Super Smash Bros. Ultimate provided plenty of new content for Zelda fans. Like the advent of Ganondorf from Ocarina of Time, a brand new Zelda design, both Toon Link and Young Link can battle side-by-side for the first time, and we received a new version of Link donning his Breath of the Wild design–everyone is here! Breath of the Wild’s representation would need to go beyond a new character design to truly capture the game’s massive success and notoriety. Fans would also receive a stage to pair with the new Link: the Great Plateau Tower.
On this stage, fighters will showdown in the heavens, atop the Great Plateau Tower. The stage is a flat surface, with a structure hovering above that acts as a ceiling. This structure can be destroyed mid-game: the players can attack the structure directly, but it can also take damage by opponent’s colliding with it while being knocked back. Once the ceiling has taken about 60%-65% damage, it will crumble, revealing a soft platform, changing the dynamic of the fight. After some time, the mysterious ancient Sheikah magic will restore the tower to full health, placing the ceiling back in it’s original place.
The stage is intended to be a one-to-one recreation of the Great Plateau Tower, which is, of course, a reference to the first tower in tutorial section of Breath of the Wild. In the background, the players enjoy the scenic landscape of a Hyrule in peril; central Hyrule abandoned, Death Mountain ablaze, and Hyrule Castle enshrouded in Calamity Ganon’s wrath. However, the Old Man, the first person Link meets in Breath of the Wild after leaving the Shrine of Resurrection, can occasionally be seen gliding through the air, spectating the brawl; sometimes even landing on the tower to get a closer look at the action.
Unfortunately, this stage is banned in competitive Smash Bros. The ceiling on the stage is too obstructive for proper tournament play and can create a “Cave of Life” effect–an unofficial term for an enclosed area of a stage where characters can get trapped and survive to much higher percentages than normal, which can create unfair situations. However, that does not take away from the beauty of this stage. It acts as a great homage to a wonderful game, and it more than deserves its place in the stage list.
