The Top 10 WORST Stages in Smash History

[@MockRockTalk]

Thanks for watching everyone, let me know what you thought of the list! I've got a "Top 10 Best Stages in Smash History" video as well: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hnjPq42cl5qghM0 Oh btw, if you're wondering why there are some old comments on here, it's because patrons/KZbin members/Twitch subs are supposed to get videos a day early, except this time my computer exploded right after I put it out in early access, so they ended up getting it _very_ early while I got a giant repair bill surprise. Fun times! *Main channel:* kzbin.info *Twitter:* twitter.com/MrMockRock *Patreon:* www.patreon.com/mockrock *Twitch:* www.twitch.tv/mockrocktwitch *Teespring:* teespring.com/stores/mockrock *TimeBolt affiliate link* (excellent software I use to speed up editing on my videos, use code "MOCKROCK" for a discount): mockrock--timebolt.thrivecart.com/order-page/

[@Metalc]

I’m genuinely thankful that you didn’t put palutenas temple on the list. It’s not a great stage but so many people think it’s absolutely horrible.

[@generaljimmies3429]

I was expecting Poke Floats from Melee to show up at some point. Fighters died more from the stage then each other.

[@ScLuigi]

@@generaljimmies3429 that was on the best list

[@generaljimmies3429]

@@ScLuigi Huh, well whatdoya know. Maybe my brother was full of shit.

[@andremorrison7626]

Do a video on Smash's fan rules when it comes to character requests as well as the possible result of an official smash game that breaks that rule with its newcomers.

[@kwisowofer9872]

This sounds weird, but I like New Pork City for what it represents. At first glance, it looks like a cool massive stage, but then when you go there, it feels unfun, boring, and just weird. New Pork City in Mother 3 is supposed to look like a flashy city, but half of the buildings are cardboard cutouts (fun fact, the breakable platform is a building cardboard cutout) and the whole city feels lifeless and fake. I don’t find it fun play on, and I doubt that’s what the stage designers were thinking, but I like it for feeling like New Pork City.

[@goatles9423]

The platform layout is something an eight year old, or Porky himself, would make in stage builder. Like you said, it's not a good stage but it is very in character

[@Rspknlikeab0ssxd]

Also the Mother song "You Call THIS a Utopia!?" fits with the stage, the sound pattern of which oscillates such that it makes you feel in a world at once authoritative and bland and at another curiously beauteous. It then feels richly cultured

[@eltiolavara9]

yeah it's definitely fitting lol dunno why they went with new pork city though and not tazmily or any other place in the game

[@KingAndy9Real]

Whenever I play with a little kid (usually my friends' siblings) they always beg to play on New Pork City, then I camp for 2 games straight and they stop asking lol

[@LuigiSmashGamer]

I agree I love new pork city

[@Evello37]

PAC-MAZE was not brought to Ultimate because it included asymmetric elements (leveraging the fact that each player had their own screen on 3DS). When you collect enough pellets, the ghosts on your screen run away and cannot hurt you, while every other player sees the ghosts behave as normal. That wouldn't work with every player sharing a TV screen. The simple solution would be to axe that mechanic and keep the stage, but obviously the devs prioritized faithfulness.

[@ThundagaT2]

They could have revamped the idea into the ghosts no longer chasing a player with the power pellet, but continuing to chase other players, and just make it so that only the player with the power pellet can defeat them

[@mann-nova9392]

Honestly that still could work with online play. I think it affected AI when you got the Power Pellet didn't it?

[@jmurray1110]

Alternatively change the mechanic slightly so the player changes colour not the ghosts

[@ILikeNerdShit]

Thank you. I wanted to say this because I'm sick of people asking "why."

[@wishbushwashbosh6443]

That’s true, but I’d rather they just rework it instead of have whatever Pac-Land is.

[@Rdotmop]

It's so frustrating that turning hazards off for Wily Castle turns EVERYTHING off. I wanted all the cool Mega Man platforms, instead i get FD with walls.

[@zacpadilla2432]

I do like playing Mario Bros in 1 v 1, with like FS meter, cause constantly teching each other’s big attacks is fun sometimes. I’m also surprised Spiral Mountain wasn’t mentioned, I get motion sickness from the spinning and the actual platform layouts aren’t anything special.

[@OrigamiAhsoka]

Same oh my gosh. Amazing background details sure but who thought it’d be a good idea to add a stage that 3D into a 2d game 😭

[@NinjaPickle]

I think Spiral Mountain was excluded because aside from the spinning, you can at least have a normal match when the stage isn't moving. It would probably make a top 20 list though

[@aidanlarimore4391]

Am I the only one who doesn’t get motion sickness on that stage

[@NinjaPickle]

@@aidanlarimore4391 No, it's just the panning screen in the background while the characters don't spin with it is disorienting for me

[@josiahtheawkward6008]

@@aidanlarimore4391 nah me neither, but it’s still a weird stage

[@Odyssey_Central]

Mushroomy Kingdom is definitely one of my least favorite stages in the series. It has auto scrolling, walk offs, tons of stuff to tech on, and it doesn’t even look good on top of that. Plus ultimate cut the 1-2 version, making the stage even less interesting

[@ExaltedUriel]

If it was just a straight-up recreation of 1-1 I'd probably like it more, but I REALLY don't get what they were going for with that "abandoned" desert concept, other than it just being a sign of the times and that 2008 ultra-grittiness Brawl was going for. I don't hate the concept but it makes for an extremely bland stage visually.

[@fuhbox]

You’re definitely right about it looking horrible

[@theenderkirby]

@@fuhbox the reason that come to my mind that it look so dead that canonically after the events of super mario bros bowser's army left 1-1/2 thus left the place to be a complete waste

[@cuttsthecat6331]

@@theenderkirby That's actually the official reason to why it looks so deserted, according to Sakurai. He said that after 30 years it just became a husk.

[@theenderkirby]

@@cuttsthecat6331 wait super mario bros wasn't 30 years old yet when brawl was out

[@woofmasterarf]

I think a key difference between Palutena's Temple and Great Cave Offensive is combo game. Like yes both stages are way too big so killing can be a nightmare alongside movement, but PTemple is also one of the craziest combo stages in the game, potentially the craziest. As a lunatic, I've actually had fun 1v1s on this stage where I just convince the other person to see which of us can get the sickest combo during the match. Great Cave doesn't even let morons like me have my fun because in order to make the match end at some point they put lava walls that kill you everywhere. Tryhards can run away, new players get destroyed, and I can't even put my opponents in a 100-150 percent cutscene. It somehow manages to mess with everyone. Also Palutena's Temple has Palutena's Guidance which is one of the best features of any stage.

[@mrgreenboy644]

Honestly I just love PT because of good Smash 4 memories with 3 of my friends

[@AUTTY6242]

Play against 7 lvl9 ganon CPUs with the Akuma spirit in Palutena's temple

[@SmashSSL]

I'm getting hated on for this but.... Palutena's conversations are a straight downgrade from Snake's codecs. They're not really funny and the voice acting is somewhat obnoxious But yeah the stage itself is one of the best large stages

[@bigtoblerone8446]

Mmm i like it way better than palu temple or new pork but not temple. Its a fun creative stage

[@MagcargoMan]

Palutena's Guidance is just another negative for me because I found Kid Icarus Uprising's writing genuinely unfunny. Downgrade from Snake's Codecs.

[@deester7914]

Also one thing to point out regarding Wily Castle. When the game first got revealed and in the game’s own menus, it brags how the stage hazard toggle can remove the Yellow Devil. So the devs knew how much players hated the Yellow Devil and gave us an option to remove him. But using the stage hazard toggle also removes the universally enjoyed platforms, which essentially just makes the stage an omega form (something you could already do in Smash 4). That makes the stage so much worse in my opinion.

[@jmurray1110]

Yeah I wish we got Pjiggles hazard option menu instead of a simple switch

[@RacingSnails64]

Right??? Such a messed up situation. For all the amazing customizability in Ultimate, some few things still feel really weird and and obstuse. It can be really inconsistant what counts as a hazard and what doesn't. Also no ability to choose what formations you want to play on, even though some Spirit battles stay on fixed parts of Delfino Plaza for example. Spiral Mountain hazardless doesn't rotate, which is fair, but after a few seconds the two large platforms on the sides suddenly rise up and then are never seen again. Like...WHAT????

[@TheTrueBrawler]

Wily's Castle (Hazards On) without the Yellow Devil would be a top 10 stage hands down. A good base layout, moving platforms, no slopes, MEGAMAN SERIES MUSIC, et cetera.

[@YounesLayachi]

I just now understood what "omega" means... Omega is the final letter in Greek alphabet... Final destination... Truly mental gymnastics. Meanwhile the real name is simply "Final Destination form", and fits with "Battlefield form".

[@ExaltedUriel]

@@RacingSnails64 F in chat for our boy Randall on Yoshi's Story who gets removed when you play hazards off. At least in 13.0 they finally fixed the Shy Guys still having food even if you had items off, so you can still get classic Melee legal Yoshi's Story.

[@mrgreenboy644]

How about a video on some stages that *should* be in Smash? For example, the fact that there are no actual Bowser's Castle stages in Smash is a crime Also I love the horribly chaotic nature of Mario Bros. It's like a pug: an abomination of non-nature, but it's just so lovable

[@kirbyofthestarsfan]

Nominating a stage from a modern Kirby game to that list as well GCO robbed Epic Yarn and Return to Dream Land out of a new stage in Smash 4, just to add more pandering to Super Star (again)

[@theillusionist1494]

Very loosely related, but I still can’t get over the fact that Ultimate’s Adventure mode is literally called “World of Light” and yet Ultra Necrozma, a giant dragon made of light, and the primary antagonist of the most recent Pokémon game at the time, is NOWHERE to be seen. I was fully expecting a boss fight on a stage themed after Ultra Megalopolis, and when it didn’t happen, it set me on a tinfoil hat theory that Necrozma might be a DLC fighter. At the time, I was certain we didn’t need it as a fighter, but I ended up talking myself into wanting it as a fighter. It’s still bizarre to me that we didn’t get a new Pokémon stage or any content from USUM despite them coming out in 2017, the same year as Odyssey and BotW, both games that got prominent representation in Ultimate.

[@TheTrueBrawler]

Stages that should be in Smash? Where the flying fork is Tetris representation?

[@ExaltedUriel]

I would've liked to see that Dr. Mario stage that was going to be in Smash 4 but was cut. Or in the vein of Duck Hunt, an Urban Champion stage. Other than that it's mostly just stages that didn't return for Ultimate that I'd like to see back, like PokeFloats or Pac-Maze.

[@thehypetrainz2297]

I feel like an underrated stage concept is a DK stage that isn’t a jungle themed stage. There are a lot of vibrant setting in the DK series that feel completely untapped in smash that I feel could be great. A lot of DK games have factory settings, so one of those could be cool. An icy volcano stage based on tropical freeze would be nice. And a Pirate stage for K. Rool would be especially nice.

[@BirdCraftSSB]

The funny and disappointing part about the great cave offensive was that it was originally intended to be a stage based on Kirby’s Epic Yarn But due to the announcement of Yoshi’s Wooly World it was changed to the mess that is the not so great cave offensive.

[@TheTrueBrawler]

And yet the Wooly World stage never even returned to Ultimate.

[@Kirbita22]

WHAT!!!!! that's heartbreaking!!

[@SSJ_EWGF]

Great Cave Offensive is only chosen when one of your friends kept winning for far too long during a group session and you and the rest of the homies want to take em down a peg or two. It's the ultimate "fuck you, stop playing so well" counter pick.

[@firewall5189]

...then your friend picks sonic for this stage and thats the point at which theyre no longer your friend :^)

[@TS6815]

I think the key thing that makes Temple work as a mega-stage is that any one element of it would work totally fine as a standalone stage. It's not one mega-stage as much as it is two or three or four good stages stitched together very well

[@ExaltedUriel]

Even beyond that I think Temple just has very good visual cohesion. One of my main problems with Great Cave offensive and even Palutena's temple is that they try to do too much at once, all of their sub-areas are visually distinct which sounds good on paper, but it turns that "a couple of good stages stitched together" metaphor into it feeling like they just mashed a bunch of unrelated crap together. Temple feels like one area, and its sub-areas feel like they're just a result of its terrain, rather than feeling artificially designed to be so.

[@gengallade]

I like Mario Bros. It turns smash into a different game by removing traditional kill options and introducing new ones (the enemies you pick up and throw). The enemies have mostly horizontal knockback, too, so teching on the ceilings isn't too big of a deal if you try to kill with one

[@cobravenom1316]

They also have some of the highest base knockback in the entire game lol, they’re so much fun

[@firewall5189]

agreed. i still despise the platform layout and how unnecessarily difficult it is to get anywhere, but the koopas and crabs are honestly incredibly fun to goof around with

[@melcasucre2971]

I really miss brawl's take on New Pork City's chimera, back when insta death wasnt used this thing just sent you flying in wierd angles and it was a blast to try surviving and bounce on the walls

[@ExaltedUriel]

I actually completely forgot about that, lol. Didn't it also set your damage to 999% or am I misremembering?

[@PikminAnd]

@@ExaltedUriel I think it did 100% in one bite, with a ton of knockback

[@ExaltedUriel]

@@PikminAnd Yeah I remember that much, lol. It was like Jigglypuff shieldbreak knockback (basically just an instakill).

[@benro6564]

I like how accurate the Yellow Devil is to the first mega man: annoying, unnecessary, and a chore to get through

[@Xenowolf8]

I like Electroplankton, but I will never understand why there is a Smash stage of it.

[@Metalc]

an electro plankton stage could have been cool I think, it’s just that hanenbow is horrendously designed.

[@AluminumFusion22]

​@@MetalcYet another case of Smash catering to Nintendo's Japanese fanbase. That would explain the popularity of Fire Emblem characters in the rosters despite Fire Emblem either being an incredibly niche series over here or basically being non-existent until Fire Emblem: Awakening sold super well on 3DS. Electroplankton was probably popular in Japan but is a much more niche game over here.

[@rainbowstar6488]

Mario Bros. is one of those stages I enjoy fighting on with hazards because of how strong the enemies as items are. Just throw those around and the matches are much quicker than you think. Without hazards, it is a pretty terrible stage to fight on.

[@MetalLegacy34]

I think Mushroomy Kingdom needs to be here. It’s another stage where it’s layout is ripped right from the source material that does not cooperate well with Smash’s mechanics. The primary terrain is completely flat except for the sporadic intrusive moments where you’re forced to jump over something. There’s basically no holes in the ground, so downwards kills just don’t exist. There’s, for a Smash stage, haphazardly placed ceilings that make vertical kills substantially more difficult. These ceilings are also supposed to double as fighting terrain but you can’t pass them, many of them are fully destructible, and the layouts usually barely fit two characters. It’s an auto scroller, so you generally spend more time fighting the stage itself than your opponent. It’s a constant walk off, so combat is deemphasized in favor of cheesy campy strategies. Despite its layout being a direct copy to its source material, it’s a bad reference because they decided to completely change the aesthetic. The aesthetic they chose is bland, uninspired, and visually unappealing. It’s origins aren’t unique for a Smash stage either. While yes none of the others were in Brawl, it was the FOURTH stage based on the Mushroom Kingdom and the THIRD one inspired by 1-1 specifically. And, just as the cherry on top, they’ve removed 1-2. 1-2 was the only thing that made the stage somewhat interesting. While yes 1-2 itself had basically all the same failures as described above, being the first Smash stage to have multiple aesthetics and layouts in the same stage “slot” is noteworthy and a genuinely interesting idea. Even with that though, I still think the Brawl version deserves to be in this conversation and the modern version I would 100% put on this list

[@ovite1240]

Nah I think mushroomy kingdom deserves props for its aesthetic, if it was just a copy of 1-1 it would be fairly unmemorable. Being a ruined version of 1-1 is actually a very interesting concept, and it's definitely not uninspired or bland, but it COULD be improved.

[@e.m.2168]

I liked the chimera in brawl because instead of instakilling you it just hit you with insane knockback and you went bouncing off the walls. I miss that.

[@Patrick-bn5rp]

I like Mario Bros. The stage is more about killing enemies and using than as projectiles to kill your opponents. In a one on one, anyways. But you can actually catch the enemy thrown at you if your timing is good, which ends up making for some fun exchanges. Throw on assist trophies and smash balls and you have a very funny 1v1 stage.

[@mrgreenboy644]

Fun fact: Metal Face has forty lines of dialogue. Even if the gameplay is tedious I love the sh-t he says

[@presion5628]

The thing is they´re not things he would really say, I like the lines but the smash team did Xenoblade really bad

[@TheAntiburglar]

..........75 M. Now that that's out of the way, I'm always a fan of these videos :D

[@MaybeeBizarreSummer]

To play Devil’s Advocate, I do like that we have horrible stages like these in the game. The existence of these stages gives you more gameplay variety, so I like them for being that ‘necessary evil’.

[@FIamestalker]

I'm just sad for the missed potential of Great Cave Offensive, if it was closed off at the top and players respawned somewhere within the maze (preferably multiple respawn points) I can maybe imagine it being an OK stage. It would've had alot less downtime that way as people didn't have to navigate themselves back into the maze each time they die, and by cutting out the outside of the maze it might have been just small enough so you can actually tell what's going on.

[@bigtoblerone8446]

That's fair

[@BabyDanielBD]

come to think of it, the cave is quite deep

[@kailor8764]

I think one thing worth mentioning about Mario Bros. is the enemy interactions. By that I mean flipping over an enemy (either by hitting the platform it’s on from below or a strong attack) and picking it up as throwable items, which by the way are some of the most reliable ways to kill someone on this stage due to their high horizontal knockback. It’s honestly led to some crazy mindgames where you try to predict when your opponent will throw the koopa or crab and go for a kill (plus if you leave an enemy flipped for long enough, it will get back up, change color, and get an even higher knockback boost when thrown.) Playing without other items getting in the way and with these hazards on, it’s honestly some of the most fun I’ve had in the game. As soon as you stop doing either of those, however, then yeah it’s completely justifiable calling it one of the worst stages in the game. Mario Bros. forces you to play its game, but its an incredibly hectic and fun game in my opinion.

[@ScLuigi]

"koopa" "crab" they're called shellcreepers and sidesteppers you fraud lmao

[@spongyoshi]

Sakurai even said that this stage puts Smash Bros to it's head (or something similar) and I totally agree, well said!!

[@YounesLayachi]

They do the same in the original game (change colour, get back up, become faster)

[@DoctorNovakaine]

That's also kind of its problem though. A stage forcing you to play its game means you're not playing YOUR game. It's kind of also the problem with Wily's Castle in that one of its key elements overcentralizes things to the point where you don't really get to play without it. These are stages that I like the concepts in, but as they were designed they don't do a good job of being a Smash battlefield. At least with Mario Bros you can turn off those hazards and not lose another integral part of the stage, but then it has the problem of the keepaway game. LIterally the worst experience I've ever had playing Smash was an online match where we had Mario Bros hazards off and I was playing Jigglypuff and my opponent was playing Fox. He got a one-stock lead on me and then proceeded to run away for nearly 6 minutes. I could not land another hit. It wasn't possible, there is no actual way for Jigglypuff to catch up to Fox in any respect, and the worst part is, you CANNOT SD. Closest I ever came to DCing. It's that combination of wrap-around and lack of threat that makes it uniquely terrible if you get into this situation. (It's not an issue on KOF stadium because that stage is too small to reliably keep away for that long, and not on Balloon Fighter because you can SD.) Again, it's a concept I like, but in practice it has too many issues.

[@YounesLayachi]

@@DoctorNovakaine that's what you get for playing the balloon Pokémon :P

[@nutmegdoesstuff1339]

Honestly wily castle is kinda ruined by the fact that they for some reason decided almost every moving platform in the game was considered a hazard, being able to play with the wacky platforms but without yellow devil would just make it so much better.

[@Metalc]

75m and hanenbow legit make me think sakurai was intentionally making us suffer

[@pfofe]

I think the problem with New Pork City is that the platforms look very uninteresting. Apart from the moving one, they all look the same. The background of the stage looks much more interesting, I think the platforms should look like the background. Temple however has different areas.

[@alexanderkosten7611]

It unironically looks like it was made in Brawl's very primitive stage builder. I half wonder if it actually was used as a test for that mode or something? Nothing about the actual layout has a thing to do with New Pork City aside from the Ultimate Chimera being there occasionally.

[@TaleOfTheToaster]

Is this the least controversial MockRock Top 10 to date? These really are just the ten stages that get the most hate in the Smash series. One thing I always thought about New Pork City is that it feels like it could've been made in Brawl's Stage Builder I do like Mario Bros though, despite that being an unpopular shout. Your description of it basically felt like it was talking about the hazardless version because the enemies didn't even get a mention, but I think that while you don't go to this stage to play "Smash Bros", you do play a different game which is fun in its own right, making use of the hilariously strong Sidesteppers to get some surprise kills left and right

[@dockingwater1713]

As someone who loves Kirby and really likes Great Cave Offensive in Super Star and especially in Super Star Ultra, the stage itself sucks. I do like how it represents the mode from the source game well with the different sections representing the locations in the source mode and different obstacles from the mode like cannons, mine carts, or the chests that spawn items, but that’s all I can give it.

[@sherbertshortkake6649]

Tbh, background cameos would have made it 500% better

[@nicholaslozano1393]

I'm surprised no one has mention Orbital Gate Assault from Smash 4. Most of the time it feels like you're fighting the stage itself more than you're fighting your opponents.

[@10types]

I feel like balloon fight deserves to be here. It has the weird wrap-around walk off and also has fake water and hazards that are almost never fun, as well as the mash-based fish and the weird mix of solid and drop-through platforms

[@feraligatrmaster9918]

Thank you for saying this. That stage blows.

[@BabyDanielBD]

It's an alright stage but it would be a great one if the fish didn't kill you at like 40%

[@chacha4343]

Wow, that OG Pac-Man stage looks so cool. I've only played Ultimate, and now I'm mad it's not in. Seriously, why ONLY Pac-Land??

[@waffleman8053]

It was unfortunately because of the 3Ds gimmick.

[@onlookerofthings6029]

I know why Pac-Maze on the 3DS didn't make it to the Wii U or Switch. It had a really cool mechanic where if you got enough pellets to spawn a power pellet and grabbed it, all the ghosts on your screen turned blue and you can eat them instead of them hurting you. The cool part is that on other 3DSs the ghosts looked normal. Since multiplayer the Switch and Wii U had multiple people looking at the same screen that feature wouldn't work and that was too important to leave in, I guess

[@deadheat1635]

I actually really like Hanenbow. I’m one of the 12 people who actually played Electroplankton so the stage gives me nostalgia, I actually really like the design of the stage, and the platform layout isn’t that bad tbh.

[@theboi5584]

For some reason I’ve always loved the Great Cave Offensive. Yes, it’s a poorly designed mess not fit for Competitive. But it is THE perfect stage to just screw around on. The hate is justified and it honestly does deserve to be on the list, but I’m always gonna love it regardless 😊

[@bigtoblerone8446]

I love it too 💞

[@OrigamiAhsoka]

Rumble falls is one of the only challenges in brawl I remember never being able to complete. One of the challenges you have to play Zelda and defeat the Diddy and donkey Kong on it but oh my goodness it was so hard and I’m so glad it got removed 💀

[@shyguy85]

Bro that shit was easy... just ignore the dk crew and focus on jumping

[@WiltarrowMain]

I love Great Cave Offensive, but it's also one of the stages I almost always keep the random select off for. If I'm fighting on GCO, it's because I want to be on GCO

[@bigtoblerone8446]

THANK YOU 💜 i like it too

[@nebby9751]

I hard agree on 9/10 of them. I actually really like Mario Bros 👉👈 Yeah it's not great if you want an honest game. But if you want pure chaos, cranking up the launch rate and turning Final Smash meter on turns the stage into a lethal game of dodgeball. Or Dodge-Crab. Its kind of like a built in mini-game, and while I get that it's not everyone's thing, I always quite enjoy it as a quick dose of insanity between serious games. Plus it's good general practice for dodging items: If you can dodge a crab, you can dodge a ball 🦀

[@nicholasho1595]

I'm surprised Mushroomy Kingdom wasn't on this list. I hate the desolate design of the stage, and why does hazard toggle keep the scrolling?

[@antant6217]

your criticisms of mario bros, pac-land, and flatzone are why i love them. when i play casually i love the most shitposty stages, though even i hate stages like palutena's temple and great cave

[@sarasaland4709]

75m: Nobody likes it. Refuses to go away. Poké Floats: Loved by many. Never came back.

[@Magic_Ice]

My biggest problem with great cave offensive is because we already have so many Kirby Super Star stages and we could of easily had a Return to Dreamland or Triple Deluxe stage which have much better stage ideas than the great cave.

[@ScLuigi]

certified sakurai bias moment

[@elmaionesosexo]

a Triple Deluxe stage would've been better just for the fact that moonlight capital would've been in Smash

[@waffleman8053]

I think the problem is that RtD and TD don't have many obvious or unique locations to make a good stage.

[@Magic_Ice]

@@elmaionesosexo Indeed because it’s really pretty even on the 3DS. It would of made more sense for the DKC Returns stage in Wii U for the background foreground gimmick imo

[@elmaionesosexo]

@@Magic_Ice i was talking about the song but yeah also that

[@gameboyn64]

Wily castle with hazards off is actually a really fun variant of final destination. You can wall jump and you can't get stage spiked or get stuck under the stage but at the same time there is less room to recover making edge guarding a bit different

[@TealOpal]

Great Cave Offensive might be terrible, but I'll also stand by its Omega variant as one of my favorite looking ones in the game. It turns what's otherwise a very visually noisy stage into a more subdued one, and the gems are really pretty.

[@cdLevo]

New Pork City always felt like a horrible, horrible advertisement for the new Stage Builder mode.

[@kestrel7493]

Flat zone is my pick for PURE CHAOS, does that make it fair or even necessarily fun? No. But it does its job of being chaotic. Same thing for Mario Bros because the enemies seem like some of the strongest items in the game. Pure chaos isn't interesting. But sometimes it can be really fun

[@YounesLayachi]

Those falling tools in flat zone become stronger when hit by a strong move (try home run bat 😆)

[@TheBlueWizzrobe]

Nah man, Mario Bros is an EXTREMELY fun stage. The only reliable way to kill people is to use the enemies that spawn constantly because those things pack a consistently NASTY punch, and it becomes a mad scramble to position yourself into what me and my friends call "koopa advantage"

[@nathanturoff3496]

I genuinely hope great cave offensive isn't on here. I find it genuinely enjoyable in casual 8-player smash, and there are FAR worse stages throughout the games

[@MockRockTalk]

[@PrevTsukasaRui]

F in the chat

[@Metalc]

F

[@OrigamiAhsoka]

Lmao

[@deadheat1635]

F. I actually like the stage too for its chaos.

[@nocturn333]

I always found Suzaku's Castle to be extremely uncomfortable to play on and it took me while to realize why. First of all the stage is already on the smaller side. On one side you have 2 tiny awkward platforms that are impossible to fight on. The main platform has a walkoff and a ledge on the center of the stage. It doesn't matter where you are there is always a slight feeling of uneasiness. There are far more egregious layouts out there but at least most of them are either temporary or have hazards to keep things interesting. Suzaku's Castle has none of it. It's not the worst stage in the game and you can certainly still fight on it, but there is no real reason to pick it either.

[@dustymcwari4468]

They handled Terry’s and Kazuya’s stages much better tbh, the arcade fighters feel far more at home there compared to Suzaku’s Castle

[@GatekeepertoSorrow]

I agree with this list, though i find myself none too bothered by these stages inclusion. There are so many stages in Ultimate that the gimmick stages can exist in a weird silly vacuum for me. The Great Cave Offensive being so ludicrously huge is a hilarious representation of its source material, and being able to throw down (however sloppily) in a level ripped straight from another game is just delightful to me. It feels like Garry's Mod almost. The audacity of it is charming in its own way. 100% agree with Pacland though it is a crime we didn't get the maze.

[@sirius_raspberry]

Mario Bros probably my biggest guilty pleasure stage in Smash. Every time it comes up in a random stage select, I know I'm in for a good bout of pure insanity. Also applies to Pac-Land for me to an extent. There's a certain kind of fun that comes from playing a bad stage, groaning along with friends is a good time. Boring stages, on the other hand, are ones I'm far less kind to, Which is why my proper least favorite is probably Coliseum. It's layout is just a plain walkoff with a few flat platforms rising up occasionally. On top of that, it's a painfully generic fantasy arena-type location, which is really frustrating since there's so many other cool locales from the Fire Emblem series that could be used. (In fact, they JUST used an actual location from Awakening for a stage in the Smash 4 version that came before it!)

[@McKayla24798]

Great cave offensive is just horrific and i ADORE it, easily one of my top 5 stages in the game. camping out my friends online never gets old.

[@RacingSnails64]

Lol I like your attitude. People need to learn to appreciate a good chaotic stage once and a while. I like navigating the cave and the lava patches and watching out for the minecarts.

[@cjlite0210]

Yeah, I heavily disagree with Great Cave Offensive's placement, it's fun if you just really want that chaos that it provides

[@McKayla24798]

@@cjlite0210 oh I completely agree that it’s the worst stage in the game but I get a huge kick out of it. my friends don’t though, great cave camping and my switch to pyra/Mythra are the reasons they don’t play smash with me anymore

[@BabyDanielBD]

@@McKayla24798 i enjoy pretty much almost all of the "worst" stages

[@arios6443]

I am shocked and appalled that you didn’t view every single stage, frame by frame, for several hours to determine which one is the best animated… Loving this quick return to more digestible content! ; 3

[@hodanisbased4980]

Great vid as always Mockrock! Could you please make a video about the legal stages? It’s a very important, albeit overlooked part of what makes competitive platform fighters so cool. If that’s not enough content for a video, you could add a few barely legal ones like Yggdrasil’s Altar and Warioware and talk about why they’re illegal and what could be fixed about them!

[@AziDoesQuestionableThings]

*me waiting patiently to hear mock wail on 75M again for six minutes straight* 😃

[@Garomasta]

I've always been a fan of Mario Bros. It's basically a different game mode / minigame without actually being one. A character-specific small thing I like is that you can keep dragging people for a really long time with Ridley's side b on the bottom level. I actually found myself going "What? That stage is fine." for most of the video. The only one that even I find almost offensively bad is 75m.

[@drenkrod9811]

I love bad stages in Smash for one reason I call "Rainbow Road Syndrome": those levels that always makes everyone groan, but ends up being annoyingly enjoyable.

[@dulceratoncita]

YO mario bro's stage is one of the BEST stages if you start using the enemies as throw items, it turns into a chaotic mess to see who gets the enemies first! for some reason they gave the enemies ridiculous knock back so you can actually land KO's quite fast if you keep throwing them. although i do agree that the platforms are kinda wacky but for me at least the enemies as items really turns this stage into a fun stage rather than a weird frustrating stage like 75m

[@mikeychrisanthus9948]

I like some of these blatantly terrible stages in a casual setting, kind of like “LETS GOOOO ITS THE CRAPPY ONE!” Hanenbow and Mario bros in particular have led to some hilarious interactions with friends or on elite smash(there are still lunatics who do hazards off on elite). I’m gonna bring up balloon fight as a personal least favourite. It has the wrap around function like in mario bros, but that actually makes it unreasonably easy to time someone out if you play a faster character. Mario bros has the crabs and turtles, whereas balloon fight is simple enough to navigate if you don’t fall into the fish. Speaking of the fish though, if you do, all it takes is someone waiting above you ready to spike you when you mash out, or you don’t mash out at all because it’s extremely hard to mash out of them for some reason.

[@pustulioyo]

I feel like the whole point of the Mario Bros stage is to kind of add an extra mode into Smash without adding an extra mode. I mean, let's be honest, with stage hazards on, it is a perfect recreation of the original stage. You can basically play an actual game of Mario Bros or something very, very similar. I firmly believe that Sakurai is fully aware that this stage is borderline unplayable in regular smash, but that's not the reason why he added it. He knows damn well that cheap kills o'plenty are going to come from this stage, and I'm willing to bet he laughs inside every time he hears a complaint about it. I will die on this hill and there's no way you can push me off of it. The other stages that try to recreate a level from another game kind of fall flat, especially 75mm and Pac-Land, but Mario Bros is so on the nose, I cannot be upset at it. Let me put it this way, if they were to make a game that had the physics and movement of smash Bros characters, but exclusively relied on the gameplay of the Mario Bros stage, it would make, at the bare minimum, a mildly entertaining game for a bit, no? I mean, the basic concept clearly is a little enjoyable, the original game basically is that and has sold millions of copies over the decades. Plus, much like my opinion on echo or clone character slots, it's not like the decision came down to this stage instead of another, I believe it came down to including the stage or not including it, it didn't take a better stages place. In no way does this stage being included take away from the overall experience of the game.

[@BigRedAltoids]

I actually really like the Flat Zones. Perhaps it's because I like those smaller walk off stages, especially for 1v1 matches. I just think it's fun.

[@Al_Karpone]

Mockrock: Final destination is unbalanced Me, a Greninja main: :'(

[@Balsadar22]

I 100% expected Umbra Clock Tower to be apart of this list, it's very disorienting sometimes

[@XenonDante]

What are your thoughts on Palutena's Temple

[@MockRockTalk]

If you've gotta do 8 player Smash, there are worse ones out there, I still think it's oversized and a bit convoluted though. Anything less than that is a nonstarter.

[@remarkablewave3451]

Even when you have 8 people its too big anyone at high percent can just run away and sit in a corner it doesn't force you to fight anyone so games last way too long.

[@Metalc]

I actually think palutenas temple is underrated. It’s not a great stage, but I still think it’s fun. But nothing will ever be as great as Hyrule temple.

[@kylewood4488-b9r]

I like Palutenas Temple. But I get that it is too large. Kind of wish that it was cut in half.

[@TheTrueBrawler]

It feels like everyone flocks to the upper left corner every time I play it even when playing with 8 players.

[@DoMorrMusic]

Hanenbow blessed us with one thing: green screen.

[@elmaionesosexo]

kinda, stage builder came later

[@TheDougWay]

Two things. 1. I think we need Oribital Gate Assault as I really thought that stage was just a pain and it felt like you had to memorize the transition time in order to not just die sometimes and was just awful to fight on. 2. What's even worse about Wily's Castle is that if you play with stage hazards off, it gets rid of the yellow devil but also the platforms. I wish there were some way to turn off the yellow devil but not the platforms and yet, even with a stage hazard switch, they didn't give us that. Without the other platforms it's basically just another final destination, which we have plenty of already.

[@timg1454]

Mario bros is fire imo, the amount of crabs and turtles that appear makes it very fun very quickly. Sure you won't play normal smash on it but its perfect for a free for all.

[@waffleman8053]

New pork city feels like it was designed by a child.

[@ARDIZsq]

Honestly, getting heavily into Multiversus has made me gain in incredible amount of respect for stages like Final Destination. Sometimes, I just want a good clean fight with no intrusive walls OR THE GODDAMN CEILING AND FALLING PLATFORMS, WHO DESIGNED SCOOBY'S HAUNTED MANSION?!

[@derrinerrow4369]

well be happy, they made an alternate version that removed the roof, but only the roof. the walls and removable platforms are still there but at least the most annoying part of the stage is now gone

[@____David]

I think a particularly bad smash stage is Mushroomy kingdom, I mean it's a walk off and an autoscroller and they didn't even bother programming any enemies on there (probably the reason the smash team decided to go with the entire "abandoned gimmick" even though they also programmed enemies for Mario Bros.) I remember I watched a review on Mushroomy Kingdom and he goes more in depth (at least more than me) as to why this stage doesn't work (alongside some other Mario stages but that's besides the point)

[@mettatonex7221]

Surprised to see that Orbital Gate Assault never came up. Starts out on the Great Fox just like Sector Z and Corneria before it, but then transitions to fighting on top of missiles that will eventually crash and explode as well as Arwing sections that are too thin to reliably fight on or recover to and move around obnoxiously to throw off those interactions. It's one of the very few stages that failed to make the cut for Ultimate on the precise grounds that nobody liked playing on it, and for all the work to make it in the first place, porting it over with upgrades just would not have been worth it. It's a shame too; it came from the only Star Fox game I liked and if nothing else it made for a great reference to one of its more memorable sequences. But I am glad that Palutena's Temple escaped the list, as I feel that stages is overhated. I get why it is hated; it's probably bar none the largest stage in the series (unless you count Smash Run, which you shouldn't) when it really didn't need to be, even for 8 Player Smash, and fights on it will drag on for far too long, especially if concentrated to the dungeon area in the lower left. That being said, unlike stages of similar scope, it is very lacking in intrusive hazards and unpleasant layouts, and the clearly defined segments do offer their own unique combat feeling even if they're not as well executed as Temple. Plus, I tend to give a pass to a stage that comes from a game I love, which definitely includes Kid Icarus Uprising, and the Palutena's Guidance conversations that occur here make for my favorite easter egg in the entire series (even if they refused to record new conversations for Joker through Sora). Certainly adore this stage more than Skyworld with its breakable ceiling platforms that take away ledge grabbing if broken.

[@grimm8879]

the mario bros stage is just smash dodgeball with those strong ass turtles and crabs. it’s the only optimal way to fight on that stage in ultimate and i love it lol

[@edfreak9001]

10:28 THANK YOU people will swear up and down that FD is the best comp stage purely because it's the stage 4 chose in For Glory despite it having so many obvious issues. Battlefield should far and away be the default for those reasons even if no stage can be perfect. "B-b-b-but the platforms in Ultimate are stickyyyyy and you'll caaaaamp on/under the BF platforms!!!!" 1: yes the sticky platforms suck, but that's just the game we're stuck playing 2: if your platform fighter gameplan can't handle even simple easy to access platforms then that is a problem with you or your character and not Battlefield. Yes it's annoying seeing the projectile spammer hiding under a platform but it can be worked around to some degree, and again that's just the video game we're stuck playing.

[@elmaionesosexo]

i agree with you...until the part of "if your platform fighter gameplan can't handle even simple easy to access platforms then that is a problem with you or your character and not Battlefield" a platform fighter that punishes you for using platforms is not fault of the character or the player it's fault of the designer

[@ebongatseabong202]

I see the world at large is yet to realize the genius of Hanenbow, smh. On a slightly more serious note it’s funny to kill people at 0% with jigglypuff rest on the top platforms, and it has very pleasant vibes. I’d rather play on an outright bad and funny stage like hanenbow than a generic one that doesn’t try to do anything interesting like new donk city, great plateau, or the ARMS stage.

[@BLamb]

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I actually quite enjoy the Mario Bros. stage in a casual setting. This stage led to some of the most fun matches with friends back in Brawl, especially when tossing Sidesteppers and Shellcreepers around for crazy damage and knockback. It's hectic and fun without being obnoxious, and it's fun to see if opponents will die super early or live to crazy high percents. It actually led to some hysterical laugh-out-loud moments, and it's just genuine, casual fun in my book.

[@kestrel7493]

10:43 Going to spread some plup meme lore here. For those who don't know, Plups play style utilises platform movement a lot to mix up his opponents. At one point plup ran into Ginger on Slippi. Ginger, who had not been having a great day in the world of competetive smash was a little salty and said something along the lines of "he keeps on platform camping. Whres he going to go? Of course it's to the platforms!" Plup made fun of this for a bit when chat said "what if he counterpicked FD? Don't worry, FD is just one big platform.

[@Liggliluff]

(4:50) Highly appreciate that you say "75 metres" which is what it real name is, not "75 em". It would be like having a state called "250 ft" and not saying "250 feet" but "250 eff-tee". Although, it is strange that the levels 25, 50, 75 weren't called 100, 150, 250 ft in USA. While not exact conversions, they are rounded to the nearest 50 and still works great I think.

[@wahmaster]

I haven’t seen a good Top 10 video in a long time! Great video!

[@blueblazeflame]

I completely forgot about that 3DS PAC-man stage, there are just certain 3DS stages that were fantastic but they didn’t bring back for some reason (*cough* rainbow road *cough*)

[@Moss_Dude]

I'm like the only guy who unironically likes all the megastages, including great cave.

[@guythatdosethingssometimes2651]

Personally when playing in a for fun context the more messy and chaotic the stage the better. I find pac land and 75m truly beautiful in how intrusive the obstacles are and how difficult the terrain is to navigate. No match feels the same there amd when you through in items it just becomes a total cluster funk mess and it's absolutely amazing. This mentality is probably a hold over from creating the most offensively awful custom stages I could manage in brawl and forcing everyone to play them whenever I had the opportunity. I just have an appreciation for a stage that has the gull to be complete and utter garbage that is just as if not more threatening than the opponent themselves.

[@WolfBergMenace]

Rumble Falls goes up so fast that most of the time the CPU cant keep track of it and just fall

[@castform7]

Some honourable mentions from me: *Icicle Mountain:* The same problem as Rumble Falls except slightly less bad. Glad this never saw the light of day after Melee and we got Summit. *Mushroomy Kingdom:* Stupid name and really drab location. I understand the point of that but the exicution is not there for me. Not to mention it's an auto scroller with a lot of stuff in your way of progress as well as fighting *Dreamland GB:* Imagine if Flat Zone and Mushroomy Kingom had a baby. Dreamlad GB is just to enclosed to fight on properly and the only not completely trash place is Dedede's arena.

[@plusah1268]

i used to love the new pork city stage as a kid. that shit was just funny bro the chimera popping up outta nowhere making everyone shit themself

[@mattyking]

Great cave is so much fun for a stage to play 8 player tag on tho! 1 person is "it" on red team, everyone else is on blue team. blue team cannot attack, can only run away, chaser on red has to catch them and knock them out. 5 minute timer, 300% handicap damage to the runner team. Great much around stage for parties, sucks for actual comp fights 😂

[@aidenzorn8322]

A lot of these are funny for one game every so often and then you remember why you don’t pick it more

[@Alibaba-id1cs]

IMO I think Windy Hill Zone should’ve been mentioned as the stage itself just feels kind of meh on its own and the spring serves no real purpose other than being a wack hazard. What really stinks is the fact that it’s just a Green Hill Zone ripoff from one of the worst Sonic games and there could’ve been much more unique ways to make a Sonic stage into smash and it’d look much better and much more interesting than just Green Hill Zone for the Millionth time

[@ThundagaT2]

Green Hill Zone is the most iconic stage for the series, so it makes sense they'd include that or a stage that resembles it. Its one of the biggest reasons why almost every Sonic game starts off with a Green Hill Zone substitute

[@SmashSSL]

@@ThundagaT2 We ALREADY had a Green Hill stage. Can't we like... move on for once and not pretend the entire Sonic franchise is just Green Hill? I'd understand if we only had one Sonic stage, but there's zero reason why the second stage had to be a Green Hill clone.

[@ThundagaT2]

@@SmashSSL Not zero reason, i just said one reason. I get that you dont like it, but it still makes sense. If you want another reason, Sonic Lost World was the newest game at the time of the stage's creation, what better stage to include but the one everyone would be the most familiar with? The first stage. It just so happens that the first stage also resembles Green Hill Zone. Had Sonic Adventure 2 been coming out at the time, we likely would have gotten City Escape instead.

[@SmashSSL]

@@ThundagaT2 No, you gave a reason for including Green Hill in the first place, not for including a redundant Green Hill imitation. "I get that you dont like it, but it still makes sense." No, it literally makes no sense. Green Hill being """iconic""" is a justification for including... Green Hill, which they already had done. Period. And your second reason requires... assuming the newest game needs to have a stage just for being the newest one... Hey, it's a marginally less laughable reason but... that's not saying much.

[@ThundagaT2]

@@SmashSSL Okay, then explain why we have 3 different stages all based on Super Mario Bros 1-1, and two stages based on Super Mario 64 Peach's Castle. They reuse ideas from iconic locations. Windy Hill Zone was likely used because it was both the newest game at the time, and because it resembles Green Hill Zone, an iconic location. Thats the likely reason. The Sonic franchise itself reuses Green Hill Zone or a derivative all the time, why should we expect Smash to do things any differently

[@Tahmis_Googboi]

Honestly surprised we didn’t hear about Mushroomy Kingdom, especially on the heels of Mario Bros.

[@crazynaut223]

I think the issue that kept PAC-MAZE out of Ultimate is the hazard. A part of how it worked is that when a player collects a Power Pellet they naturally become immune to the ghosts, which become blue. But the quirk there is that they only become blue on that player's screen; since the stage was designed for 3DS, everyone has a personal screen and they still see the ghosts like normal. In the chaos of a match (especially with 8 players) it'd probably become really annoying for one single player to have a Power Pellet and yet no one knows who has it because the ghosts are blue for everyone and the flashing effect can only be so clear. I'd love for a new Smash game to rework the hazard or just replace it with a different stage (praying for a similar one based on Championship Edition) but that wasn't what Ultimate was trying to do for returning stages and I think it makes enough sense that they ditched it.

[@bryantkubisiak6717]

Another thing on pacland is that if you run into some of the stumps or hydrants, it makes your character larger as if getting a mega mushroom. Also, the yellow devil explodes after taking enough damage.

[@andrewcook8300]

Counterpoint: The crabs on Mario Bros. are really funny to use. They are stupidly strong for no reason. I personally think the stage is pretty decent casually with hazards every once in a while, but not something I find myself going to often.

[@DonkeyDoormatDrive]

These stages all seem to have a few things in common, that lead to one similar play experience, being stuck with limited options to either approach or disengage. Great cave offensive is a great example honestly seems like the branching paths would allow more options and variety but instead the lava makes approaching in some instances game ending at much lower percents, and the relatively low ceilings absolutely change how combos work so follow up and disengagement look SO different where as Temple or Palutena’s Guidance are mega stages without this problem. The platforms need to be more contiguous than 75m, New Pork City, or Hanebow, more verticality than FD, need less hazards than GCO or Flatzone, and minimal visibility breaks or auto scrolling speed… I know this all sounds obvious from a GD perspective but there should be standardized ratios for these things and the design team should try to find variety within this space rather than doing weird stuff.

[@dakdastardly7692]

As a player who has spent a considerable amount of time with Ridley, I'm a bit biased with Mario Bros. Ridley's sideB can carry people on the bottom near endlessly and I'll sometimes go there to just shoot for that, it's really silly.

[@doctorlit]

My two banes of Smash existence are Distant Planet and Skyworld. Distant Planet is pretty self-explanatory; the leaf platforms' movement and the hurtboxes on the pellets interfere too much with fighting on the main portion, the slope becomes absolute doom for poor recovery characters when it rains, and sometimes if you're knocked too far to the right, you have no choice but to try and recover onto the bulborb's face. With Skyworld, I feel like I'm being a lot more subjective, but I still hate it. Ever since Brawl, Skyworld has had a suspicious habit of one of the stone platforms breaking literally moments before I was about to grab it to recover, sending my fighter dropping through the ungrabbable clouds and KOing. It just happens way too frequently.

[@Jarekthegamingdragon]

You take that back, flat zone is great chaotic fun. I'll also defend FD despite all its faults.

[@joshuahong8255]

I actually really like Mario bros. The KO problem is compensated pretty significantly by the shellcreepers and sidesteppers, as they do very strong horizontal knock back when thrown. So this leads to some pretty fast paced kills and ive gotten a lot of fun jank moments on this stage I definitely think this is one of the better faithful recreations as there are clear attempts to compensate for the awkward layout

[@airlock7367]

The thing that always baffles me about New Pork City is that there's a whole lot of dead empty air around the center, and then you have those little floating platforms on the right, not breaking that up, and instead sitting there so obnoxiously close to the blast zone they're almost walk-offs. Not that it baffles me as much as bringing back 75m and Pac-Land, anyway. Who was asking for either of those? Anyway, I'm also surprised not to see that GB Kirby stage on here. Huge example of a kind of stage where you're fighting the terrain moreso than the opponents. It's preposterously small, the scrolling segments are so fast that they combine with that tiny size to make the only viable move a well-timed back throw (which kills immediately), and the still sections are almost universally obnoxious to fight on as well, having either too little ground to stand on or spots that break up knockback lines super awkwardly.

[@feraligatrmaster9918]

I think the most miserable stage that gets forgotten about is Balloon fight. It basically forces a player to stay on one side because the middle is a war zone, there are random sparks that hurt you, there is a fish, and no where to stand. I’ve fought people on quickplay who have had preferred rules off here, and that it’s miserable.

[@davispo7550]

I'll speak in defense of Mario Bros and Great Cave Offensive. I believe that item rulesets make them both substantially more enjoyable. In Mario Bros, you need to play with the enemies. They're not hazards: they're kill options. To this end, I like putting damage ratio to 1.5× and turning on bumpers, deku nuts, motion sensor bombs, pitfalls, evil eyes, uniras, and hotheads. Basically, turn the stage into a minefield and chuck mobs at each other. My preferred method of playing Great Cave Offensive involves Damage Ratio ×1.2, POW Blocks, Launch Stars, Motion Sensor Bombs, Uniras, Black Holes, Bumpers, Bombchus, Hotheads, and Beast Balls. Basically, trap the stage like Mario Bros. However, this time the best way to kill is with lava. To this end you gotta trap terrain and time POW block usage/Beast Ball throws. I will admit that the stage is still probably twice as big as it should be to optimize this, but I can derive fun from it, unlike swill like 75m. Personally, my take on Great Cave Offensive would be to make it a transforming stage that morphs into various areas from the subgame