A Deep Dive into Melee's Cut Stages
Through hacking the game and accessing debug mode, we can discern quite a bit about Super Smash Bros. Melee’s cut content, including its stages.
Here’s a guide with some visuals for what’s left on the disc, plus a few concepts for what the other cut stages could have looked like.
Cut Stages Left on the Disc
These stages were left on the disc and can be access in-game via debug mode through hacking.
DUMMY
While it can be accessed in-game from the debug menu, DUMMY plays no music and is a complete empty stage aside from a single platform. Its blast zones are broken, with the characters’ and cameras’ y axis values exceeding its bounds. Usually, this causes the game to crash on load, however using a Gecko code can force it to work. The platform is so small that if a character doesn’t land on it in a precise spot, they will miss it and fall infinitely. It is well below the stage’s camera placement.
The purpose of this stage is unclear, although based on its name it’s possible it could have been used as a placeholder for debug purposes.
TEST
TEST is a long, sprawling stage that plays the Corneria music.
It has a background image of Caffé Verona in Palo Alto, California, which was commonly used for OpenGL testing at the time of Melee’s development.
It has a variety of slants, slopes, moving platforms, and varying ground types. It feels like a playground. As its name suggests, this stage was almost certainly used for testing and debug purposes. Interestingly, though, there are no grabbable ledges nor can you drop through any of the platforms.
TSEAK
Originally, Sheik was going to have her own Target Test stage apart from Zelda’s, TSEAK. The remains of the stage are left on the disc. It is one gray platform, with grabbable ledges and three targets. The blast zone on the left is oddly close to the stage.
Cut Stages with References
These stages, while not having actual assets remaining on the disc, either have references from within the game’s files or externally on sites like Smabura-Ken. The provided screenshots are from fan-recreated Melee mods which serve well as concepts for what the stages could have been like.
ICETOP
Originally, ICETOP would have been a second Ice Climber stage. A duplicate of this entry, 10-2, would have loaded after 10-1 in Adventure Mode, which is of course is Icicle Mountain. Usually it crashes upon load, but through hacking it just loads Icicle Mountain without the music.
However, a fan recreation exists in the modding community. Thanks to Fruit_Sauce for this stage! In this concept, we can see several base platforms from Icicle Mountain, and a stage model similar to Brawl’s Summit, with the various vegetables making an appearance in the background and a moving cloud platform.
It’s also fair to assume something even closer to Brawl’s summit may have been intended for this stage slot in Melee, since its name was going to be Peak, Mountaintop, or Summit. In Ultimate, Summit’s file name is Ice_Top, confirming this theory.
AKANEIA
The file name AKANEIA references the continent featured in the first and third Fire Emblem games, Archanea as it’s called in the west. Originally, the stage would feature a castle, dragons, mages, and even catapults with stones. Brawl’s Castle Siege should come to mind.
Modder Anchorman has recreated a version of this stage in the Melee art style, inspired from the Smash 2 stage.
This version uses a violet blue and simpler background.
Sprout Tower
Although no references to this stage exist in the game itself as far as I’m aware, we have a direct reference to this idea from Sakurai on the Smabura-Ken official website for Melee.
This concept was created by modder puffy for Beyond Melee, which features two gold Bellsprout statues, a wood design and a shifting column. This takes inspiration from the location of the same name from Pokemon Gold and Silver.
Ultimately, it was replaced by PokeFloats due to time constraints.
Further Reading
If you like learning about cut Melee content, you’ll love this blog post: Everything We Know About Super Smash Bros. Melee’s Development.
Thanks for reading and watching!