While there is plenty of existing debate regarding Melee’s best stages over 20+ years of competitive history, the story is a bit different for those just playing for fun.
The best-selling game for the Nintendo GameCube with unparalleled longevity, I’m far from alone in having spent countless hours of my life playing Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Initially released in North America in December 2001 just a few weeks after the launch of the GameCube, Melee was an immediate hit for the console that persisted as the best-selling game for the system and the ninth best-selling game of the sixth generation.
Shortly after the release of the game, an expansive grassroots competitive scene surrounding the title developed, blossoming from a household tournament in San Jose to a global scene consisting of tens of thousands of players that has persisted for nearly a quarter-century.
I got my first experience with Melee in January 2004, just over a week after I had received a GameCube for Christmas. After struggling to get started in Luigi’s Mansion and Super Mario Sunshine, the two games I had been gifted along with the console, I had convinced my dad to take me to Walmart to pick up Melee.
I was aware of the game due to already having the title’s predecessor, the original Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64, which was released in 1999. I was instantly sucked into the seemingly endless amount of game modes and unlockables Melee involved, spending hours on the game with my childhood best friend while completely unaware of the game’s competitive scene.
Despite being a game I loved that I spent more time playing than the vast majority of the other games I owned as a kid, it wasn’t until I arrived in Columbia, Missouri as a college freshman in August 2014 that I learned about the game’s decorated and in-depth competitive scene.
While I’ve dipped my toes into the waters of competitive Melee on a few different occasions, the insane variation of skill level and the amount of time thousands of players have put into the game made that a futile pursuit – which is alright, considering that I love other games too much to spend hours a day playing just one.
For those that do commit to only playing Melee, a significant component of the competitive scene are the stage rules, which only permit six of the game’s 29 stages in tournament play.
Although this seems rather restrictive, it’s simply a consequence of a competitive scene being born out of a game that was explicitly designed to be played casually with friends and family. Many of the game’s stages feature hazards or quirky inclusions that could break up the fairness or pace of competitive play, leading to them being ignored.
While I’m not trying to play competitively when playing casually with my wife, we do generally play by the competitive ruleset, as we both believe that’s simply the best way to enjoy the game. Items are always turned off, with a four-stock and eight-minute limit for each battle.
Though we don’t stringently adhere to the six stages played competitively, we do predominantly stick to them as they offer the fewest interruptions for smooth, fun gameplay. Yet the differences in what’s valued as part of the stage wildly vary when playing casually or competitively.
In a departure from an extensive debate you can find legions of Smash dorks argue about on the internet, here’s a look at how I’d rank the six stages for a casual player, ignoring the hyper-specific details that would rightfully go well over the casual player’s head:
6. Final Destination
Although it seems to be a radically neutral stage with no advantages or disadvantages given throughout, Final Destination is great in some competitive contexts, but can grow quickly boring for casual players.
A single flat stage with no platforms or design quirks, the stage allows for a setting of pure combat while still allowing more subtle advantages for some characters.
The stage’s lack of platforms provide a distinct disadvantage to players who prefer to use slower characters, who are often directly in the line of their opponent’s attacks as opposed to being able to utilize platforms to assist in evasion.
The absence of any other surfaces outside of the main stage also favors characters with a more expansive recovery, leaving Final Destination be rather hit-or-miss for casual players – especially when more than two are playing at a time.
5. Battlefield
The other extremely bare-bones stage in Melee, Battlefield holds plenty of similarities to Final Destination, namely with its similar soundtrack and color scheme accompanied by a liminal, futuristic setting.
Battlefield offers a smaller main stage surface but also includes three platforms in a triangle shape, a standard feature in many competitive Smash stages starting with Melee.
Though no one would mistake Battlefield for the most exciting game in the stage, it highlights combat in a no-frills environment, with most of the game’s characters on a relatively even playing field for casual play.
The relatively small size of the stage does leave space at a premium, making Battlefield a bit better of a choice for two-player battles.
4. Yoshi’s Island: Yoshi’s Story
A compact stage that feels like an even smaller version of Battlefield in some ways, Yoshi’s Story adds a distinct theme and soundtrack to a competitive stage, bringing a more light-hearted atmosphere for casual players.
Sticking to the theme from the Yoshi’s Story game of cardboard cut-outs, the main surface of the stage is slight curved at the ends, with three platforms and a moving cloud platform that can assist players in recovery on both sides of the stage.
The stage’s small size is most apparent with its abnormally low ceiling, allowing for relative ease of vertical KO’s which could benefit certain characters such as Fox, who have potent up-aerial moves.
Regardless, the stage remains a hallmark of the Melee competitive scene while remaining an aesthetically pleasing level to play in casually.
3. Past Stages: Dream Land
After serving as the lone accepted competitive stage for the original Super Smash Bros., Dream Land reprises its role in Melee as one of the game’s six competitive stages, with plenty of quirks and features to dive into.
In addition to its instantly recognizable theme music and atmosphere inspired by the Kirby series, Dream Land has a few other characteristics that make it stand out among its competitive counterparts.
Along with having a larger main stage size and three platforms that are a bit higher up than usual, Dream Land boasts an impressive size, with both horizontal and vertical KO’s relatively hard to achieve.
Even from a casual player’s perspective, this offers a pretty clear advantage to floatier characters with long recoveries, with the stage famously known as one that favors Peach and Jigglypuff on the competitive scene.
The wind blown from the trees in the background of the stage also provides a minor hazard that players must contend with, doing enough to make things interesting without actually throwing off any competitive balance.
2. Dream Land: Fountain of Dreams
Long standing out as my personal favorite stage of the game, Fountain of Dreams appears to have it all in many ways – a distinct nighttime environment with an epic symphonic rendition of the Kirby’s Dream Land instantly greets players upon arrival in the stage.
Featuring a relatively small main stage surface, Fountain of Dreams also includes three platforms forming a triangle, with the side platforms varying in height throughout the match which helps create different opportunities to land major hits.
While the stage itself is quite small, with a size closer to Yoshi’s Story than to Dream Land, the relatively large distance needed for both horizontal and vertical KOs helps make up for the limited space in the stage itself.
With that said, Fountain of Dreams is probably best for two-player duels, as the stage is not used in competitive doubles play due to lag issues that are known to arise with four characters on the screen.
1. Kanto: Pokémon Stadium
Long seen as one of the best stages both competitively and casually, players get the best of all worlds with Pokémon Stadium, a stage that has continued to appear in Smash games since Melee‘s 2001 release.
Featuring a large primary stage surface and two platforms on opposite sides of the stage, the level also features multiple stage transitions – offering the most significant variance competitive players will encounter across any of the game’s six competitive stages.
The stage, staying true to the Pokémon theme, transitions to Fire, Water, Rock and Grass versions of the level at random, offering a fun twist to what is otherwise a relatively ordinary stage.
While the transitions don’t affect the competitive balance of the game too much, the Rock version can allow for combos to be built up using the mountain formation on the left side of the stage, while also presenting a potent KO opportunity for characters with a spike down-aerial such as Falco and Captain Falcon.
Although many competitive tournaments today simply use a modded no-transition version of Pokémon Stadium, the stage in its true form is fighting game glory at its finest – unpredictability, intensity and straight-up fun.
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