-Lauren Bocall
Smash Bros. Ultimate has a fierce number of stages. When you look outside the competitive scene and its small number of legal stages, there’s an absolute plethora of gaming nostalgia, history and worship for you to indulge. Smash Bros. delivers several stages from Nintendo favourites including Mario, Zelda and Pokémon and pays homage to specific moments in the respective franchises. Whether you’re battling on top of Peach’s Castle from Mario or trying to avoid drowning on Zelda’s Pirate Ship, each of the stages captures the essence and feel of the game, but transforms these moments into fun battlegrounds full of surprises (and usually hazards!).
I’ve always been a big fan of Smash Bros. From 10-year-old nin10dave playing Smash Bros. 64 to 30-year-old nin10dave being demolished in Smash Bros. Ultimate, it’s been a huge joy watching the series evolve its stage selection and creativity over the years. So, it was hugely impressive that almost all of the stages throughout the IP were included in the incredible Smash Bros. Ultimate. Whilst I spend most of my time playing the Final Destination or Battlefield versions of each stage, it’s the original casual stage layout where the fun, design and creativity truly lies.
It’s likely I’ll make this into a series given the vast number of stages (you might want to know where your favourite ends up!). But for now, based on the original stage layout, I’ve detailed my Top 10 Smash Bros. Ultimate Stages.
Did You Know?
- Over 100 stages in Smash Bros. Ultimate
- Each stage contains a Battlefield and Final Destination form.
- Introduced Stage Morph allowing two stages per battle!
10) Saffron City
Introduced in Smash Bros. 64, Saffron City is taken from the very first Pokémon game, Red/Blue. What I love about Saffron City in Smash is the door that opens on top of the Silph building, revealing a Pokémon that may help (or hinder) you. These range from Chansey, who will toss out some eggs for you to use in the heat of battle, to Charmander, who will literally heat up the battle, breathing fire on anyone nearby. The stage is also neatly divided into three sections (left, middle and right) which can divide up bigger fights, creating smaller feuds amongst players. It’s satisfying in Ultimate to play with a character that can wall jump, allowing you to recover up the section in between the Silph and right-hand side building!
9) Gamer
There are a few stages on Smash Bros. where the layout is generated at random, meaning each time you play, it’s almost as if you’re on a completely new stage. Of these, Gamer is my favourite. Set on 9-Volt’s desk, Gamer is based on a specific Wario Ware mini-game. This mini-game has 9-Volt trying to avoid his mother catching him playing games in bed, and the Smash stage takes this premise and runs with it. During the fight, 9-Volts mother will come out of the TV, window and door to try and catch any exposed players not hiding behind columns or under platforms. These players will take hefty damage and get knocked back to the blast zone. It’s a stage that hones a player’s awareness as you’re forced to concentrate on the battle at hand, as well as the mother lurking in the background!
8) Castle Siege
As a combat-focused game, Fire Emblem is rife with Smash Bros. stage opportunities. Whilst all the Fire Emblem stages are a consistently high-quality, it’s Castle Siege that I always find myself wanting to go back to. There’s plenty of Smash Stages where the terrain transitions throughout the intensity of the battle. Castle Siege starts atop a castle before moving into (what I’m guessing) is one of the castle’s rooms. It’s here large stone statues of sculpted men hold up breakable platforms, whilst two climbable canopies hang on either side. This room usually provides the most franticness of the fight with items flying and statues breaking all over the place! The final part is a huge boulder teetering on a pin needle of rock below it. This causes the stage to tilt left and right whilst the background displays a molten-lava floor – perfect for meteor smashing your foes to a fiery end.
7) Pirate Ship
Smash Bros. Ultimate tends to take the focal theme of a game and apply that to its stage. For Wind Waker, you’d have a strong argument that this would be The Great Sea, but we can’t very well have all the fighters swimming around now, can we? Well, Pirate Ship covers this extremely well by taking Tetra’s ship as the main battleground, but retains the presence of The Great Sea at all times. What I absolutely love about this stage is everything that happens around the main Pirate Ship. The rock that the ship crashes into forcing the terrain to shift, the King of Red Lions coming in as a second platform, and the Ballad of Gales launching the ship upwards (making the fighters “slow-fall”) is all incredibly wonderful. This immersive stage captures every essence of Wind Waker in such a beautiful and aesthetic package, it’s impossible to not love it.
6) Great Bay
As an advocate of Majora’s Mask, you might have guessed that Great Bay would make my Top 10. Well, it’s not just because I love the game, but similarly to Pirate Ship, Great Bay does a stand out job of capturing the specific section of Majora’s Mask and executes it with wonderful attention to detail. There are more obvious nods to the game, such as the Giant Turtle emerging from Great Bay’s ocean, allowing players to fight on his back, or Tingle who’s balloon you can pop. However, what I love is the unfolding background that summarises the story of Majora’s Mask – watching the moon crash towards Termina and the Four Giants intervening to stop the calamity is all this Majora Mask loving madman needs to fall in love with a stage.
5) New Donk City Hall
I thoroughly expressed my love for the Metro Kingdom and New Donk City in my Top 10 Odyssey Kingdoms blog and was overjoyed to see this get a stage in Smash Bros. Ultimate in the form of New Donk City Hall. Smash Bros. has several stages with a single platform that “travels” between different locations – such as Skyloft or Mario Circuit – and New Donk City Hall falls into this category. Transporting the players between different parts of New Donk City Hall, the battle starts at the very bottom of the tower, complete with Odyssey’s jazz band. The level then transpires further and further up New Donk City Hall before you’re finally brawling at the peak, with the Metro Kingdom sprawled out in the background. The stage captures the central focal building of the Metro Kingdom, all whilst serving varying platform layouts at each section for the fighters to sink their teeth into.
4) Final Destination
Final Destination, at its heart, is a no nonsense stage. No obstacles, no hazards, no platforms, and absolutely no excuses. This simple, flat stage however certainly isn’t short on the fun as FD forces players to rely on their skills in every sense of the word. Final Destination separates the men from boys, making quality players stand out – even when playing casually, the lack of obstacles means items are more likely to land or hit an opponent, sometimes creating more franticness than a stage that moves, or is filled with hazards. It may be simple, but Final Destination will always hold a firm place in my heart and it’s, to date, still one of the only Smash Bros. stages to appear in every single game.
3) Pokémon Stadium 2
In the earlier iterations of Smash Bros. Pokémon Stadium reigned supreme, that was until the introduction of Pokémon Stadium 2. Much like Final Destination, PS2 is revered both in the casual and competitive Smash scene and, whilst it’s a great stage in the competitive scene with platforms extending combos, I feel it really stands out when used casually. PS2 often transforms its layout to tie into a Pokémon type. For PS2, the battlefield changes between Electric, Flying, Ground and Ice with each of these affecting the terrain as you’d probably expect. Flying allows players to float in the air, Ice creates a slippery, catastrophic surface, and so on. It’s another stage rife with variety allowing every battle to feel unique, meaning it’ll stay fun no matter how many times you visit!
2) Delfino Plaza
Delfino Plaza is one whopper of a stage! Another Mario stage, and another “travelling” stage, Delfino Plaza hosts a central platform that escorts fighters around several memorable places in Isle Delfino. Whether you’re fighting on the rooftops, the large Shine Gate or out on one of the deserted islands, Delfino Plaza, much like Pirate Ship, captures nostalgic scenes from Super Mario Sunshine and transcribes them seamlessly into a battleground. Again, it’s the variety that makes the stage stand out, creating fun throughout the fight, but also allowing fighters to think tactically – such as trying to get easy KOs during the “Noki Bay” walk-off section. Whilst Delfino Plaza is incredibly wonderful, it doesn’t quite beat out my favourite and most nostalgic Smash Bros. stage…
1) Temple
For all the times that I’ve played Smash Bros. Temple undoubtedly has provided the most fun and memorable fights. Temple is the OG “large” stage and the size is absolutely spot on. There are some stages that took this to new extremes in later games, such as New Pork City or The Great Cave Offensive, but these felt too big – it’s a delicate balance to strike, but Temple nails it. Temple has enough sections to create individual feuds without these feeling disconnected from the overall fight. My personal favourite section is the underground area which is so enclosed, you can live up to extremely high percentages. But, at these high percentages, can be launched all over Temple at ridiculous and laughable angles, adding to the madness of the bout. Temple also became even more berserk when they added 8 player fights – However, this only further cemented my unyielding love for the craziness found during fights on the Temple stage.
There you have it! My favourite stages from Smash Bros. Ultimate, and really, the series as a whole. With there being so many stages in Smash Ultimate, it pains me to not be able to include some of the other wonderful battlegrounds, so I’ll no doubt be writing more of these soon – watch this space!