Super Smash Bros. Melee has long been the dream of the Smash Bros. modding community to crack. And in January of 2021, the m-ex engine is unveiled as proof that they finally succeeded. Hence, the addition of new fighters, new stages and even new modes. Jury's still out on whether or not the team would manifest completely new fighters or players would have to wait until they make their way through the veterans from Brawl before that happens.
Newcomers
- Wolf — Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Diddy Kong — Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Charizard — Super Smash Bros. Brawl (standalone character aspects from Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U)
- Lucas — Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Sonic — Super Smash Bros. Brawl
For tropes that were in the original game or the series in general, go to their respective pages.
See also Smash Remix, a Super Smash Bros. 64 mod that backports a lot of elements from the later Smash games while keeping the core gameplay intact.
A new foe has appeared!
- Adaptation Name Change: Charizard's Flare Blitz side special is renamed Dragon Rage according to its Adventure Mode trophy due to the former move not existing at the time.
- Adapted Out: On the Green Hill Zone stage, Silver is replaced with Amy in the background due to his game not being out at the time.
- Art Evolution:
- In addition to redesigning the characters to fit the Melee art style, Wolf, Diddy Kong, and Sonic (and by extension, his friends in Green Hill and the trophies) base their designs on Star Fox 64, Donkey Kong 64 and Sonic Adventure 2, being the most recent games at the time of Melee.
- Village (based on Smashville) is based exclusively on Animal Crossing (2001) rather than the Wild World design seen in Brawl and Wii U or the series wide composite design seen in Ultimate
- Ascended Extra: Charizard was a Poké Ball summon in Melee and one member of the Pokémon Trainer's kit in Brawl and Ultimate, but was upgraded to standalone fighter status by the mod using aspects of its moveset from Smash 4.
- Backported Development:
- Five familiar faces from Brawl have made it into the modpack and potentially more to come.
- Four stages from Brawl were also ported over into Melee—those being Luigi's Mansion, Smashville, Delfino Plaza, and Green Hill Zone.
- Banana Peel: Diddy can produce these as his down special as usual. One notable change is that it will cause opponents to fully fall over instead of slipping on it due to Melee lacking tripping mechanics.
- The Bus Came Back: All stages from Super Smash Bros. 64 that weren't in vanilla Melee were brought here, including Metal Cavern and excluding Sector Z (likely due to Corneria being its successor).
- Dishing Out Dirt: Like in Smash 4, Charizard has Rock Smash for its down special. Aesthetically, the rock will change appearance based on terrain the move is performed on, such as a log on wooden terrain.
- Early-Bird Cameo: If going by the original Melee release date of 2001, Lucas is anachronistic, as he wouldn't debut until Mother 3, released five years later, though that game was already in development for the Nintendo 64 and previewed to the public prior. Additionally,
he was planned to replace Ness on Melee's roster
had Mother 3 not remained in Development Hell. The Delfino Plaza stage is this to a lesser extent, as while Sunshine was released in 2002, it was unveiled at the SpaceWorld event in July 2001. - Hey, You!: The announcer simply refers to the newcomers as "Bonus Character".
- Leitmotif: Each new fighter has an associated theme that plays during their reveal trailer.
- Wolf's trailer has a remix of the Star Wolf theme made for this mod, which also appears as an alternate track for Corneria and Venom.
- Diddy's trailer is accompanied by his section of the DK Rap remix made for Melee.
- Charizard's trailer has the Poké Floats theme.
- Sonic's trailer is accompanied by "Open Your Heart".
- Mini-Game: There are four of them, located under the Games sub-menu of VS. Mode:
- Volleyball - Players must attack the ball back and forth over the net, scoring points if the ball lands on the opposite side.
- Tag - A red arrow hovers above a player's head, signifying that they're "it", and they must attack someone else to get rid of it. After a short amount of time, the player who's "it" will self-destruct if they do not tag anyone.
- All-Star Versus - Similar to Squad Strike in Ultimate, players can use multiple fighters for each of their stocks.
- Turbo Melee - Similar to Project M's Turbo Mode, players can use another attack immediately after landing one, allowing for more combos.
- Palette Swap: The mod gives the base roster new costumes, including ones from the post-Melee entries such as Mario's Fire Mario alt.
- Voice Grunting: Wolf uses non-verbal grunts provided by his Japanese voice actor, to fit with Fox's and Falco's depictions in Melee.
