Snake hiding in a cardboard box is a core mechanic in Metal Gear, as I understand it. The ! sound when Lucario finds him is also straight from those games. I hadn't played Metal Gear but, having heard Snake was in Brawl, I knew exactly what was in that cardboard box from the moment we saw it. Oh, and Sheik is pronounced like chic: "sheek". She's Zelda in disguise.

Apparently Wario was working together with Bowser and Ganondorf, but he didn’t feel like playing along and simply attacked whoever he wanted to. Wario’s main motive for joining them (according to Sakurai) was just for fun. The money was apparently just a bonus.

To summarize the plot, the Smash games take place in a world of imagination where all the fighters exist and Smash battles are something like the international sport of choice. When the characters fight and get knocked out, they get turned into "Trophies", lifeless statue forms that allow them to recover and a level of invulnerability, but require someone to touch the golden base of their trophy to revive them. Above all other in the realm are the two rulers of the land, Master Hand of creation and Crazy Hand of destruction. Parallel to the world of Smash is Subspace, a realm of darkness and emptiness ruled over by Tabuu. Tabuu grew envious of the world of smash and decided he wanted to bring the Smash world into Subspace so that he could rule it instead. With that in mind, he launched an attack against Master Hand and brought it under his control using chains of light. Using Master Hand like a puppet, he the recruited all of the villainous characters in the world of Smash to do his bidding by setting off Subspace Bombs that would erase portions of the world and drag them into Subspace. The Subspace Bombs are crafted by a tribe of sentient Robotic Operating Buddies on the Island of Ancients. The tribe of R.O.B.s are lead by The Ancient Minister. Tabuu through Ganondorf found a way to manipulate the programming of the R.O.B.S and threatened the Ancient Minister with the total destruction of his race if he and his people don't comply versus there still being members of his race remaining by the end if they comply. Ancient Minister had no choice but to work with them, which is why he's so conflicted and depressed over the situation. And that's how the plot goes for the most part. The villains spread through the world, stealing resources and planting bombs so that more and more of the Smash world can be dragged into Subspace until they're confronted by a ragtag group of 20 or so citizens of the Smash world(the playable characters. >_>) who were able to band together and fight back against the Subspace Army. King Dedede, although he's a villain by rank, is actually a very heroic person in character and he alone realized what was going on behind everyone's backs. To combat this, he goes rouge and starts stealing trophies for himself so that he can amass an army of warriors that can fight back. The badges he gave to Luigi, Ness and Peach are special devices that can wake a fighter from their Trophy state without needing to touch their base and his plan was to strike after the dust had settled and they could get to Tabuu, which is basically what happened.

In Zelda Ocarina of time (spoilers for that game, I mean, it's almost 25 years old), when the kingdom of Hyrule falls, Ganondorf rises as a dark ruler and he persecutes princess Zelda. Zelda, being a child, escaped with her caretaker, a ninja (Sheikah) called Impa. Impa trains Zelda as a Sheikah and when Link first encounters Zelda as an adult, she is disguised as Sheik (yeah, Obi wan level of cleverness with the name XD). Her disguise helps her to frustrate Ganondorf's efforts to find her, and better fits her abilities in that game, though she is still a powerful mage as we find at the end. So Sheik is Zelda's alter ego in Ocarina of time.

I think the specific Metroid theme you heard there was in fact new to Super Metroid. And yes Ridley wasn't playable until Ultimate but he was a boss in Brawl.

So many of the team-ups in this are so iconic. The dichotomy between Captain Olimar and Captain Falcon is funny, same with Fox/Falco and Diddy. Every team up Meta Knight is part of is just automatically badass. People to this day still draw Samus and Pikachu together often because of their team up in this. Everyone has collectively agreed that if Samus was a Pokemon trainer she would have a Pikachu. I'm a huge Kirby nerd and I just love King Dedede so much in this. It helps that Sakurai is both the creator of Kirby and Smash, so that series probably gets the most faithful representation out of most of them. King Dedede is an "antagonist" with humongous air quotes, even in the Kirby series itself. He started out doing some pretty bad stuff but he's had decades of games to mature into a really well written character (which sounds funny to say about the Kirby series but it's TRUE, Kirby just has banger writing for some reason) and I just love him so much, faults and all. His plan is super in character for him and I love his moments with Bowser. As a massive fan of both Bowser and Dedede, Dedede absolutely wins that fight in terms of canon abilities.

Even in the Kirby games King DeDeDe has been an ally as often as an enemy, so he was perfect for the role he gets here: pretending to work for the bad guys while plotting against them with those badges.

King Dedede developed the gold badges as a way to revive fighters, he took those fighters and wanted to safeguard them, that way if something bad happened, someone would be around to keep up the fight even if everyone else fell. It was like a back up plan. Dedede was originally recruited to the villain side, but he is a good person at heart and hardly a villain anymore, he is a reformed villain. He was a villain in his first few games but Kirby changed him from a bad guy, to an egotistic hero. Dedede has an ego and doesn't like asking for help, most of all from Kirby, but he wants to do the right thing and be a King people can be proud to serve.

I should probably mention the battleship you keep seeing is the Halberd, Meta Knight's ship from the Kirby games. The front of the ship looks like Meta Knight's mask for that reason. And yeah the ancient minister was the original ROB.

Olimar is from Pikmin, which is also the name of the tiny plant critters that accompany him. His name in Japanese is Orima, which -- since Japanese words are written in terms of syllables, not letters -- is Ma-ri-o backwards. In Pikmin 2, he gets a sidekick named Louie, a reference to Luigi, and his ship is the SS Dolphin, Dolphin was the production codename for the GameCube (on which Pikmin debuted.) And yes Lucario is a Pokémon.

If you feel useless, theres a character select screen before you fight Tabuu

so much nostalgia! but yea there’s different choices you can make throughout like which princess to save or which characters to play as in 1v1 fights. also yea in between each cutscene or awkward pause/skip there’s usually a fight or a boss or horde battle or even whole 2D side scrolling levels it’s really cool. also yea luigi is a huge scaredy cat he has his own spin off “horror” games called luigi’s mansion. tabuu is an oc made for this game/sheik is from zelda ocarina of time/sonic was literally a last minute addition to the game so he couldn’t show up til the end ): / also yea the last level of the game kinda just makes you do a maze mish mash of all the previous levels it’s kinda tedious

"(referring to Sheik) He's already sipping on the tea" Yes... yes _she_ is...

So here’s the explanation for the alt cutscenes incase anyone was wondering: •Mario Vs Kirby: depending which character you choose 1:12, the cutscene will be of who your opponent was losing the match (so if you picked Mario, the cutscene will be of Kirby losing and vice versia) Princesses: On the first boss in the game (Petey Piranha 3:08), there are 2 health bars of the 2 cages the Princesses are trapped in, depending on who’s cage you destroy first will be saved by Kirby with the other being taken by Wario (you can’t save both). This choice is what determines most of the alt cutscenes such as Dedede taking Wario’s ride (the Princess will be of who you didn’t save) or the 2v2 of Mario vs Link (the shadow clone of the princess will be based on who you saved which also determines on which pair of the 2v2 you’ll play as by whether Mario will attack Link or vice versa), etc. Eventually, both princesses will be taken by Bowser at some point (when Kirby runs off accidentally leaving behind the princess you saved 22:10 and when Bowser infiltrates Dedede’s place taking the princess you didn’t save 28:15) so when the two are saved by Snake 42:43, that’s why there are no more alt cutscenes with the two since from then on, they stick together and then later are both with the group 50:30 Lucario vs Meta Knight: this one, similarly to the Mario vs Kirby one, is based on which of the two loses the fight 40:10 (whether you get to choose which of the two you play as, I don’t remember) Extra: 56:26 Toon Link, Jiggilypuff, Wolf are just bonuses since they came in too late in development to be properly implemented in Subspace, so they’re bonus characters you can unlock if you redo certain levels in the game and beat them in a battle

Brawl was 2006. Ness is from Earthbound, known in Japan as Mother 2 (the original Mother was later released in English as Earthbound Zero), but I'm pretty sure Lucas was only in Mother 3, which to this day has had no official release outside of Japan, something a lot of people are still upset about.

Subspace Emissary's gameplay is mostly action stages that are a cross between platforming and combat, including areas where the camera locks you into a space and you have to defeat all the enemies that spawn. There's also some light puzzle elements in some stages, but that's usually limited to hitting switches or breaking (or sometimes not breaking) explosive boxes that start chain reactions that destroy other blocks. As far as I recall, the most puzzle-like the game ever becomes is in one stage where, at one point in an open, outside area there's a door that leads to another space that looks identical at a glance. The difference is that where there are indestructible blocks in the one version, there are breakable blocks in the other version, and destroying breakable blocks in the alternate version removes the corresponding blocks from the first version.

the green dragon which rises from the lake its Rayquaza,a legendary Pokemon.And yes,Lucario its also a Pokemon

Pit is from the game series Kid Icarus, I'm pretty sure the OG Kid Icarus game is on the Nintendo Online NES thingy

Toon Link, Jigglypuff, and Wolf aren't actually part of the story but you can find them hidden behind new doors in some stages postgame.

49:55-50:05 What Kirby used to destroy the huge cannon Bowser and Ganondorf had is an item from the game called The Dragoon. It originates from Kirby Air Ride where it's the best vehicle for speed. In Brawl it's one of two items that spawns in parts. If one player collects all three parts then their character immediately assembles and uses the Dragoon. If another player collects one or more parts, a fight usually begins for the parts where getting hit can randomly knock parts out of the holder's possession. If a part falls into the death barrier or a player holding at least one part dies, the part(s) in question despawn and are re-added to the pool of parts not currently in play, which spawn randomly. When a character uses the Dragoon, they get on it and fly off-screen. The player then gets an aiming reticle they can move. Press A to launch the Dragoon. The game enters a state of slow motion during the Dragoon's launch, and that combined with the Dragoon's sheer speed means that, barring extenuating circumstances, anyone within the reticle when the Dragoon is launched will be hit. Getting hit by the Dragoon is a guaranteed KO.

There's one other small difference between the versions of the cutscene where Mario, Pit, Link, Yoshi, and Kirby first come together into one big party besides who shoots the cart. When they're running at the very end of the cutscene, the one who shot the arrow is running in front of the archer who didn't. That's the only change in their running formation.

Saiyans' giant ape forms are called "Oozaru", a comment that will seem to come completely out of nowhere for anyone who hasn't gotten through the whole video yet,

37:10 Ridley wasn't playable but he was a boss in brawl and Wii U smash

I don't think it's ever been officially, explicitly explained, but many people (myself included) believe that a lot of the narratives throughout the Smash series (the trophies/dolls, Master Hand, Tabuu, Galeem/Dharkon, etc) are all meant to be commentaries on things that Masahiro Sakurai experiences as a videogame developer. Things like the stigma of videogames and toys in general being things for kids only that adults shouldn't bother with, or the difficulties of having to answer to relentless fan requests and out-of-touch corporate bosses. I don't always agree with Sakurais decisions but he's someone whose thoughts, opinions, and just general presense in the gaming industry I value a lot, so the idea that some of the stories he tells in the Smash series could relate to his dealings in the industry is pretty interesting.

Petey Piranha's the first boss, but you're attacking the cages holding the princesses. Each cage has its own health bar, and the fight ends when one of the health bars is empty. The health bars are labelled 'Peach's Cage' and 'Zelda's Cage'. The healthbar you empty to end the fight corresponds to the princess you immediately get.

There's a few choices but they don't really affect much. You can choose to play as Mario or Kirby in the opening bout, hence the two cutscenes of each reviving the other. And when the princesses get defeated you can attack their cages and whichever you free first affects the following several cutscenes as you noticed, but other than that and which princess is available to play as until later there's no real impact. The freeze frames are where you select which characters you will play the next stage as.

Tabuu is in fact the final boss, and he has that oneshot attack. You have to dodge it by rolling or spot-dodging which is tricky if you're like me and never remember those mechanics exist otherwise (I am bad at Smash.) I found the fight quite difficult and I was playing on Easy!

Ridley's a boss in Brawl. In fact I think it was his appearance in Brawl that was the source of the idea that he was too big to be a playable character. That downsizing him to player scale might be underwhelming, especially for people who played Brawl.

Yeah, luigi is a bit of a scaredycat, but he's also brave, having faced down evil ghosts in a haunted mansion in 3 different games (although I think only the first one was released before Brawl.) He's also got a bit of a complex from perennially being "the other Mario brother" whose name nobody ever seems to remember (in-game that is.)

10:35 Rayquaza god of the skies in pokemon also one of the strongest mega pokemon with only tied by mega Mewtwo and closely in front of ultra necrozma

Sonic showed up at the final boss due to being a late addition into Brawl

I brought snacks

The green dragon that comes out of the lake is a legendary Pokemon called Rayquaza, and I really hate the way he's used in the story tbh lol. In Pokemon Rayquaza has domain over the atmosphere and air itself, and it lives up in the ozone layer, rarely descending to Earth. There are 2 other legendary Pokemon associated with Rayquaza, named Groudon and Kyogre, and according to legend they created the land and sea respectively, and they always get into world threatening fights over territory, since Groudon wants to keep expanding the land while Kyogre wants to expand the ocean. Rayquaza always ends up descending to break them up. Given all this context it's just really weird for Rayquaza to be emerging from a LAKE, and even weirder for it to be the one picking a fight. It's not exactly a pacifist but it has no reason to go after either of them. It wouldn't even want to eat them cuz it eats meteorites as its diet. It's probably the most egregious case of Sakurai deviating from characters normal characterizations. Theres a lot of other stuff like Bowser being overly animalistic or Shulk being overly quippy and that's one thing but there was just no attempt at all to be faithful with Rayquaza lol. Surely there are so many other characters that could've filled the role there better

Super Saiyan is shiny yellow hair, yes. I think the giant ape form is just giant ape form.

Both Peach (in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door) and Zelda (in like half a dozen Zelda games) have been mind controlled or possessed by some final boss or another.