Intro[]
Welcome back to my 100 New Stages for the Next Smash project! Today we're covering Stages 31-40, and remember that these are in a pseudo-randomized order and aren't a definitive ranking of how much I want each stage.
With that all out of the way, let's get into our fourth set of 10 stages.
31. City Trial [Kirby - Kirby: Air Ride][]
Kirby Air Ride was by far one of my most played Gamecube games and I think its universally agreed that City Trial is the game's best mode. You and (a few other Kirbys) can race and fly around a city in a smaller open world where the idea is to find different Air Ride Machines for racing as well as collect powerups because when the timer is up you'll all go into a random mini-game together where the stats you collected matter. City Trial features not only a variety of landscapes that you can visit such as a castle, volcano, and a beach but also has a variety of random events that can occur around the city such as Dyna Blade flying in to attack, thick fog covering the area, and even fake power-ups that will lower your stat and damage your machine.
First and foremost I feel like a stage based around City Trial outright *needs* to be a traveling stage where a platform carries you around to different parts of the city. Just sitting it in any one location would not feel right in the slightest. So give us the full set piece. Second of all, I would really want to have the random events be utilized in the stage, though some of them may be difficult. You can have meteors rain down on the stage which explode on contact, a fleet of Air Ride Machines could fly through the sky for a quick hazard, or a UFO could fly over stage similar to the one on Fourside. You could have items be bouncy and difficult to grab, all the fighters could get a massive difficult-to-control speed boost, or Tac could appear to steal items. Dyna Blade could land and act as a quasi Stage Boss, parts of the stage could catch fire, or obscuring fog could cover the stage. Fake items could drop that damage the fighter when picked up, a pillar could sprout on the stage and when attacked and destroyed it could explode into a bevy of items, or a glowing circle could appear on the stage which would slowly heal any fighter standing in. Give me everything, the full City Trial experience (minus the mini-games I guess).
32. Yoshi's Skies [Yoshi - Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island][]
Previous Smash games have given us three different stages called “Yoshis' Island”. The first was based off of Yoshi's Story and got renamed to Super Happy Tree. The second was based on the location's appearance in Super Mario World. And the third (and thus far final) was finally based off the actual game called Yoshi's Island. Yoshi's Skies is meant to be taken in a similar vein, though with a new name and would be set high above the actual island using design elements pulled from the Yoshi's Island games.
My idea for Yoshi's Skies is relatively simple. It's a mid-air stage floating high above Yoshi's Island which you can see in the background. Similar to the game's title screen, you would see the island rotating in the background as the stage flies around it letting you getting little peeks at some of the locations and characters from the game. Off to the sides of the main platform would be two slanted platforms and in the middle of the stage would be four platforms connected together like a windmill's blades. These four platforms will constantly rotate throughout the entire fight, Maybe the speed could fluctuate during the fight, or the platforms could even pause before starting to rotate in the opposite direction.
33. Robot Museum [Mega Man - Mega Man 7][]
The Robot Museum is as you'd expect, a museum filled with robots that Mega Man has fought over the years. Why they are all in a museum together is unknown. Halfway through Mega Man 7 the museum comes under attack by Dr. Wily where he steals Guts Man before modifying him into Guts Man G and leaving behind the clown-like robot Mash for Mega Man to fight. The stage is short and doesn't have any regular enemies in it, it's more a narrative set piece with a boss fight attached and filled with nostalgia in the background.
My idea for the Robot Museum is to set it as a grounded stage with two long platforms floating above the ground. The ground and each of those platforms would have glass cases containing different Robot Masters from Mega Man's past in them. One-by-one these Robot Masters would break out of the cages and join the fray for a bit as they attack the fighters. The Robot Masters would then either leave on their own after awhile or be destroyed by attacks. Once all the Robot Masters have done their thing, the cases would all be repaired and the stage would be reset with the Robot Masters back inside. The order of the Robot Master's release would be different each time. As for which Robot Masters would appear... in Mega Man 7 we know the following are placed there: Snake Man, Blizzard Man, Guts Man, Pharaoh Man, Heat Man, Plant Man, Flame Man, Skull Man, and Ring Man. You could just go with that set of 9. Personally I'd rather take one Robot Master from each of the mainline games so that they are all represented. A quick selection with minimal thought could be: Cut Man, Crash Man, Magnet Man, Skull Man, Wave Man, Tomahawk Man, Spring Man, Search Man, Burner Man, Hornet Man, Strike Man, and Acid Man.
34. The Black Temple [Fire Emblem - Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones][]
I said it before with The Dragon's Gate, but I'd really like Fire Emblem to give us stages based off of actual locations instead of just concepts. I get its difficult when the series doesn't have a lot of art of its locations and in the older games all you really get is a top-down look at the map you're fighting on. But I think we can use our imagination. The Black Temple is where the final fight in Sacred Stones takes place against Lyon and Fomortiis and as such I think it should be considered.
Jonno made a stage submission for the Black Temple a couple years ago and I like what he came up with. He created a grounded stage with a raised platform in the middle (with stairs leading up to it) as the centerpiece of the throne room along with three platforms floating above the stage and those platforms each have a little mechanic to them. The center one can be attacked and destroyed and the two to the side will react to a fighter's weight and will fall down to the ground when stepped on. Jonno even includes Lyon and Fomortiis as hazards who can appear on the stage to attack the fighters with Lyon using Naglfar and Flux to attack the stage before summoning Fomortiis. Fomortiis in turn uses Nightmare, Ravager, and Demon Light to attack the stage with dark magic rays, melee strikes, and a massive beam attack respectively.
35. B.S.L. Station [Metroid - Metroid Fusion][]
After destroying all (most) of the Metroids, Samus unknowingly exposed the galaxy to a far greater threat, the X Parasites, and was later sent to B.S.L. Station to eradicate this new threat. B.S.L. Station becomes the setting for the entirety of the adventure as Samus runs through each of its sectors in an attempt to stop the X Parasites before eventually crashing the station onto the surface of planet SR388.
Truth be told, I don't have a solid idea of what part of the station should serve as inspiration for this stage. You could do something in the Main Deck, perhaps the Central Reactor Core, or really any of the actual Sectors in the station. Each sector is designed around a different environment so personally I'd rather avoid Sector 3 since we already have enough lava-related stages from Metroid, but maybe Sectors 1, 2, or 6 could be a good choice. The main idea I have for this stage is the X Parasites themselves. Make. Them. Hazards. I want to see X Parasites flying in from off screen and if they touch a fighter they'll absorb into them and deal a small amount of damage. If a fighter gets touched by enough X Parasites then then an X copy of them could form out from the fighter to serve as a hostile enemy to all fighters. You'd probably want to give them some kind of aura or alternate color scheme to differentiate them, and of course Samus' should look like SA-X.
36. Lake Lapcat [Super Mario - Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury][]
Bowser Jr. did an oops and accidentally transformed his dad into Fury Bowser and now threatening to destroy Lake Lapcat with his Fury. Lake Lapcat is a small open world-like area where Mario (with Bowser Jr.'s help) has to clean up the island of goop and ring the Giga Bells in order to become Giga Cat Mario and fight back against Fury Bowser. It's a fun side mode that was tacked onto the Switch version of Super Mario 3D World, I just wish it had online co-op like the main game does.
While you could make this stage into a traveling one, I think the more likely bet is to set it specifically in the lakeside area, though whether it would be best as a mid-air or grounded stage I'm unsure. Either way, I think it'd be pulling from the design of the lakeside areas such as Scamper Shores and Fort Flagtrap. The main thing though has got to be the inclusion of Fury Bowser as a stage hazard. I picture Fury Bowser being wholly in the background and launching attacks at the stage from time to time, not too dissimilar to how Giant Baby Bowser works at the end of Yoshi's Island. I imagine Fury Bowser could launch giant fireballs straight at the stage and even spit giant wads of black goop up over the background to later fall down onto the stage from above splashing anyone nearby with goop. This goop could potentially carry the same properties as the Inkling's ink or just make fighters sticky and make it more difficult for them to run and jump. I don't think Fury Bowser would ever be truly “defeated” on this stage and would be more of a constant hazard. Thankfully though for the players his assault wouldn't be a constant non-stop threat. It's more like he's just doing an attack or two every so often.
37. Unakami Cliff [Famicom Detective Club - Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir][]
Nintendo made visual novel games on the NES? Yes they did! And in 2021 we got remakes of The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind. And then the remakes were successful enough that we got a new game in the franchise with The Smiling Man. I liked the games enough that I wanted to make a stage for them, but finding a fitting location was tough. In the end I opted for Unakami Cliff as it has a good amount of importance in the original title and it lets me do something a bit different with its layout.
So, it's a cliff above the beach and peeking out over the sea. What do we do with that? I took a bit of inspiration from how the Moray Towers stage works with you running up an incline (though sometimes your characters run along the *wrong* incline...) and thought I could apply that here. So the bottom of the stage is a flat sandy beach on the left with open water on the right. But then also on the left you can tilt your control stick in a way that you can start running up the cliff to the right, then going left to get higher, and then finally reaching the top of the cliff where you can fight as well. Technically it's four layers! Or maybe 2 and a half? Whatever. Point is you can fight on the beach, the top of the cliff itself, and the path leading up to the cliff.
38. Wii Menu [Nintendo - Nintendo Wii][]
And now let's step out of video game locations for just a bit. The Wii was capable of more than just playing games so it came with a whole menu screen filled with options instead of just launching whatever game was inserted in it like previous consoles did. You could read messages from Nintendo, look at local weather and news, create Miis, and perhaps most importantly... download other video games straight to your console. I've had ideas in the past for things like a NES or Gamecube stage where you could have effects based on various games from that console, but I think the Wii Menu is a great idea to do a similar idea without having to involve ideas that could be used for their stages.
So for this stage I imagine a flat grounded plane, though I suppose you could make it a mid-air stage like with the PictoChat stages. Either way, the fighters would be battling it out in front of the Wii Menu which would only be displaying the Standard and Downloadable Wii Channels that were officially from Nintendo, so no channels showing games or the various streaming services. The Disc Channel which would normally show what game is in your console, would instead show the Smash logo. As the fight happens the hand icon on the Wii Menu will move around and click on a channel to open it. This would cause either some layout changes, the introduction of a hazard, or both to occur on the stage. The Photo Channel for example would display a scenic landscape which ends up becoming part as parts of the landscape turn into platforms for the fighters. The Mii Channel would drop a group of Mii Fighters onto the stage who are enemies to all of the fighters. The Everybody Votes Channel will create between 2-4 platforms on the stage each with some kind of statement behind them. After x amount of seconds pass, the statement with the most fighters around it will become true. As an example you could be voting for statements that all say something like “All Fighters are Mini/Flower'd/Metal/Spitting Curry”.
39. Inkopolis [Splatoon - Splatoon][]
Alright, we've got a stage for the story mode, and one for Salmon Run. We've got room for more Splatoon though right? Before Smash Ultimate the number one suggestion I would see for a Splatoon stage was Inkopolis. Largely because it's an easy central location that every player knows, but also probably in part to the fact that support for individual Turf War stages is probably pretty split. But even now that we have Moray Towers, I think Inkopolis is still a great choice for a stage and you could even stretch it to represent both Splatoon 1 and 2.
Obviously if we're going to have Inkopolis as a stage we're going to be able to fight on top of the buildings with the various denizens of Inkopolis cheering us on in the background. But what part of Inkopolis? Splatoon 1's hub is Inkopolis Plaza while Splatoon 2's hub is Inkopolis Square. Why not both! The stage would randomly choose either location at its start and you'd fight there for awhile amongst that locations landscape while characters more central to it are cheering for you in the background and then after some time passes a platform will appear to whisk the fighters away to the other side of Inkopolis with a different stage layout and characters. Inkopolis Plaza could have the Squid Sisters, Spyke, and Jelonzo while Inkopolis Square could have Off the Hook, Flow, and Bisk.
40. Mt. Itoi [Earthbound - Earthbound Beginnings][]
I introduced an idea for a new stage from Earthbound, but how about something from the first game in the series? Instead of just doing another town I like the idea of using Mt. Itoi. Mt. Itoi is the final dungeon of the original Mother game (Earthbound Beginnings) and is known for being rather unforgiving with its difficulty. Several important events occur here such as Ninten and Ana declaring their love, meeting the robot EVE, and the final confrontation with Giegue (Giygas).
Mt. Itoi could feasibly be a traveling stage showing Ninten and his friends climbing and exploring the mountain before eventually confronting Giegue, but I've decided to focus the stage around the lake. The original idea was to have a “grounded” stage where the ground is just water with some platforms above it, but now I wonder if it should be expanded a bit to have some land off to each side of the lake for a little more safety. Either way, there would be two platforms that float off center from each other for the fighters to use as well as a red canoe that rests on the water's surface. The canoe would gently float from side to side and can be used as another platform. For a hazard, we would see the lake waters begin to swirl before forming a whirlpool that sucks the canoe down into their depths. While the whirlpool is in play, fighters that fall into the water will be trapped inside for a few seconds taking multiple hits of damage before being shot back up into the air. If a fighter has reached 100% damage though, they'll be dragged beneath the waves and KO'd. After the whirlpool calms down, EVE the robot will poke its head out of the water which can be used as a platform similar to the canoe. However EVE's platform is considerably smaller and doesn't float. EVE will periodically dive back under the water and reappear in a different location so fighters won't want to stand on their head forever. After a second whirlpool appears, EVE will disappear. The lake will rotate between having the canoe and having EVE after each whirlpool.
Outro[]
And with that, we have another 10 stages in my 100 New Stages for Smash project, bringing us to 40! This time, only 4 of these currently exist on the wiki. Maybe someday I'll get around to making the rest.
Teasers for next time: Somewhere Glitzy, a stage for R.O.B., and 2 very different parks.