Preamble

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was around 15 years old and really obsessed with the game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it was the first Nintendo Switch game I ever owned and I have all the DLC (sans Pirhana Plant and Mii Costumes) and the majority of Spirits unlocked. What you are about to see are some of my first serious attempts at storytelling and worldbuilding.

The Old Stuff

Unnamed Super Smash Bros. TCG project (Early 2021)

I don't know how to play trading card games (I still don't), so I tried making my own for some reason. The thing was just a totally aimless mess. I ended up scrapping the whole thing and recycled what was salvageable into what would become Super Smash Bros. Kingdoms.

• "Important Notes" - Dated January 15th 2021, 10:20 AM
• "Terms & Jargon" - No date in the document itself but the file says it was created in March 2021

Super Smash Bros. Kingdoms (Early 2021~Early 2022)

Kingdoms was a worldbuilding project and SSBU: World of Light sequel(?) set in the "Smash Realm", a expansive world set at the center of the "Video Game Multiverse" that was divided into four major kingdoms; Isla Roja (Red), Alterberg (Green), Lyonesse (Blue) and Kaminari (Yellow). These names were later dropped though. In-universe, Midair, the capital of Lyonesse, was where the quadrennial Smash Tourney took place.

There's at least multiple different versions of the Kingdoms story. Including but not limited to:

"Revision 1" (Early 2021)

The earliest and by far the weirdest version of SSBK, mostly due to the amount of stupid shit I added and planned on adding before I came to my senses. It had many elements of the scrapped Smash TCG Project.

The main character is Maria Keene, Kevin Keene's teenage daughter, who has been sent to the Smash Realm to save it from Tabuu and his army, because everyone there have been turned into magical trading cards. She must collect these cards, which contain the souls of video game characters, and use in a mysterious card-scanning PDA-thing called an "e-Device" (Which is based on a real peripheral for the GBA called e-Reader). "Revision 1" was called "Super Smash Bros. The Art of War" very very early on, because Final Smashes in this revision were called "Arts" and, I guess Maria was fighting a "War" against Tabuu-- Wait, why the fuck was a 14-year old girl sent to fight a war against a god of death and his shadow monster army????

"Revision 2" (Also early 2021)

"Revision 2" is probaly the most normal revision of SBBK. It introduced a lot of concepts that stuck around in later revisions, like the whole thing taking place over four continents and being largly based off of World of Light and Subspace Emissary.

A lot of the trading card stuff was removed and the main characters were changed to be Captain Falcon, Kirby and Min Min. The story would've revolved around those three as they did cool Smash Bros shit and fought whatever horrible bad guys threatened their very existence. Sadly, the details of the trio's misadventures are forever lost in the thick, hazy fog of my forboding mind palace, because I was too focused on worldbuilding to write down any meaningful lore.

"Revision 3" (Early 2022)

One version from I think '22 or '23 where Spring Man is the main character and nearly dies in the first and only chapter.

Super Smash Bros. Kingdoms: Invasion/"Ranshin Arc" (2021)

Super Smash Bros. Kingdoms: Invasion (Also refered to as the "Ranshin Arc") was created as sort of sequel to World of Light mode from SSBU as well as prequel to SSBK, until I decided it wasn't canon anymore and made it into an AU. An evil clone(?) of a certain ARMS Fighter, Ranshinmin has unleashed a hoard of soul-eating monsters called Ranshin onto the once peaceful Smash Realm. Everyone is violently extinguished except for a few characters, who must now travel across the desolate, infested land to stop the Ranshin invasion at the source.

Frank West from Dead Rising and Viewtiful Joe were involved for some reason.

Super Smash Bros. Kingdoms: Soulsong (Tentative Title) (2021)

Would've taken 10 months after the events of Invasion (before that was made non-canon) and during the main events of Kingdoms. The story goes that "After a boating expedition leads to the discovery of three new uninhabited landmasses; our heroes discover a trio of strange artifacts."

That is literally all I wrote for whatever Soulsong was meant to be.

The New Stuff

Super Smash Bros. Starcross/All-Stars (Late 2023)

A bizarre sequel(?) to the 1989 cartoon "Captain N: The Game Master" featuring Kevin Keene's teenage daughter and 3 other randomly picked teenagers as they... uh... Honestly, I don't know what I was planning to do with this concept or why I came up with it in the first place.

Here's a Fun Fact: This was not the first project featuring Maria K. Keene. A younger version of her was the main protaganist of the early version of SSBK from earlier. A bunch of important characters from the original cartoon, including Captain N himself, would've also shown up.

Super Smash Bros. BREAK (Late 2023~Early 2024)

My latest SSB fanwork thingy. I wanted to make a Super Smash Bros. RPG with Persona-inspired gameplay. So after fantasizing about making this cool game, I downloaded and booted up Godot, didn't know what to do, then canned the whole project.

The hypothetical game would've featured Tabuu, who has come back from the dead as "Khaos" after using Galeem and Darkhon's dead corpses to revive himself. Using his newfound powers, he transforms the the world into the “Kingdom of Sublimity”, reducing everyone to unwilling servants called "Crystalums".

Thanks to Crazy and Master Hand sacrificing themselves, a few select video game characters stay alive at the cost of losing their memories and now must journey across the brave new world in order to free everyone and stop Khaos.

The "BREAK" in the title comes from a new ability the characters would've had, "Smash BREAK", which I described as a "long Final Smash" that occurs when one takes in more "Smash Energy" than usual.

This project was also called "Super Smash Bros. Rise", as in "rise up" (against one's oppressors) at one point.

This is a mockup of what a Spirit Battle in Rise/BREAK would've looked like. This image is from November 2023. Very close to what a Spirit Battle looks like in Ultimate at first glace, but this was meant to be a turn-based RPG, so the actual battle would look different. There's no mockup for that though.

Looks like we're up against a Ness Puppet Fighter possessed by Pawapuro-kun, a Neutral Ace-level Spirit with 9500 base power. Luckily, Incineroar, who is leading the party, appears to have a Defense Spirit with 9000 base power; so it should be a fair fight. I'm still quite proud of this image, not only because it took a lot of time and effort to make but also because it was made a few months before Nintendo actually added a Power Pros Spirit to Ultimate.

• "brainstorming" for what the game would've been like.

Conclusion

I really, really need to learn how to use Godot. Also, I miss being 15.