Super Smash Bros. Melee/Version Differences

This is a sub-page of Super Smash Bros. Melee/Version Differences.

To do: More differences; see talk page for details. Also more differences can be found from this webpage:https://www.ssbwiki.com/List_of_regional_version_differences_(SSBM) Rip the Purin and Koopa mugshot graphics from the game. They are present in all versions.

Title Screen

Japan	North America	Europe

• The Japanese version has a different title screen, known as Dairantou Smash Brothers DX.
• In the European version, they updated the copyright year and added the slash mark on the right of HAL Laboratory, Inc.

Character Names

Japanese	English

The Ice Climbers are simply called Ice Climber in Japan, either due to the Japanese name coming from the game itself, or the fact that the Japanese language doesn't care so much about plurals.

Japanese	English

In Japan, Bowser is referred to as Koopa.

Japanese	English

In Japan, Jigglypuff is referred to as Purin. It should be noted that "Purin" is pronounced "Purrin'" here, as opposed to the correct "Pooreen" pronounciation that would be used in later games.

Japanese	English

DK's icon was altered between Japanese and English languages, but his narration is still "Donkey Kong".

Several other characters have different names and narrations depending on the language, but those cases are mostly because of localization.

Narrator

The narrator says a few things differently between the Japanese selection and subsequent languages. Note that Battle Royale was used for the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. (Dairantou Smash Brothers in Japan) instead of Smash or Free for all.

Japan	English
"Battle Royale!" "Get the coins!" "Game Set!" "Time Up!"	"Melee!" "Grab the coins!" "Game!" "Time!"

Trophies

Tamagon, from the obscure NES game Devil World (which was never released in North America), is only obtainable in the Japanese version. It is still present in the North American and European versions, but cannot be acquired without cheat devices even though Devil World was released in European territories. Devil World is erroneously referred to as "Demon World".

Samus Unmasked and Mario & Yoshi can only be obtained in the European and North American releases with an Action Replay. They cannot be obtained legitimately outside of Japan and were originally from a Japanese event.

Additionally, certain facts were simplified between the Japanese and English text, such as the removal of a mention that Yoshis lack biological sexes or Mario stated to be "about 26 years old".

• 

  Tamagon

• 

  Mario & Yoshi

• 

  Samus Unmasked

Gallery

Switching the language from English to Japanese alters the background of the Trophy collection.

Japanese	English

When set to English, the Family Computer becomes a NES, the (rather dark) Super Famicom becomes a SNES, the picture above the shelf changes from reading "Dairantou Smash Brothers" (the series' name in Japan) to reading "Super Smash Bros.", and the Virtual Boy next to the plant is removed (even though the Virtual Boy did get released in North America).

Japanese	English

The box and cartridge with the N64 also become the regional counterparts of Super Smash Bros. Oddly enough, the Super Famicom seems to have a Super Smash Bros. cartridge as well.

Home-Run Contest

Japan/Europe	North America

The Japanese and European versions have a very slightly larger platform than the North American version, which also affects the stadium in the background.

In a spectacular underestimation of the SSBM community's home-run contest skills by the developers, in Version 1.0 the size of the stadium was only 4990.0 ft (1521.0 m), and hitting the sandbag beyond 4556.9 ft (1389.0 m) in the North American version or 2920.0 ft (890.0 m) in the Japanese version would cause the game to register No Distance instead.

In later versions, the stadium's size was increased to 16371.0 ft (4990.0 m) with no arbitrary distance limit - while the counter stops counting at 9999.9 ft higher scores will register properly in the highscore. However, since the collision ends at 11347.2 ft (3458.5 m) the sandbag will fly through the stadium into an endless void if hit further than this point, which is easily possible to perform with Ganondorf.

Lottery

Japan	English

The Japanese trophy machine informs you to push the A button, while the English one leaves you helpless. The logo was also changed from "FiguPon" to "Lottery".

Sensor Bomb/Motion-Sensor Bomb/Proximity Mine

Each version of Melee has a slightly different take on the infamous mine item. It's the Sensor Bomb (センサー爆弾) in the Japanese version, the Motion-Sensor Bomb in the North American version, and the Proximity Mine in Europe.

The design used in the North American and European versions is based off the Proximity Mine from GoldenEye 007. However, the Japanese version takes its design from the Perfect Dark Proximity Mine; additionally, the text below the Trophy description (where the game of origin's name goes) translates to "Perfect Dark (N64)". The American and European versions, instead of attributing its game of origin to "GoldenEye 007 (N64)", say "TOP SECRET".

According to director Masahiro Sakurai, the change to omit Perfect Dark references in the international version was made because Perfect Dark received an "M" ("mature") rating in North America, whereas Melee was directed at a family audience. However, Perfect Dark and Rare are still mentioned at the end of the credits.

Japan	North America	Europe

Interestingly, the European description contains a typo; it's missing a chunk of text that splurges two sentences into each other. What is also interesting is how it mentions the "Carrington Institute", the main corporation in Perfect Dark.

North America	Europe
The perfect accessory for ambushes, the Motion-Sensor Bomb has been a favorite covert weapon of spies and other stealthy operatives. It adheres to any surface, and once armed, detonates with incredible force when it detects motion within its range. In the frantic world of Super Smash Bros., it doesn't take long for it to go.	The perfect accessory for ambushes, the proximity mine has long been a favorite covert weapon of the Carrington Institute _____________ any surface, and once armed, detonates with incredible force when it detects motion within its range. In the frantic world of Super Smash Bros., it doesn't take long for it to go.

The European text is also in the Japanese version when set to English; conversely, the Japanese language select was removed in the European release in favor of four other languages (Spanish, Italian, German, French). The only difference in the Trophy description is that it is properly credited to Perfect Dark.

This detail does not revert when the North American release is set to Japanese. While the files for both the Proximity Mine and Motion-Sensor Bomb trophies exist in both the North American and Japan versions of the game (as TyMbombJ.dat and TyMbombU.dat), only the trophy that corresponds to the region is available in-game.

Topis

In the Japanese version, the Ice Climber Topis were seals as in the original Famicom version. In other releases, they are yeti. Interestingly, the English Trophy description is exactly the same due to its ambiguous wording. The seal model was also relatively poor in comparison.

Japan	International

Like the Proximity Mine, this detail does not revert when the North American release is set to Japanese.

Daisy's Third Eye

In the Japanese and early American versions, positioning the camera through the hair in the back of the Daisy trophy reveals a third eye which looks different from her other two. This was fixed in the European and North American "Player's Choice" versions.

Version 1.0 exclusive glitches

• Mewtwo's shadow balls he shoots right after a forward throw can be caught as if they were items. The shadow ball can then be thrown back and forth; the game will crash if the shadow ball leaves the playfield.
• If Peach is holding an item (such as a turnip), then uses the up special to get her parasol out and gets hit on the first frame of the move animation, the item will be frozen in mid-air. In the case of a turnip, it will stay forever and retain its hitbox until it hits an opponent, but can be regrabbed and thrown to reactivate the hitbox. Every time the turnip is grabbed it will successively increase the grab range until it eventually spans the entire screen. (Mr. Game and Watch can also perform this glitch with his down tilt.)
• If the Name Entry glitch is used to start a 0-Second Melee on the Poké Floats stage, every Pokémon will appear at the same time as soon as the stage is loaded, usually crashing the game.

Version 1.0 and 1.1 exclusive glitches

• If Bowser hits the ground on the first few frames of his Fire Breath move, it will cancel the animation and Bowser will breathe fire instantly.
• Mr. Game and Watch can carry items that cannot normally be carried in one's hand by sliding into the item's grab range with a neutral attack and getting stunned or hitting a mushroom before finishing the item grab animation.
• Link and Young Link can catch a boomerang while grappled to a wall, which allows them to do actions such as jumping or attacking while still being grappled to the wall.

European Differences

The European version is essentially the American 1.2 with further differences:

• The ability to select Japanese as a language (and the Japanese language itself in the game files, too) was completely removed in order to fit other languages.
• The 15-minute-long "Special Movie" was removed for the same reason. Interestingly, the movie file for the Special Movie (MvOmake15.mth) still exists in European versions, but instead contains a duplicate of Captain Falcon's clear movie.
• Three Japan-only trophies (Tamagon, Mario & Yoshi, and Samus Unmasked) are unavailable without hacks, but still exist in the game's code, and are translated into the other languages available in the European version, strangely.
• The Helirin from Kuru Kuru Kururin had the name of its trophy corrected from Heririn in the North American version.
• The Rainbow Cruise stage is renamed to "Rainbow Ride", likely for consistency with the international versions of Super Mario 64.
• The playable characters were also slightly rebalanced.
  • Some attacks were weakened or strengthened in power.
    • Captain Falcon's forward aerial (knee) attack deals less damage and less knockback.
    • Fox's up smash, down smash and up special deal less damage. Fire Fox (his up special) also gains less distance than it did in the all of the North American and Japanese versions.
    • Ganondorf's forward aerial deals less knockback and his down aerial does less damage.
    • Kirby's dash attack deals slightly more damage.
    • Marth's down aerial, when "tipped" (when he hits an opponent with the tip of his sword), was changed from a powerful spike to a less powerful meteor smash (meaning that its knockback can now be negated).
    • Sheik's up smash deals less damage and her up aerial deals both less damage and knockback. Her down throw's effectiveness has been reduced, too; she can't chain throw with it anymore.
    • Yoshi's forward smash and up smash deal more damage, but his down aerial deals significantly less damage if all hits connect.
  • Weights have also been altered.
    • Bowser, Fox, Mario and Marth's weights have been reduced slightly.
    • Kirby and Yoshi's weights have been increased. (Interestingly, the European version made Kirby very slightly heavier than Fox; Fox has a weight of 73 and Kirby has a weight of 74.)
  • Some glitches have been fixed, and other things have been altered.
    • Bowser's down throw can now hurt Jigglypuff and Mr. Game & Watch; in all non-European versions of Melee, it did not hurt them.
    • The freeze glitch has been fixed.
    • If Donkey Kong has been hit whilst using Spinning Kong (his up special), he does not lose his charge from Giant Punch (his neutral special) in the European version.
    • Samus cannot extend her grappling beam in the European version. Also, she isn't able to use her bomb (down special) as a jump after using the grapple beam mid-air. She could in all the other North American and Japanese versions.
    • Falco's down aerial behaves differently from how it does in the North American and Japanese versions; in these versions, Falco's down aerial acts as a spike for its whole duration. In the European version, this was changed: the attack can only spike for the first half of its duration; after that, the attack hits at the "Sakurai angle".
    • In the main menu, when going to the next screen and switching to a different entry too quickly, the North American and Japanese versions would show the wrong information at the bottom of the screen. This was fixed in the European version.

(Falco's down air properties: SmashWiki)