Super Smash Bros. Strife/Beta elements

This page details all the unused elements from Super Smash Bros. Strife.

Beta elements

Items

There are hints leading to the idea that Assist Trophies were to have different palette swaps for team games, as there exist several unused textures that recolours elements of certain Assist Trophy characters. Most notably, all Assist Trophies that appear as 2D sprites in-battle (excluding Vic Viper, who is DLC) have fully completed sprites for team battles. Pauline's different palette swaps have her take the colour schemes of Daisy, Rosalina, and her modern design.

Ghosts
(Red Team)

Ghosts
(Blue Team)

Ghosts
(Green Team)

Ghosts
(Yellow Team)

Pauline
(Red Team)

Pauline
(Blue Team)

Pauline
(Green Team)

Pauline
(Yellow Team)

Lakitu & Spinies
(Red Team)

Lakitu & Spinies
(Blue Team)

Lakitu & Spinies
(Green Team)

Lakitu & Spinies
(Yellow Team)

Color TV-Game 15
(Red Team)

Color TV-Game 15
(Blue Team)

Color TV-Game 15
(Green Team)

Color TV-Game 15
(Yellow Team)

Data for two items also exist, but go unused in the game's data. The first, "balloon", simply has an incomplete model, and thus was cut early in development. The second, "kuribo", is the Goomba's Shoe power-up from the Super Mario series. It has more data than the balloon, having complete model and texture data, with the texture data also revealing that the stiletto variant from Super Mario Maker was to be added as well. It is unknown why the prior was not used, but the latter was likely replaced with the Stomper Boot.

Stages

Unfinished data for several stages from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U can be found in the game's code. It is possible that these were leftover data and ported over to aid development, but it is also possible that they were originally intended to appear. All of the following stages had data in the code. Most of the data pertaining to these stages were patched out in the 1.2.0 patch.

• The Great Cave Offensive
• Windy Hill Zone
• Pilotwings
• Palutena's Temple
• Mario Circuit

Interestingly, alongside these stages exists data for the Rainbow Road and Paper Mario stages from Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS. As they did not appear in the Wii U version of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, it is speculated that these stages were indeed cut during development; with the Paper Mario stage likely late in development due to its coding being more developed. Both stages were later made available as downloadable content, with "Rainbow Road" renamed "3DS Rainbow Road" to avoid confusion with the new Rainbow Road course.

Characters

Pre-release material indicates that several alternate costumes were changed or removed from the game. In addition, several portraits exist for unused costumes, including one costume for Mario that gives him a colour scheme similar to his sprite from Super Mario Bros..

Portrait of Mario with a palette swap that goes unused in the final game.

Masahiro Sakurai, the creator and main director of the Super Smash Bros. franchise, has a column in the weekly Japanese gaming magazine "Famitsu". Due to working on Strife, there are many instances where he speaks about development of the game and reveals several aspects that go unused in the final game.

In an interview with Kotaku, Sakurai revealed that the Final Fantasy content pack was initially to have generic White Mage and Black Mage characters, and be based on their appearances in Mario Sports Mix, as a playable character and assist character, respectively.

In another issue, Sakurai stated that it was incredibly difficult to negotiate Snake from Metal Gear Solid returning from Brawl to be a playable character. He stated that if he were unable to negotiate the rights to use Metal Gear content, he would have tried to develop a character that could inherit Snake's moveset (or a variant thereof), stating Slippy Toad from Star Fox and Lin Lee Koo from Xenoblade Chronicles X as two examples of characters that could take his place.

Lastly, it was revealed that several Assist Trophy characters - in particular, Krystal and Wonder Red - were planned to be playable, but were not due to unspecified issues in development. In the same column, he explains that Birdo, Isabelle, and Alph, were originally conceived to be Assist Trophy characters (or, in the case of Alph, alternate costumes), but were added as semi-clone characters due to additional development time.

It has been stated that Snake, Ryu, and Bayonetta were initially intended to be playable at launch, but were not able to be added due to several issues:

• Konami initially declined usage of Snake for Strife, but allowed usage of Bomberman for unknown reasons. It wasn't until long after the game's launch did they allow for him to appear in the game.
• Negotiations for Ryu and Bayonetta had not been finalized in time for the game's launch.

An untextured model of Raichu can be found in the game's data but goes unused in the final game. When asked about seeing Raichu as a downloadable playable character in Super Smash Bros. Strife, Masahiro Sakurai said that Raichu's inclusion had been discussed, as was the idea of including his Alola Form as a representative of Pokémon Sun and Moon. The team ultimately decided against it because he was afraid of adding too many characters to series already represented. He also mentioned that he would consider adding him as downloadable content should there be enough fan demand; though this would not end up happening.

The data for the Rhythm Heaven series symbol is listed among those of series with playable character representatives instead of those represented by a stage. This suggests that a Rhythm Heaven fighter was planned to appear at one point.

Goombrats were initially planned to be enemies in the game's Smash Run mode, as early gameplay footage of the mode features them, and their model, textures, and animations are all present within the game's coding. The reason for their removal is unknown.

Series symbols

A number of series symbols that go unused in the final game could be found in the game's code at launch. Following the release of the Gaur Plain stage as downloadable content, the symbols were removed from the game's code. These symbols were:

Wii Party
series_id00_party

Excite
series_id00_excitebike

HarmoKnight
series_id00_rhunter

The Wonderful 101
series_id00_wonderful

Puyo Pop
series_id01_puyopuyo

Monster Hunter
series_id02_monsterhunter

God Eater
series_id03_godeater

.hack
series_id03_hack

Tales
series_id03_talesof

Wonder Red was stated to have initially been planned to be a playable character, which explains why The Wonderful 101 has a symbol in the game's data.

The Tales symbol would later be used, as Lloyd Irving was later released as a playable character alongside a stage also representing the Tales series.

The rest of the series' symbols received either minor or no representation in the game. These symbols suggest that there were some series initially planned to have playable character or stage representation in the game.

Interestingly, the series symbols are named differently than the ones that are used in the final game; labelled as "id0X" rather than "ids0XX" as in the final game.

Music

Datamining the files of the game also determined that there were many songs cut during development. As the naming structure of the song files are vague in terms of description, the true identity of some of these songs are unknown but speculated. These songs are:

File name	Identity
SONIC_WECAN.brstm	Likely referring to the song "We Can" from Sonic Heroes, which served as the main theme for Team Sonic.
SONIC_UNKNOWNME.brstm	Likely referring to the song "Unknown from M.E." from Sonic Adventure, which served as Knuckles' main theme.
SONIC_GREENHILL.brstm	Likely referring to the Green Hill Zone theme from the original Sonic the Hedgehog. This song would later be used on the downloadable Green Hill Zone stage.
MARIO_GONBABATHEME.brstm	Likely referring to the battle theme of Hooktail from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, whose Japanese name is Gonbaba. Interestingly, it is labelled as "MARIO", unlike the other Paper Mario songs, which are labelled as "PMARIO".
MARIO_3DLAND.brstm	Refers to a song from Super Mario 3D Land. The true identity of the song is unknown, but it is speculated by some to be the title screen theme, as the main/title screen themes of other games are listed by their name in a similar manner.
MARIO_KART64.brstm	The file name refers to Mario Kart 64, though it is not clear which song from the game this was to be. It is possible that it refers to the main theme of that game, or could perhaps be a medley of a variety of different songs from the game.
DK_DONKEYKONG3.brstm	It is unknown whether "DONKEYKONG3" refers to Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble or the NES Donkey Kong 3. If the former game, then it is unknown which song is referred to; but if the latter, then it is possible it refers to that game's stage theme or perhaps a remix of sorts. As the song is listed among those that play on the Donkey Kong Jr. stage, the latter is more likely.
OT_WOODS.brstm	The code "OT" refers to games not represented by a stage or character (i.e. the "Attack (Soma Bringer)" theme is referred to as "OT_SOMABRINGER.brstm", "Photosynthesis" as "OT_PANELDEPONPLANET.brstm" and so on). As the name "WOODS" is extremely vague, it is unknown which game, or theme, this could come from. It is possible that this song could be related to Wario's Woods, but if so, it is not known why this is not detailed with a "MARIO" or "WARIO" tag.
OT_AVALANCHE.brstm	It is speculated that this refers to the main theme of the Nintendo GameCube game 1080° Avalanche. This song was likely cut as the song itself is a loop of the instrumental of Cauterize's song "Choke", and would involve licensing issues.
OT_DEADORALIVE.brstm	Could possibly refer to a song from Koei Tecmo's Dead or Alive series. As developers from Koei Tecmo aided in the development of Strife, this seems like the most plausible idea.
OT_BULLET.brstm	As the name "BULLET" is extremely vague, it is unknown what game this song could be from, nor the identity of said song. It is possible it could refer to a song from Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa series, as "dangan" is the Japanese word for bullet, and many developers of that series aided in the development of Strife.
ICARUS_GIRL.brstm	Speculated that this song would be the theme that plays while controlling the Little Girl in Kid Icarus: Uprising.
OT_OBJECTION_d.brstm	This song was added in the data of the Super Smash Bros. × Capcom DLC pack, but was removed in a later update. It is assumed that this song was a variation of Phoenix Wright's main theme "Objection!" from the Ace Attorney series.