Me too, I thought it was a fun way to have to try out all the characters.
I do agree that it was too long, though.
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Why did everyone bitch about the subspace emissary in Brawl?
- Thread starter MrMatt555
- Start date
I do agree that it was too long, though.
short answer: it was egregiously anti-fun
I never played Smash Run, so I can't speak to how well that played. If they figured out how to make the core gameplay work in Kirby-like levels, then I wouldn't mind them attempting that again. I'd rather than just stick to something closer to Melee's adventure mode with brief moments of running around and focus more on themed fights in more normal levels.
Also, it fucking SUCKED
- Fighting through through Kirby-esque levels with Smash Bros. damage system meant you would get thrown around between enemies and get KO'd at arbitrary distances
- The series' combat did not lend itself to fighting most of SSE's enemies—they had health bars and wouldn't get knocked around until dead which goes against SSB's core gameplay
- The enemies are terrifying, nightmare abominations
- Almost all enemies and locations are non-Nintendo themed, original creation stuff
- The overly dour, serious tone didn't come across as self-aware
- That long-ass maze-like section coupled with the core gameplay being at odds with the level design and enemies was a slog
- Boss battles were wack, except for Ridley's, even though those weren't super awesome either
I never played Smash Run, so I can't speak to how well that played. If they figured out how to make the core gameplay work in Kirby-like levels, then I wouldn't mind them attempting that again. I'd rather than just stick to something closer to Melee's adventure mode with brief moments of running around and focus more on themed fights in more normal levels.
Also, it fucking SUCKED
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Everyone's saying the cutscenes were great but I disagree, as unpopular an opinion as it seems to be. I found them to take themselves way too seriously. The 'intros' especially, with the text and the sound effect freeze frame combo with everyone getting their badass entrance. It treated several characters who are... for lack of better term, 'not cool' AS cool, and just generally felt pretentious. Characterizations just weren't landing with me. Just felt like a 10 hour chain of "look how cool THIS GUY is... okay but now THIS GUY is even COOLER" and that feels tremendously at conflict with the actual characters. Admittedly, the gameplay itself kept me for a while, but I did take about a month off from playing it once I hit the Great Maze. When I finally beat that and got Sonic, I never touched it ever again. I can't remember if I beat the final boss or not.
The maze was too much of a problem, and the areas should have all been nintendo based. It was a great idea with some good cutscenes though.
The gameplay left a lot to be desired, that's why. Level design was a snoozefest even for a Kirby-like platformer. Then you had sections where you were forced to fight waves of these non-flinchable enemies in incredibly small arenas where you can be flung anywhere and knocked around from enemies off-screen with no real control over the situation. On top of that, they made an already floaty game even floatier in the single player! The physics are all screwed up and make the platforming feel worse instead of better. They adjusted the physics to try and make the platforming easier but it ends up feeling unfulfilling and not... fun. Couple that with the very lame level design and you have a story mode where you get frustrated easily because of being combo'd all over by original non-Nintendo enemies in non-Nintendo locations with unsatisfying platforming.
It's a Kirby game in all but name but it doesn't even execute any of its Kirby-ism well! And the worst part is, even though it's based on Kirby platforming design, the mode is actually hard unlike a Kirby game but not because it's designed to be hard but because of all these things I've mentioned but primarily because they decided to keep using the damage % and knockback system where the situations they put you in are clearly not a good match for it. And it's just... so... dang... long in the tooth for what it is!
If it was shorter it might have been received more favorably but 10 hours on a first playthrough for that mode is awful.
Melee's Adventure Mode does so much more right in a much shorter amount of time. And part of that is definitely helped by the physics in that game making going through the Adventure Mode levels actually fun. Even on repeat playthroughs Adventure Mode in Melee is STILL fun. SSE is a one and done thing and it's just a hot mess.
I haven't even touched on the tacked on bit with Stickers increasing your stats... What a great idea that was.... (not).
Edit: Oh and the cutscenes are definitely not the best thing about it either. They're... at best... okay, in my opinion. A lot of it is just introducing characters for their first appearance and then some minor interaction and then OOP we're suddenly in the stage! Or, taken back to the world map to awkwardly select the next level to where we continue with the current party of characters or introduced to one or more new ones. And then maybe later you get some more cutscenes between already introduced characters but it's very far and few. People getting turned into trophies cutscenes and then "resurrected" to have a small interaction with your current party. Oh and then suddenly it's the end of the game and Sonic's here with his intro, great!
It's not great. That part is just okay. The cutscenes to me get too much praise, they're really not that amazing. They could do much better and they have with the Smash 4 trailers they made.
It's a Kirby game in all but name but it doesn't even execute any of its Kirby-ism well! And the worst part is, even though it's based on Kirby platforming design, the mode is actually hard unlike a Kirby game but not because it's designed to be hard but because of all these things I've mentioned but primarily because they decided to keep using the damage % and knockback system where the situations they put you in are clearly not a good match for it. And it's just... so... dang... long in the tooth for what it is!
If it was shorter it might have been received more favorably but 10 hours on a first playthrough for that mode is awful.
Melee's Adventure Mode does so much more right in a much shorter amount of time. And part of that is definitely helped by the physics in that game making going through the Adventure Mode levels actually fun. Even on repeat playthroughs Adventure Mode in Melee is STILL fun. SSE is a one and done thing and it's just a hot mess.
I haven't even touched on the tacked on bit with Stickers increasing your stats... What a great idea that was.... (not).
Edit: Oh and the cutscenes are definitely not the best thing about it either. They're... at best... okay, in my opinion. A lot of it is just introducing characters for their first appearance and then some minor interaction and then OOP we're suddenly in the stage! Or, taken back to the world map to awkwardly select the next level to where we continue with the current party of characters or introduced to one or more new ones. And then maybe later you get some more cutscenes between already introduced characters but it's very far and few. People getting turned into trophies cutscenes and then "resurrected" to have a small interaction with your current party. Oh and then suddenly it's the end of the game and Sonic's here with his intro, great!
It's not great. That part is just okay. The cutscenes to me get too much praise, they're really not that amazing. They could do much better and they have with the Smash 4 trailers they made.
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The time they spent working on Subspace Emissary could've been spent giving me Geno. That's why.
I actually really enjoyed it, and the cutscenes were great.
Wow, people didn't like it? It's my favorite single player out of any Smash game by a long shot. It was sorely missed in Smash 4.
Like, I have a serious question for people who say this is their favorite mode.
Did you like the mode a lot because of the cutscenes or because of the levels?
Because I just seriously struggle to think how you can like SSE a lot for the levels. If you liked it because of the cutscenes then... is that really liking the mode? I would argue no because the mode is the actual game you're playing, not the cutscenes you're watching.
If you liked all of it, have you ever tried to replay it since? To maybe see why people don't like it? Heck, you really don't need to even replay all of it to see what's wrong with it.
I just want to know. Honestly.
At the end of the day, everyone wants some kind of adventure mode back but what people don't want back is the very poor level design and gameplay SSE offers; not the idea of cutscenes. Cutscenes are something everyone would want too but paired with actual good level design AND Nintendo themed levels in a much shorter mode than SSE.
Just think Melee Adventure Mode with cutscenes. Bam. Everyone's happy. The end.
Did you like the mode a lot because of the cutscenes or because of the levels?
Because I just seriously struggle to think how you can like SSE a lot for the levels. If you liked it because of the cutscenes then... is that really liking the mode? I would argue no because the mode is the actual game you're playing, not the cutscenes you're watching.
If you liked all of it, have you ever tried to replay it since? To maybe see why people don't like it? Heck, you really don't need to even replay all of it to see what's wrong with it.
I just want to know. Honestly.
At the end of the day, everyone wants some kind of adventure mode back but what people don't want back is the very poor level design and gameplay SSE offers; not the idea of cutscenes. Cutscenes are something everyone would want too but paired with actual good level design AND Nintendo themed levels in a much shorter mode than SSE.
Just think Melee Adventure Mode with cutscenes. Bam. Everyone's happy. The end.
whoops, meant to type unfun
you did read the rest of that post to see that made no sense in context, right.
If you like smash bros cutscenes so much just watch smash 4 trailers. They're better than the cutscenes in SSE anyway, and you don't have to play SSE to enjoy them.
It was a neat idea and good fanservice, but it got old fast (especially if you didn't play co-op) and there's the perception that it took so much development time from a game that people already deem flawed that it's no wonder people ended up disliking it.
I'd like if they tried to make such a mode again, but if slim single player content is the price to pay for a better game (like with Smash 4) then I'm good.
I'd like if they tried to make such a mode again, but if slim single player content is the price to pay for a better game (like with Smash 4) then I'm good.
... you mean the music that was a ton of awesome tracks from iconic franchises?
Metroid Prime theme, Stickerbrush Symphony, Porky's Theme...
It was pretty boring except for the cutscenes, which are fantastic. Some of the boss fights were good too, but only ones that were from other games, every original villain was pretty terrible.
I liked the mode but the last level is trash and what stops me from ever repeating it. It's Brawl but even floatier, which makes for a game that's floatier than I like. Also, while I think forcing the player to use a variety of characters is a neat idea, the game doesn't weight this variety very evenly and I think I would've had more fun if I could have played as some other characters more.
It was a poor man's Kirby game that drags on way too long for how little variety the mode provides(for the record; I have the same issue with Melee's Adventure mode but that was way shorter). I felt that Smash 3DS's Smash Run works a lot better because 5min timer keeps things brisk and the more random nature of it keeps from being quite as repetitive.
Personally, Kirby Planet Robobot was everything I wanted structurally from a Smash Bros "adventure" mode. So if they were to revisit the idea, I'd rather they take cues from that.
Personally, Kirby Planet Robobot was everything I wanted structurally from a Smash Bros "adventure" mode. So if they were to revisit the idea, I'd rather they take cues from that.
you know i never played smash before, but media was so hype about it
so i just bought it and played subspace emmisarry and it was so boring
yes back then i was such an idiot and never know that smash is actually fighting game, i thought that subspace emissary was the main mode
so i really disappointed and never understand hype surronding it, until i tried to play with my litle brother on battle mode, wow we were having a blast, the fighting was so intense
goddamn nintendo, you almost make me shitting the best fighting game ever
so i just bought it and played subspace emmisarry and it was so boring
yes back then i was such an idiot and never know that smash is actually fighting game, i thought that subspace emissary was the main mode
so i really disappointed and never understand hype surronding it, until i tried to play with my litle brother on battle mode, wow we were having a blast, the fighting was so intense
goddamn nintendo, you almost make me shitting the best fighting game ever
It's not that easy though. Melee's adventure mode is just a bunch of stages that a single character plays through. It's a beefed up classic mode. You won't get SSE-style crossover cutscenes with that. They need a single story mode featuring every character to get those, or at least something different from Melee's
I enjoyed it and it was a fun co-op experience. It's really repetitive which is why I can see people not quite enjoying it but it had some really cool boss fights, fun cutscenes to enjoy. The lack of SSE is why I'm likely not picking up the new game on launch. Rather than listening to feedback and improving the mode, they just removed it entirely.
Pretty much. Maybe if you port melee to the switch then they'll be happy, finally.
Eh, I liked it. I really hope there's some kind of expansive single player mode in Ultimate even if it's not at the same level as SSE. That's really the only thing that was missing from Smash 4 for me.
Thats exactly it, though. In a game that thrives on being a crossover, the only crossover appeal was in occasional pre-rendered cutscenes.
No thematic stages or enemies, no interesting modes in between, mostly just beat generic enemies on pieced together nondescript stages.
I was actually about to post this, yeah. The Smash 4, and now Ultimate, trailers have pretty much scratched the same itch the Subspace cutscenes did for me.
I'm not a fan of the original environments and enemies they added, as they were pretty generic. I think it would have been a lot more fun to have drawn the environments and enemies from Nintendo games.
The platforming stuff isn't interesting at all, and neither is the game structure in general. I think it'd be better be more like Odin Sphere, where it's mostly just rooms of fights connected to each other, with some non-linearity in how you choose to go through them to reach the boss.
I didn't like the story. Like the rest of Brawl's aesthetics, it's tries to be kind of dark and gritty, but for me it just comes off as awkward and unappealing.
I already mentioned it above, but I think Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is a good example of this kind of game done right. It has a beautiful world, a more focused structure, and a wonderful, engaging story.
The platforming stuff isn't interesting at all, and neither is the game structure in general. I think it'd be better be more like Odin Sphere, where it's mostly just rooms of fights connected to each other, with some non-linearity in how you choose to go through them to reach the boss.
I didn't like the story. Like the rest of Brawl's aesthetics, it's tries to be kind of dark and gritty, but for me it just comes off as awkward and unappealing.
I already mentioned it above, but I think Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is a good example of this kind of game done right. It has a beautiful world, a more focused structure, and a wonderful, engaging story.
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This is what annoyed me the most. In the lead up to release I was convinced they were saving the franchise-themed levels as a surprise or something because why wouldn't they add any? Boy, was I in for a disappointment, what a strange decision.
I enjoyed playing through it with my roommate at the time. Some of the early stuff is pretty cool and it could have used more crossover encounters like Diddy & Fox vs Rayquaza. With the roster of SSBU being so ridiculous I don't expect something like Sub Space Emissary. Hopefully unlocking all the characters will be cool though.
The best parts of it can be experienced on YouTube. It was a huge resource drain from every other part of Brawl and it shows.
Its existance has been romanticized over time because we love the idea of it, but in reality SSE just wasn't that fun.
Its existance has been romanticized over time because we love the idea of it, but in reality SSE just wasn't that fun.
It was a huge missed opportunity by not being made up of Nintendo locales full of Nintendo enemies and bosses. Yes there were some bits of this (goombas, skyworld, Porky, etc), but the vast majority was just generic areas with generic enemies. On top of that level design was pretty mixed, sometimes it was good but other times it was just meh, and I felt like it relied too heavily on combat arenas. I know smash is a fighting game but eventually I get tired of fighting big groups of enemies. Boss battles were good though.
I can also relate to your friends about the unlocking. Doing the SSE unlocks almost the entire roster for you without the excitement of getting that "Challenger Approaching!" screen and having to fight for the right to play as them. You could say "well just don't do it!" but I was like 13 when Brawl released, how was I supposed to know? By the time I was done it was too late and it kind of killed my motivation to engage with the rest of the single player content.
And coming off Melee, I found it kind of disappointing that the SSE was a one and done affair, unlike the Adventure Mode which was highly replayable. I just prefer having shorter stuff I can do over and over with the whole roster for fighting games.
I can also relate to your friends about the unlocking. Doing the SSE unlocks almost the entire roster for you without the excitement of getting that "Challenger Approaching!" screen and having to fight for the right to play as them. You could say "well just don't do it!" but I was like 13 when Brawl released, how was I supposed to know? By the time I was done it was too late and it kind of killed my motivation to engage with the rest of the single player content.
And coming off Melee, I found it kind of disappointing that the SSE was a one and done affair, unlike the Adventure Mode which was highly replayable. I just prefer having shorter stuff I can do over and over with the whole roster for fighting games.
