) Neither Melee nor Brawl had a good Adventure Mode, but Brawl's was better, in my opinion. The reason for this is simple: Brawl's was more fleshed out in that it had a plot, a map-screen (albeit a poorly organized one,) and a more interactive environment.

[8bitretroshit]

Wait, what's pulling a Teev?

I usually forget Brawl even has SSE anymore. Or maybe I just don't want to remember

I kinda like Master Hand as an original character (you know, supposedly being THE HAND that has these imaginary fights with these Nintendo gashapons), but all these uninspired Primids aren't doing it for me. If there's going to be a 'story mode' in the next one I personally hope it'll be more along the lines of Melee's Adventure mode. No crazy 'plot', no dull ass stages and no stupid Tron villain. Just an arcadey mode where you play through a few random series-inspired stages before facing the final boss as you try to get the highest score. I'll actually have a reason to replay that mode then.

[Shrikeswind]

Again, I liked the Primids. That said, they were one of only two original enemies I liked, the other being the Poppant. On one hand, there's the living sock monkey. On the other, there's the cowardly pants-guy. Both are totally worth it.

[Dances in Undergarments]

a) I'm pretty sure that the team in charge of the cutscenes is not the team in charge of 'SSE as a game', so the amount of cutscenes doesn't matter. They're also the best parts of the whole thing, with the only traces of character moments, so I'm not sure why you're bitching about those.

2) story was okay, but did need more Nintendo involvement. personally, I would've rathered Sakurai let whoever it was keep going with his super jokey 'a bunch of characters get on a bus to the tournament but DK gets left off it and hijinks ensue' plot though, because that would've been more fun.

iii) i don't see how HP is necessarily needed - having characters die by getting knocked offscreen is smash, so keeping it is fine,, but there needed to be tweaks to the smash engine, sure.

s) agreed, level design did suck, they were visually bland, and if you're restricting character choices on stages, then you should be putting in unique elements for them. agree on this point entirely.

pie) generic world was awful. lift parts out of games. absolute no brainer there, not sure how they went so wrong.

2) i do like the idea of a smash specific enemy squadron causing this trouble, though. liked the primids, liked the original enemies, like the ancient minister, thought tabuu was ok but a bit 'omg epic final fantasy bullshit' for my tastes.

2.1)...but yeah, we needed way more actual nintendo enemies. Also needed to get certain character plotlines happening, bad guys should've been teaming up against their respective good guys, whatever, blah blah

quatro) bosses that were there were solid choices
- ridley was great, and him coming back to fuck shit up again is part of his character, so it makes sense
- petey pirahna was (probably still is) the closest thing to a reoccurring mario boss (save for maybe king boo), and was a solid opening choice. shrike is right in that it didn't feel like you were actually battling him, though
- rayquaza was a good pokemon choice, he is cool looking, looks like a boss... who else are you going to pick?
- pokey was a good choice, if you accept the fact that a series of 3 games, 2 of which are japan only and one of which is japan / us only can have 2 playable characters then surely you accept the series only reoccurring character as a good boss idea. plus, he was cool, stop hating
- original bosses were fine, only seem a problem due to the lack of nintendo stuff
agreed we did need more bosses from other nintendo shit, though. big diddy and stuff like that should be saved for event matches or something.

x+2) definitely needed to be more 'choose your own adventure'

[Fryguy64]

To be totally honest, Boo, your first main point would have sufficed:

...using the Smash Bros. engine for a side-scrolling format does not work at all.

This point here is the crux of the issue. A good side-scroller's levels are built around the game engine. You can't do that when you have a huge roster of characters to choose from and such a HUGE moveset. The characters are built around fighting and recovery, while SSE was about running through corridors of enemies.

The best bits were no doubt the boss battles, as they were the closest to the fighting mechanics, and gave a chance to battle enemies who could never feasibly be playable. This amplified the issue with some not being from games we know. I did not enjoy fighting Galleom or the other one, whatever he was.

And yes, the levels were dull. They were dull to look at and they were dull to play through. There was no "Oh look, that thing from that game!" moments to look forward to. Just a constant stream of weird enemies with no coherent design behind them. Many of which could have easily been switched out for Nintendo equivalents. Hell, most of the SSE could have been switched out for Nintendo equivalents!

But even though the lack of Nintendo stuff was disappointing, it was only an issue because the game itself was disappointing. All of the original stuff could have worked if the game was fun. But it was fiddly, it was boring, and as a result we will nitpick about everything else as well.

[Boo Destroyer]

Well, while their fights were okay, the main problem with these bosses was that they were the only ones.

There were some points in some levels that could have been a good spot to face even more bosses, but those were used up by either fighting waves of enemies or regular fights. Who actually wants to fight a giant shadow Diddy Kong?



And to be fair, the Subspace enemies were not that bad in their own right. It's just that they would have been a lot less hated if they were used in a different game.

[Shrikeswind]

A couple ideas I had on how it could have been improved, at least with regards to the fan-service. I mean, let's face it. Even if they did improve on the engine for SSE, we'd still have our gripes. They'd just be more minor.

1) Petey Piranha could have been made more difficult. His signature vomit attack would have made for a good attack, and I think adding his whole "Invincible until he falls down" thing would have made for a more interesting fight. Maybe make a vulnerability break after his jump attack?
2) Increase the boss count. I could deal with Duon and Galleom, but the boss RATIO was the problem. Out of 7 bosses, 2 were original. I'm thinking something like this: We got Petey, Rayquaza, Porky, Ridley, and Meta Ridley. Bump it up. Remove Meta Ridley (but not the Meta Ridley battle. Make that Ridley's fight.) We're down to 4, BUT! Add in more bosses. Make 12 of 'em total, 1 per Smash 64 series plus Duon and Galleom. For example, I really wasn't too thrilled with the Halberd Princess battle. I think a Zelda boss would work well there. Armogohma, perhaps? Likewise, an actual DK boss should have taken the place of that giant Diddy. Make Nightmare a boss in Subspace? Sounds good to me. Stuff like that.
3) Break down the Great Maze and merge in the Trophy Hunt there. On that note, this would be a good place to put in the missing characters in SSE. Imagine, if you will, that King Dedede picked up a couple more trophies before subjecting Wario to a solid car-jacking, in the forms of Jigglypuff, Sonic, and Young Link (I refuse to say "Toon.") It'd fit.
4) In the same vein as #3's adding in Jigglypuff and Young Link, Wolf as a Subspace mercenary on behalf of our old pal Tabuu. You know, like Wario, Ganondorf, and Bowser.
5) And have each of the four an opponent in the new Great Maze, each one in one of the divisions, serving as an end-boss for each segment. Like, after you fight 3 bosses and gather up the trophies of your pals, duke it out with Bowser.
6) And after you're done with that? Tabuu's a cartoon face with the hands on chains.

[Deleted]

I think Andross could've been an interesting boss if the floating hands gimmick wasn't already used for Master Hand. I could also throw in the Burrowing Snarget from Pikmin, but that would probably end up functioning too much like the Rayquaza boss.

If they would have to keep the side-scrolling element, the Mushroom Kindgom level would've fit a lot better into the SSE than with the other battle stages. I dreaded having to fight on that stage if I decided to let the game randomize the stage. In a similar fashion, a Green Greens side-scrolling level ending in a Wispy Woods boss/mini-boss could've turned out well.

In SSB4, if it has an adventure mode, I'd rather see them make a bunch of battles and occasional side-scrolling elements strung together by cutscenes. I'm pretty sure that's basically what we'd all prefer, based off of what's already been said.