Sakurai Reiterates That There'll Be No Subspace Emissary-Style Story in Super Smash Bros.

Not the end of the world I enjoyed Melee more than Brawl and that also did not have a story mode.

Some form or career mode would be fun, but I'm just glad they're getting rid of the bad platforming and (probably) costly cut scenes.

Subspace emissary was long, tedious and repetitive in every single way, the only redemption it had were the cutscenes which are amazing and since sakurai has stated that the cutscenes will serve as character intros instead of being in story mode, there is no point in having the return of the boring subspace.

Is it some kind of Luigi's Mansion Stage?

It looks kinda Metroid-y. Probably Luigi's Mansion.

Not including a mode like the SSE is just being lazy. The excuse is even lazier.

I know it's not but that level looks like Cave Story

I wonder if it has something to do with the 3DS than the Wii U! I actually liked Subspace Emissary. It was a wonderful addition.

I kind of thought it was a tedious way of delivering characters. I don't like playing all of the chars and there were some levels where I had to. (I know... first world problems.) I'm not sure how I'd do it, but it's not the SSE way.

As long as Adventure Mode returns that's fine. I liked it a lot in Melee.

I loved the cut scenes in Subspace Emissary. SSB Brawl was my very first Smash Bros so I didn't thought that the platforming and gameplay of the mode was tedious. I loved it! But I gotta say that, when I tried Melee, I liked it more than Brawl :/ but still, the cut scenes were worth it! They put all our favorite characters togheter (and proving that all Nintendo characters live in the same universe) I really think that Sakurai's reason is dumb, but oh well, every good thing has to end
That stage has a Luigi's Mansion vibe... haha

great! cutscenes might be cool but they're only nescessary in games that depend heavily on the story.
also the character "limitation" in SSE was annoying
on another note, I hope this game keeps the custom stage maker(maybe one better than the one from Brawl)

I loved the single player campaign from Smash Bros Brawl and I would love to see another, similar one for SSB4. It's not the end of the world if it's a multi-player only game though, as I will still play it like crazy. Maybe they are saying that, and hiding something? Doubtful, but still. Can't wait for this game!

im really glad there wont be another subspace emissary. there was nothing smash bros on that thing.

i enjoyed melee story mode. quick, fun, different...
i believe there will be some kind of story mode back in this game, and honestly i think this image has something to do with it. not a proper new stage.

i'd love to see a story mode with 2 player coop, costumizable stages and some bosses.

I'm OK with Smash 4 not having a story mode (SSE was OK, but I could live without it), but the reason that Sakurai gives makes no sense at all to me. Every cutscene in every game gets uploaded to the Interent, and if everyone followed his thought process, what would be the point of even having cutscenes in any game? I simply don't understand him on this.

But as long as we get Classic, Event and All Star modes, and a Melee-style Adventure mode, it should be fine.

In terms of the stage, I'm actaully thinking the All-Star mode hub area. The background looks similar to Brawls, and those platforms would make good places to have the Heart Containers.

@Fill-N I agree and anything can happen Sakurai only said there won't be anything like Subspace Emissary so as long it has no cutscenes and other things specific to subspace emissary it can be anything(hopefully a longer version of Melee's adventure mode)

Whatevs, I preferred the single player modes from Melee anyway. I'll take Adventure and All-Star over Subspace Emissary any day.

As long as there's Classic and Event modes as well.

Hence why I won't buy it.

You know what, where are these so called cutscenes? If I don't get them in the game, I might as well see what they got done.

This has got to be a part of the Adventure Mode!

The single player modes in Melee were way beter but I hope the special boss battles like Ridley are in the single player game.

It's true though, his reasoning makes no sense. If people want to spoil a video game for themselves, sure, they can go look up the videos on YouTube. People who don't simply won't. That's all there is to it. It's not like uploaders are strapping you to a chair and prying your eyes open Clockwork Orange style and forcing you to watch their vids.

@Bulbousaur Yeah I don't really understand that reason either, he said they worked hard on the cutscenes so maybe he just felt disheartened that anybody could just watch them all without playing.

@64supermario
those are part of the cutscenes(and the reason they've been removed, Youtube)
[youtube:ZncKyPwiZMA]

@ednice for cutscenes, your not going to buy a fighting game because of cutscences?

@Bulbousaur Yeah what would be the point of cutscenes in any game. (There isn't one if you want that watch a film).

@Emblem he wanted the game to be like this:

lol

While the SE cutscenes were amazing, I preferred the shorter, tighter, more varied single player adventure in Melee. The SE dragged on a little I thought. Probably should have spent less time on the single player bit and more time on making the online multiplayer actually playable!

@ednice YOU FOOF!

No biggie.

sry but this reason is stupid... and its the only reason why im not sure if i will buy this game at release
the story mode was the best part on brawl. i couldnt stop play it because it was so much fun
i realy hope the other single player mode will be really really good otherwise i think i will buy this game later used on ebay

I liked SSE. It had awesome cutscenes and was pretty interesting for a campaign. It reminded me of an expanded Adventure Mode from Melee! I'll miss it but Sakurai shouldn't force in something he doesn't want there. (I think the Youtube thing is just an excuse)

If i do want SSE again, i'll just pop in Brawl on my Wii U! Problem solved!

I'm perfectly fine with no single player campaign. As a matter of fact I didn't like it at all.

I only blitzed through it for unlockables.

While I only played thru it once my kids played well over 100 hours in Subspace. On occasion my youngest would just sit and watch thru the cut scenes beginning to end. If you only played thru Subspace on solo I can see it being boring, but co-op platformers w/ that much child findly violnce are vry few and far between. We also play R&C:A41 alot adn it's the worst game in the series.

I'ld rather he just said - Subspace took a long time to makes so we are leaving it out but will make a similar platforming game separelty later on.

I wish while he was talking about what SSB WON'T have he would add what it will have. So far I haven't seen anything to get excited about. I know moving it to the 3DS is brilliant as it's never been on a handheldso that shoul dsell like gangbusters, maybe even a bundle, but my kids are still playing Brawl on the Wii U so I don't know why we need this. At least MK8 added those upside down maglev tracks. And tracks matter in a racing game. Just changing the background image isn't really going to affect a fight in a brawl game all that much.

We'll buy SSB, but we're not "must have day 1" excited for it by any means.

People are assuming that there won't be a story mode because he said "there won't be a story mode LIKE The Subspace Emissary.." To me this says that he's listening to people that were complaining about it and putting some other kind of single-player campaign in. Honestly, I wish they'd just go with one similar to the N64 version. That's all I want. There should be at least some sort of single-player mode.

I still don't understand his logic, the cooler cinematics never get old. Especially when you have characters interacting in a way that they never have before.

@whodatninja it is pretty obvious the youtube is just an excuse, just like the "it can't look like a real weapon" explaining the new design for the laser gun. or so I hope...

I really wish he would make some cutscenes. I honestly don't know if I'd be interested in Smash Bros if there was no single player campaign and especially if the online is anything at all like Brawl.

That stage is the single player, obviously. I see the main campaign being a mix of the great maze, melee's adventure mode, kirby and the amazing mirror and the great cave offensive. Four players split up to find certain items in a big maze to complete the stage. Enemies drop money for upgrades, trophies and other collectables. Each maze has different enemy types and layouts. Then you will eventually reach the final stage, collecting playable characters along the way.

Thank God they are not wasting their time with subspace. The cutscenes were cool but you see them once and you don't bother seeing them again. The campaign itself was horrrible.

That stage doesn't seem to hail from any Nintendo franchise (as far as I know, anyway), and yet "there's no Subspace Emissary".

Got it: shorter Melee-esque Adventure Mode with the same non-Nintendo-specific setting as the Subspace Emissary. Calling it now.

The subspace emissary was what saved SSBB from being a bad game. I enjoyed being able to play it with two players. If I actually want to do regular battles, I pop in SSBM. Just my opinion, but my point is that if SSBU manages to pull off smooth movement and responsive controls, it doesn't need another subspace emissary. That is not to say it wouldn't be nice to have.

As for the single player campaign, I hope it involves some form of character development.

@Fazermint This, pretty much. Subspace Emissary had a lot of atmosphere and raised Smash Bros. up to being a genuinely deep title. Barely any crossover game executed a story mode as weel as Brawl did - they all either ignore canons completely or come up with a stupid excuse of a mashup story. Brawl managed to make a cross-dimension threat important, instead of being some boss from one of the games.

Stage reminds me of Earthworm Jim........

I liked SSE. It was the best fan service ever. But if they can make cool event matches like Melee (I thought the ones in Brawl were a little bland) totally random classic and all-star modes (seriously,the one in Brawl with the pre-determined order of foes was really boring),Break the Targets for each character and better loading times,I won't complain much. With that said,Sakurai's excuse has got to be the worst ever.

Sakurai typed "Where am I... ?" above the screenshot. Sounds like a Hotel Mario cutscene reference. XDD

Just as long as they speed up the combat a bit more melee style then I'll be happy, I know Sakurai-san is trying to get the gameplay mechanics to feel like if its between melee and brawl, and don't get me wrong brawl was great but I felt it was way to "floaty" compared to melee.

The Subspace Emissary was kind of dumb, though it -IS- the part I spent the most time on, playing it with a couple friends, but going back to Melee for multiplayer.

Anyone who believes his marketing hogwash is a sheep.

This is just developer word vomit they throw out to justify why they are cutting something from the game. He can divert the blame to people who upload videos on the internet and away from him, typical PR bs.

I loved the cutscenes; I'd watch them over and over (and I didn't have internet back when Brawl came out, so they surprised me). It's slightly disappointing to me.

@AlexSora89 Calling it with you, ever since Smash 4 for announced. Here's hoping they draw more Brawl elements then Melee.

@Pod I'm sorry that you don't like innovation. While SubSpace Embassy wasn't perfect it captured what a crossover fighting game symbolizes.

I kinda liked being forced to use characters in Subspace. If not for that, I probably would have never figured out that I was really good with Diddy Kong.

Reminds me of Grand Chase.

Meh. Playing through Subspace was alright. I'm not bummed or anything about it being gone, though. Sure, the fan fiction wrote itself and there were a few good stages, but there were many times I fell merely because of unfamiliarity with a character or a stage built more for the likes of Mario as opposed to Captain Falcon.

Also, it was a pain to unlock characters with Subspace. It took forever. That being said, I still want to have to unlock characters.

Such disappoint

@GuSilverFlame Actually no. What I wanted was content and that was stripped away...silly Shinobu

@Emblem No, for content. I don't like how Sakurai is decreasing the scale of a Smash Bros game....even though he has every right to.

This is more than likely an adventure mode much like melee's. And I also I think that the wii u will have something different than this type of mode for the game;

"While there will be no story mode, Sakurai assured that the 3DS version would include a feature that would "act as a separate mode from the standard versus play." " -source: http://kotaku.com/the-next-super-smash-bros-wont-have-a-story-mode-or-c-906856304

And I am happier that he will be sticking with cutscene intros for new (or older) characters, rather than a story mode. It will be something new to the series after all

That's his excuse for no story mode like SSE? People upload cutscenes and the like for darn near every game that has them. But then, that probably took up a good chunk of the game's memory, so now I'm thinking there shouldn't be an excuse for them to not have enough character slots.

Regardless, I'm hoping this new single player mode is better than Melee's Adventure Mode. And that stage looks like it would have a Legend of Zelda air to it. Or Donkey Kong Country. Or Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon.

Good! They can focus on more important features of the game in order to make it even more amazing. Even tough, it would have been awesome to see some kind of story mode with cutscenes like those trailers from Megaman or Rosalina, they look extremely good! Every day my excitement for this game is growing more and more!

Now lets have a official release dates for games on the Wii U this year currently only game I'll be playing is Donkey Kong Wii U as nothing else has been 100% confirmed

@CaviarMeths Exactly! There are enough people who don't watch that stuff on YouTube. It feels like an easy way out.

There has to be some kind of single player / story mode...

The melee style adventure mode is also not that good. Most of the actual "stages" were just basic brawl with a few gimmicks, and the rigid nature made multiple playtroughs a chore.

The best way to implement a new adventure mode would be IMO, to create a couple of adventure stages for each universe, and play some of them (around 5, for example) in a randomized order in each playtrough, in order to make multiple plays not a chore. That would be a good compromise from the rigid and lacking 2D stages in melee against the overabundance and generic 2D stages in Brawl.

I saw a pot above mentioning the game's memory. SSE did in fact take up a large swath of space on the disc...but it's hardly the reason we had as many cut characters in Brawl as we did. The file themselves for characters are fairly miniscule, and along with the rest of the actual game could easily fit onto a disc with around 3 GBs or so of space without the cutscenes taking room. What the SSE DID eat up was time. We probably could've gotten another character, such as Mewtwo, had they had the time to work on it.

For this news though, I don't really care. I think Melee in general was a tighter game, and that includes the single player modes. Classic mode was more randomized and booted faster than Brawl, Event mode had more interesting events...and I definitely preferred the shorter Adventure mode to SSE's bloated, meandering pace. I would be quite happy with a return to Melee's style of a single player mode, with or without cutscenes.

I really diddn't like the subspace emmisary that much. I'm happy they are removing it. also, the fighting stage looks like a rayman legends stage.

@ednice

I wouldn't say he was "Stripping away the the content" I would say that he is simply making the game more playable. I mean, what two game aspects have been the most whined about by us fans? Characters and Online play thats what! Having another SE would only make those two aspects weaker I would think. (Plus the cutscenes are probly' unnecessarily expensive to make)

...Just my opinion.

Maybe this stage is from an unannounced metroid title!

Eh, I loved Brawl's cutscenes anyways....especially the one where Kirby swoops in and destroys that massive cannon in one hit.

Oh...well..SSE obscured alot of the good Brawl had...
With it gone could mean that there could be a More Balanced game that is great for the Other modes it has...
Good Riddence SSE ;3

Story modes in fighting games are stupid anyway.

Story in fighting games is as important as story in fighting anime/manga such as Dragon Ball Z, Bleach, Naruto etc...

Who are the characters? Why are they fighting? What is their relationship with other characters? There should be no difference between Ryu & Ken and Goku & Vegeta when it comes to storyline. Story in fighting games can be stupid, but that doesn't mean they should be stupid.

Subspace Emissary was the best way to unlock characters. Some characters would on ly appear after playing hundreds of hours in the brawls, but if you unlocked them in the Subspace Emissary you had them for good. I remember diving back in after finishing it to find Toon Link and Wolf.

@turnmebackwards I feel you on that one, i sense a Direct coming this week or at the very latest next week..

Looks like Nano Assault, they are Nintendo exclusive games after all.

Subspace Emissary was my favorite part of that game, but I won't be so mad as long as there's a beefy single player campaign. If it's just another ten-minute-long Adventure Mode like in Melee, I'm not buying it.

I remember the first time I played the SE. I was, as Sakurai stated, "truly wowed" by the cutscenes. I don't see why he can't make scenes for the majority of purchasers of the game who don't like getting everything spoiled and, therefore, don't look up the scenes on youtube.

This looks like a...Rayman stage!!! O.O

Subspace Emissary has it's ups and downs, it was like a Michael Bay action movie, lots of fancy screen effects and action but with an even less sensible story. The "silent movie" while unique for the modern age, was still incredibly lacking. Most of the time the events were completely random and you didn't really know what was going on with things like the last boss until you got some trophies that explained it.

I know it's a Nintendo staple, and people fear change, but I think Nintendo needs to add voices to their games at some point, or at least TEXT for the story.

I cannot say I'm a fan of the "Statue World" concept. Since death was technically impossible as all of these "characters" were just "statues", any amount of losses, injuries, and death was completely meaningless as all it takes it a touch and they are back at full health. I would have preferred it if the story was with the real versions of the characters, or at least parallel dimension versions of them, like other crossover games usually use.

Game play wise, many of the characters simply were not designed to work well in a platform environment and against the enemies.

Do I hate Subspace? No, but I take it as I said earlier, like a Michael Bay action movie. Pretty pictures, lots of actions scenes, story is horrible.

But I DO think fighting games should have a story and not just an Arcade Mode where you fight Master Hand or something at the end.

I actually enjoyed the Subspace Emissary.
Most likely, the single player campaign will be arcadey-fighting different fighters.

Whats the point in making this game? Footage of the game will appear online and wont be able to wow players as much so he should definiately decide against releasing this game.

@GOM1 - It's not lazy. I think it's for the better. By having a less ambitious story mode, it might give them more time to refine and balance the main game. I can't confirm it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Subspace Emissary is in part to blame for Brawl's characters being noticeably unbalanced to the point where certain characters were being banned from tournaments, and some fans thought it fit to make a game balancing patch called Brawl+. Sakurai might have used the excuse because he might not have wanted to admit he did a bad job on character balancing, but at the same time he seems like a person with very ambitious viewpoints and may actually believe that the cutscenes being uploaded to the internet ruined the game, using that excuse to cover up the real reason. I'm pretty sure there's some deeper reasoning to it than that, seems kinda silly when an individual can choose not to watch the cutscenes before playing the game.

Besides, there's plenty of people that hated Subspace. I, for one, disliked it, and I understand that there a plenty out there that will miss a Subspace-esque mode, but I think it's for the better that the part some people liked about the game is scrapped to spend more time on the part everybody likes.

If I found out who leaked the game online, they'd be sorry!! Except IMO it's our choice to spoil/ruin the game for ourselves, so he should've just kept the game as it was!

@GOM1
I don't think he's being lazy. It's an excuse to be sure and I don't agree with his decision, but it sounds more like a personal and creative pet peave than an "I just don't feel like it" or timing thing.

I personally don't mind. If it's like Melee's Adventure Mode, but with more emphasis on exploring other Nintendo Worlds (like Mushroom Kingdom and Underground Cave in Melee), I'll be happy. Plus, I'd imagine the game would also get completed quicker without it.

I said it before, but I think Sakurai is being extremely childish with regards to the leaked cutscenes. I've never seen them....as Smash Bros is a game I've always intended to buy, I've purposefully avoided spoilers. I'm sure plenty of other people who buy it won't be obsessives who've followed every single inch of the game's delopment online either. Sakurai's just acting like a big baby, picking up his ball and going home...'wahh wahh wahh, some people saw the cutscenes before they were meant to, therefore nobody's getting to enjoy them anymore.'

I'm sure the game will still be great, but it's still going to feel like it's missing content that should've been included.

Sakurai whining about leaked cutscenes maybe games with any type of story should not be made since majority of them can be found on the interwebs.
Anyone else think this level looks a lot like Rayman? Not saying Rayman is coming.

I think it's pretty interesting that his comments on what is a fairly inconsequential part of the game (particularly for a multiplayer platform fighter/party game) has received such a negative response from the community. Could probably open some interesting discussions on game design from that.

For my part, I think there has to be some miscommunication going around...whether it is intentional on Sakurai's part or not. The youtube excuse IS a fairly flimsy one. I'm inclined to believe it's more about rewarding the player. They're still making the detailed character intros for some pretty eye-candy, but cutscenes as a reward hasn't been a thing since the N64/PSX era. And since we aren't getting a story mode on the scale of the SSE, the other use of cutscenes - to tell a story - is completely functionless as well. I'd like to think he's more concerned about tighter gameplay, both in multiplayer and single player. So here's hoping that whatever substitute we do get plays better than the SSE, because this time it won't have a story to act as a crutch.

if this game had nothing but a good online mode, i would still be happy. everyone who is saying they wont buy the game because of this news dont deserve to buy this game

That 3DS level looks like it is from Rayman Origins.... OMG!! What if RAYMAN is a newcomer???????? omg omg omg omg

I could do without SE for sure. I mean I played it a lot but that was only because I was hunting for unlockables. The story itself wasn't anything special and it got tedious.

If the story mode/arcade mode is more like Melee than I'll be happy.

@NaturalGus I immediately thought of Rayman to.

Man, I'm one of the few who liked SSE better than adventure. The cutscenes were great, and like many say, his reasoning's ridiculous. If we're going without cutscenes, I still hope the mode will be more like SSE than adventure. With multiplayer and original enemies and karp like that. Otherwise I'll likely get bored of it quick, just like Melee. I wanna enjoy this game since I'll be playing single-player often anyways.

I hate Sakurai's stupid excuse so much. It makes no sense.

I'm not even really mad because of no SSE, though I did like it. (I think they'll take the good parts of Adventure Mode from Melee and Brawl and kinda mesh em together, so I'm not worried about that...) It just really grinds my gears that he makes up this stupid excuse, and if he isn't making it up, then I don't know what the guy is thinking.

I have never watched a single SSE cutscene online before, simply because they're so short it's not worth the time to go find them. If the problem is having a one-time wow-factor for the player, then why did they give the option to play back all of the videos in the archive? I really don't understand Sakurai's logic here.

I liked the SSE but if what hes trying to say/cover up is they're limiting it to character/boss intros and short clips and focusing on proving as much content as possible, then I'm ok with that. I'd rather they go that route anyway.

I don't like Sakuria's excuse though. I want to be able to stand behind him being one of the few to call out Nintendo on stuff, but not implementing cut-scenes because people in this day and age like to, gasp, share and discuss things over the internet, is pure BS.

This reminds me of the stuff going on with Pokemon X/Y leading up to its release. They'd rather squash any positive feedback and discussion about their games than embrace it.

dont care just want online to be good.

Really? I was away last summer and missed this. Sadly, for me, this game has just gone from must-buy to skipping-it.

Very, very, lame excuse. So, they did the Rosalina intro/reveal footage for nothing? Surely that's somewhere in the game. As a childless grown man I have few friends to play with, AI is boring, and online opponents are ruthless. What is to inspire me to get this game if there's no single player campaign mode? Yet I'm still tempted to get this, just for Rosalina

I'm pretty sure what he means is that since you can potentially unlock all characters through other means, you don't really need to play Subspace and since all the cutscenes were uploaded onto the interwebz that's even LESS incentive to see the story for yourself. It made the whole process of creating a campaign almost useless. At least that's how I interpret that in their eyes. It's like if you wrote an entire book and people read it on spark notes or something.

It's not a good excuse but I can understand it. I play Smash for the fighting and even though I enjoyed SSE, I don't feel it HAS to come back in someway! As long as the net code is great lol

The Subspace Emissary was so awesome. I guess it's okay that we won't have another one; that'll just make Brawl that much more awesomely unique in Smash Bros. history.

Subspace was fun, i only had wished i could have been able to link up with my friend online who was on the phone with me as we played through subspace together (no online voice chat really sucks sometimes...)

I hoped similar to how i saw my friends play, native offline multiplier games, online with their 360. That something similar could be in the works with nintendo games, where we have more options to play online, with normally offline games and modes. nintendo fusion should be able to pull off online feat. such as that!

@PrincessEevee9

I like innovation plenty.
And I got some enjoyment out of Subspace Emmisary. But it seemed to me like a very expensive and cumbersome way of creating a simplistic brawler for which the battle system is entirely overqualified. And the sticker system was completely lost on me.

When I felt many of the new levels and items in Brawl were quite on the broken side, I couldn't help but feel that some developers' time could have been spent better.