Dojo Update: Donkey Kong's Special Moves, 75m

Double the monkey today! I hate every ape I see! From ChimpanA to Chimpanzee!

Dojo Update: Spear Pillar

Forgot to mention, you really should ask Lucario how it keeps it's hourglass figure...and perfectly cylindrical torso.

Now is another Po-key-man! stage. Some new details are new! It is one of the whackiest stages in the game, with all the flippin and the floppin and the hippin and the hoppin, it don't know what the jazz is all about. It's like Jello puddin pops...no, it's more like Kodak film...no, it's like the New Coke. It'll be around forever, heh heh heh.

Dojo Update: Luigi's Mansion

And the new stage for the day is Luigi's Mansion. In a game filled with breakable stages, this is the most breakable. I mean, you cause the whole thing to collapse! That is madness!

Dojo Updates: Green Hill Zone, Luigi

I'm not late! You're the one who's late!

Anyway, Sonic's stage was posted yesterday. We know much about it, but the post confirms that the middle sections break because of you, not randomly as some of the videos made it look. Also, they did some fine work on the graphical detail of the stage.

But the main attraction is another hidden character, the most obvious one of all...that's right, Luigi! With Luigi, some great screenshots, and the name of his Final Smash: Negative Zone! Strange, not one of the side effects of the attack is "Unleashes Blastaar, the Living Bomb-Burst!"

Dojo Update: Mario Bros.

And our first secret stage! Definitely one of my favorites.

For all you obsessives out there, I recently added a brief description of every level in the Subspace Emissary to the 'What We Know' page. If you're not spoiler-shy, check it out on the sidebar!

Dojo Update: Final Destination

It's Final Destination. That's all it is, really. I don't feel like linking right now.

Maybe I'll do a recap instead of doing this every day now. Leave the rest of the week for other things.

Dojo Update: Port Town Aero Dive

Here we are folks, finally we get the F-Zero stage. So, everyone who refuses to watch videos of the game can now enjoy the madness!

Game Intro Video + Tonight's the NIGHT!

So, let-a-me a-see-a...

Green Hill Zone stage confirmed.
Marth is back.
Lots of Subspace awesome.

Good show, I'd say.

Edit: THE TIME...IS NOW!



FOOTAGE!



As you can see, we get Port Town from F-Zero GX as a starting stage, as well as Final Destination and Shadow Moses.

There's an abolute ton of information coming in now, and I'll try to stay with it.

Dojo Updates: Mushroomy Kingdom, Mario Bros Ground Theme

Mushroomy Kingdom continues the tradition of stages based on the classic Super Mario Bros. atmosphere. However, unlike previous stages, the design of this is directly pulled from Stage 1-1 from SMB, with a leisurely scroll there to help you see the sights, and brand new background. Sometimes, when you select the stage, it will even appear as the Underground stage 1-2. Nifty.

To go with it, there is a piano remix of the Mario Bros. theme. It's very pleasant.

Dojo Updates: Distant Planet, and Uh Oh!

The Pikmin-based Distant Planet is a visually beautiful thing. Perfectly captures the atmosphere of the games, has some very unique hazards (rain! Item-dispensing onions! STUPID GIANT BULBORB!), and looks fun to play. Good on them.

WHAT'S THIS?

"Due to delays in the completion of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, we’ve had to change the release date of the game to Sunday, March 9th.

I deeply apologize to the people who have looked forward to playing the game for so long and ask that you hold on just a little longer. Thank you for your patience."

BAGUUUUH.

And yet the Japanese version was only delayed until the 31st. Wacky stuff, that is. But now I am forced to get another countdown again! Damn you, minimal effort!

Dojo Update - Melee Stages: Part 2

And to start of the return, here's more returning stages. I can say that I successfully predicted two - Corneria and Yoshi's Island. Also glad to see Onett, which was one of my favorite stages in Melee, back.

Dojo Update: Frigate Orpheon, Porky's Theme

It seems Mario Circuit has signalled the beginning of showing the second stage of every series, continuing with the reveal of Frigate Orpheon from Metroid Prime as a new arena. In the background, the terrifying Parasite Queen thrashes about in it's tank, and when the siren sounds, you know the stage is gonna do a 180 flip, changing the area. Back before they confirmed Norfair, I had thought of a tilting space station as a possible Metroid stage. Maybe I'm better at this predicting game than I thought!

Also provided was Porky's Theme, a song from Mother 3 that heralds the arrival of the armies of the former annoying fat kid (known to Earthbound players as Pokey). We're down to 4 series that need music now (Mario, Sonic, F-Zero, and Pictochat).

Dojo Update: Mario Circuit

Well Goll-ollllly. They decided to put up Mario Circuit! There's not much more to it than we saw in the 2nd trailer over a year ago - except that the Shy Guy karters also speed in on the elevated platforms from the sides. Oh, and you can smack those Shy Guys out the way, too. Looks fun.

November to December Plus Melee Stage Speculation

And November ends on an interesting note. And interesting note that I maintain, makes complete sense for the last day before the game was supposed to come out. I've been saying this all month, and I've found no reason not to.

Say whatever you want about the month, they made a lot of progress. Every new character has their special moves, there's only 5 Final Smashes remaining, most of the returning Melee modes have been covered, there was an abnormal number of Music updates...Like I said, they covered a lot of important ground, even if a lot of it was revealed at E For All. Even so, most complaining people were just getting antsy because there were no characters this month, so I guess I don't to get too apologetic.

The reason for no characters? Well, I'm guessing there had to be a period without any in order to not get into spoilers too early. November was chosen for the gap because, probably, it seemed like the best midpoint for the whole thing. Of course, there could be other reasons they wanted to show characters in December, so let's get into that?

There is a certain character's anniversary on the 17th that could possibly spell a good date for their unveiling in Brawl. This character is one many, many people want. I think you all know who I'm talking about, so even though I hate getting your hopes up, I'm just throwing it out there.

I wouldn't be surprised if a character appeared on Monday, either, as that was the original release date. That would be a pretty neat move, wouldn't it? Revealing the last starting character on the day of release, I mean. That would be pretty neat, I think.

But while I said that I don't think the November updates weren't changed despite the delay, I do think that some shuffling must have been done in the December updates. I mean, if the game had come out normally, they would be allowed to reveal secret stuff at this point. But they can't, or at least they probably won't. Albeit, this more or less only affects characters and possibly game modes. Everything else pretty much has a little bit more to go before getting into spoiler territory.

Everything else will be able to chug along as normal. Two more stages this month, and I can almost guarantee they will be Sonic and F-Zero-related. There's really no other route they can take here, can they? CAN THEY?

For Music, I don't expect AS much as November, maybe. Just two. Earthbound and Sonic. And since it'd be fun, they could throw Sonic's music on the same day as Sonic's stage.

Items? They got about 5 or so that haven't been shown (and something tells me the 'stealth items' from the updates last month won't be mentioned). I expect possibly two more to finish up another row in that section. The Urchin and Lightning Bolt are fun for this role.

Assist Trophies? Two more to start another row, methinks. One we've already got confirmed (I'll say Metroid) and one brand new one.

Pokeball Pokemon? Again, two to fill the role. Probably Latios/Latias and Gardevoir. If not, maybe one talking about Pokemon from previous games.

How To Play? We got a lot of those last month. Since there isn't a whole lot of ground to cover, I think we might only see about two or three. Maybe crawling will be among them. We should probably get one about Aerial stuff, too.

Now, Game Modes is interesting. There's only a few modes from Melee not yet confirmed to return. Multi-Man, the alternate multiplayer game types, and All-Star, to name a few. All-Star will probably be secret again, so I don't expect that. Of course, they could always pull a few less expected (or possibly wanted) returning modes, like say, the Language Options or Game Records, to beef up the updates a bit, as well. Otherwise, though, I think we'll get at least one brand new game mode.

Adventure Mode keeps getting neglected, with only one update last month. I'd say its about time it got its due, at the very least giving us a better idea on how the thing plays. We've received two 'story' updates in a row, so the first one will probably be gameplay-related, most likely about that upgrade system they mentioned in the Team update. Another story update or two would be fine as well, maybe a boss? In any case, I want more Subspace Emissary!

There were lots of Final Smashes last month, so I don't think we'll go as far in December. If they are introducing more characters again, though, it might be smart to get rid of some more of the old character's stuff before moving on. I fully expect Zero Suit Samus and Sonic to get theirs this month, and maybe King Dedede. If some of the mysteries behind Zelda are revealed, we'll probably find out what hers is as well.

Well, that's about it. Now is the wait. Let us see what Santa brings us...

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Okay, so November 30th revealed to us that they were bringing back some stages from Melee. They showed us the Temple, and leaves the rest for us to find out when we pick up the game. This puts fans in a tizzy, trying to figure out what classic stages will get revived.

I'll offer up my opinion. Now, they didn't say all the old stages would return, just 'a number'. For this number, I'll say about 8. That leaves 7 more possibilities. If I could choose, which ones would I pick?

*Fountain of Dreams - Not the most interesting stage, but it has a unique atmosphere. Plus, you can recreate the Kirby vs. Dedede battle here, finally.

*Brinstar Depths - The other Brinstar is a little too close to Norfair, so I'd choose its more interesting counterpart. You may not want to play on it all the time, but its there for those who do.

*Yoshi's Island - Super Mario World is classic, so I don't see why the level recreating it is out of the question. Yoshi's Island is also kinda fun, as well.

*Corneria - People really like their big, long ships.

*Princess Peach's Castle - It's classic Mario, man!

*Fourside - Somehow, this one seems less likely to be chosen then Onett (which appeared in more than one game in the Mother series). But I like the cityscape archetype, which we've yet to see in Brawl.

*Kingdom II - Chances are there will be a stage recreating Super Mario Bros., but I can't really think of anything else that can represent Super Mario Bros. 2 as well as this.

I've noticed a lot of people suggesting Final Destination, but chances are Brawl will have its own version of that arena, so I don't think it'll make the cut.
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Oh yeah, predicting next week.

Character
Pokemon
Stage
Adventure Mode
Game Mode

Dojo Update: Melee Stages

Well, I guess I was wrong.

Last day of the month, and it is used to confirm that "a number" of stages from Melee will be available in Brawl. Of course, they only show one (Hyrule Temple), but I guess they want us to be surprised. They'll have some remixed music, too. Good, good.

December predictions will be up soon!

Dojo Update: Norfair

So they decided to finally, finally put Norfair up. Still looks quite fun. Nothing more to be said about it.

Huh. That's two weeks without a character. That's never happened before.

Dojo Update: The Summit

With the original Ice Climber stage theme being transferred to Rumble Falls, they needed to make something all new...and they did. How they did.

Let's see...starts out normal enough. Of course, then the stage starts to slide down the side of the mountain. Into the ocean, where it'll happy bob along. But no, those Polar Bears decide to stand in the back and cause the bottom part of the stage to sink. And then there's the giant mutant fish from Balloon Fight.

The only question I have...what's with the eggplant and the pumpkin in the first screenshot?

Dojo Update: Donkey Kong Makes His Stand, Plus I Speculate WarioWare

I posted this video before it was put in update form, and the only thing it adds is a fairly cool remix of the second half of the Donkey Kong Country jungle theme. Let's move on, then.

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Now, they announced WarioWare months ago, and in the update they showed three of the microgames that the stage will shift to. As a fan of the WarioWare games, I wonder what other games they will use on this stage. I have a few ideas:


Dodge the potato/hot dog/shark car!


Jump rope! FASTER!


OUTTA THE WAY!


RUN!!!


The roof is falling!


Avoid Rhinoceri!


Beware of fruit!

Dojo Update: PictoChat

Now this was unexpected. I mean, who would be imaginative enough to make a stage based on hardware options? Not only that, but one where Wii channel music plays in the background? I guess that's one more reason why people like us aren't making the game.

There's a lot going on here as well. Whoever is drawing the objects can be a real jerk, drawing fire that burns and a face that blows everyone across the stage. There's also a moving trolley that goes back and forth on its half-circle track.

And the DS symbol is 21. This is odd placement on the list, so its quite possible that series that didn't look like they made sense before now (because of the alphabetic system) could fit in after it. To be honest, though, I don't even know what they would call it, so it might not be off.

Dojo Update: New Pork City

And we begin the week with an all-new stage (they really don't want to show Norfair, do they?), and one that's really big, at that. New Pork City, the main setting during the latter part of Mother 3, is designed pretty similarly to the Hyrule Temple from Melee, although there seems less walled-in. Another thing that sets it apart is the frequent appearance of the horrific Ultimate Chimera, who mows down everyone it comes in contact with.

IGN has also posted two more videos on their site, both of the same battle on the Halberd. It shows Bowser using his new move, so there's more fun to be had than just seeing a new stage in action.