Fourside

Fourside
Universe	EarthBound
Appears in	SSBM
Located	Eagleland
Home stage to	Ness (Classic) Pichu (All-Star)
Availability	Unlockable
Tournament legal (SSBM)
Singles	Banned
Doubles	Banned

Fourside is an unlockable stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee, unlocked by playing 100 battles in VS. mode. It is also Ness's home stage, but you face Pichu and its teammates here in All-Star mode.

First announced at E3 2001, The stage consists of three buildings. The building on the far left is slanted, so items tend to roll off. The Monotoli Building, in the middle, is split into three parts: the top, two small ledges on either side in the middle, and a semi-long edge on the right. The building on the far right is the shortest one with a flat surface. On the far left building, there is a crane with a platform attached to it. It will move to the left a little and over the center of the building. Once in a while a UFO will appear over the left or right building. Characters can fight on top of the UFO, though it has a slippery terrain, giving the Ice Climbers a distinct advantage on it due to their constant traction.

The pits between the far left building, the middle building, between the far right building, and middle building are narrow, providing wall jumpers a decent advantage.

Fourside is often banned, largely due to Peach's ability to stall by using Peach Bomber repeatedly in a pit, as well as other ways to camp and stall due to the large size of the stage.

Origin

Fourside as it originally appeared in EarthBound (Click to zoom).

This stage is derived from EarthBound. In EarthBound, Fourside is a major city, the mayor of which is Geldegarde Monotoli. The tallest building in Fourside is the Monotoli building, which comprises the center tower in Melee. Even though in EarthBound the Monotoli building is the tallest building, you can see taller buildings in the background of the Melee stage. In EarthBound, Pokey takes Monotoli's helicopter and never comes back. In Melee, the helicopter looks similar to the yellow helicopter in EarthBound and flies in and out of the stage. In the opening of EarthBound, a UFO sound effect is heard as the game displays pictures of UFOs attacking a town. In Melee, the same sound effect is used when the UFO comes.

In EarthBound, Fourside is never shown at night, as much of the game only takes place during the day. However, in Melee, it is always night-time on the Fourside stage and features a large moon in the background. This is a reference to the area Moonside version of Fourside in EarthBound, where everything is black with glowing neon edges (as an employee of the Dark Moon Hotel says that it is "always the middle of the night". [1]

The music heard on Fourside is a remix of the Fourside theme from EarthBound (which sounds close to Mother's Pollyanna theme) , combined with the sound effects of caves, strange locations, and the last four melodies of Smiles and Tears, which is EarthBound's eight melodies. [2]

Trivia

• The fact Pichu and its allies are fought here in All-Star Mode may be a reference to Pichu Bros. in Party Panic! or the Saffron City stage of Super Smash Bros. since it was a Pokémon stage and Pikachu's home stage. The Fourside stage is often considered a "spiritual successor" to Saffron City, which also took place on top of skyscrapers.
• Fourside's background music was one of the only music tracks from Melee Stages to not appear at all in the final version of Brawl.
• The UFO trophy is unlocked along with unlocking Fourside.
• This stage contains one of the infamous AI glitches. If you play 1-on-1 match where you have one stock, and your character is player one and a Level 9 Yoshi is player two, the Yoshi will airdodge shortly after the announcer says "GO!" and fail to recover, falling through the buildings and SD itself.
• Since Onett and New Pork City are also banned from tournaments, that means no stage from the EarthBound/Mother universe has regularly been seen in competitive play.

Gameplay in Melee.

Fourside in Brawl, recreated using the BrawlBox hacking program.

This is Moonside from EarthBound mentioned in the Orgin section (Click to zoom)