The Beauty of Hyrule Temple in Super Smash Bros.

temple or hyrule temple as many have called it over the years is one of the most enduring iconic stage entries in the Super Smash Brothers series in its introductory game it dwarfed all other playable terrain at the time making its presence impossible to overlook after four additional installments however many stages have come along which have challenged or exceeded its scope but never its reputation among casual and hardcore fans alight today we explore this temple examining its history design and why it stood the test of time every bit as well as the series which inspired it [Music] there won't be a mid-roll ad on this video because the channel has a sponsor today which considering how unstable YouTube and the world is right now I'm grateful for so this video is brought to you by summoners war based on the acclaimed tabletop game a summoners war is the classic mobile turn-based RPG with over 110 million installs around the world currently celebrating their 6th anniversary by giving 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and large it's formula was abandoned for the remainder of this series most notably it's heavy emphasis on 2d side-scrolling combat and platforming which have since been seen only in minor sequences with all this said too however while it may have ultimately been deemed unsuitable as a direction for The Legend of Zelda series to take it was a notable source to pull inspiration from when adapting the character to another side-scrolling iteration at the time of the original Super Smash Brothers released in 1999 The Legend of Zelda series had already seen quite a few installments barring some interesting licensing decisions made by Nintendo which have been purged from the series Canada these included the original Legend of Zelda Zelda 2 a Link to the Past Link's Awakening and ocarina of time many of these had since surpassed izella twos reputation most notably nintendo's flagship ocarina of time which having released to universal acclaim only a year prior on the same platform as smash 64 obviously was ripe too heavily informed the appearance and play style of link in that title his elder too did however make it into links initial smash incarnations through his up-and-down air both taken directly from the upward thrust and downward thrust these were incredibly natural candidates for the role which ended up oddly providing this strange one-off series entry with more representation than many arguably more definitive and important titles received and with super smash brothers melee is released two years later this gap would only be widened in smash 64 The Legend of Zelda received one stage hyrule castle which was fairly blatantly based off of the iteration seen in ocarina of time it didn't make a return from melee but in compensation the series received two new entries the first of these was Great Bay located in termina the setting of Majora's Mask a natural choice given that this was the newest console installment at the time the second however was strangely seemingly from Zelda 2 even more a remnant of the past by now the stage was simply named temple the Hyrule moniker actually just designated its canonical location which was consistent with other stages don't sweat it though if you refer to the stage as hyrule temple this is such an incredibly common mistake that at one point it even appears in the game's own official instruction manual regardless of which name you choose though it's still ultimately somewhat inaccurate the exploratory buildings scene in Zelda 2 which seemed to be the basis for temples appearance in Smash right down to the elevator that carried Lincoln to the depths and performed the same function for melees fighters in the stages earlier design are actually referred to as palaces in Zelda 2 not temples the reason for this discrepancy is likely a translation mix-up as these structures were known as temples in the Japanese text but Palace or temple Hyrule or no Hyrule the origins of this stage are decidedly murkier and more unexpected than most of melees relatively logical stage choices to be fair though it's not entirely alone in its strangeness for example these things were never actually designed as floats that was another Liberty taken by Western translators which raises questions about what exactly we're looking at here returning to the topic at hand though temples origins weren't the aspect of the stage that stood out to most players rather it was just how enjoyable matches on the oddball structure turned out to be it should be said beyond a shadow of a doubt that this analysis will be focused on a casual experience which I understand will likely be a bit different to returning viewers but temple has not been a tournament legal stage in any incarnation of smash we can pull from a variety of reasons for this but one example should do picture Fox shooting Ganondorf with a single laser then spending the next seven or eight minutes just running away competitive smash doesn't use sudden death to determine a winner in the case of time outs rather awarding it to the player with the best combination of high stocks and low damage this strategy would be extremely effective in a tournament environment and considering essentially no players spectators or tournament organizers would be happy to sit through at match after match it should be fairly obvious why temple doesn't show up on legal stage lists however while temple might not be suited for a competitive play it makes an excellent host for casual matches its layout while large has been constructed in a way that focuses the flow of each match with characters congregating in one of three broad sections each featuring their own largely self-contained play styles and dramatic elements the upper left section subdivides into a relatively safe central area with respite on a large platform allowing for a reasonably balanced and straightforward fight to the left however we have a single small plot of land made dangerously claustrophobic by a gentle bump which forces restrictive ground combat while still allowing easy entries and exits and an even more restricted platform above it all hemmed in by an extremely close blast zone promising certain death with one wrong move a useful item spotting here is a tempting prize but the risk of racing an opponent for it can be significant the upper right section is a much more vertical area ordered with a tall pillar and utilizing stacked platforms to let players clamber above the fray which is otherwise impeded by only very simple obstacles these platforms work brilliantly as a resting position and vantage point especially for newer players and some of my earliest smash memories include climbing to the top and dive bombing my opponents with Kirby's stone or links down err over and over endlessly fun and surprisingly effective in a room full of beginners similar to its upper counterpart the right side of the level is hemmed in with another eerily close blast zone although it feels somewhat less intimidating due to the ability to escape up these platforms which will generally result in vertically oriented attacks which are easier to anticipate and defend against despite the similarly close ceiling blast zone inevitably though matches will end up concentrated in what's been widely dubbed the Hyrule Fight Club the primary platform features numerous entrance points from both other sections while the generous ceiling and wall placement allow stocks to be sustained until extremely high percents even more so with good reflexes allowing you to tech off of these surfaces that's not to say the protection offered is overly generous though horizontal launches to the left are still fair game although in the case of non-lethal hits characters are offered multiple recovery points as well as an easy return to the center of the action if the higher ground is chosen which made my younger self feel like a criminal mastermind every time the multiple slopes also mean that while the upper part of this fork is reasonably survivable and likewise offers a straight forward path back into the thick of things being thrown through the lower fork pushes you towards this tiny dangerous island the stroke of genius which completes the stage it didn't need to be here temple still has plenty of terrain to fight on and the main divisions are kept intact in fact if this doctored screenshot was your first look at the stage you'd be unlikely to think anything was missing with that in mind though the lower sections survivability and abundant entry points will naturally funnel players towards it periodically and during these phases battles are largely fought with this layout under these circumstances the foot traffic options available to players are fairly limited but when we introduce a small dangerous platform alongside the otherwise basic terrain the ability to create tension and drama in this section goes up considerably in fact if I was only allowed to have one criticism of temples design it would be that this island isn't just a bit more utilized as a last-ditch recovery option it's fantastic throwing you a lifeline but requiring a hazardous leap back to safer ground and yes I am aware some characters technically have another option which we will return to you but for your average fun match this kind of hike will be discouraging for many players with that said temple could make this section naturally see more action by better routing physics based items on to it with a slight increase in the slants angles as well as maybe adding a tiny lip to the right side of the island it would increase the number of in this is where an item tumbles down and actually remains there adding extra risky foot traffic to the area admittedly though this is a fairly minor sticking point that doesn't significantly detract from the developer's overall approach to the stage temple has been meticulously designed to feel smaller than its actual scope with barriers that obviously divide the stage while still being simple to traverse if the center of the fight moves elsewhere travel between the upper left and lower sections is quite simple and while travel between the upper right and lower sections is slightly more tedious and would likely benefit from a mild shortening of this wall to allow all characters to single jump over it it should also tend to be the least commonly needed while a simple tap in the Fight Club will be enough to grant players access to the upper left the angle and power needed for the right side equivalent is much more specific and returning players can quickly travel directly from the spawn platform to whichever part of the stage they choose thanks to good placement of that platform and of the stages pathways meaning they're able to rejoin the fight themselves rather than spending excessive time drying the combat cluster towards them a genuinely excellent understanding of game flow was demonstrated with this stage and you can bet that Nintendo knew it so much so that the official instruction manual for the game mentions creating custom rules specifically to take advantage of temples large well-designed pathways a famous use of the stages space is the Hyrule jump or its more demanding counterpart to the reverse Hyrule jump both of which utilized this area the Hyrule jump is relatively straightforward and simply requires a character to move directly from this corner to the bottom island which most of the roster has been able to do throughout the smash series the reverse Hyrule jump is exactly what you'd expect traversing up to the right corner and this is decidedly less common for characters to be able to do with the techniques required to do so ranging wildly by character from extremely simple to very tight extremely consistent to entirely luck based these jumps are another point in favor of the island as a stroke of genius its absence would mean that this entire area a not insignificant portion of temple space allotment would no longer be a navigation option for a colossal portion of the roster but because it was included in the layout this concept is well known and celebrated among smash enthusiasts in a way that's only increased with time with the release of each new smash game accompanied by heavily popular videos featuring an updated roster attempting to complete challenge speaking of years passing temple hasn't seen or for that matter needed radical changes since its debut although it has received a number of minor revisions transitioning from melee to brawl the stage model remained of the same although with the introduction of Castle siege and no longer needed to serve as a stand-in stage for the Fire Emblem characters who didn't receive one in their debut appearance it also had this ledge grab node removed likely to reduce ambiguity about which side a recovering player would snap - since brawl introduced both grabbing the ledge partway through a special move and the ability to grab one even with your back turned this was the only notable direct change but several fighters in this game debuted with the new gliding mechanic which allowed the stage to be traversed in absurd ways that would never be seen again this being because the mechanic was swiftly kicked back out the door for all future titles due to what turned out to be extreme power which temple does a great job of demonstrating the fourth installment of smash was released on 2 platforms with varying stage lists and while temple didn't make it into the 3ds edition it did appear on the Wii U with a fresh visual update including a change to the text seen across the stage the Hylian language used throughout the Legend of Zelda has had numerous alphabets appropriate for a series centered around reincarnation across vast stretches of branching history and many of the later ones have been translatable into real-world texts in melee and therefore brawl which leaned on the same assets this text was made to resemble proper Hylian writing as seen in ocarina of time but was as far as anyone can tell really just gibberish that looked visually pretty close smash 4 changed this to directly match the alphabet seen in the Wind Waker meaning it could be translated back into Japanese and therefore English it says Smash Brothers cubed every stage in this game also received an alternate Omega form meant to approximate the layout of final destination temples version was quite straight forward not receiving walls or other major deviations that a few of these stages got although I always liked having two of the main sections separated and floating in the background it feels a bit mysterious and mystical fitting for the home series this was also the game that marked the first hints of survivability in the Fight Club beginning to deteriorate due to UNTAC Abul scenarios being added the most well-known of these was the notorious UNTAC able spin where most attacks had a 30% chance to put you into this unique animation if you'd taken a hundred or more damage and while you were stuck in this animation you simply couldn't tech on the ground in the competitive scene this had significant implications although because wall and ceiling Tech's were unaffected Fight Club largely continued as normal albeit with a few more slant related mishaps there were some additional scenarios which made teching impossible or significantly harder you can find a comprehensive overview of these here but temple was still business as usual more often than not moving into ultimate this would change visually the stage received another extensive upgrade which better sold its regal decadent origins along with increased background detail in its standardized Omega and the battlefield forms a nice touch mechanically though a new introduction significantly altered the way Fight Club matches would play out from this point forward knock-back dependent on TECA belligerents but simply if an attack launches you hard enough you'll have a surface with this red impact instead of the typical green one and if this happens you simply can't tech end of story this was overall a good change in many players eyes the forced some level of finality into most battles but for temple enthusiasts as well as players of other modes that relied on teching such as the duelist minigame it marked the end of an era to some degree as the theoretically infinite survivability of the past had been definitively snuffed out what's remained in full force though his temples legacy throughout the world an impressive accomplishment considering that while it certainly debuted as the only mega stage in the series it didn't remain that way however while temple featured a beautiful game flow that was easy to understand for beginners but complex enough to optimize as experience with the series grew future competitors discarded this design philosophy almost entirely in favor of patchwork platform clusters and elaborate themed structures which are frankly a chore to navigate more often than not even without the additional hazards frequently built into a stage this has been particularly true from Smash 4 onwards which was the first game to allow eight players in a single battle and therefore needed several extremely large layouts to fully take advantage of the feature well this is justifiable it makes the stages feel very bare and when playing with a smaller crowd and two marches back into the action after a heavy launch can become a slog these stages also became increasingly hostile to navigate directly at odds with their inclination towards use within a party amaz which will frequently include inexperienced players where temple featured plenty of forgiving terrain to help them learn the basics of movement on the fly and intuitive passing towards an area which preserved the duration of their stocks future mega stages would ask for a considerably higher skill threshold before proper traversal could be achieved and would punish players far more harshly for failing to reach this threshold Super Smash Brothers was created right from the start as a fighting game anybody could get into and despite its scale temple embodies that spirit wholeheartedly while the terrain may be intuitive and friendly for beginners it's inviting layout also encourages veterans to explore how far the stage elements can really be pushed it's infamous lower level extends newcomers play times but doesn't lose appeal as your experience with the game grows it allows players to choose safety or high-risk high-reward under any item and rule configuration all while encouraging play sessions with a large group it's instantly recognizable parsable layout has elevated it to true icon status in the world of video game design and how many millions of battles have been hosted on its familiar ground throughout the previous two decades I couldn't even begin to tell you but as our time here indicates I am happy to talk just a bit about the beauty of hyrule temple thanks for watching everyone and hey if you liked it why not leave a like there aren't necessarily a ton of stages in the smash series that would support a video like this but I'm quite happy with this one so if you have any good suggestions feel free to let me know and of course be sure to subscribe and hit that notification bell follow me on twitter at mr. mach rock to see what I'm up to and check me out on patreon for exclusive content early video access discord and other cool rewards later people [Music] or overwhelmingly Recovery's heavyweights essentially all have recovery special moves which are either short ranged extremely linear or both which moves us towards the next aspect I'm going to limit the content of this video to memes which are relevant to ultimate because as absolutely fantastic is and [Music]

Channel: MockRock

Views: 235,192

Keywords: Smash Ultimate, Review, alpharad, Nintendo, little z, super smash bros ultimate, smash bros ultimate, tier list, nintendo direct, arlo, esam, hungrybox, fall guys, age of calamity, among us, ssbu, kirby fighters 2, alpharad deluxe, Nintendo Switch, PS5, IGN, Super Mario 3D All Stars, Gameplay, Speedrun, Lets Play, Fire Emblem Heroes, Pokemon, Pokemon Sword and Shield, 2020, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Meme, Memes, T1, kirby, minecraft, minecraft steve, minecraft smash, minecraft steve smash

Id: _9zp8zuefiM

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 30 2020