Recently I’ve started participating in a number of competitive fighting game tournaments, including those dedicated to the legendary Super Smash Bros. series. Specifically, I’ve played in quite a few Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournaments as of late. Many have criticized the Smash games over the years for not faithfully representing their favorite series, characters, stages, etc. But luckily for us, the franchise has never skimped on representation for the Zelda series; the characters in the roster have movesets that align with their in-universe fighting styles, and the Zelda-themed stages are some of the most creative, memorable, and well-crafted in the entire franchise. But if I had to pick a favorite among all the Zelda stages featured thus far, it would have to be Great Bay.
The Great Bay stage is, of course, based on the Great Bay Coast from Majora’s Mask. The stage was introduced in Super Smash Bros. Melee as the home stage for Link, Young Link, and poor Marth, who was unable to get a home stage based around Fire Emblem. Here in Great Bay, players find themselves surrounded by water, with only three main platforms to work with. The center platform, the largest and most stable of the three, is elevated, with the Marine Research Lab perched on top. The other two platforms float directly on the water; the left one is just a floating rock that bobs up and down when fighters land on it, and the right one is a small deck with an Owl Statue.
Turning to the right, we see the Giant Turtle. It swims over and acts as an additional platform that takes up the entire right side of the stage. Every once in a while, it will disappear under the waves, dooming any unfortunate fighter still hanging on to a watery grave. That’s a true tragedy, since those poor souls won’t get a chance to see the best part of the entire stage: Tingle. The wannabe-fairy cartographer uses his iconic red balloon to float above the stage; any attack that hits the balloon will pop it, hurling Tingle into the water. He’ll then flail frantically in order to avoid sinking, and any player who touches him will be damaged by his wildly waving arms. Eventually his balloon will reinflate, and things will proceed as usual.
In the background, we see a rather impressive recreation of Great Bay Coast, with both the Fisherman’s Hut and the Oceanside Spider House featured prominently. Ultimate added some extra details and even included a Heart Piece hidden to the left, in the same location where you can find a Heart Piece in Majora’s Mask. My favorite part of this whole stage has to be the Moon falling in the distance. The Moon spends about three minutes slowly falling from the sky, inching closer and closer until the Four Giants rise up and push it back to its starting point, restarting the cycle and perpetuating the endless loop.
It doesn’t take a professional gamer to figure out why this stage has been banned from tournaments. The platforms in this stage are small, just barely large enough to fit four competitors. A common exploit you’ll see is fighters up-throwing opponents underneath the elevated center platform, hoping that they’ll miss the opportunity to tech and subsequently sink to their deaths. Ultimate did remedy this problem a bit, giving fighters the ability to swim and thus making it more difficult to exploit the spiking tactic. The level design itself still makes it easy to camp, though, so the chances of it ever being tournament legal are next to zero. But all of this aside, Great Bay is still an extremely cool stage for an extremely fun series of fighting games. Super Smash Bros. clearly demonstrates its love and respect for the game series it represents by constructing stages that are highly detailed and wonderfully faithful to the original locations. Great Bay is one great example of that, and if Ultimate ever does get a sequel, I definitely hope to see the familiar Marine Research Lab grace my TV screen once again.
