Grading The Super Smash Bros Ultimate Stages: 3DS

The 4th Super Smash Bros game was a unique release for the series. Unlike the other games which were exclusive to Nintendo’s home console at the time, Smash 4 instead had a dual release on both the Wii U, and the 3DS. So for the first time in the series, we got a home console and handheld version of a Super Smash Bros game.

And this wasn’t a case of the handheld version simply being a lesser port either. While both games shared the same gameplay and roster, both offered distinct experiences with their own unique modes, collectable trophies and stages.

And what’s interesting is that both games had a different theme. Smash for Wii U focused on Nintendo’s home consoles, in particular the Wii era, while the 3DS outing had an emphasis on Nintendo’s handheld history. This gives both sets of stages their own distinct flavour, so it only makes sense to do them both separately. Plus, if I try to do them all in one go, I would probably drive myself insane.

So today we’re taking a look at the stages from Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS, and yes that is its actual name, and no I don’t know what they were thinking. While I don’t have the same nostalgic memories for this game that I have for Melee or Brawl, I still remember liking it a lot.

I was in college when Smash 3DS came out, so I ended up playing it a lot during my lunch breaks. While it’s far from my favourite game in the series, I still think it’s a solid entry and actual like it more than its home console counterpart. But how do the stages fare? Well let’s take a look at them and see whether or not they hold up.

3D Land

Oh goody, it’s a scrolling stage. Couldn’t I get at least 1 or 2 stages in before running into one. Alright, if I'm being perfectly honest, 3D Land is one of the better scrolling stages in Smash Ultimate. It is not good, but it is better than a lot of the other ones. The stage does a good job of representing the original Super Mario 3D Land by incorporating a lot of the platforming obstacles from that game.

It’s also got a nice presentation. I like that you can see Princess Peach’s Castle when the stage starts, gives it a feel of beginning an adventure. I also like the final segment before it loops, when you fly into the pipe and end up back at the castle, reminds me of being on a roller coaster with how it speeds up at the end. And as befitting a Mario stage it is very bright and colourful, more so than a lot of the Mario stages we’ve looked at so far. So at least it’s pleasant to look at.

But it’s still a scrolling stage, and you already know how I feel about those. I’ll give this stage credit for the things it does right but those can only help so much.

Overall Grade: D

Golden Plains

Remember New Super Mario Bros 2? The Mario game with the most forgettable level design whose sole gimmick was collecting a boat load of coins which added little to the experience. Well guess what, this stage is based on that, and it’s a perfect representation of it.

The main gimmick of Golden Plains is coins. Coins, coins, coins. They're everywhere in this stage and you got to collect them before your opponents do. Why? Because collecting 100 gives you a special golden form that boosts your power. And that’s really about it for this stage.

To be fair the game does shake things up a little by having the stage shift to the left or right which changes the layout. But even with that, the design of this stage is just bland and forgettable with the coin gimmick adding very little.

All this stage does is remind me of the Coin Battle mode. You remember that mode right, it was in Melee and Brawl. No, no of course you don’t because no one played it. No one wants to collect stuff in the middle of a fight, so why did they make a whole stage around it?

Golden Plains is painfully average. There’s nothing here that pisses me off, but nothing I can really praise either. It just sort of exists.

Overall Grade: C

Paper Mario

I’ve mentioned before that I'm a big fan of the Paper Mario series. Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door is my favourite game of all time, and I liked the original Paper Mario quite a bit as well. The other games I’m more mixed on, but I liked the most recent game, The Origami King, quite a bit.

So I was pretty excited when I found out the series would get some representation with a stage. And lucky for me, it ended up being really good. The stage is split between 3 different layouts. It starts on the plains from Sticker Star, before transforming into the pirate ship from Thousand Year Door, and then ending with Bowser’s Castle from the original Paper Mario before looping back and repeating the process.

All three are done very well with gimmicks pulled from their original games. Seeing the Blooper Boss from Thousand Year Door show up during the ship segment gave me a great big smile on my face. Even the Sticker Star portion ended up being more interesting than the game on which it is based.

This stage is a perfect representation of the Paper Mario series at that time. It looks fantastic and the transitions between segments is done exactly as it would be in the original games. As a fan of Paper Mario, this hit all the right notes for me.

My only really complaint is that they referenced Sticker Stars existence. I’d personally like to forget that game ever happened, as most people do who played it. It’s also disappointing that Super Paper Mario got no love here. I'm not a big fan of it, but it had its moments and deserves some representations.

And if I'm being objective, individually the layouts aren’t great. They’re fine, but if they were on their own, they’d be pretty forgettable. But when combined they come together to make a stage that’s better than the sum of its parts. Sort of like the Paper Mario series itself when you think about it.

Overall Grade: B

Gerudo Valley

Gerudo Valley isn’t exactly a looker. I mean it’s a desert stage so there isn’t much they could do, but the added details like the tent, waterfall and lake do help add some visual variety. It’s not much but I’ll take what I can get.

Thankfully the stage itself is still fun to play. It’s a simple enough design, decently big without going overboard with platforms to prevent things from being too flat. Where this stage really gets interesting is the bridge in the middle.

The bridge will break apart as the fight goes on which opens the pit beneath it for some added depth. You can even break the bridge itself if you want to, and I always love destructible elements in my stages. Once broken, Kouma and Kotake will show up after a short while and cast a spell on either side of the stage. This helps it from becoming another flat and boring stage like Bridge of Eldin.

I like Gerudo Valley. It's a solid stage with a lot of ideas that mesh well together. For a desert stage it’s way more interesting than it has any right to be.

Overall Grade: B

Spirit Tracks

Spirit Tracks is the spiritual successor to Pirate Ship. Both have very similar premises; both take place on a vehicle traveling down a path thar runs into various random obstacles. The big difference being Spirit Tracks takes place on a train rather than a boat, which is a little more interesting in my opinion.

The big gimmick on this stage is the changing carts. Occasionally the train will pull back and change the cart at the back. There are a few different ones it can turn which adds some nice variety. You can also run into enemy carriage which can ram the train to force it backwards or act as a second platform.

So, like with Pirate Ship there’s plenty of gimmicks to see, but not as many, with a little more focus. It doesn’t have too many ideas and sticks of a handful that feel more fleshed out. There’s also nothing too annoying like the catapult to keep track of.

I also think it looks better visually. I love how Pirate Ship looked, but it’s backdrops weren’t the most interesting. It was just water, water everywhere. Spirit Tracks offers a little more variety in its backdrops which helps keep things visually interesting. I also love the added detail of who is driving the train. If Toon Link is in a fight it’ll be driven by Alfonzo, if he isn’t it’ll be Toon Link himself conducting the train.

Spirit Tracks is an excellent stage. It took everything that worked with Pirate Ship and improved upon it. The only issues I have is that the stage is a little on the small side. Other than that, this is one of the best stages from Smash 3DS.

Overall Grade: A

Dreamland GB

What a cool idea for a stage. Dreamland GB is a stage that’s set within an original Game Boy playing the original Kirby’s Dream Land. If you want a stage that reflects Nintendo’s handheld history this is a good one to go to. This isn’t the first stage to do this, but we’ll get to that one next time.

Visually it does a great job of recreating the graphical style of the original Kirby’s Dream Land, with a border styled after the original Game Boy. The border is what really elevate this stage as it makes you feel like you’re fighting in an actual Game Boy. A lot of the other retro themed stages could do with a detail like that.

As for actually playing the stage, eh, it’s alright. It has a variety of different arenas to fight on and there is a good amount of them, but they don’t do a whole lot to stand out and come off as a bit bland. Kirby’s Dream Land didn’t have the most memorable level design, but I’ll give them credit for showing off all the different environments the game had.

There’s also scrolling in some sections, but it isn’t that bad. Only a handful of them do scroll and it isn’t continuous, so I’ll let them slide on that. Dream Land GB is alright. A lot of that is down to its presentation, but it is still a fun one to play.

Overall Grade: B

Unova Pokémon League

In the last part I looked at Spear Pillar and said the stage would have been a lot better if it was cut in half. Unova Pokémon League is the proof of this. It has the same idea, being based on an end game area with legendary Pokémon that affect the stage in different ways, but it is done much better here.

The layout is fairly simple, but it works with the stage gimmick well and has some dynamic elements. Like in the original game, Team Plasma’s castle will show up and latch itself to the stage which widens the playing field a little. It also leads to a pretty cool visual.

This is a much darker stage than most Pokémon stages which helps it stand out. It is darker than the original 3DS version, which is understandable. The 3DS game was made brighter so you could easily see the fighters, something Ultimate doesn’t have to worry about. Now they can make it look dark and imposing, which makes it one of the best looking Pokémon stages. It just looks so damn cool.

I will say that it doesn’t have as many different effects as Spear Pillar. A number of different Pokémon show up but only Zekrom and Reshiram do anything to affect the fight. Spear Pillar definitely had better variety, but I also think Unova has more focus. It still has a chaotic element but is far less random which makes it more manageable.

This is what Spear Pillar should have been. It’s amazing what removing the bloat will do to improve the quality of a stage. Remember kids, bigger is not always better.

Overall Grade: B

Prism Tower

Prism Tower is another travel stage, something Smash 4 had quite a lot of. Unfortunately, this is one of the more forgettable travel stages. Now it isn’t bad, it’s just I’m having a hard time thinking of anything to say about it. It doesn’t do anything egregious, nor does it do anything exemplary. It’s just kind of there as a stage.

I will say that I do like when the stage turns to night time. The stage looks good visually but at night time it looks a lot better. I think the main problem with this stage is that it goes by too fast. It doesn’t give you a chance to really enjoy any of the different fighting areas, which are already not that memorable to begin with. I could forgive this with Port Town Aero Dive because it was an F-Zero stage. That series is known for its blazing fast speed, so that stage going by so fast made sense.

But here? Not so much. I know Prism Tower is an electric type gym and they’re known for being fast, but that doesn’t mean this stage should. Slow it down and let me enjoy the ride. If its arenas were more interesting and it didn’t fly by so fast, Prism Tower might have been ok. But as is, its just average. Not bad, not good, just average.

Overall Grade: C

Mute City SNES

This stage is dope. It’s essentially the same idea as Big Blue where you fight on top of the F-Zero racers, though I think this one handles it a bit better. For one thing you always have 2 platforms available, giving you steady ground to fight on.

You won’t have to keep jumping between platforms and racers to keep up which makes things a little less chaotic. You still need to watch out for the F-Zero racers though. The Blue Falcon is always there but other racers will show up to try to ram it. You can use these as additional platforms but don’t stay on them too long as they tend to fly off the screen.

It’s got a lot of what made Big Blue fun with a little more consistency. It’s probably the best F-Zero stage Smash Bros ever got. And then there’s the presentation. If the name didn’t clue you in, this is based on the original F-Zero game on SNES, right down to it having the same graphical style.

And it looks great. You can tell they were starting to nail down that retro aesthetic for a lot of these stages by then. This perfectly captures the style of the original F-Zero in all its Mode 7 glory.

Mute City SNES is the best retro stage in Ultimate. Spoiler alert but none of the ones coming up come close to matching it. it nails the aesthetic of the game it’s based on, it integrates ideas from that game in a fun and interesting way, this is what I’m looking for with a retro stage.

Overall Grade: A

Magicant

I love how this stage looks. It’s got a dream like quality to it, which is fitting considering that Magicant in the Mother series is portrayed as a dimension of dreams. I love the colour palette here, it’s makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

The stage itself takes advantage of Magicant being a dream as several elements from across the Mother series will show up. You’ll see a spaceship, a giant tomato, even good old dungeon man makes an appearance. Long time Mother fans will get a kick out of this, especially the clips from the series that will show up in the background.

And the stage itself is fun to play, except for one element that kind of ruins it, the Flying Men. Granted I love the fact these guys are 2D sprites, I love that shit, but man are they annoying. They’ll appear from there house and if you go near them, they’ll fight for you. It’s fun when you have them on their side but irritating when you have to fight them.

You can knock them out fairly easily but that doesn’t help much. I still hate dealing with them It’s a shame because everything else about the stage is great, but that one part nearly ruins the whole thing.

Overall Grade: C

Arena Ferox

Arena Ferox is Fire Emblem’s version of Pokémon Stadium. Same basic premise takes place in a big arena with various forms it will change into. It isn’t as good as either Pokémon Stadium, but on its own? It’s pretty good.

It lacks the visual variety of Pokémon Stadium, but the transformations are still different enough to at least keep things varied. Visually it’s also very good and captures how the arena looked in its original game. This is also one of the few Fire Emblem stages to be based on an actual location from the games rather than just be based around the general idea of the series. There is one other, but that was a DLC stage, which we’ll get to later. I don’t have much to say on this one, it’s just a very solid stage.

Overall Grade: B

Reset Bomb Forest

Reset Bomb Forest is one of those stages that kind of tells a story. It starts with you fighting on a ruined fort as a war wages on in the background. Then Viridi shows up and nukes the stage causing it to become twisted within this weird looking forest thing for a while before turning back and resetting the process.

It’s a cool looking stage. I already like stages that take place in the middle of a big battle, but the weird forest adds a uniquely twisted element to everything. I have no idea what I’m looking at since I didn’t play much of Uprising, but I like it.

I also like that the stage starts with simple flat platforms before becoming more twisted after the bomb goes off. It not only helps both sides stand out, it also helps give you a better idea of how screwed up everything gets.

There isn’t much in the way of obstacles or gimmicks, though there is an enemy that flies along the bottom that will damage you if touched. I don’t think the stage needs more than that though. This is a fun stage and the best one to come out of Kid Icarus.

Overall Grade: B

Tortimer Island

This is such a pleasant little stage. Like with the other Animal Crossing stages, this one is very simplistic, but this one does have one thing that helps it stand out, the design of the island is different every time you play it. While the overall layout doesn’t change that much, it differs just enough to make each one feel different.

I also love the setting of a desert island. I’ve already said I like beach and seaside areas, and what is a desert island but a beach level taken to it’s extreme. It’s a relaxing and pleasant stage to play, which is weird for a party fighter, but I think it works.

That isn’t to say there isn’t anything to watch out for. Occasionally a shark will show up that makes swimming in the water more dangerous. It doesn’t affect much, you spend most of the fight on the island, but it does keep things interesting. Even Kapp’n will show up in his boat to act as a temporary platform to liven things up.

This isn’t exactly the most interesting or exciting of stages, but for what it is, I like it. My only major complaint is that the camera will zoom out whenever the shark shows up, which is annoying but also a necessary evil I suppose.

Overall Grade: B

Balloon Fight

This just makes perfect sense. I mean it has fight in its name, how could Balloon Fight not get a stage. Plus, with the Ice Climbers stage having a reference to it, I guess it was only fair it would get an entire stage dedicated to it.

This is another retro stage, and it’s one of the better ones. What’s cool about this stage is that it’s technically 3 stages in one. There are 3 different variations it’ll swap between every time you play it, all of which are taken directly from the original game.

They even took some of the obstacles and mechanics from Balloon fight and added them in. There’s lightning to avoid, bumpers that knock you around, you can walk off the screen and appear on the other side, even the fish appears to drag you down if you land in the water. All of this could get annoying, but they never throw too many at you at once.

The layouts themselves are not the most interesting. Balloon fight was an early Joust clone, it didn’t have the most interesting level design. At the very least they fit with the gameplay style of Smash Bros, which is more than you can say for other retro stages. And having 3 different layouts does offset the individual layouts being a little dull.

This is still one of the better retro stages. It’s easily the best one to be based on an NES game, though considering the competition that isn’t saying much.

Overall Grade: B

Living Room

This stage is just adorable. How can you not have a smile on your face while watching the puppies and kittens playing in the background? It’s almost enough to make you forget this is a game where you beat your friends senseless, almost.

The main gimmick of this stage are the toys that drop down. It starts as a simple flat surface, but toys will drop down and change the layout, as well as crush any hapless bystanders who happen to be beneath them.

A stage that changes form isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but this is one does stand out by having the change be an obstacle you need to avoid. That’s a little different. Admittedly the hit boxes for the toys can be a little weird and it is very easy to get juggled when you get hit by one. It can be a little annoying getting hit by them.

Still, this is a cute stage with a very playful and fun atmosphere. It’s hard not to love it.

Overall Grade: B

StreetPass™ Quest

Why is there a trademark symbol in the name? That just seems unnecessary. Did they want us to know it was trademarked or something, what the hell?

I went into this not expecting much. This is one of those stages that I don’t remember much about and based on what I saw I didn’t think it was going to be that great. It looked kind of boring. Boy oh boy was I wrong. This stage has so much more going on in it than it would initially appear.

The big gimmick for this is the demon that will show up. This guy will give all the players boosts to their stats, making them stronger, faster or more durable. Sometimes it’s a boost for everyone, other times it’s a more powerful boost given to one player, usually the one in last place.

That’s not all, sometimes the demon will actually get involved in the fight directly. He can attack the players, but the players can fight him back, and if you defeat him you get a massive boost for a short time. But wait, there’s more. Sometimes the larger platform will sink down and force you onto the smaller one, and if there’s 4 players it can get cramped.

And then there’s the cage with the Mii in it. Not only can it act as a platform, but you can hit and break it which sends the Mii flying away. And the Mii is based on one saved on your system, do you see what I mean by how much is here.

For a stage I don’t remember much about, there’s surprisingly a lot going on here. Maybe I don’t remember much about it because of what it was based on. StreetPass™ was a fun novelty but not much else. Did anyone spend that much time on it? Cause I sure didn’t.

Honestly, I really like this stage. I thought I wouldn’t have much to say on it and it ended up being the opposite. It surprised me and I am very happy that it did.

Overall Grade: B

Tomodachi Life

Got to be honest, I forgot Tomodachi Life was even a thing. Not just the game but this stage, because it’s one of the most forgettable stages in the game. I do like the Mii’s chilling in the background, they even come from ones saved on the system, which is a nice touch, but that’s about it as far as positives.

This stage is just so boring. There aren’t many gimmicks, and the layout is flat and uninteresting. It does have a bigger emphasis on verticality all it boils down to is a series of flat platforms stacked on top of each other. It’s dull. Dull, dull, my god it’s dull.

It’s also pretty annoying to play. The rooms will only show up when you enter them, until then they’re obscured by a wall, and that’s no good for a game where it’s important to keep track of the playing arena. This stage sucks, moving on.

Overall Grade: D

PictoChat 2

Anyone remember PictoChat? It was this weird feature on the DS that allowed people to chat with other DS users using pictures and text. It wasn’t a feature people used much, especially since you had to be near other people in order to use it, and at that point you might as well just talk to them.

It wasn’t very popular, but Sakurai saw something in it and made it into a stage. It was a pretty good one too, so when Smash 3DS came out they gave it a sequel, and it’s even better.

Like with Dream Land GB, PictoChat 2 takes place within the system itself. The main platform is the text box used in PictoChat, which changes its text depending on what happens in the fight. As I’ve said many times before, I love little details like that.

But the big draw for this stage are, if you’ll pardon the pun, the drawings. As the fight progresses various images will show up that interrupt the fight. It’s a very creative idea and they do a lot with the concept. There are dolphins that will push you around, escalators that move you up, boots that stomp around, a see saw, a man who blows, all kinds of things.

They even threw in a Pac-Pix as a reference to that game as a bonus, I wish more stages had crossover elements like that. There’s a lot of different ideas here and it’s all wonderfully creative. You can tell they had a lot of fun with this one.

I love this stage. The original PictoChat was pretty good, but this one just expands on it and makes it better, as all good sequels should. It’s one of the most creative stages in Smash Ultimate, and one of my personal favourites.

Overall Grade: A

That’s it for the 3DS stage. That wasn’t too bad, there weren’t as many to cover, but most were very solid. Not bad Smash 3DS, not bad at all. Next time we’ll look at the second part of the Smash 4 experience as we look at the stages for Super Smash Bros on Nintendo Wii-U. Will it be as good a line-up, well you’ll have to wait and see.