Every Subspace Emmissary Level Ranked

Hasn't aged too well I don't think.
Tiermaker Credit
/ @techstrobe
tiermaker.com/...
This video was originally meant to be made 2 years ago and the footage in this video is from then. I swear I'm better at smash now.
Music Used (In Order)
Menu 2 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Underworld - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Skyworld - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Jungle Level - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
StickerBUSH Symphony - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Team Galactic Battle! - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Attack - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Brinstar - Super Smash Bros. Melee
With Mila's Divine Protection (Celica Map 1) - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Boss Battle 1 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Fire Field - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Encounter - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Vs. Ridley - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Step Subspace Ver 3 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Tabuu - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Classic Mode (Defeat) - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Twitter - / hiimaidensdn
Twitch - / hiimaiden4
oh whats this • Opening Skit (Deleted ...

[@Magic_Ice]

You misremembered the Great Maze. You don’t collect the fighters in the maze you collect them in the 2 Subspace levels with Dedede gang and Kirby. The Great Maze you collect no powerups or characters, you just fight every character and bosses using the characters you obtained from the Subspace levels. And also even if you did collect the characters in the Maze, The Great Maze wouldn’t be considered a Metroidvannia because that genre is focused on allowing upgrades to access new areas while the Great Maze any character can access the whole map. Great video though. It really goes into detail why Subspace isn’t as good of a crossover as many people view it as due to having bad Kirby level syndrome for the whole game.

[@HiImAiden]

You can't play as those characters until you've beaten them in the void/soul/whatever that thing is so I'd still attribute it to power ups. The 2nd part though yeah I got that wrong. Nice pfp by the way, As an awesome character.

[@fernando98322]

You definitely can play from the start as any character you have saved in the previous two stages. Were you using a mod or something?

[@Magic_Ice]

@@HiImAidenNo? I read the Smash Wiki and watched videos, you start with every character you got in Subspace 1 and 2 and you don’t unlock them or gain access to them by beating the soul characters. But thank you for the compliment, I love A…a lot lol.

[@HiImAiden]

​@Magic_Ice dude they're so cool

[@ManuCarrotman312]

​@@HiImAidenCan confirm without a doubt, you have everyone you rescued in Subspace 1/2 right off the bat, which means pretty much the whole roster (minus Sonic/Toon Link/Jigglypuff/Wolf) unless you left someone behind. You still fight clones of the mandatory characters aka King Dedede, Luigi, Ness, Kirby and Bowser. Might be some World of Light memory mixed in to think defeating a character unlocks them.

[@CaptHayfever]

Great Maze couldn't have autoscroll sections because you need to be able to go both ways through every room. The 4 teleports aren't random; they're arranged to align with their map positions.

[@davidnazarian1640]

9:04 "What do you do if your opponent just gets a lead and sits behind these walls?" boy do I have the smash ultimate character for you

[@HiImAiden]

He doesn't exist here in Aus LOL

[@kayden2119]

@@HiImAiden Damn no wonder everybody sucks there if they just run away from their problems 💀

[@CaptHayfever]

You don't even need Ultimate. Even in Brawl, PK Thunder or Nikita will give them grief.

[@davidnazarian1640]

@@CaptHayfever this is a joke about minecraft steven

[@vanillajellyfish]

Subspace was pretty fun for it's time but I think the bigger reason people have nostalgia for it is because, like mentioned in the video, the cutscenes are still really cool for their age with the little story it tells with (almost) all the characters, and there is hardly any actual dialogue, it's just "show don't tell"

[@5thkiechannel]

Not only that, but having a dedicated story mode automatically opens it up for speedrunning and challenge runs. Honestly that itself is a really underrated part of a video games lifespan.

[@a2rhombus2]

There's a reason when I'm feeling nostalgic about it, I just watch a compilation of all the cutscenes on KZbin instead of playing it

[@elius1548]

Tbh I think so much of the levels are made the cutscenes. For example, The reason the hoard battle in the final research facility level works is because the entire game has been building to ROB’s reveal. Talking about levels without mentioning their cutscenes takes away a lot of the appeal of subspace

[@HiImAiden]

That's fair

[@PizzaBagels589]

While I think that's a good point, I think the gameplay should be able to stand on its own, or at least somewhat on its own. If not, you end up slogging through gameplay just to get to the next cutscene.

[@Snt1_]

I love the subspace emmisary. By simply existing, it makes Brawl the best smash game imo

[@ManuCarrotman312]

Honestly I loved Subspace as a kid and a several years ago, right before Ultimate's release I got to play it again, and I gotta say, I genuinely don't mind the stuff like auto-scrolling sections and horde battles. I kinda feel that unless someone is trying to speedrun the game, autoscrolling parts are more a race against time to keep up with the camera while still avoiding obstacles and I like that. Like you said, it is kind of a beat-em-up mode, not just a platformer, which given the fact Smash is a fighting game it kinda makes sense. The only parts I find boring are the ones where you stand on one moving platform for a bit too long. I still wish World of Light would've been something like it. I ain't even looking at Subspace with nostalgia glasses, I just genuinely think for what it tried to do, it did its job pretty well.

[@HiImAiden]

I disagree, autoscrollers CAN be what you said but 90% of the time (and 100% of time in Subspace) its just padding that actively takes control away from the player.

[@ManuCarrotman312]

@@HiImAiden Fair enough, figured it just doesn't work the same for everyone.

[@oi6915]

The Great Maze feels like a reenactment of sorts for the Great Cave Offensive from Kirby Super Star, it's even split up into 4 sort of sections

[@LG555]

I would compare it more to Kirby and the amazing mirror.

[@moosesues8887]

@@LG555amazing mirror is literally open world tho 😭

[@TheNeXTGUI]

0:29 I don't think that counts as an argument because Subspace Emissary was not originally intended to be played via emulation.

[@ivrydice0954]

I couldn't be bothered to beat subspace twice so thanks for this breakdown. Great video I find it strange how many things I heard complained about for WOL I also found while playing thru subspace. Cool Bosses, but in repetitive levels, insane padding, and tedious movement (at least for the WOL map) The stand out difference is the reward for playing thru it. They both give you music, characters, and the game's respective unlockable (Mii outfits or trophies) More exlcusive upgrades (Skill spheres & Stickers) Subspace gave you boss battles and a movie. WOL gave you boss battles (after you platform a bit), and spirits. And I'd generally say the latter has more replay value when you account for all the dojos, abilities, and combinations, and summons you could do. I think that's the real reason Sakurai didn't want to make subspace again. It's not _just_ that the cutscenes were put online. (Which sounds petty on paper. I thought that too for a while) If the cutscenes were uploaded then the gameplay needs to be rewarding enough to make you want to beat it, and that doesn't seem to be the case for either single player outside of rare high moments. Regardless of how good they are they take a lot of effort, and if the most notable reward could be achieved only by playing smash bros then I understand why spirits are the way they are and in the long term I find it more satisfying than Brawl's take with how crazy busted they can get at times.

[@HiImAiden]

Really sick comment, totally agree.

[@Sebberboi]

I haven't really given Subspace a whole lot of thought to be honest. As you mentioned it's a monumental achievement that this story mode in a crossover game even exists, and think I've always kinda viewed it though that lens. I did not grow up with Brawl and I started my Smash Journey with Smash 4. So Subspace to me has always been that cool mode my friends always talked about, and how it should've been in Smash 4 also. So after finally getting Brawl and playing Subspace I kinda just looked past all of the auto-scrollers, played it with set friends who loved it so much and was just in awe that these characters were interacting with each other. But I think even if something an achievement like this should be held to higher scrutiny so the the team who made it can strive for something similar again, and be rid of flaws that Subspace had while emphasizing the strengths too. And I think this video illustrates that pretty well. Well done Aiden, I'll drop a sub for you 😎

[@williampittman2432]

For the samll amount of time I played Subspace on (some version of) Project M, the pacing was noticeably more bearable with the non auto scrollers. So, I feel like Vanilla Subspace suffers from Brawl's overall game speed and is definitely part of why some people were hoping for its return in Ultimate.

[@Jc27uhh4h4h4]

you sound like if you have fun they don't let you eat that night

[@HiImAiden]

It's true

[@Techstrobe]

Its so weird just watching your wrestling crowds video (decent wrestling fan started watching again in 2022 after over a decade not watching) to then see this show up as an end card, so being the world record holder of pretty much anything you can think of regarding Subspace Emissary, i had to watch (even used my tiermaker template), quite the funny 1-2 punch. I know this video is based on individual levels, but I want to say all autoscrollers combine for ~19 minutes of total time on Easy difficulty (and even faster the higher the difficulty), that's the one thing people fear monger so much about (which your video does lol) when putting the whole mode into perspective, its 1/6 of time from the fastest speedrun on Easy difficulty (that even skips and quickens some autoscrollers), and much much less of a factor the longer people take to complete it (a typical casual 8 hour playthrough will barely notice more than the few longest ones).

[@HiImAiden]

First off, thanks for the making the tiermaker template man. If I knew, absolutely woulda credited you it made making this video so much easier. 2nd, yeah thats pretty interesting. I think it feels like autoscrollers take up way more time then they actually do because of the abundance of them. Like seriously theres one on pratically every 2nd level. For my replay of subspace for this episode I beat the game in 3 days and it really grinded my gears.

[@bobthebuilder9509]

@@HiImAidenAgreed on the autoscrollers. It’s made even worse by lower difficulties making it *soooooo slooooow.* I’m glad Intense actually speeds them up a bit to make them “harder”, since I feel like it’s far better pacing that way and isn’t really that hard lol.

[@fernando98322]

Great Maze in S tier, that's what I like to hear

[@lifeiswonderful22]

S tier: Any level with Stickerbush Symphony

[@ScratchyMGRealname-ch1bg]

Except the swamp

[@Beastmd]

Never knew everyone’s speed and physics were normalized, good catch and nice vid idea even if I didn’t agree all the way. Subbed!

[@Joker938]

It took me about 10 fricking years to complete The Great Maze. There we're long periods of time where I didn't play Subspace at all but still lol. I was so happy when I finally figured out what the hell I was doing.

[@caioleite5579]

I think what made Subspace great was seeing characters from diferent franchises interacting with each other, almost like a fanfic a kid would create. I for example loved Star Fox 64 and Donkey Kong 64 as a kid, so playing as Fox and Diddy together in Brawl was a very unique experience. It is the whole point of a crossover Subspace also makes you like characters you didnt even know. For example, I of course had never played Kid Icarus when I played Brawl, but after playing Subspace you kinda get a little attached to Pit; he is no longer a random obscure character from a game I never played, he is that cool guy from Subspace. Smash 4 didnt have this, so many of its characters ended up just being random characters to me. Shulk is a great example of this

[@sim8663]

Nice vid Aiden you've got a very clean editing style and it was a pleasent surprise to see your name pop up in my recommendeds! The most recent time I played through subspace was on project + on intense difficultly and I really think it shores up a lot of the big negatives with sse. The movement in general is more satisfying in p+ which makes the platforming sections more interesting imo and the higher difficulty increases the speed of the auto scrolling sections and makes the beat em up stages actually pretty challenging. Look forward to your next vid!

[@HiImAiden]

Come back to events we miss you man

[@psiforce8342]

Worth bringing up The Ruined Zoo is a clear nod to the zoo in EarthBound Beginnings/MOTHER & you can also say The Ruined Zoo is also a level you'd see in a Pokemon game, hence the EarthBound & Pokemon crossover beginning there That said, Melee's Adventure mode remains to be the best Adventure mode (a shame when you consider that it showed potential of where you can grow from there, but then we got the bland & boring levels that Subspace Emissary got, at least World of Light had way more interesting features despite the mode not being anywhere like Melee Adventure mode & Subspace Emissary)

[@FectoElfilin]

Apparently, SSE's story and enemy designs were handled by some of the people who worked on the Kingdom Hearts series, and Birth By Sleep released 2 years after this game, so... Make of that what you will. :V

[@KibblezanBitz]

Subspace was a great proof of concept. I personally enjoyed it, but agree that the flaws are there. I think it would have been best to improve on it in future installments, but they don't care to for whatever reason. The lack of a Subspace style Adventure mode killed my interest in Ultimate to the point that I've barely plsyrd any of it.

[@Dynamick65]

Best adventure / campaign mode in any smash it's so good and the music is amazing. I personally love the level design and alot of it surely is down to you for using Dolphin just buy brawl and a wii bro

[@nickk3077]

12:33 This auto scrolling section doesn't look as bad as you are making it out to be. Honestly, the moving ladders seem like a decent unique challenge and the auto scrolling doesn't take away but adds to the challenge by forcing the player under a time limit. It's cool. I just don't think the mentality of "just because it's an auto scroll means it's worse" is the right way to think about these levels.

[@HiImAiden]

The scroll is slow as hell so your just stuck at the top of ladder waiting for ages.

[@Batstewie]

Pretty funny seeing all the tropes of these levels repeat over and over again, cool video!

[@slenderMax28]

It is interesting to see how much room for improvement there is in the level design. Makes sense for a game that's literally unique, I don't think a single platformer or beat-em-up with Smash mechanics exists outside of Subspace. Makes it that much worse that World of Light is such a shitshow. What a wasted opportunity.

[@E-102GammaMKII]

18:05 - Actually, that's the Falcon Flyer, not the Blue Falcon. They are different. The Falcon Flyer is a Smash-exclusive element, debuting in _Melee_ on the Big Blue stage.

[@randoncourter4923]

Erm, acktuallee, it debuted in the manual for the original F-Zero

[@CakeCreepZ]

Now this. This is my kind of tier list ranking thing video topic

[@arkelon]

The Trap Queen remix of Stickerbush Symphony goes unbelievably hard

[@VincentJSarad]

Playing Subspace in project plus was so freaking awesome

[@blackbabyyy4782]

You're a real complainer

[@Asian_Glow]

a yapper too lol

[@thewalrusman2796]

the family all gets together when hi i'm aiden uploads

[@keksidy]

Ik Subspace is pretty mid, but I just like the novelty of a platform fighter becoming an actual platformer

[@HiImAiden]

I think that concept is really awesome too, the mode just doesn't have enough actual platforming

[@_Tygon_]

Unsure if you're aware, but the stickers actually buff stats and change characters attributes dramatically

[@HiImAiden]

Yes I'm aware it has no relevance to this review

[@moosesues8887]

Literally all the enemies in subspace are just diet heartless and nobodies from kingdom hearts without the phenomenal animation and raw aura 😭 primids literally look like they would be a heartless 💀

[@charlieyork4575]

This guy invited the phrase negative Nancy

[@jeremiahhester6408]

Glacier Peak is one of my favorite levels

[@JEANS__]

coin launcher mentioned 🥶🥶🥶

[@Royblade90]

I forgot Coin launcher exists 💀

[@redstealth5106]

Other criticisms aside, it sounds like you've become too good at the game and it's taken the oomph out of certain bossfights! 😅

[@ultrascarlet5275]

This is quality, why does it have so little engagement?

[@HiImAiden]

Because I don't upload much and I tag stuff even less haha Hopefully that changes this year, appreciate the support dude.

[@bobboberson8297]

@@HiImAiden you should try tagging stuff. I saw this video in my recommended but clicked off the page and it took like 10 mins of searching youtube to find it again (maybe youtube search is just bad now though) but with better SEO more people would see your videos

[@marthlowell9029]

do a tier list on the story

[@masonasaro2118]

subspace might not be as good as everyone says, but it’s still the best smash bros story mode by default. (FUCK THAT GLORIFIED SM4SH U EVENT MODE THEY CALLED WORLD OF LIGHT)

[@Themostcring]

great vid, love the editing especially

[@Themostcring]

also btw, for a better experience (i havent played the original subspace), play subspace in p+, thats how i played through most of it and it seemed that the movement felt a lot better compared to normal brawl movement in subspace

[@HiImAiden]

@@Themostcring I've heard this a lot but I think having to mod the game to make it better shows that its already a flawed expierence

[@kikigarza9092]

Am I the only one who likes this game mode in this comment section?

[@kikigarza9092]

And also Am I the only one who likes the great maze

[@ivrydice0954]

I like it. I don't think it's that good. But I can still like it.

[@anonymousguy7005]

No

[@guythatdosethingssometimes2651]

Subspace may not be the best game but it at the very least isnt world of light. Trying to get through that game mode may have actually made me enjoy the game less. That game mode is a slog.

[@BraydenKirby-uk7zq]

I despise the great maze.

[@BB_Boah]

Someone finally says it. I played this as a kid too but never understood the reverence even back then. 9/10 stages are either boring or completely obnoxious

[@MAST1]

Duon reference

[@HiImAiden]

I love The GWIF

[@ScratchyMGRealname-ch1bg]

The great maze should not be s tier

[@Loner098]

Where do you believe it should belong, then? Because I'm feeling it should be at least a B-tier or A-tier.

[@ScratchyMGRealname-ch1bg]

19:10 terrible mic

[@Jc27uhh4h4h4]

me when I'm in the enemy home world and have to progress through a horde of enemies:

[@ivrydice0954]

I though subspace was invading the smashers world not the other way around?

[@Jc27uhh4h4h4]

@@ivrydice0954 when he got annoyed there was lots of enemies in the subspace level

[@ivrydice0954]

​@@Jc27uhh4h4h4 I thought they was getting mad at the uninspired, and repetitive level design. Like the constant use of horde battles, and the tedious enemies like mites. Their favorite level was the Great Maze which has some of the most enemies in any level.

[@HiImAiden]

@@ivrydice0954 Spot on also I go by they/them*

[@TheBoringLlama]

Relatable

[@gamenwatch6269]

....... I like Glacial Peak.

[@HiImAiden]

thats rough buddy

[@jeremiahhester6408]

So do I

[@scantyer]

Fair list. I recently replayed this mode (but solo) and while i loved the whole crossover thing, the level design most of the time was a pain. Auto scrollers are way too frequent. But i completely disagree about the great maze, that level was totally unnecessarily. The campaign is already long enough there was no need to pad it out more.