Let's talk about the fascinating design of the stages and the amazing people behind them; this includes the stage appearance and layout and whatnot. What's your favorite stage design and why?

I'd love to redesign Hylian Skies though.

My favorite stages, huh?

Casino Night Zone - I don't what it is, but I'm a completely and total SUCKER for ANY bright, festive, and just overall party-like levels in the Sonic games. Obviously, Casino Night being in my top 5. Still, I wish there was a bit more happening in CNZ. Like, maybe the slot machine in the background would be spinning uncontrollably like the one in Sonic the Fighters.

Galaxy Tours - I already enjoyed the stage when v0.7 (or maybe v0.8?) implemented the special feature of this stage to travel to various galaxies from both Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel. But now I can safely say that I have an even bigger appreciation for the stage after Smash 4 didn't take advantage of the idea of traveling to different galaxies during battle.

Appearance-wise, I absolutely love the Chaos Shrine stage. I haven't seen all of the four fiends there myself, but I believe I've seen Tiamat and Kraken in the background so far, which was nice. It's also great hearing the Chaos Shrine's music in this. The track doesn't totally lend itself to the action of a fighting game, but it fits its location as it always has. Not gonna talk about how I feel about Final Fantasy I's battle theme... Going back to the design though, I love how boxy the stage is. Dissidia handled locations of the old Final Fantasy games in the exact same way. Overall, it's probably my favorite stage, though I like so many of them.

I also have to add that I love the World Tournament stage for its ring-out mechanic. It really makes fighting on that stage more exciting than I imagine it would be without that function.

Excluding past stages, I've always had a lot of love for Hylian Skies. Love the background effect, the music is one of my favorite songs in the game, and it's just overall a gorgeous stage. I have even more appreciation for it now that TSON explained some of the implications of its hazard that I didn't notice before.

Wait, there's more to Hylian Skies? Could you explain what TSON said?

As a huge Kingdom Hearts fan, Twilight Town has always been a personal favorite, and it's version 0.9 resprite and redesign really grew on me. And now that Rowdy Rumble can play on it, I love it even more.

I've also been really loving World Tournament for it's unique gimmick and awesome musical selection. It's very basic, but charmingly so.

Desk is proving really fun to mess around on, with the light switch, the clock and the weather outside being very clever gimmicks that enhance the feeling of what Smash Bros was originally meant to represent: bringing your wacky imaginations into the real world

World Tournament also strikes me with the fact that such a simple ring out mechanic can bring so much to a fight. Other honorable mentions are Central Highway, Bomb Factory and Hylian Skies due to their hazards, and I also love Clock Town and Dracula's Castle, though the latter two are more to do with the music and the fact that I'm a big fan of their respective universes more than the stage design itself

I hope I'm not being a bother by asking again, but what exactly is the hazard that Hylian Skies contains aside from switching to and from the Dark World?

^As far as I know that's it, I'm not sure what Harr meant by TSON giving him implications

TSON was suggesting that Hylian Skies with hazards on (no, its only the transformation) may make the stage a tournament legal counterpick because it moves the wall and therefore stops any potential infinite that may have taken place


Of course it still is super controversial. As far as I know there are certain parts of the stage that have no ledge however, which enough for an instaban in my book. I like the stage a lot, but that doesnt seem very well suited for competitive play sadly

Devil's Machine.

I love playing first matches with someone new to ssf2 on that stage

I always will like how bowsers castle looks and how musically amazing it is. Good music really can affect the feel of a stage and bowsers castle shows it perfectly. Also lava, lava everywhere
rawr

I don't think that the ledges are absent from the stage. Also, if you want to talk about the stage competitively, I've made a thread for that already:
https://forums.mcleodgaming.com/viewtop ... 27&t=44862

One stage that has always been one of my favorites it's Saturn Valley. The layout was so unique and original. Lagless to boot, so it was perfect for practicing in Training Mode.
In Beta it's still a greato stage, although I miss the old layout. I wish SSF2 gets a Casual/Competitive Variant for stages (with the Hazard Switch added, so we can get Dream Land 64 and Greens Greens on the same slot while you can enjoy Dream Land with Hazards and s*** )
Another Beta stage I friggin love it's World Tournament. I mean this was already a popular stage for Brawl Hacks but the hazard the dev team implemented it's so well implemented oh my god. The fact you guys didn't make it a truly flat stage and made the main platform slightly higher so you could recover.
As a Dragon Ball fan in general, this stage really takes me back to when I was a child.
One stage I have always loved aesthetically it's Bowser's Castle. The background it's top notch, albeit I wish the layout was a bit better.

Overall, I really love many of the stages in Beta, so greato job devs.
Maybe I'll give the whole Casual/Competitive variants a shot, I love spriting stages c:

can I talk about the layouts I do not like?