Talking Point: 15 Years On, Should Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Subspace Emissary Return?

Subspace Emissary is my favorite Smash story mode by far, as I'm sure it is for most other people. I would love to see the way it introduced characters in cutscenes and how they interacted with each other return.

Brawl being the first ever game I learned, and pretty much played, I’m pretty biased when I say, yes! I loved seeing everyone together, even if there interactions weren’t voiced, it was so cool to see, and if it had gotten into ultimate, oh boy what fun would it had been, it would have been amazing, in short, I love it so much.

Nah SSE was a sluggish chore to play. Give me Melee Adventure mode any time.

YES! Or at least some kind of story to play through instead of just many battles over and over again, loved the way you unlocked the characters through the story.

Just remembered that Brawl was on a dual layered disc that my old Wii only played sometimes. Was strange that.

I’ve long hoped there’d be more Smash Single Player DLC in the form of a new Adventure mode or even just a reskinned World of Light map. I’ve since given up that hope.

I don't know why this needs to be discussed.

The answer is 1,000,000% yes

As an aside on that last line… one board game I hope Nintendo/Square has not forgotten about is Fortune Street. Need a new entry on Switch!

The correct answer is yes. It’s way better than SBBU’s Story Mode, the characters are portrayed well, and the story itself is really good.

Some Other Smash Bros Ultimate (non-fighter) Continued Support Wishes:

I think it's time they got a bit more wacky or creative with the Smash Tourney events. They should implement some Custom Smash elements into the tourney events like Mega size, Fast speed, Light/Heavy weight or Metal body etc. to mix things up and keep it fresh imo. Some of the spirit battle conditions make for more interesting, varied fights than just highlighting a specific item or set of characters.

Also, new spirits and spirit battles would be cool, but the trophies from past Smash's were better. Granted they were full 3D models which I'm sure is a chore to render for each entry (especially with Ultimate having so many Spirits) so I understand the decision to just make them 2D artwork. However more importantly, I reference that to say I miss the background information they used to have though (some spirits & assist trophies I have no idea what they are or what games they are from)... it was like having a cool random digital video game encyclopedia. Wish they added that again.

Also also, Random needs to be added as a character selection to Online Smash & tournaments (and the true selection shouldn't be revealed until the match starts and should continue to be different every match) I like mixing things up and variety when I play.

I think there was a recent forum discussion about what to expect in a new Smash. I would love for a new SSE to be made, although perhaps it need not be as part of Smash bros, but perhaps it's own entity entirely. I think there is a limit as to what can be done within Smash gameplay for this sort of thing. Whilst I remember SSE more fondly, I think World of Light was probably the more polished and interesting idea.

Just port Smash Brawl to the Switch and call it a day. There is already far too much absurdly-priced DLC for this game as it is (that costs about twice the asking price of the base game and all for a tiny, tiny fraction of its content).

There's enough to set the older Smash games apart to make them worth revisiting. I would whole-heartedly welcome Nintendo giving Smash Bros. the "All Stars" treatment with N64 to the Wii U instalments on a single cart (though this will require a 32GB cart). How I wish Nintendo didn't have such an aversion to making their legacy content more readily available.

But perhaps even more than that, I would love a Smash Ultimate complete edition with absolutely everything on the cart.

And speaking of Smash, I finally (accidentally) got 100% in World of Light last night after going on a bit of a Smash binge after a long hiatus. I was stuck on 99.83% for however long, and was baffled as to what I had missed. I didn't realise that there were three endings (I missed the Bane of Darkness [?] fight).

This was all in light of buying the second wave of DLC, mostly with my gold coins (some of which were due to expire), without which the asking price is an absolutely absurd rip-off. Hell, even the money I paid on top of the gold coins would have been a stretch for the content you're getting.

But that now means I have all of the fighters at last, minus some of the costumes (I also bought some of the Mii outfits, mainly ones that can stand as separate characters, such as Bomberman, DOOM Slayer etc.).

And I also managed to get the elusive Mew spirit and the other (Kirby?) one that had eluded me for so long. I now have all of the spirits except for one of the Sora fighter spirits, which is annoyingly yet to spawn in the shop.

Of course the next Smash game needs a proper story mode! World of Light just can’t compare. I admit that the platforming got awkwardly crazy at times, especially at higher difficulties, but those cutscenes were gold, even without dialogue. Diddy Kong dragging Fox, Bowser’s minions stealing DK’s banana hoard like the Kremlings, Captain Falcon’s entrance, the Subspace Gunship, Ganondorf betraying Bowser only for Bowser to kick his trophy later… they were just great. Sakurai’s reasoning for not doing this again is just absurd considering how whole games can be leaked these days, not just cutscenes.

15.. 15 years?! Oh hell no it's NOT been that long... Ooof I feel old
But yes, the SE compaign should definitely make a return. It was fun to collect stuff and to fight through familiar places.

Subspace was fun but overlong and repetitive. It took very few elements from the games represented in Smash. Additionally, Smash's mechanics were an awkward fit for the mode.

I enjoyed it, but Smash is a multiplayer game and that should be its focus. The last two entries have benefited from that approach; it's even improved their single-player modes.

I loved it. 15 years is also absolutely wild. Played so many hours of that over the years.

i played a lot on my wii, it would be nice for nintendo to bring back smash 64, melee and braw in a collection.

It's crazy to think that this game is 15 years old. I was still in Elementary School when the game came out.
I really like Subspace Emissary and had blast doing the final level which lead to fighting Tabuu. my favorite boss theme and boss fight in the game.
it's a shame that he isn't a boss in Wii U / 3DS and Ultimate. would had been fun to fight him in future installments after Brawl.

15 years.... and Subspace is still king.
Stickerbush Symphony is all I have to say, such an iconic song in an iconic game mode. Whenever I listen to it I get taken back to those truly wonderfull times.

Yes please, even better if it's a combination of Subspace Emissary (a campaign with its own story, cutscenes etc.) and Adventure mode from Melee (based on the fighters' original games, aesthetically and even mechanically if loosely)!

@wuntyme8 Really hope we'll eventually get a new Fortune Street, I'd even take a port/remaster with online play etc. of the Wii one over nothing (like we surprisingly are getting for Dokapon Kingdom), it's such a great game!

Subspace Emissary was definitely the coolest story mode they've ever had. Smash Bros. is the only series that lets us see all these different characters really interact with each other, and Brawl had more of that than any of the other games. I also spent way too much time with the game's stage builder. I still like that one way more than the newer version.

The problem with Ultimate is that it sucks when compared to Brawl and 4 in Brawl you have modes galore and plenty of things to keep you busy, 4 had decent online and plenty of unlockables to work towards. Ultimate has none of those things the only thing Ult has for it is the local multi player and the stage/character size, you can have as many characters as you want but with nothing to do with them I may as well play brawl/melee mods.

Subspace Emissary wasn't my favorite, I would have preferred an expansion of the Smash Melee Adventure Mode's themed platformer maps. But would take it any day of the week over World of Light.
I remember Pauline from world of light, EXTREMELY frustrating, and then once you start using one item, three hits, less than ten seconds, nobody else really has time to do anything. World of Light was huge but it was a giant imbalanced mess that couldn't even let me use my favorite spirits throughout the whole thing because they would become too weak.

Yes, I would definitely take this. I played Brawl so much back on the Wii.

I had fun with World of Light and was probably a better way of structuring a smash bros campaign than SSE.
However, given how glorious the opening cinematic and the character reveal trailers were, it felt like a massive slap in the face to me that there was next to nothing after this (at least there were boss fights).

I massively crave some sort of Nintendo All Stars story mode like we got from SSE, but I am happy for this to be spun out from the smash bros fighting series so the gameplay is a better fit.

A turn based/strategy RPG or a multiversal Kid Icarus Uprising sequel would be my ideal.

I wanted Subspace back so badly in Ultimate. I adored this mode and really miss it

My biggest gripe is how little most of the levels and enemies had to do with the Nintendo brands themselves. It made it a chore, and something with little replay value. A game like this should have scrolling stages like Clock Tower from Castlevania or Emerald Hill Zone...instead we have Mario and co. Trekking across The Cave or Ancient Temple.

I would prefer something like Melee adventure mode, but with some radical changes, since that mode would hardly work with the +80 current characters in Ultimate. The best compromise would be to create one or two quick small side scrolling stages for each big universe in the game, but only play a small selection of them each time you play, to avoid attrition and give you reason to replay the game to see all the stages and replay your favorites.

SSE is easily the best smash story mode. It had everything, a decent little 2d platformer through ninty series with actual mob enemies, boss fights that aren't just playable characters in a powered up state, fun cutscenes with character interactions. And combine it with Smash's addicting trophy collectibles plus stickers. It was great

4 didn't have a story mode. And Ultimate's is lame. It has cool boss fights again but now you could fight those in classic mode anyway too. The few cutscenes it has are short and amount to nothing. The gameplay is just fight after fight against playable characters so it doesn't have anything unique going for it. The only good thing that came out of it was that really short fight where you actually control the hands. More of that wouldve been great but they didn't do much with the single player content for Ultimate

The contrast of smash 4’s artstyle and brawl made smash 4 feel so bland and corporate

I've always thought it should return. And yeah, it was absolutely a flawed experience. But it was also still the most fun I've ever had with a story/single player mode in a fighting game. And it was even more fun with multiplayer co-op!

I just miss the modes from melee. Although with Sakurai-san in semi-retirement I doubt there will be a return of the subspace emissary. Not saying only he can do it but why would another director care? The main draw of the game is the roster and online play. I suspect the next smash bros will be more of an e-sports (as in focused on the main modes) experience. Trophies are already gone and the modes have slowly gone away/been reduced. Next smash if there is one will be more about just taking care of the fighting.

Loved that mode so much and was really saddened to find no equivalent in the last couple of Smash Bros

My biggest issues with Subspace Emissary are the somewhat heavy gravity applied to the fighters and how stubborn to die some enemies were (i.e. they took a lot of hits). If those can be corrected, I'd welcome a follow-up to The Subspace Emissary, lack of locales and all.

World of Light can go eat dirt for all I care.

As for Melee's Adventure Mode, a lot of people clamor it as the definitive Smash Adventure Mode, but not me. Aside from a few levels having some platforming or something beyond just fighting, it's not much different than Classic Mode.

I play Smash almost exclusively single player so the adventure mode is what I'm always most interested in. World of Light was weird and bloated, wasn't much more than a massive gauntlet of fights, but at least had some nice set pieces and I liked unlocking characters that way. Subspace was better but had a similar bloat and the story was similarly weird & ultimately useless. Melee is overpraised, but it really is the only one that had a perfectly balanced single player adventure that didn't have unnecessary bloat, had tight level design, and was hugely replayable. Smash Run on the 3DS is the second best single player mode; undercooked as it might be, it was much more exciting than slogging through World of Light or Subspace. Hopefully on the next title they can reign it in and bring back the good single player level design.

Yes it gave us single players a way to enjoy smash without going online.

Yes please. A thousand times, yes. I dunno why people rag on this mode so much, the levels were pretty fun in my opinion, and I really liked the original character designs. The story is the Nintendo crossover event everybody always wanted. The level design was a bit flat and boring, and there could have been more varied enemies to fight, but that just makes me think how much better a sequel could be. Smash Run on 3ds tells us that having varied Nintendo enemies would be very engaging, and in general a more expansive story could make the next Smash game the best one, even if they cut down on some characters.

Should it return? Yes.

Any kind of adventure/story mode, really

Best story mode on any fighting game, probably matched by the one in Mortal Kombat Deception. The cinema were top quality, and the time spent on SSE was well worth. I loved watching Snake interact with the other characters, I thought they were going to do something similiar with World of Light in Ultimate, but was dissapointed they didn't.

I wish it did return its such fantastic story mode i was very disappointed in smash ultimate it had so much potential but just boring repetitive fights with hardly any story.

Melee: just basic story fight bowser then win

Brawl: has great cutscenes and compelling story and every character got chance to shine.

Ultimate: little cutscenes but boring repetitive fights.

Subspace Emissary is still my favorite adventure mode in Smash Bros. I love all of the amazing bosses and cutscenes. The platforming is more hit or miss, but it's still solid. World of Light definitely brought back some of that magic, but I wish it had more cutscenes and didn't feel so bloated.

Brawl has like 35 characters and Ultimate has like 80+ so I understand if the project is just too ambitious. But we can still dream.

YES YES YES! This mode is one of the main reasons why Brawl is my favorite smash bros game. I even completed it to 100% completion. Words cannot describe how disappointed I was with World of Light (and Smash Ultimate as a whole tbh).

I would most like to see the trophy minigames and trophies in general return. I miss them with their descriptions immensely. I could do away with the stamps all together.

Man I loved subspace emissary. I couldn’t finish world of light it just wasn’t that good to me. I did get almost to the end but I just dropped off idk. Something about subspace emissary was just really charming with its plot and stuff.

Oh God yes definitely but remove that annoying one hit KO move Tabuu had. That move drove me nuts especially when playing it on harder difficulties, it was cheap it was unfair IMHO.

Should Subspace return 15 years later?
No. It should have returned 6 years later on the Wii U and then 10 years later on Switch. It never should have left.

Yes. Was legendary. Ultimates campaign was kinda arse. Also that butterfly guy that was the boss, should've been an unlocked character after. I was surprised and dissapointed he was not after the fact.

I think it should.
World Of Light is amazing (i am literally like… 0.02% away from 100%-ing it), but from the small amount of time i have played SSBB, Subspace Emissary was almost better.

I think that at this point, we shouldn't really tie the game to Smash. Instead, let's have this sort of Mario & Luigi, but with Nintendo franchises altogether.

I was looking forward to story like that since I never got to try the wii version, but insted we got the "cheap" version on switch. oh well...

Yes, without a doubt. The story, scale, and character interactions in Subspace Emissary is unmatched by the other games' attempts at a single player campaign. Sure, the levels being generic and drawn out are valid criticisms, but I personally think the overall gameplay has been the best in terms of making players feel like they're on an actual adventure.

If anything, World Of Light suffered from repetitiveness more so than SE. Fighting with the same characters and stages multiple times made it a far less of a memorable experience. Not to mention, the lack of cutscenes and interactions between characters was such a missed opportunity. Especially, considering Ultimate arguably has been one of the most expansive video game crossovers ever made.

In addition, the Spirit system was just absolutely broken. The Legendary spirits pretty much made weaker ones redundant and every fight became trivial. I like the idea of Spirits but they would need to overhaul its mechanics if they were to return. Yes, they were optional but there could have been more of an effort to balance them; perhaps by setting limits on how many times they can be used or needing their power continually restored.

With all that said, I recognize that each of Adventure modes have their own benefits and flaws but they should had try to build upon a formula rather than just keep starting from scratch. I understand the scope of both Brawl and Ultimate made it a somewhat of a necessity to resort to padding by reusing elements. However, I believe a middle ground between the Adventure exclusive assets and the multiplayer ones would be better than the extremes that Brawl and Ultimate took.

At this point, as others have stated, the best option for the next game would probably be just combining the best aspects of the past modes into one. A single player mode with a mix of sidescrolling and stadiums levels themed after the represented franchises with an in-depth story that capitalizes on the characters crossing over.

My only real complaint was not fighting more Nintendo enemies besides Bowser’s minions. The Subspace Army is a strange bunch to say the least. Smash Run in Smash 3DS had it right. Imagine a story mode that’s like Subspace Emissary AND Smash Run. I would love to fight Octarians and Salmonids from the Splatoon series in a future Smash story mode like that!

sub space and smash run were dope, tbh i actually didn't get as much out of ultimate.

I loved it and felt a bit ripped off that it or something similar wasnt in the sequel.

I'm going to say no. I think while a nice Single Player mode, it was not very good. It was a pretty mediocre platformer and a decent addition. I think the cinematics were AWESOME, but the actual mode is a big wet meh. I like how Smash Ultimate handled unlocking characters, but I'd rather it be like Street Fighter, Killer Instinct and other fighters where everyone was just there at boot up.

Maybe if they improved Subspace then maybe I would not mind it... But I'd rather Melee's Adventure or All Star modes.

EDIT: seriously people should go back and replay it was a critical lens and compare it to Kirby, Mario and other platformers. It's not very good. As a pack-in with a fighter it's pretty decent, but compared Mortal Kombat's singleplayer offerings Subspace hardly compares.

Yes! I loved how this made Smash into a 2-player co op sodescroller. So much fun! Though I'm sure with all the playable characters the big testing might get very unwieldy.

I'm going to go a bit into my views as to what makes a good single player for fighting games. The best ones are the ones that teach you how to play the game. Think the old arcade ladders in Capcom games where each fight gets increasingly harder. Those are decent. I think the modern Mortal Kombat games have done an amazing job at teaching players how to play while presenting a great story and cycles through each character regularly so you are sampling most of the cast and learning what makes them tick. The best way to learn how to fight a character is to learn how to fight with that character. So, not only are they challenging and teach you how to play, but they also allow you to figure out who your main will be while engaging you with the unique mechanics of each fighter.

Subspace since it was a side scroller which controls like a fighter it never feels good to play. It's clunky and the platforming is never all that challenging and rather just tedious. And since you're not actually engaging with the mechanics of a fighting game your not learning how to actually play. That and when you're in an arena they are brief appearances and a lot of the bosses are not playable characters so you're learning how to fight an enemy you'll never face online or your buddies can pick. So as far as a fighter single player mode it lands flat. It's not good enough to be enjoyed as just a side scroller on it's own or a good enough mode to teach casuals how to get good at the fighting game part of the fighting game.

It's basically just fanservice. And Smash is fanservice so that's not a bad thing, just not ideal. Compare that to Melee where yes Adventure mode had platforming, but those were few and far between and more just broke-up the fights. That and All-Star mode was a nice gauntlet you could do to test your skills, plus the game had a unique challenge mode. Melee actually did a good job of teaching players how to play through it's single player content.

So yeah... That's why Subspace was not a good single player mode on its own. That is unless you like fanservice in that case you're probably going to have fun... But, that's really all it was as it was not a good side scroller or a good fighter as far as a mode on its own.

Yes. And for the love of all that is good bring back trophies!

Absolutely. It would be cool to have another side scroller adventure mode, but with a similar spirit system from Ultimate. it could be like the charm system from Hollow Knight.

@Wexter In my opinion a story mode like that doesn't make sense for Smash because you don't have to learn a character to play and have fun with it unless you're in the competitive scene, making you play with each character to simply try them out is enough which is what Subspace Emissary more or less already does unlike World of Light (you slowly unlock the roster, but you can choose between whoever you already have) and Adventure mode (you play as only one character chosen at the start).
The point of such modes is exactly being different than regular Smash by adding to regular fights actual platforming, bosses etc. and yes, also fanservice since the game is a celebration of Nintendo and later of videogames in general.
Although I do agree that the platforming is kind of clunky and I think Adventure did that and representing the fighters' original games better, which is why I said in my previous comment that it would be even better if a future Story Mode were a combination of Subspace Emissary and Adventure (it could even take some elements from Smash Run as others suggested and even World of Light)!

Depends, if they fix the flaws SE had then sure bring it back or make a direct successor.

In terms of story SE isn't that special (outside of the whole pure fanservice moment of seeing several Nintendo characters together in a "heroes-save-the-world" plot) imo but it is atleast better compared to World of Light.
I kinda get that Sakurai wanted to focus more on fun gameplay then on stories with WoL but after that epic opening cinematic he can't fault fans for expecting atleast some quality (non-boss-&-endings related) mid-cutscenes showing what the characters are going through, closest we ever got to that was in Hero's reveal trailer.

Also I'm late saying this but happy 15th anniversary Brawl!🎉🎈

A bit late on this discussion but I'll say my thoughts anyway.
The subspace emissary was carried hard by it's cutscenes and when people say they enjoyed or loved the subspace, they usually mean they enjoyed the story and cutscenes of all the characters interacting.
It just so happens that they were done so well it made people forget or slog through the incredibly mediocre gameplay in between.

If we ever get a return to form to the subspace, I would need drastic gameplay changes to keep me coming back to it, let alone touching the mode, if it's just a repeat of brawl but with smash 6 characters, then it can stay gone.