We all know that The Ice Climbers were supposed to make the cut in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U, but they were removed from the roster due to technical issues. However, it would appear that a reference to the pair is still contained within the game, and that their removal happened a little later in development than has been let on.
A crowd chant has been found by Twitch user Gema_Yue which only occurs under very strict conditions — when Animal Crossing Villager has 100 percent damage and manages to knock out two Dr. Marios simultaneously. You can hear it for yourself below.
There's the temptation to suggest that this is faked, but given the sheer dedication shown by Gema_Yue in unlocking all of the game's secrets, it would seriously undermine that good work to produce a hoax of this kind.
Even so, we're on the fence here — this could be a legitimate mistake on Nintendo's part, or it could even be a little in-joke by the development team. What do you think? Let us know with a comment.
Thanks to RupeeClock for the tip!
Comments 50
An eternal reminder.
Ooo interesting, they must have tried for a while to get them working. When both games are finished and there are no other priorities, maybe they could keep working on them to see if they can crack it!
It will haunt the Ice climber's fans.
> "Sir, we cant fit all of these characters into the character selection screen neatly!"
> "Just cut out one of them so that it looks organised and planned that way."
> "How about Ice Climbers; those characters that appeared in one game that no one really cared about and wasn't very good?"
> "Makes sense to me"
Smash fans start raging
Gamexplain duplicated this, it's real. And awesome/sad at the same time. They should be in the Wii U version.
We can always fill the void by making Mii Fighter versions of them. Heck, if we're getting all of the streetpass hats available to us then it shouldn't be that hard.
Fake? Come on it's right THERE! Even GameExplain made of a video of this last night, it's legit. If only Sakurai were to prioritize Ice Climbers and had more time to release then maybe Ice Climbers would had been included..
@Iggly it wouldn't be the same...
I guess with a chant like that, if they ever add DLC, there's actually something of a sizable asset to use, like it's probably simple for the game to silence a sound track and fastforwards it/start at a specific point, so "Popo, Nana, Popo, Nana" would be more like "Popo (beat/skip) Popo (beat) Popo".
Only problem would be other sound effects, but surely they can replace some sounds with the ones from Brawl or even attack sounds/graphics from other characters, then there's the case of making custom move icons which are just screenshots, again, they have most assets already completed besides modern renders for the character select screen. would gladfully take a revamped "Ice Climber" which only gets the other one for a final smash, provided that a single Ice Climber isn't gimped on its own.
@Geonjaha There's actually space for 4 more characters on the character select screen.
Please do a poll about people's preferred Smash fighter!
It'd be interesting to see what are everyone's mains.
Let them die in peace xD
No it's diffidently there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u2vA71r3-I
@Plucky Let me know where you got the pills you've taken before posting Seems that they do really weird stuff - LOLOLOL
I'm guessing the Ice Climbers were rempved last minute due to crippling lag.
The online is already really laggy on 4 player, imagine if there were 8 characters battling at once?
It's probably left for their fans; having unused assets in a game where probably each byte counts seems counter-intuitive.
@Geonjaha
1. The character select screen looks ugly as is, with room for more characters.
2. I loved the Ice Climbers.
Don't act so elitist.
In any case they can pass this off as an easter egg. That the in-game audence wanted the ice climbers in the game too and is now raging (like the internet)
@Geonjaha
You must be young. It's not a bad game by any means. I agree it is a little primitive compared to games today, but back in 1985 it was a decent little game.
Still sucks that they were cut, but I'm still looking forward to this game. Oct 3rd can't get here fast enough.
@rdrunner1178 I had the game on the GBA in 2004 when I was 8, and I thought it was fun.
It ís legit. Other YouTubers like GameXPlain have done it too, and GameXPlain wouldn't spread jokes like this.
@SteveSnowmn Not really, As Sakurai wanted to keep the Roster the same for both the 3DS & Wii U versions.
Besides, Considering this is the first Smash Bros. game on a handheld.
Its reasonable a technical issue or two would pop up.
Unused assets pop up in games all the time (eg: Fox's Arwing in Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the otherside of the lake in GoldenEye's Dam level; et cetera). But all the same, I can understand how this stings Ice Climbers fans. Right now, I'm wondering if they also removed the Polar Bear from the Smash Run levels.
EDIT: Nevermind, the bear is still in Smash Run. An Ice Climbers trophy is also in the game.
This is further proof that they at least tried to put them in. Hopefully there won't be any technical limitations keeping them out in Smash 5.
@SteveSnowmn
They promised both versions will have the same characters, so if Wii U gets them, they'll have to go back and put all the hours necessary to get them working on 3DS.
Well, this is hard for the Ice Climber fans
I never really liked playing with the Ice Climbers, but I hate that the Wii U version in the end will lose things because it has to be equal to the 3DS one. I really hoped that wasn't going to happen. I hope that's the only thing they had to cut because of the 3DS.
Maybe kill two characters of the same kind (twins), score the Ice Climber chant? :s
It's not a rumor if it's actually there
NANA! POPO! ARE-A! GOGO!
Why are those two taken that close?
I still think that there is a strong possibility that Sakurai went against his word on the rosters being exactly the same in both games, but only for the exception of the Ice Climbers appearing in the Wii U version. I theorize that the Wii U will have one bonus character in the Ice Climbers. If the Ice Climbers were developed enough in the 3DS to have a chant and they tried to program them in there but only removed them due to technical limitations (which I think just means they proved to be too buggy on the 3DS, but they still were in game and working), then I have no reason not to believe they got just as far along if not further in the Wii U version which we know definitely could handle them. I'm cautiously optimistic that the Wii U roster will be one character greater (bringing its total to an even 50 at that).
I'm sure they will patch it out. It was just an unused asset. Happens all the time.
I'm still really upset these two aren't in the game.
@AVahne Or you know, just admit that they didn't foresee the circumstance of the technical limitations of implementing the Ice Climbers on the 3DS, and say we're sorry we broke our promise, the Wii U version will have one more character than the 3DS version, we hope you understand. It's ok to break a promise when the end result just makes more people happy anyway. I mean really, would anyone be mad that the Wii U had one extra fighter than the 3DS?
Spoiler alert! I didn't even know Dr. Mario was in. Thanks a lot Nintendolife.
@luigiluigiluigi Piece of advice, if you want the final roster to remain a mystery, I suggest you stop reading and watching anything Smash Bros related until you have the game in your hands. Because it is all out there right now my friend.
@luigiluigiluigi how do you avoid spoilers for a game that is already out in one region and has screenshots everywhere? Wouldn't that require internet blackout?
Haunting...
Ice Climber (no "S: at the end just climber) for DLC, that's what people want anyways.
If this happens because Dr. Mario was a clone stand in for a cut character, I wonder if doing the same experiment with Dark Pit would reveal something?
@Geonjaha
Well, I was never a huge Ice Climbers fan, but I'm mad for two reasons:
-Original characters should ALWAYS take priority over clones and we have, what? 6+ clones already? That's just silly.
-They were cut because of the 3DS version. An amazing series has be cut back because of an attempt to simply milk a fanbase. Understandable, but sad, really sad T_T Now I'm MAD!!!!1 Lol.
"Rumour"? These were found in the game files too.
I would be happy if they were in the Wii U version. In a way it'd suck, since I get to play my 3DS way more, but Nana & Popo are some of my favourite Smash characters and I wouldn't be upset if they were Wii U exclusive. They had trouble getting Nana and Popo to work with the 3DS. Ice Climbers would have a legitimate reason to be U-only.
@ShockeyRai @AVahne It's definitely understandable a technical issue like this could pop-up. However, considering Sakurai clearly planned on having the Ice Climbers in both versions from the beginning, it seems nonsensical to cut them from the Wii U version just because of an earlier promise of identical rosters. Just seems stupid to me. There's no reason to cut them from the console version.
@R_Champ Im pretty sure there are just 4: SPOILER ALERT:
Falco, D mario, Dark Pit, and Lucina. They are off in their own corner too in order to make it more obvious that they are not original The remainder you may have heard about (Alph and co.) are likely skins. I am sad that they had to get rid of the Climbers from 3ds but maybe that means there will be some kind of cross-play?
Also Ice Climbers (the game) sucked hard compared to Duck Hunt. Honestly idk why they didnt chose Little Mac or the Dog instead in the first place tbh.
@Kasplat You Missed Ganondorf (clone of Caption Falcon) and Toon Link (clone of Link).
Ice Climbers, never forget
Its such a pity!
I guess it works only on Japanese version, tried this with my copy of Smash Bros. PAL and all I could here was "Villager!". Damn, I really hope it's real though.
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