i like that in the metanarrative the only reason societal taboos don't succeed in killing this persons inner child is because Sonic the Hedgehog shows up.
also i just finished the video and gotta say "people making me feel deep emotions about silly things through beautiful narration" is one of my favorite types of youtube videos
That's hilarious and I'm glad you pointed it out cuz I didn't notice. It also makes sense though, someone grows up with Nintendo games and ends up looking at other games they didn't play as a child, finding something they like.
Sonic had a massive presence on GameCube so the Nintendo Kid likely picked those up right after Melee. The real question is how do we explain Snake in Brawl?
@@johnathandoe6034 And a big disappointment is that the Loud House fanfic has, like, entire Wikipedia articles copy-pasted into it as padding (unless the chapter I turned to was just an incomprehensible aside about engines or whatever it was). The Smash Bros fanfic is still the longest work of literature in my heart.
If only subspace emissary didn't beat my ass as a kid, I would've been so damn hyped that he showed up like that. Instead I never really registered that he was in the game until I was forced to play the normal mide (I never liked it so I didn't bother looking at it)
I hate to be like 🤓☝️, but Sonic is probably the strongest character in this brawl roster. He was the fastest so he finished the great maze first and got to taboo. The biggest competitor is Kirby which is why sakurai made him the hero of the next smash story mode. Especially since this is 06 Sonic, this man just cooked the sun god of time and space Solaris.
To this day, I still remember how crazy it was for me as a kid to see all these different characters actually interacting and all being a part of the same story. Even if the gameplay wasn't anything special (and actually felt pretty jank a not insignificant amout of time), the story always blew my mind. No matter what though, I think Subspace Emmisary is always going to hold a special place in my heart, if not just because of how batshit insane it is. I've never realised it had such a positive message, and I think that just makes me love it even more :)
It's also weird to see that brawl would have been sakurai's last game (if that ever happened) and considering in 2008 Super Smash Bros. Brawl would be the final smash game that I would ever buy, and never bought another one or even another nintendo game since.....Because I stopped being a fan of Nintendo in 2010....So yeah, kind of poetic that even if the series may never end, I do think Super Smash Bros. 64 - Brawl will always be the original trilogy that I will always remember, while 4, 5, and eventually 6, will be just another trilogy that ends up being an epic.
Damn that ending brought a tear to my eye. I sadly lost my motivation to play Smash because I kept having to play alone. Guess Tabuu won in some way or another in my life. Lovely storytelling, nice voice, great sense of humour. Instant sub! Hope youre doing well.
before pressing on this video: haha that's a silly story mode I remember finishing a bunch of times as a kid. it's cool to see people still talking and reminiscing about it. after pressing the video: I desperately need to heal my inner child and return to the innocence I once had
part of the reason i hate sakurai’s stubborn insistence that cutscenes aren’t necessary for a crossover game is because we’ll never get anything like subspace again. the other reason is that subspace had a lot to improve upon
It's not even an insistence that they aren't necessary, he's pissed because so many people didn't even play the mode (mainly Melee lovers that despise Brawl) and just watched the cutscenes on RUclips. He wanted to tell a story that works in any language, and the main bulk of fans rejected it because they couldn't use the movement tech/exploits that had been figured out in Melee. They couldn't use their crutch wavedashing and actually had to focus their attacks on bulky enemies rather than juggling a Fighter around. It was the literal definition of a skill issue, and Sakurai decided to say fuck wasting time and money on cutscenes, we're just gonna start making DLC characters in that time to sell as post-launch content
@Whiteythereaper Sorry, but to this day, that reasoning seems like bullshit to me. You get mad because the cutsecenes in the game you made got posted on youtube? Even at the time, that was an incredibly dated view. Choosing not to create another story with cool character interactions and cutscenes just because of that is honestly ridiculous.
@@What-ish The other problem is that there too many characters now, making interactions even more tricky. For example when Steven E. de Souza was chosen to direct the Street Fighter Movie, he only wanted to focus on 7 characters. But no, Capcom wanted 15 characters in the film, which caused alot of production problems. Therefore the film got bad reviews.
It's funnny because I did play this game, as well as my second older brother, and My God, we had to play through the same levels but in Subspace, and that was annoying to play through every level you did prior, Well, now you have to play them AGAIN in order to get to the boss....And my god, I had a hatred for this guy for turning the characters into trophies, but once we defeated him, which took a while mind you.....Holy crow, I was just in shock from the moment you get to subspace all the way to the end....It felt like what I've always wanted to see in the 2000s.....A video game movie that I can watch time and time again.....Man, the ending was beautiful....But at the same time, Melee to me is just a funnier game, but Brawl was just as much fun as Melee. I mean, the loose controls may have made it harder to play but you get used to it overtime, but the level editor and the amount of modes crammed into one game was worth the price of that game. Again, Super Smash Bros. 64 - Brawl are still my top favorite Super Smash Bros. games of all time.
@@orangeslash1667 This one is a fair problem, for sure. Especially with how drastically different each of the characters are. Tbh, if the hypothetical next Smash game was like a "reboot" so to say, where they picked a new core cast, changed up and totally refreshed their movesets, and scaled back at least some of the roster size, it could be conceivable to make another Subspace like cutscene driven mode again. But who knows? WOL was still fun!
Sonic's appearance at the end is so perfect as well. Like, him being announced for the game reignites the exitement, to the point where the "taboo" gets pushed aside for a moment.
I love the subspace emissary a LOT but the whole "this is the most annoying enemy in the game" tangent was SO real I couldn't stop laughing my ass off. Literally every time I replay this game every 5 seconds I'm thinking "wow I forgot how annoying Bytans are" "wow I forgot how annoying Nagagogs are" "wow I REALLY forgot how annoying Borboras are" like the enemies in this game are RUTHLESS. Sick designs tho I'm really sad most of them haven't returned (I really really hoped against all odds the Primid would be a DLC fighter for Ultimate lol).
@@petrus9067 Coop definitely lessens the issue, they have more health but you still kill them about twice as fast anyways so that's half as much time for them to pile onto you.
When RUclips randomly recommended this to me I thought it was just gonna be a video about how wacky and weird Subspace Emissary was compared to most other Nintendo stories I really was not prepared for the final resolution about the meaning of the story. Genuinely beautiful outcome that I did not expect, extremely *extremely* good video here Also while I have the chance I wanna give some love to the writing of the interactions *in* Subspace Emissary. As said in the video, characters seem to meet out of coincidence, because it Just Makes Sense that they're in the right place at the right time. However, despite that, and how serious the actual story is, the thing I adore the most about Subspace is that it breaks up the serious moments with genuinely outlandish and silly moments. Captain Falcon saving Olimar is an incredible moment, but it's followed up by him striking a cool ass pose while *all but one* of Olimar's pikmin die around him as collateral damage. Or the absolutely badass scene with everyone fighting the Giant Fucking Gun that Ganon commands, only for that scene to be finished off with Olimar's HFSS just barely teetering along, looking like it's about to crash into the ocean. And, of course, the absolute absurdity of Sonic being literally nowhere the entire story, only to show up *right* when his superspeed is needed, and then striking a pose and wagging his finger at Tabuu. While the circumstances feel completely random, the interactions between the characters are heartwrenching when they need to be (DK/Ness sacrificing themselves for Diddy/Lucas), and also absolutely hilarious when they need to be (Fox trying to walk away but just giving up when Diddy starts dragging him away, Lucario catching Snake in his box)
sonic having super speed yet still showing up late was the entire plot for sonic prime so that makes sense tbh I dunno if it has any meaning that he managed to get a real first hit in on tabuu though
@@abirneji My personal interpretation (going off the video's ideas) is that it just Makes Sense. Sonic has super speed, the *only one* with super speed in the cast, and he's one of the other "big heroes" in the roster (akin to the level of Mario) Him showing up at the perfect time, right when he's needed, just fits his character and his importance
God, your interpretation of the meaning of SE's ending hits especially hard with the context that it was produced in Japan, where the local culture around work and adulthood more broadly make those themes especially relevant
I dunno, it feels very universal to me. I heard a lot of people dropping their hobbies when they enter high school or even before that point. And it also feels like the same happened to my classmates, where everyone was acting grown up, while I was known as the one who likes playing video games because I refuse to give into social pressures.
@@smithwillnot Funny how you mentioned it because I still played old games when I was in high school, but once emulation came around, that's what got me back into playing video games again. But I do think at that point, when it came to high school, I wanted to bring over what made those video games fun, and put it into some video game movie or competition as a way to remember just how much fun they were. Heck, at one point I even played COD Black Ops 1 Zombies when people moved on from the 7th generation, and even playing Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 (my favorite game of all time) for the past 20 years (10 years at that point in 2012).
I still remember the absolute dread I felt when all the characters were turned into trophies and the joy I felt when Dedede's medals revived Ness and Lucas. One of the most "we are so back!!!" moments of my life
I feel like kirby could also have some symbolism to him being the survivor. Kirby is one of the first games I ever owned, so to me he's like that first teddy bear you can't let go of. For Sakurai, he made Kirby and he can't bring himself to kill him in any smash narrative. Kirby is Sakurai's little boy even when his involvement in the kirby series itself loosens to uninvolvement. "You are my most favorite creation." - Sakurai
I don't care that the story doesn't make sense, seeing more and more characters come up and participate in the story for what just felt like a big coincidence was really fun! It was simple but fun! Seeing them all eventually gather up was cool, and have Sonic be the hero at the end killing the final boss was incredible, all the spotlight given to the right character!
I feel like one if the biggest issues with the subspace emissarys gameplay is that its probably designed with the sticker system in mind and expects you to use it to get buffs and stuff, but it really fails to communicate that. that said tho, I had a lot of fun with it. Overall I actually really liked the PvE stuff.
@@tboyjaydee I just remember never using them for the longest time until I asked myself what they|re even there for and suddenly the game became pretty easy. Hardest difficulty is probably impossible without a stacked sticker setup.
Fails to communicate? How?! It keeps giving you stickers, it tells you how to use them... the only way it could have been more explicit is if the game literally did it for you. I think people who hate Brawl, and Adventure mode just have the olde banana-in-the-ass-syndrome, as described by the late Wendy O. Williams.
Isn't there a menu you can access at any time between levels to freely customize all your fighters? I don't consider that as the game failing to communicate its expectation in the player and more just leaving it up to you to try it out
well, it's been a while. most I remember is that I was totally oblivious to it or simply didn't care until I went out of my way to explore it, but that could've just been my kid self being stupid.
"I think that inside every adult is the heart of a child. We just gradually convince ourselves that we have to act more like adults." -Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros
I played Subspace with my older sister. We always struggled to get along, constantly fought, you know how siblings are. It is the only game we've ever completed together, and I'll always remember it for that.
Idk man I was pretty dang good at fighting the subspace enemies as a kid, might me a skill issu-. JK I probably was bad but don't remember; what I do remember is also hating a lot of the enemies but as a kid I just felt it as resentment towards them as characters so I'd be even more motivated to kick their asses because they pissed me off lmao. So much nostalgia. Edit: After finishing the video and remembering finishing subspace emissary as a kid, it made me tear up. I never noticed the allegory but now looking back, having grown up, I realize just how much of that childhood wonder I lost. To think that Brawl basically tried to warn me and I still let that apocalypse happen inside my head without even realizing, maybe someday I can go back and fix things. This was a great video, thank you for covering such a big part of my childhood!
It's definitely not too late. Everything that was consumed in subspace was still there, in the end. It's all still part of you, you just need to find your Kirby or King Dedede or Sonic to help you turn things around and start anew!
I loved this game so much as an eleven year old that I wrote a horrible fanfiction about Luigi dying and being resurrected as a villain by Crazy Hand, and Mario was really really angsty about it.
Your description of Subspace Emissary gameplay reminded me of when I was clearing it on the highest difficulty, Intense. That is probably one of the few times I would say the gameplay of Subspace Emissary is leaning towards unfair. Even with stickers it felt like a struggle to clear, but I'm glad I was able to clear, and I'm also glad that the boss rush mode had heavily nerfed versions of the bosses. Also trophy stands only really existed on higher difficulties and it was quite fun getting all enemy and boss trophies too. Honestly I was expecting you to shit on the Great Maze really hard when you had an entire section for it, but I was quite surprised to see that you enjoyed that part.
There is something you forgot about the Tabuu fight, he uses the cutscene attack mid battle and it will likely 1-shot you if you fail to dodge it. This ties the player to the scene you saw it well, you'd never have dodged it. It is a legit attack. Sonic also shows up and has a nice message that ties with the fight, kill him before he kills you. The longer the fight goes the more chances Tabuu has to almost force a stock loss that requires good timing to survive. An attack Tabuu is perfectly safe during. The boss is trying to stall you and take you out while going for a cheap one shot, wearing you down both physically and mentally.
The best cutscene is still the introduction of Ike. The swelling of the music, his voice, it was the best intro to a guy I didn't know existed minutes prior.
I absolutely did replay the Subspace Emissary many times for the gameplay alone, even skipping cutscenes. To me, the idea that the world conveniently bends around the players abilities is a criticism I have for almost every platformer and metroidvania. The SE makes it feel like an adventure where your character sometimes does not have the perfect ability to traverse the level, and yet they have to still do it. Enemies are annoying only if you treat them as standard 1v1 smash opponents, but I think that is the wrong mindset to have. I can not relate to most of the issues present here.
Despite what many Smash Bros fans say about Brawl being the worst one in the series, I actually love this game very much. It was my first Smash Bros game, and outside of Mario Kart Wii, was one of the few games that I kept on the Wii for as long as I had it. It's such an underrated game that deserves as much love as Melee does, despite that game being a rushed mess.
You know, the enemies in Subspace Emissary were actually a highlight for me, even as a kid. While they could be annoying at times, they also had very interesting and unique designs and attack patterns, complete with trophy descriptions that further elaborated on them, which was frankly far more than I had expected after Adventure Mode in Melee. While they clashed with each other massively, they fit with Subspace Emissary's intentionally incohesive aesthetic, arguably more than Tabuu himself did. That said, I do wonder if Tabuu and his mooks *do* have some hidden symbolism beyond just his name (his angel wings, for example: Tabuu sees himself as an angel, bringing adult order to this chaotic world of imagination?). The enemies themselves are more annoying than anything else, but seem to represent different things or at least have different motifs, and I think they represent different gripes and anxieties of the adult world. The stick-figures that swarm you could be any number of things, like loads of paperwork the young adult needs to do at work, or an irritating ant infestation in his house that just won't go away. The lip enemies that "suck out your vitality" according to their trophy could represent relationship trouble, like a toxic, cheating, or abusive girlfriend that sucks the life out of you and leaves you with nothing. The spiked balls that are completely invincible and can only be avoided could also easily be an allegory for a thousand different things in the adult world. The Primids themselves, loyal minions that use whatever tools they can get to harass you with no thought for their own survival, yet are the closest to the fighters you play as, probably represent the end stage of what Tabuu, and by proxy the adult world, does to people like the former child: Drain them of all creativity and independent thought, leaving just another worker-drone to do its bidding. This makes the Primids actually the darkest part of the Subspace Emissary: They are, at least in my eyes, what the Smash fighters would become if Tabuu succeeded. Just more useless Primids, stripped of everything that makes them unique and interesting, which is appropriate given just how weak they are. The Primids, for all their loyalty and proficiency with the game's items, are incapable of putting up more than even the absolute most basic resistance even by the standards of the rest of the roster, which fits their image as empty shells only animated by Subspace Shadow Bugs. Their creativity has been killed, leaving only a hollow shell to be animated by the puppet that is Tabuu. Anywho, that's my two cents.
Subspace Emissary was fine but it really was a masterpiece compared to World of Light. WoL is a bloated unfun mess while SE didn't really over stay its welcome and actually kept my interest with its story.
i genuinely love this video, you have a genuine talent for making these video essays. your “games you can never play again” video is still my favorite video i have ever viewed in my many MANY years on youtube. this video may just be a close 2nd, this is one of the FEW channels i actually have notifs on for
Im supprized to hear advanture mode referred to as "mostly forgotten". I played the crap out of advanture mode as a kid. Subspace Emissary, however, I could only play through once. I tried to force myself to play a second time, but could only get part way through.
you're genuinely one of the most talented ppl i'm keeping track of putting out videos right now, very cozy home-y feel while delving into superb analysis & dealing with pretty novel topics for the space. keep it up !
Honestly when I started hearing people complaining about Subspace Emmissary I used to get really confused because you're exactly right I only remembered the good parts with maybe an enemy or two being annoying. And that's still a lot of good. But seeing gameplay reminded me there were a lot more than that. Still I could never hate Subspace Emissary.
Wow! I was skeptical that there could be much depth to subspace emissary, but you came through with such a powerful, poignant reading that it kinda knocked me off my feet. Very well done. Sakurai is such a unique creative mind that it really is a shame that, even though I do love them, he has had to spend so much of his life dedicated to only making smash games. Man is a storyteller when he gets the chance.
I always took Ganondorf trying to punch Tabuu as Ganon attacking him out of anger due to be used as a pawn for another all-powerful being's scheme with Master Hand getting freed just being an accident. But I quite like the interpretation that all of the "villain" characters where just filling out their intended roles in this child's stories like they usually do. So when Tabuu, a being representing societal expectations and maturity comes to erase this child's imaginative and hopeful mind, they try to protect their creator like alongside the rest of the heroes.
Nothing reflects the sincerity of Subspace Emissary more than the fact that I got genuinely passionate about how Zero-Suit Samus and Pikachu formed a bond during their time on that ship, or a little choked up when you showed the cutscene where Lucas tried to shield the Pokemon Trainer's head while falling to his own demise with them. It's all completely silly, but dammit, it did still mean something! Thank you for taking the time to talk about and give this game the weight it (weirdly) deserves to have, even just once. In conclusion: Free Sakurai.
This made me remember being a kid, promising my imaginary friends I would never forget them and that I would never leave them behind. Made all the more devastating by the fact that some of my imaginary friends were characters that appear in subspace emissary. Damn this really hit both the utterly devastating and hopeful closure catharsis right in the face sending them, and me, flying of screen at incredibly speeds in a blur of light.
It's also really important to have a motivation to play things like this as they force you to learn every character's move sets. Like Tekken 2, if you wanted to see every cutscene at the end of the arcade mode, you had to master every character. Tekken 3 comes along and you're allowed to get new characters and rewards by simply using the same character over and over. I feel much better about the cast of Ultimate because I can actually play half of them. Because of Subspace.
The description of Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii’s memory management screen is “The Brawl to end them all.” I wasn’t sure how to interpret that line when I first read it; on one hand, it could have been a simple statement of grandeur, but on the other hand it also could have meant that Brawl was intended to be the last game in the Super Smash Bros. series. The latter interpretation makes the ending of Subspace Emissary hit so much harder.
The subspace emissary was my childhood. I played it for hours for years. I remember it so fondly. For me this was my story as a child. I let my creativity go and lost myself and then at the brink of losing it all I grabbed it back. I fought for this. This game means so much to me and has shaped me as a person and this video from a creator I love has beautifully wrapped this game up in all that it is. A childhood.
Bro this is beautiful I just sent it to a bunch of friends as was like “yo ignore the context, and maybe even skip the gameplay section. I have no idea if it actually aligns with the truth or the source material. But as a piece of creative writing. This is goddam beautiful”
I’m unsure if you will read this, but this is such a good video. I’m not one for smash bros, most I’ve done is some online games here and there, but you delving into the story and metaphors of the game and how it’s encouraging both creativity, freedom, and genuineness, is very uplifting to someone like myself who’s beginning the process of starting their creative career. You deserve more views and subs for this, and I hope you get that soon.
You critize the gameplay, but have you considered its awesome actually On a more serious note, this video is genuinely great and I had an incredible time watching
Me: Aw c'mon, it was fun! Whenever I go back to subspace, I'm always looking forward to the Marth/Meta Knight/Ike gauntlet, and the boss fights, and the... Also me: Okay but those little roll-y elemental barrel things are indeed bs.
35:04 One detail I do really like, is that the Floating Island where the Bomb Factory was, never returns. It's implied that since there were basically tens of bombs there as opposed to just one exploding, whatever was inside the facility is lost forever, annihilated. It adds a slight melancholy to the whole ending, especially given all the ROBs there, and if Pikachu was there, it wouldn't surprise me if there were other captives present there that just didn't make it. Those within the Factory's explosion are the only true casualties of the story, ignoring Master Hand. Also makes the final screen of all the characters looking off into the distance where the Island used to be, that much more dramatic. They're quite literally looking at the vacuum where their greatest enemy and potentially old friends used to be.
I bought smash brawl when I was 13 bc I told my parents we'd played it at a church event (my parents were always cautious with what games I bought or played when I was young). It was my first T-rated game ever. I played the heck out of it (in fact I still have it and my wii somewhere). I played subspace emissary when I had to stay home from school after getting an infection in my eye (it was actually an allergic reaction to the dust at my school which got remedied almost immediately but we didn't know this at the time). I finished the story in 2 weeks after playing for hours every day while my mom was at work. I didn't play it like you stated, where the platforming wasn't cool. I actually really enjoyed finding unique ways to finish the levels. Tabuu took my 45 minutes to complete because I kept freaking out at how fast he moved as opposed to brawl's slower pace. I ended up beating him with my main guy, Ike. To this day, I love playing brawl as Ike because of how heavy and satisfying his sword swings were. Thanks for bringing back the memories!
great video!! loved the analysis and it was a nice look back at this game i once enjoyed so much. the story is pretty barebones as you say, but when i was playing it as a child i always found it entertaining even without knowing the characters, and i’ve only come to appreciate it more over time. it’s certainly no literary masterpiece but i think there’s charm in its simplicity, and even without dialogue you could get the gist of what was happening. i remember thinking it was so cool to see the different characters working together, being amused by peach and zelda’s tea party or diddy kong dragging fox and falco around, feeling bad for rob when it had to let the other robs sacrifice themselves, and most of all, when i finally beat tabuu with the help of a friend, that utter fulfillment i felt as the main theme started playing with lyrics on screen. that, along with all the fun i had playing brawl in general (and probably some nostalgia), will forever make it one of my absolute favorite video games.
as a kid who had basically no friends growing up and who owned a wii, brawl is and always will be my favorite smash entry. the subspace emissary was one of the first games i can remember beating to completion alongside games like mario galaxy. i also played a metric fuck ton of single player mario party 8 which doesnt really add anything to the story but idk i think if little kid me could be entertained endlessly by playing alone in mario party 8 then maybe that says something brawl was even my first introduction to lucas, the main character of mother 3, arguably one of the most important autismo fuckass games in my life.
I LOVED Melee Adventure mode, it was pretty much the only mode I played consistently in singleplayer as a kid. I loved the little cutscenes and I really enjoyed the secret additional battles you could get from completing certain hidden objectives! World of Light was ok but lacked the character of the sidescrolling levels and the genuinely fun secrets from Melee's mode. Since there were no cutscenes, it basically just ended up being Event mode renamed into an adventure mode. The ONLY saving grace was the boss battles and the awesome segment at the very end of the game where you play as a certain typically unplayable character
Remember the prerelease premise on the actual website "What happens when the rules for this world are broken"? I always knew there was a much larger Meta Narrative for Subspace & while I never got the child outgrowing the world, I knew the power of imagination was key to the world of Smash. Even the characters have their own symbolic aspects like ROB being a failed leader who in his hesitance to act on his misgivings sooner lost all of his people.
i play it for both the gameplay and cutscenes, i consider it as similar to a kirby game kinda, and i enjoy controlling these characters not normally in sidescroller environments in them
omg, I hear ECHO ost. Echo is amazing Edit: It was also covered in a video about marble blast by Patricia Taxxon. if you haven't seen that video yet I recommend it x3 just remembered about that.
So fun fact: anytime you have something in an off-hand, your unarmed strikes inherit any effects that weapon has; so if you have the adamantine mace from the Grymforge, your unarmed strikes all ignore bludgeoning resistance
honestly I don't remember any of the jank in the stages, I just remember having really good memories playing through it, but I also realised that when I talk about it I'm almost always remembering the great maze, and trying to clear it all with my brother, oh and also the cutscenes it's almost a little jarring to me when you play from the start and realise you need to go through full versions of all the stages
This, made me cry, you sir have made me cry with the way you analyzed and expressed this story and the way to told it. I love the way you laid out this video. Thank you
Very cool video, as an extension of the point I wonder if Primid is spelled that way on purpose, an adaption of the word "timid". Taboo tries to force you to be timid about the things you love, in the same way that Tabuu uses Primids as his primary weapon
23:30 - dude. I didn't even REMEMBER this cutscene until you brought it up, and instantly got goosebumps, not even hyperbole for internet points. Shit is STILL badass. That was so hype to be seeing for the first time after dozens of hours of playtime with my little brother.
Man, this one really hit home. I used to play Brawl a LOT as a kid, but it was around early adolescence when both of my older brothers were in high school or older so we weren't always playing together like we did with 64 and Melee. So I used to just make up random matches myself, coming up with an ongoing story for why these characters are in this stage, and adapting the story depending on the outcome of the fight to give it genuine stakes. Eventually I learned to mod my Wii and went even further with this, but to this day I can't even begin to count how many hours I must've put into that game, all solo. Naturally I was overjoyed when Ultimate came out and the whole adventure mode was just a playground of scenarios with lovingly designed spirit battles, so much so that I made a little text-based program for myself that manages character parties, health, and moving between locations, to give the adventure more structure and force more character variety. I can't believe I never connected all that attachment to the actual narrative theme of the series, a child smashing action figures together and inventing a story. Thanks so much for the essay, you did fantastic work on this one and really captured what made this particular game so special in a way that I've been trying to articulate for years.
I had the opposite opinion of Subspace Emissary, I loved the moment to moment game-play, but despised the Great Maze because it was just a re-hash of what you had been doing the last few hours, except now you had to keep pausing and checking the map screen every 5 mins, to make sure you didn't miss anything. As a kid, the Sonic attacking Tabuu scene was how I found out he was in the game, so it was really cool as a character introduction. We didn't know what characters were in the game until we unlocked them, and it was the kind of thing you would share at school the next day with your friends.
you underestimate my hatred of making long videos, then. i might have fascinations with niche or overly specific aspects of things you personally dont find interesting, but the immediate and baseless assertion that this is some cynical thing to pad runtime is silly when you see that almost all of my videos end up less than 30 minutes. i hate editing and a video double my average length is double the workload.
Id say i am currently in a pretty hard spot in my life needing to grow up and kinda having to give up passions i once had. I always liked subspace emissary as a kid and even later in my life replaying it again or remembering it, however I nerver knew why I liked it so much. This video has shown me why I like that dumb story so much, why so many years later it has still stuck with me. At the end of the video I was even crying, because I know understood what the story was trying to tell me all along. I dont want to give up my creativity, my drive, my passions. Thank you for the video and smash for the story.
Just hearing the name “The Great Maze” feels like how I imagine opening Pandora’s box would be. The grand title, the length of that section, the ethereal doors scattered everywhere and the entrance to the Tabuu fight make a whole experience of preparing to fulfil a divine prophecy of fighting alongside the multiverse to hold together the fabric of reality while it’s slowly tearing apart around you. It’s pretty much in line with the rule of cool factor of the rest of the game honestly.
Very valid criticism about everything, but personally, with all its wackiness and odd gameplay, Subspace Emissary remains the greatest gaming experience in my entire life. Would it be the same without the cutscenes? Of course not. But even the gameplay, its my favorite one out of all the other story modes in any other smash games. I actually felt let down when I saw that World of Light didnt give me the same emotions as Subspace did, maybe it was the lack of cutscenes or the tidiousness of fighting battle after battle with nothing fun in between to give you a break with the exception of boss fights, but the only thing I truly enjoyed was playing as master hand near the end and the fight with Galeem and Dharkon that gave me a similar feeling like subspace. I wish Nintendo would make a new story like subspace with the roster of ultimate, with platforming cutscenes and everything, I would even buy it as a separate game. All in all, Subspace will remain very fondly in my heart forever, even the great maze part.
I just moved to my own place, and totally unrelated to that, here is my patreon:
www.patreon.com/user?u=74033438
What about your OnlyFans?
@@maxmurphyxyz Dawg you need to sit down 😭
I’ve missed you man
@@maxmurphyxyz I can't beat Markiplier sadly
7:34 - 13:00 man shows the definition of "Skill isseu"
i like that in the metanarrative the only reason societal taboos don't succeed in killing this persons inner child is because Sonic the Hedgehog shows up.
also i just finished the video and gotta say "people making me feel deep emotions about silly things through beautiful narration" is one of my favorite types of youtube videos
That's hilarious and I'm glad you pointed it out cuz I didn't notice.
It also makes sense though, someone grows up with Nintendo games and ends up looking at other games they didn't play as a child, finding something they like.
We are cringe, but we are free
Sonic had a massive presence on GameCube so the Nintendo Kid likely picked those up right after Melee. The real question is how do we explain Snake in Brawl?
@@WaterKirby1994 its the memories of the play station 1 playing father during younger childhood lurking secretly in the unconsciousness.
it also had the longest written fan fiction for a while too
Longest written work period*
Only to be ever surpassed by a Loud House fanfic... Which is also the longest written piece of written work ever...
Brawl in the Family was my go-to site during High School.
The player at 40:37 is Au.C.Chris, who is in fact the author of that fan fic. Coincidence of collecting footage or a deliberately placed easter egg?
@@johnathandoe6034 And a big disappointment is that the Loud House fanfic has, like, entire Wikipedia articles copy-pasted into it as padding (unless the chapter I turned to was just an incomprehensible aside about engines or whatever it was). The Smash Bros fanfic is still the longest work of literature in my heart.
The stadium, filled with innocents, is consumed by the literal abyss.
STAGE CLEAR!
Sddjgkglgl that got me too
Sonic showing up at the very last moment to save the day really feels like something a Sonic fan would write
ok but as a kid it was hype as fuck
honestly it's cool as shit
If only subspace emissary didn't beat my ass as a kid, I would've been so damn hyped that he showed up like that. Instead I never really registered that he was in the game until I was forced to play the normal mide (I never liked it so I didn't bother looking at it)
I hate to be like 🤓☝️, but Sonic is probably the strongest character in this brawl roster. He was the fastest so he finished the great maze first and got to taboo. The biggest competitor is Kirby which is why sakurai made him the hero of the next smash story mode. Especially since this is 06 Sonic, this man just cooked the sun god of time and space Solaris.
@@cinnabuns7737 I mean, in all fairness, he needed Shadow and Silver's help... But I guess you could still contest that.
"These worlds are connected in-universe either because, A, they have to be; or B, they have to A"
Unironically a clever gag.
nothing better than a logically sound pun
came here to say the same thing, please never apologize I was simply pleased and impressed
To this day, I still remember how crazy it was for me as a kid to see all these different characters actually interacting and all being a part of the same story. Even if the gameplay wasn't anything special (and actually felt pretty jank a not insignificant amout of time), the story always blew my mind. No matter what though, I think Subspace Emmisary is always going to hold a special place in my heart, if not just because of how batshit insane it is. I've never realised it had such a positive message, and I think that just makes me love it even more :)
It's also weird to see that brawl would have been sakurai's last game (if that ever happened) and considering in 2008 Super Smash Bros. Brawl would be the final smash game that I would ever buy, and never bought another one or even another nintendo game since.....Because I stopped being a fan of Nintendo in 2010....So yeah, kind of poetic that even if the series may never end, I do think Super Smash Bros. 64 - Brawl will always be the original trilogy that I will always remember, while 4, 5, and eventually 6, will be just another trilogy that ends up being an epic.
nah the gameplay was amazing
Damn that ending brought a tear to my eye. I sadly lost my motivation to play Smash because I kept having to play alone.
Guess Tabuu won in some way or another in my life.
Lovely storytelling, nice voice, great sense of humour.
Instant sub! Hope youre doing well.
never thought I would cry over a game I haven't even played and just seen videos about, but oh well :,)
before pressing on this video: haha that's a silly story mode I remember finishing a bunch of times as a kid. it's cool to see people still talking and reminiscing about it.
after pressing the video: I desperately need to heal my inner child and return to the innocence I once had
it's waiting for you
part of the reason i hate sakurai’s stubborn insistence that cutscenes aren’t necessary for a crossover game is because we’ll never get anything like subspace again. the other reason is that subspace had a lot to improve upon
It's not even an insistence that they aren't necessary, he's pissed because so many people didn't even play the mode (mainly Melee lovers that despise Brawl) and just watched the cutscenes on RUclips. He wanted to tell a story that works in any language, and the main bulk of fans rejected it because they couldn't use the movement tech/exploits that had been figured out in Melee. They couldn't use their crutch wavedashing and actually had to focus their attacks on bulky enemies rather than juggling a Fighter around. It was the literal definition of a skill issue, and Sakurai decided to say fuck wasting time and money on cutscenes, we're just gonna start making DLC characters in that time to sell as post-launch content
@Whiteythereaper Sorry, but to this day, that reasoning seems like bullshit to me. You get mad because the cutsecenes in the game you made got posted on youtube? Even at the time, that was an incredibly dated view. Choosing not to create another story with cool character interactions and cutscenes just because of that is honestly ridiculous.
@@What-ish The other problem is that there too many characters now, making interactions even more tricky.
For example when Steven E. de Souza was chosen to direct the Street Fighter Movie, he only wanted to focus on 7 characters. But no, Capcom wanted 15 characters in the film, which caused alot of production problems. Therefore the film got bad reviews.
It's funnny because I did play this game, as well as my second older brother, and My God, we had to play through the same levels but in Subspace, and that was annoying to play through every level you did prior, Well, now you have to play them AGAIN in order to get to the boss....And my god, I had a hatred for this guy for turning the characters into trophies, but once we defeated him, which took a while mind you.....Holy crow, I was just in shock from the moment you get to subspace all the way to the end....It felt like what I've always wanted to see in the 2000s.....A video game movie that I can watch time and time again.....Man, the ending was beautiful....But at the same time, Melee to me is just a funnier game, but Brawl was just as much fun as Melee. I mean, the loose controls may have made it harder to play but you get used to it overtime, but the level editor and the amount of modes crammed into one game was worth the price of that game. Again, Super Smash Bros. 64 - Brawl are still my top favorite Super Smash Bros. games of all time.
@@orangeslash1667 This one is a fair problem, for sure. Especially with how drastically different each of the characters are. Tbh, if the hypothetical next Smash game was like a "reboot" so to say, where they picked a new core cast, changed up and totally refreshed their movesets, and scaled back at least some of the roster size, it could be conceivable to make another Subspace like cutscene driven mode again. But who knows? WOL was still fun!
Sonic's appearance at the end is so perfect as well. Like, him being announced for the game reignites the exitement, to the point where the "taboo" gets pushed aside for a moment.
I love the subspace emissary a LOT but the whole "this is the most annoying enemy in the game" tangent was SO real I couldn't stop laughing my ass off. Literally every time I replay this game every 5 seconds I'm thinking "wow I forgot how annoying Bytans are" "wow I forgot how annoying Nagagogs are" "wow I REALLY forgot how annoying Borboras are" like the enemies in this game are RUTHLESS. Sick designs tho I'm really sad most of them haven't returned (I really really hoped against all odds the Primid would be a DLC fighter for Ultimate lol).
I wonder if it's because i only played this mode in coop but i don't remember the enemies being hard or annoying
@@petrus9067 Coop definitely lessens the issue, they have more health but you still kill them about twice as fast anyways so that's half as much time for them to pile onto you.
When RUclips randomly recommended this to me I thought it was just gonna be a video about how wacky and weird Subspace Emissary was compared to most other Nintendo stories
I really was not prepared for the final resolution about the meaning of the story. Genuinely beautiful outcome that I did not expect, extremely *extremely* good video here
Also while I have the chance I wanna give some love to the writing of the interactions *in* Subspace Emissary. As said in the video, characters seem to meet out of coincidence, because it Just Makes Sense that they're in the right place at the right time. However, despite that, and how serious the actual story is, the thing I adore the most about Subspace is that it breaks up the serious moments with genuinely outlandish and silly moments. Captain Falcon saving Olimar is an incredible moment, but it's followed up by him striking a cool ass pose while *all but one* of Olimar's pikmin die around him as collateral damage. Or the absolutely badass scene with everyone fighting the Giant Fucking Gun that Ganon commands, only for that scene to be finished off with Olimar's HFSS just barely teetering along, looking like it's about to crash into the ocean. And, of course, the absolute absurdity of Sonic being literally nowhere the entire story, only to show up *right* when his superspeed is needed, and then striking a pose and wagging his finger at Tabuu. While the circumstances feel completely random, the interactions between the characters are heartwrenching when they need to be (DK/Ness sacrificing themselves for Diddy/Lucas), and also absolutely hilarious when they need to be (Fox trying to walk away but just giving up when Diddy starts dragging him away, Lucario catching Snake in his box)
I'm really happy you enjoyed! And yeah, Nintendo has always maintained a good sense of humor that is not talked about a great deal
sonic having super speed yet still showing up late was the entire plot for sonic prime so that makes sense tbh
I dunno if it has any meaning that he managed to get a real first hit in on tabuu though
And let's not forget fox peach and sheik having a tea party
@@abirneji My personal interpretation (going off the video's ideas) is that it just Makes Sense. Sonic has super speed, the *only one* with super speed in the cast, and he's one of the other "big heroes" in the roster (akin to the level of Mario)
Him showing up at the perfect time, right when he's needed, just fits his character and his importance
God, your interpretation of the meaning of SE's ending hits especially hard with the context that it was produced in Japan, where the local culture around work and adulthood more broadly make those themes especially relevant
I dunno, it feels very universal to me. I heard a lot of people dropping their hobbies when they enter high school or even before that point. And it also feels like the same happened to my classmates, where everyone was acting grown up, while I was known as the one who likes playing video games because I refuse to give into social pressures.
@@smithwillnot Funny how you mentioned it because I still played old games when I was in high school, but once emulation came around, that's what got me back into playing video games again. But I do think at that point, when it came to high school, I wanted to bring over what made those video games fun, and put it into some video game movie or competition as a way to remember just how much fun they were. Heck, at one point I even played COD Black Ops 1 Zombies when people moved on from the 7th generation, and even playing Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 (my favorite game of all time) for the past 20 years (10 years at that point in 2012).
I still remember the absolute dread I felt when all the characters were turned into trophies and the joy I felt when Dedede's medals revived Ness and Lucas. One of the most "we are so back!!!" moments of my life
so kirby has survived two cataclysms in smash bros story modes...
Kirby is Sakurai's son
goku seeded kirby, then sakurai carried him for 9 months then had to get a C section because he doesn’t have a vagina
Kirby is a god.
I feel like kirby could also have some symbolism to him being the survivor. Kirby is one of the first games I ever owned, so to me he's like that first teddy bear you can't let go of. For Sakurai, he made Kirby and he can't bring himself to kill him in any smash narrative. Kirby is Sakurai's little boy even when his involvement in the kirby series itself loosens to uninvolvement.
"You are my most favorite creation." - Sakurai
I don't care that the story doesn't make sense, seeing more and more characters come up and participate in the story for what just felt like a big coincidence was really fun! It was simple but fun!
Seeing them all eventually gather up was cool, and have Sonic be the hero at the end killing the final boss was incredible, all the spotlight given to the right character!
Brawl was peak Smash, I don't care how un-competitive is it. This campaign was such a cool gamemode
I agree man. It’s my favourite in the series by far and this story was endlessly fun and cool when I was a kid
Yeah
No other smash game made me hooked as brawl.
And most of that time was playing the subspace emissary probably.
Brawl’s SSE is my nostalgia dopamine along with lbp
@@geoffsmith363 LBP is so goated
I feel like one if the biggest issues with the subspace emissarys gameplay is that its probably designed with the sticker system in mind and expects you to use it to get buffs and stuff, but it really fails to communicate that.
that said tho, I had a lot of fun with it. Overall I actually really liked the PvE stuff.
i've had Brawl since it came out and i've literally never used stickers.... oops lol
@@tboyjaydee I just remember never using them for the longest time until I asked myself what they|re even there for and suddenly the game became pretty easy.
Hardest difficulty is probably impossible without a stacked sticker setup.
Fails to communicate? How?! It keeps giving you stickers, it tells you how to use them... the only way it could have been more explicit is if the game literally did it for you. I think people who hate Brawl, and Adventure mode just have the olde banana-in-the-ass-syndrome, as described by the late Wendy O. Williams.
Isn't there a menu you can access at any time between levels to freely customize all your fighters? I don't consider that as the game failing to communicate its expectation in the player and more just leaving it up to you to try it out
well, it's been a while. most I remember is that I was totally oblivious to it or simply didn't care until I went out of my way to explore it, but that could've just been my kid self being stupid.
"This is an apocalypse of a soul" is not a sentence I expected to hear in a video about Super Smash Brothers.
00:01 which means you only need very basic modding knowledge and a png image to add whoever you want to the in-game intro
"I think that inside every adult is the heart of a child. We just gradually convince ourselves that we have to act more like adults." -Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros
I played Subspace with my older sister. We always struggled to get along, constantly fought, you know how siblings are. It is the only game we've ever completed together, and I'll always remember it for that.
"B) They have to A" lolol
That scene with Ike, Marth, and Meta Knight is actually one of the coolest things ever and nobody can convince me otherwise
What are we? Some kind of subspace emissary?
What is this? Some kind of World of Light?
What are you? Some sort of smash brothers?
@@yoisakikanade_ Underrated Comment
you're a subspace emissary
*TABU gets beat*
Luigi: well Mario. We did it. What do we call our group?
Mario: hmmmm... I know. We're the
*cuts to title and roll credits*
Maybe the real subspace emissary was the friends we made along the way
Tabuu legit freaked me out as a kid
Idk man I was pretty dang good at fighting the subspace enemies as a kid, might me a skill issu-. JK I probably was bad but don't remember; what I do remember is also hating a lot of the enemies but as a kid I just felt it as resentment towards them as characters so I'd be even more motivated to kick their asses because they pissed me off lmao. So much nostalgia.
Edit: After finishing the video and remembering finishing subspace emissary as a kid, it made me tear up. I never noticed the allegory but now looking back, having grown up, I realize just how much of that childhood wonder I lost. To think that Brawl basically tried to warn me and I still let that apocalypse happen inside my head without even realizing, maybe someday I can go back and fix things. This was a great video, thank you for covering such a big part of my childhood!
It's definitely not too late. Everything that was consumed in subspace was still there, in the end. It's all still part of you, you just need to find your Kirby or King Dedede or Sonic to help you turn things around and start anew!
I loved this game so much as an eleven year old that I wrote a horrible fanfiction about Luigi dying and being resurrected as a villain by Crazy Hand, and Mario was really really angsty about it.
That's beautiful. I love hearing about people's horrible childhood fanfics, my wife and her friends have some too haha
Your description of Subspace Emissary gameplay reminded me of when I was clearing it on the highest difficulty, Intense. That is probably one of the few times I would say the gameplay of Subspace Emissary is leaning towards unfair. Even with stickers it felt like a struggle to clear, but I'm glad I was able to clear, and I'm also glad that the boss rush mode had heavily nerfed versions of the bosses. Also trophy stands only really existed on higher difficulties and it was quite fun getting all enemy and boss trophies too.
Honestly I was expecting you to shit on the Great Maze really hard when you had an entire section for it, but I was quite surprised to see that you enjoyed that part.
0:00 EVEN MR GAME AND WATCH??? NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
💀💀💀
Fun fact, Mr Game and Watch is actually a 3D model in the gameplay, but rendered to look 2D 😂
There are two whole ass essays here. I was not expecting that emotional journey. Well done!
There is something you forgot about the Tabuu fight, he uses the cutscene attack mid battle and it will likely 1-shot you if you fail to dodge it. This ties the player to the scene you saw it well, you'd never have dodged it. It is a legit attack.
Sonic also shows up and has a nice message that ties with the fight, kill him before he kills you. The longer the fight goes the more chances Tabuu has to almost force a stock loss that requires good timing to survive. An attack Tabuu is perfectly safe during.
The boss is trying to stall you and take you out while going for a cheap one shot, wearing you down both physically and mentally.
The best cutscene is still the introduction of Ike. The swelling of the music, his voice, it was the best intro to a guy I didn't know existed minutes prior.
I absolutely did replay the Subspace Emissary many times for the gameplay alone, even skipping cutscenes.
To me, the idea that the world conveniently bends around the players abilities is a criticism I have for almost every platformer and metroidvania. The SE makes it feel like an adventure where your character sometimes does not have the perfect ability to traverse the level, and yet they have to still do it. Enemies are annoying only if you treat them as standard 1v1 smash opponents, but I think that is the wrong mindset to have. I can not relate to most of the issues present here.
Despite what many Smash Bros fans say about Brawl being the worst one in the series, I actually love this game very much.
It was my first Smash Bros game, and outside of Mario Kart Wii, was one of the few games that I kept on the Wii for as long as I had it.
It's such an underrated game that deserves as much love as Melee does, despite that game being a rushed mess.
You know, the enemies in Subspace Emissary were actually a highlight for me, even as a kid. While they could be annoying at times, they also had very interesting and unique designs and attack patterns, complete with trophy descriptions that further elaborated on them, which was frankly far more than I had expected after Adventure Mode in Melee. While they clashed with each other massively, they fit with Subspace Emissary's intentionally incohesive aesthetic, arguably more than Tabuu himself did.
That said, I do wonder if Tabuu and his mooks *do* have some hidden symbolism beyond just his name (his angel wings, for example: Tabuu sees himself as an angel, bringing adult order to this chaotic world of imagination?). The enemies themselves are more annoying than anything else, but seem to represent different things or at least have different motifs, and I think they represent different gripes and anxieties of the adult world.
The stick-figures that swarm you could be any number of things, like loads of paperwork the young adult needs to do at work, or an irritating ant infestation in his house that just won't go away. The lip enemies that "suck out your vitality" according to their trophy could represent relationship trouble, like a toxic, cheating, or abusive girlfriend that sucks the life out of you and leaves you with nothing. The spiked balls that are completely invincible and can only be avoided could also easily be an allegory for a thousand different things in the adult world. The Primids themselves, loyal minions that use whatever tools they can get to harass you with no thought for their own survival, yet are the closest to the fighters you play as, probably represent the end stage of what Tabuu, and by proxy the adult world, does to people like the former child: Drain them of all creativity and independent thought, leaving just another worker-drone to do its bidding.
This makes the Primids actually the darkest part of the Subspace Emissary: They are, at least in my eyes, what the Smash fighters would become if Tabuu succeeded. Just more useless Primids, stripped of everything that makes them unique and interesting, which is appropriate given just how weak they are. The Primids, for all their loyalty and proficiency with the game's items, are incapable of putting up more than even the absolute most basic resistance even by the standards of the rest of the roster, which fits their image as empty shells only animated by Subspace Shadow Bugs. Their creativity has been killed, leaving only a hollow shell to be animated by the puppet that is Tabuu.
Anywho, that's my two cents.
I always imagined Tabuu was the child's parent, making them clean up their room
Subspace Emissary was fine but it really was a masterpiece compared to World of Light. WoL is a bloated unfun mess while SE didn't really over stay its welcome and actually kept my interest with its story.
i genuinely love this video, you have a genuine talent for making these video essays.
your “games you can never play again” video is still my favorite video i have ever viewed in my many MANY years on youtube.
this video may just be a close 2nd, this is one of the FEW channels i actually have notifs on for
Im supprized to hear advanture mode referred to as "mostly forgotten". I played the crap out of advanture mode as a kid. Subspace Emissary, however, I could only play through once. I tried to force myself to play a second time, but could only get part way through.
I'm surprised by that too. In fact, I'm surprised by a number of takes on this video, and I'm finding very little I agree with.
you're genuinely one of the most talented ppl i'm keeping track of putting out videos right now, very cozy home-y feel while delving into superb analysis & dealing with pretty novel topics for the space. keep it up !
thank you!
Honestly when I started hearing people complaining about Subspace Emmissary I used to get really confused because you're exactly right I only remembered the good parts with maybe an enemy or two being annoying. And that's still a lot of good. But seeing gameplay reminded me there were a lot more than that. Still I could never hate Subspace Emissary.
Wow! I was skeptical that there could be much depth to subspace emissary, but you came through with such a powerful, poignant reading that it kinda knocked me off my feet. Very well done.
Sakurai is such a unique creative mind that it really is a shame that, even though I do love them, he has had to spend so much of his life dedicated to only making smash games. Man is a storyteller when he gets the chance.
I always took Ganondorf trying to punch Tabuu as Ganon attacking him out of anger due to be used as a pawn for another all-powerful being's scheme with Master Hand getting freed just being an accident. But I quite like the interpretation that all of the "villain" characters where just filling out their intended roles in this child's stories like they usually do. So when Tabuu, a being representing societal expectations and maturity comes to erase this child's imaginative and hopeful mind, they try to protect their creator like alongside the rest of the heroes.
Nothing reflects the sincerity of Subspace Emissary more than the fact that I got genuinely passionate about how Zero-Suit Samus and Pikachu formed a bond during their time on that ship, or a little choked up when you showed the cutscene where Lucas tried to shield the Pokemon Trainer's head while falling to his own demise with them. It's all completely silly, but dammit, it did still mean something! Thank you for taking the time to talk about and give this game the weight it (weirdly) deserves to have, even just once.
In conclusion: Free Sakurai.
This made me remember being a kid, promising my imaginary friends I would never forget them and that I would never leave them behind. Made all the more devastating by the fact that some of my imaginary friends were characters that appear in subspace emissary.
Damn this really hit both the utterly devastating and hopeful closure catharsis right in the face sending them, and me, flying of screen at incredibly speeds in a blur of light.
It's also really important to have a motivation to play things like this as they force you to learn every character's move sets. Like Tekken 2, if you wanted to see every cutscene at the end of the arcade mode, you had to master every character. Tekken 3 comes along and you're allowed to get new characters and rewards by simply using the same character over and over.
I feel much better about the cast of Ultimate because I can actually play half of them. Because of Subspace.
The story is batshit insane and I adore it so much. Solid Snake is my best friend
The description of Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii’s memory management screen is “The Brawl to end them all.” I wasn’t sure how to interpret that line when I first read it; on one hand, it could have been a simple statement of grandeur, but on the other hand it also could have meant that Brawl was intended to be the last game in the Super Smash Bros. series. The latter interpretation makes the ending of Subspace Emissary hit so much harder.
This is a super well edited/crafted video. Like the music perfectly aligns with the point you’re making
The subspace emissary was my childhood. I played it for hours for years. I remember it so fondly. For me this was my story as a child. I let my creativity go and lost myself and then at the brink of losing it all I grabbed it back. I fought for this. This game means so much to me and has shaped me as a person and this video from a creator I love has beautifully wrapped this game up in all that it is. A childhood.
You can't just destroy my entire perception of the universe with that cold open and make the rest of a video without saying anything.
Bro this is beautiful
I just sent it to a bunch of friends as was like “yo ignore the context, and maybe even skip the gameplay section. I have no idea if it actually aligns with the truth or the source material.
But as a piece of creative writing. This is goddam beautiful”
And in Ultimate… we got baited by the trailer being the only cinematic of the Story mode.
I’m unsure if you will read this, but this is such a good video. I’m not one for smash bros, most I’ve done is some online games here and there, but you delving into the story and metaphors of the game and how it’s encouraging both creativity, freedom, and genuineness, is very uplifting to someone like myself who’s beginning the process of starting their creative career. You deserve more views and subs for this, and I hope you get that soon.
Thank you for Judging brawl fairly. It has a special place in my heart. My first smash and my main introduction to Nintendo.
Nostalgic looking back at this ❤
You critize the gameplay, but have you considered its awesome actually
On a more serious note, this video is genuinely great and I had an incredible time watching
Me: Aw c'mon, it was fun! Whenever I go back to subspace, I'm always looking forward to the Marth/Meta Knight/Ike gauntlet, and the boss fights, and the...
Also me: Okay but those little roll-y elemental barrel things are indeed bs.
Thank you so much!
Low IQ: subspace emissary is well written
Mid IQ: subspace emissary is poorly written
High IQ: subspace emissary is well written
35:04
One detail I do really like, is that the Floating Island where the Bomb Factory was, never returns. It's implied that since there were basically tens of bombs there as opposed to just one exploding, whatever was inside the facility is lost forever, annihilated.
It adds a slight melancholy to the whole ending, especially given all the ROBs there, and if Pikachu was there, it wouldn't surprise me if there were other captives present there that just didn't make it. Those within the Factory's explosion are the only true casualties of the story, ignoring Master Hand.
Also makes the final screen of all the characters looking off into the distance where the Island used to be, that much more dramatic. They're quite literally looking at the vacuum where their greatest enemy and potentially old friends used to be.
Maybe the real subspace emissary were the friends we made along the way
I bought smash brawl when I was 13 bc I told my parents we'd played it at a church event (my parents were always cautious with what games I bought or played when I was young). It was my first T-rated game ever. I played the heck out of it (in fact I still have it and my wii somewhere). I played subspace emissary when I had to stay home from school after getting an infection in my eye (it was actually an allergic reaction to the dust at my school which got remedied almost immediately but we didn't know this at the time). I finished the story in 2 weeks after playing for hours every day while my mom was at work. I didn't play it like you stated, where the platforming wasn't cool. I actually really enjoyed finding unique ways to finish the levels. Tabuu took my 45 minutes to complete because I kept freaking out at how fast he moved as opposed to brawl's slower pace. I ended up beating him with my main guy, Ike. To this day, I love playing brawl as Ike because of how heavy and satisfying his sword swings were. Thanks for bringing back the memories!
great video!! loved the analysis and it was a nice look back at this game i once enjoyed so much. the story is pretty barebones as you say, but when i was playing it as a child i always found it entertaining even without knowing the characters, and i’ve only come to appreciate it more over time. it’s certainly no literary masterpiece but i think there’s charm in its simplicity, and even without dialogue you could get the gist of what was happening. i remember thinking it was so cool to see the different characters working together, being amused by peach and zelda’s tea party or diddy kong dragging fox and falco around, feeling bad for rob when it had to let the other robs sacrifice themselves, and most of all, when i finally beat tabuu with the help of a friend, that utter fulfillment i felt as the main theme started playing with lyrics on screen. that, along with all the fun i had playing brawl in general (and probably some nostalgia), will forever make it one of my absolute favorite video games.
as a kid who had basically no friends growing up and who owned a wii, brawl is and always will be my favorite smash entry. the subspace emissary was one of the first games i can remember beating to completion alongside games like mario galaxy. i also played a metric fuck ton of single player mario party 8 which doesnt really add anything to the story but idk i think if little kid me could be entertained endlessly by playing alone in mario party 8 then maybe that says something
brawl was even my first introduction to lucas, the main character of mother 3, arguably one of the most important autismo fuckass games in my life.
I LOVED Melee Adventure mode, it was pretty much the only mode I played consistently in singleplayer as a kid. I loved the little cutscenes and I really enjoyed the secret additional battles you could get from completing certain hidden objectives! World of Light was ok but lacked the character of the sidescrolling levels and the genuinely fun secrets from Melee's mode. Since there were no cutscenes, it basically just ended up being Event mode renamed into an adventure mode. The ONLY saving grace was the boss battles and the awesome segment at the very end of the game where you play as a certain typically unplayable character
Beautiful video, glad someone has actually taken the time to analyse not only Subspace’s gameplay but also it’s story
"Any creation should only continue so long as they're genuine"
phenomenally well put, love the interpretation of master hand and crazy hand
Remember the prerelease premise on the actual website "What happens when the rules for this world are broken"? I always knew there was a much larger Meta Narrative for Subspace & while I never got the child outgrowing the world, I knew the power of imagination was key to the world of Smash. Even the characters have their own symbolic aspects like ROB being a failed leader who in his hesitance to act on his misgivings sooner lost all of his people.
i play it for both the gameplay and cutscenes, i consider it as similar to a kirby game kinda, and i enjoy controlling these characters not normally in sidescroller environments in them
the intro had my jaw dropped already, i cannot believe i didn't realize 😭
I will now refer to enemies as "active menaces to happiness"
THANK YOU, for unlocking so many memories and bringing me to tears in the end. simply amazing art and craftmansship ❤
Oh wow, thank you so much. I'm very happy you enjoyed!
omg, I hear ECHO ost. Echo is amazing
Edit: It was also covered in a video about marble blast by Patricia Taxxon. if you haven't seen that video yet I recommend it x3 just remembered about that.
Yeah, Judge and Patricia are pretty good friends!
The description of the final spaceship battle scene is basically what we all did with our Legos/Figures: throw everythig together and BOOOOOOOOOOOM
Mad Bonus points for using journey to describe meaning for subspace emissary. The final glyph song.
Thanks. I also snuck in a song from a gay furry horror visual novel around that area too.
Great video, made me almost cry at a game I've never played before, but dreamed of playing for years as a kid...
So fun fact: anytime you have something in an off-hand, your unarmed strikes inherit any effects that weapon has; so if you have the adamantine mace from the Grymforge, your unarmed strikes all ignore bludgeoning resistance
17:13 dude I LOVED that little credit minigame when I was a kid
Whenever I get reminded that Kirby is basically a cosmic allpowerful deity I smile a lil.
"Worlds in this game are connected because
A) They have to be
B) They have to A
That was slick bro
Still to this day, my favorite cinematics for a video game. I love Brawl more than any other game in the franchise.
brawl will always carry my childhood
honestly I don't remember any of the jank in the stages, I just remember having really good memories playing through it, but I also realised that when I talk about it I'm almost always remembering the great maze, and trying to clear it all with my brother, oh and also the cutscenes
it's almost a little jarring to me when you play from the start and realise you need to go through full versions of all the stages
"thank you for the content judge" we all say in unison
This, made me cry, you sir have made me cry with the way you analyzed and expressed this story and the way to told it. I love the way you laid out this video. Thank you
Very cool video, as an extension of the point I wonder if Primid is spelled that way on purpose, an adaption of the word "timid". Taboo tries to force you to be timid about the things you love, in the same way that Tabuu uses Primids as his primary weapon
23:30 - dude. I didn't even REMEMBER this cutscene until you brought it up, and instantly got goosebumps, not even hyperbole for internet points. Shit is STILL badass.
That was so hype to be seeing for the first time after dozens of hours of playtime with my little brother.
I liked World of Light, but it was such a letdown compared to Subspace imo.
Man, this one really hit home. I used to play Brawl a LOT as a kid, but it was around early adolescence when both of my older brothers were in high school or older so we weren't always playing together like we did with 64 and Melee. So I used to just make up random matches myself, coming up with an ongoing story for why these characters are in this stage, and adapting the story depending on the outcome of the fight to give it genuine stakes. Eventually I learned to mod my Wii and went even further with this, but to this day I can't even begin to count how many hours I must've put into that game, all solo. Naturally I was overjoyed when Ultimate came out and the whole adventure mode was just a playground of scenarios with lovingly designed spirit battles, so much so that I made a little text-based program for myself that manages character parties, health, and moving between locations, to give the adventure more structure and force more character variety. I can't believe I never connected all that attachment to the actual narrative theme of the series, a child smashing action figures together and inventing a story. Thanks so much for the essay, you did fantastic work on this one and really captured what made this particular game so special in a way that I've been trying to articulate for years.
i can't believe you didn't reference doctor manhattan. my dad seeing the final boss is what caused him to introduce me to watchmen
I had the opposite opinion of Subspace Emissary, I loved the moment to moment game-play, but despised the Great Maze because it was just a re-hash of what you had been doing the last few hours, except now you had to keep pausing and checking the map screen every 5 mins, to make sure you didn't miss anything. As a kid, the Sonic attacking Tabuu scene was how I found out he was in the game, so it was really cool as a character introduction. We didn't know what characters were in the game until we unlocked them, and it was the kind of thing you would share at school the next day with your friends.
Your occasional philosophical ramblings remind me of expounding upon the most inconsequential of points to reach essay word-count quotas.
you underestimate my hatred of making long videos, then. i might have fascinations with niche or overly specific aspects of things you personally dont find interesting, but the immediate and baseless assertion that this is some cynical thing to pad runtime is silly when you see that almost all of my videos end up less than 30 minutes. i hate editing and a video double my average length is double the workload.
Id say i am currently in a pretty hard spot in my life needing to grow up and kinda having to give up passions i once had. I always liked subspace emissary as a kid and even later in my life replaying it again or remembering it, however I nerver knew why I liked it so much. This video has shown me why I like that dumb story so much, why so many years later it has still stuck with me. At the end of the video I was even crying, because I know understood what the story was trying to tell me all along. I dont want to give up my creativity, my drive, my passions. Thank you for the video and smash for the story.
This was a beautiful analysis of the story of this franchise. Great video.
Stand by it being weirdly the greatest single player experience
24:08 - I literally giggled. You nailed the vibe, friend.
Just hearing the name “The Great Maze” feels like how I imagine opening Pandora’s box would be.
The grand title, the length of that section, the ethereal doors scattered everywhere and the entrance to the Tabuu fight make a whole experience of preparing to fulfil a divine prophecy of fighting alongside the multiverse to hold together the fabric of reality while it’s slowly tearing apart around you.
It’s pretty much in line with the rule of cool factor of the rest of the game honestly.
Very valid criticism about everything, but personally, with all its wackiness and odd gameplay, Subspace Emissary remains the greatest gaming experience in my entire life.
Would it be the same without the cutscenes? Of course not. But even the gameplay, its my favorite one out of all the other story modes in any other smash games. I actually felt let down when I saw that World of Light didnt give me the same emotions as Subspace did, maybe it was the lack of cutscenes or the tidiousness of fighting battle after battle with nothing fun in between to give you a break with the exception of boss fights, but the only thing I truly enjoyed was playing as master hand near the end and the fight with Galeem and Dharkon that gave me a similar feeling like subspace. I wish Nintendo would make a new story like subspace with the roster of ultimate, with platforming cutscenes and everything, I would even buy it as a separate game.
All in all, Subspace will remain very fondly in my heart forever, even the great maze part.