After previously taking a look at how the tournament-legal stages stack up for casual players, here’s a look at how I’d rank every stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Since the calendar flipped over to 2026, I’ve admittedly been fixated on two things – rhythm games that I hadn’t played regularly in around 15 years, and the Super Smash Bros. series.
Though it’s been a lifelong favorite of mine ever since getting the original Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64 not long after my fifth birthday in 2001, the interest has remained persistent well into my collecting days.
On top of having all six games in the series, the vibrancy of the grassroots competitive scene, especially for Melee, has helped maintain my interest in the games – and that isn’t even to mention how flat-out fun it is to play with my wife, as it represents a video game series where we are pretty close to one another in overall skill and ability.
Although we love rotating between the five Super Smash Bros. games available on consoles, Melee has always stood out as our favorite, particularly for myself, as it was among the games that I spent the most time on as a young GameCube-obsessed kid.
Melee also served as a significant point of growth for the series, as the playable character roster more than doubled from 12 to 26, while players went from having just nine stages to choose from to 29, with more stages being viable for competitive play than the one stage that fit the bill in the original game.
While my wife and I typically stick to the six tournament-legal stages when playing Melee, we also know that we won’t be competing in GENESIS anytime soon, so there’s plenty of mixing it up by including a few of the non-tournament stages when we play each other.
Even taking into account the casual nature of how we play the game, we still always play under a tournament ruleset, which I certainly take into account when ranking these stages. Our matches are always four-stock battles with an eight-minute time limit and all items turned off – with most casual, party play having more informal parameters and items oftentimes included.
With that said, I took significant stage hazards heavily into account when making this list, as they provide the battle with an element of unpredictability that the inclusion of items brings to every battle, regardless of stage.
Here’s a look at how I’d stack the stages up against each other:
29. Infinite Glacier: Icicle Mountain
The stage’s lone game from the Ice Climber universe, Icicle Mountain stands out as the biggest pain in the ass of a stage in the game. The stage moves vertically throughout battles at differing paces, making it feel much more like a standard video game level than it does a battle stage.
In addition to having to navigate a wide variety of platforms just to survive, you’re likely not in for much battling once you do reach your opponent, with narrow horizontal blast lines making sideways KOs particularly easy.
In a game like Melee, I’m just trying to fight my opponent. This stage makes that way harder than it needs to be.
28. F-Zero Grand Prix: Big Blue
While the sunny, oceanic backdrop and up-tempo F-Zero music make this much more of an energetic stage than Icicle Mountain, it’s still just as hard to get any sort of a battle going on Big Blue.
There’s very little real estate to get a battle going on the stage, with the moving vehicles acting as platforms above a pavement that almost guarantees an immediate KO.
On top of being cramped for space, the moving platforms and small nature of the stage make it easier for players to avoid fighting or stall, with close blast lines both vertically and horizontally making KOs rather easy to come by on this stage.
27. Kanto Skies: Poke Floats
Arguably the game’s most unique stage, this puts players in the middle of the skies on top of large Pokemon that serve as platforms, with players having to navigate several different moving Pokemon all while trying to fight your opponent.
The changing shapes and positioning of players throughout the stage’s progression make for both a high self-destruct risk and altering blast zones both vertically and horizontally, making some parts of the stage a better bet to attack your opponent than others.
Like other stages towards the bottom of this list, there’s simply a higher emphasis on navigating the stage and trying to avoid self-destructing than there is on battling, making this an easy stage to skip when playing.
26. Lylat System: Venom
One of two Star Fox-themed stages, Venom features a moving spaceship that faces the screen from a head-on perspective, allowing for the ship’s four wings to serve as the stage’s platforms with very little real estate elsewhere.
The spaceship moves through a variety of environments throughout the course of the battle which provides a nice aesthetic twist, but battling itself is quite tough to get into a rhythm of on this stage. With already limited space, larger characters take up an insanely large portion of each platform, while the platforms’ small size and fin in the center of the stage giving very little space for neutral battle.
Additionally, the stage’s narrow blast lines in both directions make for easy KOs on a stage where self-destructing is a bit more likely to happen on than others.
25. Superflat World: Flat Zone
The smallest stage in the game and the only one themed after the Game & Watch universe, Flat Zone puts players literally inside of a Game & Watch console, making for one of the more unique stages in the entire series.
While I’ve always loved the novel concept of the stage and even find it fun to play on every now and then, it’s certainly not conducive to any sort of meaningful gameplay.
In addition to the laughably tight blast zones that make KOs as easy as they will ever get, a series of falling tools onto the stage provide a significant hazard, which can easily lead to immediate self-destructs on a stage that already has next to no room.
24. Mushroom Kingdom II
Themed after the first level in Super Mario Bros. 2, this stage’s theming is truly top-notch, putting players in the middle of the level with three main platforms. The feeling of SMB2 becomes readily apparent with the rotating log in the middle of the center platform, integrating a key feature of the game the level is based off of.
While the theming and aesthetics are excellent, this stage is not ideal for multiplayer play, with the extremely close horizontal blast zones serving as the most significant barrier to a fair fight.
Additionally, Birdo can appear and shoot eggs randomly, which provides an intermittent hazard that’s impossible for players to plan around or base their timing on.
23. Planet Zebes: Brinstar Depths
One of the two stages originating from the Metroid universe, Brinstar Depths is a stage in the middle of inferno, with Kraid, a recurring boss from the series, rotating the stage throughout the battle.
While the theming and atmosphere of the stage are among the most immersive in all of the game, the stage’s rotating makes players focus on something other than fighting for a good chunk of the battle – and the stage’s shape doesn’t exactly lead to a ton of legitimate combat when players have the chance either.
The stage features numerous problems that impede its ability to host a fair fight, most notably an incredibly low vertical blast line that allows for easy upward KOs and a lack of grabbable edges that makes falling off the stage a death sentence for many characters.
22. Eagleland: Fourside
One of the two EarthBound-themed stages in the game, Fourside offers incredibly strong and immersive theming, almost feeling like a more detailed, nighttime version of Saffron City from the original Super Smash Bros.
While it’s quite cool to fight on top of skyscrapers in a nighttime setting, there isn’t a whole lot of room to do so – with unevenly shaped platforms at varying heights making the stage favor characters with higher jumps and better aerial mobility.
The height of the stage’s UFO, its largest overall platform, is also quite close to the vertical blast line, making upward KOs much more attainable on Fourside than on many other stages that provide a bit more of an even playing field.
21. Termina: Great Bay
Themed after The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, released just one year before Melee, Great Bay provides an atmosphere many Nintendo fans were already familiar with on an albeit small stage.
While Great Bay doesn’t have the blatant moving hazards many other stages do, its small size and sudden death pit in the water make for an abnormally high self-destruct risk.
The stage’s orientation of platforms also allows characters with projectiles to camp and avoid direct combat, while also making it easier for certain characters to stall and stay on the opposite end of the stage from their opponent.
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