#freemelee

Super Smash Bros. Melee, for those unaware, is a 2001 video game for the Nintendo GameCube. It was the follow-up to the surprise N64 hit Super Smash Bros. with more characters and stages as well as new options such as Adventure Mode and Home Run Contest. The game has continued to stay popular after all these years, despite the release of subsequent Smash Bros. games on the Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and Switch.

Nintendo is well aware of its continued popularity, to the point of producing special adapters allowing players to use GameCube controllers on both the Wii U and Switch. To this day, the game continues to be modified with several additions and tweaks, such as adding a widescreen option and online capability.

Within the past few years, Melee has been dropped from several major tournaments due to its shrinking fan base. There are a few which continue to include it, such as The Big House. They were recently planning to present the game during a special virtual version of the event, due to the pandemic, only for Nintendo to send them a cease and desist due to their usage of a mod known as “Slippi”, which helps prevent lagging for online play.

The situation is overall head-scratching.

On the one hand, Nintendo is very overprotective of their properties. They have sent similar legal requests to fan remakes and certain mods such as Project M. 

Legal reasons they may have to send these requests include protecting their copyrights and/or avoid the implication of condoning the mods, something which Nintendo (as well as most other companies) have never officially approved of.

On the other hand, Melee is almost 20 years old. There are now probably more players who were introduced to Smash either by Brawl, the Wii U/3DS versions, or Ultimate than either Melee or the original N64 game. Most players have probably not even played Melee because it is only on the GameCube, an increasingly rare console Nintendo stopped producing in 2007.

As time goes on, the Melee fan base will continue to shrink. Both the game disc and GameCube consoles are exceedingly hard to find, especially in good condition. Newcomers to Smash will prioritize Ultimate over Melee as they might not want to spend more money on a used GameCube rather than a new Switch.

With all of that said, Nintendo was within their rights to send the legal request. If the tournament really wanted to play Super Smash Bros during a pandemic, they should have used Ultimate which does have an online mode. At the moment, Melee sadly cannot be played as it was intended.

Unless Nintendo were to re-release it, such as part of a compilation similar to the recent Super Mario 3D All-Stars or a remastering, Melee will continue to be one of those games only playable on a single console like the Sega 32X’s Knuckles Chaotix or the N64′s Goldeneye 007.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available only on the Nintendo Switch.