I already made this post before, but after receiving some feedback, I decided it required to be remade from scratch
The Smash series has enough installments and plenty of hacks...and as time went on...the series changed in a lot of aspect...even if it still kept a pretty similar foundation.
The question is...when did the biggest shifts took place?
*Classic Era*
The first era is what I would like to call the foundation era...this is where the main goal of the dev team was getting the game done...even if by any means necessary.
Smash 64, Melee and Brawl are games where content was cut mainly because of time constraints. Bowser, Dedede, Mewtwo and Marth never got to appear officially in Smash 64 but they were planned. Melee has a lot of cuts and the most notable one was Wario. Brawl had the infamous forbidden seven, obviously planned but cut.
This means that the development cycles of these games were always...rocky...and not only were some ideas on the design document never conceived properly...but some ideas were made on the fly...adding further chaos.
The secret characters in Smash 64, the clones in Melee and also Sonic, Wolf, Toon Link and Jigglypuff in Brawl, all of those examples were made on the fly...with mixed results...now...Brawl was almost the most modest case.
Should Sonic not have been given green light by Sega...Brawl would not have been delayed...thus...the other 3 Brawl examples I mentioned wouldn't have time to get in...so Brawl ALMOST had a perfect dev cycle.
Then why is Brawl the way it is? Not only in terms of balance, but some characters don't work well in the transition from Melee to Brawl. Half of all the dev time went into Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emmisary.
For Subspace Emmissary, every fighter has a different set of parameters than those of the rest of the game.
That's how you make the platforming work regardless of the character. But it came with a challenge. Sakurai didn't have anyone in charge of the adventure, so he had to take care of it as well as the rest of the game, and that was important, because the parameters makes it so Brawl essentially doubled it's roster (78 instead of 39).
Now we know why Brawl was one of the most polished yet also one of the least play tested games, because they essentially worked on two games inside of one, and that explains why we never saw something like it since then.
*Middle Era*
In between Brawl and Smash 4, we got a ton of Smash hacks from Brawl. This was exactly what Brawl needed to be revitalized at a time where some players went back to Melee and a new Smash game wasn't on the horizon yet.
I hesitate to call this an era though, because it was rather short-lived. The biggest hack back then was Project M, but before Smash 4 got announced, Nintendo C&D the project, and with that, the hacking scene wasn't the same
Brawl hacks ended up existing but they were not as mainstream as they once were thanks to Project M, and Smash 4's release put the spotlight away from the hacking scene. Speaking of Smash 4...the next era.
*Modern Era*
This era had a key component for it's making...Bandai Namco Studios. They became the developers of Smash from now on, and with that, their influence changed the games, adding some stuff we previously didn't consider.
The biggest one has to be post-launch support. No longer were time constraints a reason to not see content or have content not properly tested. Now, any mistake the game had or would have later could be patched.
Mewtwo and Lucas in Smash 4 were key examples of this. Both were intended for Smash 4's base-game (their models are in the thropies even before they got added, and Mewtwo got some remnants of Custom moves that would be later removed, and Custom Moves are reserved for base-game fighters) but probably because of time constraints, they were not added. But unlike Brawl and the forbidden seven, Smash 4 recovered their initial cuts.
That's the magic of DLC and updates...the game keeps on growing even after the initial release. And Ultimate had some of those examples as well. Pirahna Plant I think was meant to be base-game (even has a guidance).
Much like Mewtwo, Pirahna Plant was the first DLC added as a result. There's another example, being Min Min and Pyra/Mythra, which both suffered from their games being released too late to be considered before.
In the classic era, we had cases like Roy which was added to Melee before his game was even out, and also cases like Sonic that forced the game to be delayed for the inclusion. Neither of these cases was probably even in the original design document and were instead decided on the fly. But in the modern era, that's no more.
If something didn't get in before, we stick to the original design document and not make ideas on the fly yet.
After all, those who didn't make it in because of time could make it in as DLC. Which is exactly what happened with Min Min and Pyra/Mythra. With that, dev cycles leading to the initial release stopped being rocky ones.
*Homage Era*
This is the middle era but it came with a vengeance. Shortly after Ultimate, the hacking scene grew exponentially. The two projects that kickstarted the growth were Smash Remix and Project Slippi.
We also got Project +, but it didn't have the same impact as Project M. Smash Remix meanwhile got so big that the original announcer of Smash 64 is in it and Project Slippi is undeniably THE way to play Melee nowdays.
*Revolution Era*
This is an extension of the homage era, and the protagonists are mods that are in constant growth even today. Smash Remix got two, being Project Galleon and +Extra. Then Project Rex as the definitive Brawl mod.
And here's a curve ball...Project Akaneia for Melee, despite being rather barebones compared to the other examples, is also part of this era, as it's the most promising mod Melee had in quite a long time.
As cool as Smash Remix and Slippi were, their developments pretty much concluded. This is why the revolution era focuses on mods that are meant to follow the legacy of other mods as well as official games.
*Rebirth Era*
This is my take on an era after Ultimate. With all the mods available, the traditional formula got squeezed as far as it could go, and with Ultimate leaving the bar too high, maybe the next Smash game will surprise us.
Anyways, what do you think? Let me your thoughts below
