Preston Ward Condra Ranks All 35 Super Smash Bros 64 & Melee Stages

by Preston Ward Condra

A project I initially made back in June 2009. I critiqued, discussed and ranked all of the Super Smash Bros 64 and Melee stages from worst to best. I wrote this down, when I was 15 years old. As with all of my other stories, I wrote over 10 years ago? I won't be fixing any of the spelling mistakes, that may or may not be present here. Enjoy reading this now ladies and gentlemen.

11. 26 - Venom

To be honest, I really don't have that much an opinion on Venom in Melee since I rarely if ever, played on that stage. I apologize if this write-up isn't as good as my other ones.

The biggest problem I had with Venom is that much like Yoshi's Story, Mushroom Kingdom 2 and Kongo Jungle before it, Venom suffers as a stage with zero stage interactivity. Like I stated earlier more often then not a stage with zero stage interactivity making up for a stage that is bland and very forgettable in the series. I never liked stages in the series where it offered no stage interactivity. Can be boring to fight on especially, if you do not have items on while battling on a stage like that.

One other notable problem I had with Venom was that the wings of the Great Fox were really the only recovery based platforms you could use on this stage. If you were far too away from one of the wings of the Great Fox to grab on to and trying to test your luck trying to recover back on one the wings, it would result of a KO. This would happen often especially, if you had a character with a terrible based recovery move like Yoshi or Jigglypuff.

Another problem I had with Venom was that, the level design in the stage is rather bland and forgettable. The only real main fighting action going on in this stage is you fighting your opponents on all four sides of the wings of the Great Fox. The main level design of fighting on the wings of the Great Fox in Venom isn't bad but, it isn't very interesting and feels for a lack of a better term, bland much like how the stage no real stage interactivity.

On one positive note I like to state about Venom is that unlike the other stages that appeared on the countdown that suffered from the same problems like it is that, Venom is a stage that is fairly large giving you some room to test your attacks on your opponents in different directions on this stage. Despite the lack of action and interactivity in the stage, I do have heart and passion for large stages because you are given a big amount of freedom to do in the stage unlike other stages that are very small to fight on and no stage interactivity.

Overall, Venom is not a bad stage. I just found Venom to be another fairly forgettable stage due to the lack of stage interactivity going on in much like other stages that appeared this early so far in the countdown but, this is thankfully somewhat counterbalanced due to the stage being fairly large to fight on and my love and passion for large stages in the Smash Bros. stages. Ultimately overall, Venom is a stage that has no real negative or positive feel to it from me.