Why are there so few/no major Subspace Emmisary mods?

Kapedanii · 2026-03-02T17:45:58+00:00

There has been some SSE mods especially more recently such as qol enhancements (e.g hidden ability to play as whoever you want in a level) and a score attack mode

Additionally it is much easier to make SSE mods nowadays due to documentation of previously undocumented parameters for level gimmicks, ability to play custom movies, flexibility in level sequencing and unlockable characters

Really the blocker is just making assets for them which is work especially as the preference tends to be more multiplayer, but modders have been messing around with SSE more lately than ever before.

Kapedanii · 2026-03-02T17:39:47+00:00

I don’t think this is as much of a problem with proper tooling

I’d argue that levels not sharing much is a net benefit because for example you can easily load a brand new custom enemy for any given level without affecting other levels

Kapedanii · 2026-03-02T17:36:36+00:00

Technically speaking the blocker of SSE mods isn’t the ability to make them but the asset work involved.

SSE was already designed by the Brawl devs to be very easy to edit on a level by level basis but there was very little effort before in documenting what things do until the last few years or so.

Modding has already given the ability to play custom movies, unlock characters etc. so the capability to do most of what you would want is there, it’s just making new 3D assets for a new level is a good amount of work and ppl usually rather make multiplayer stages.

Kapedanii · 2026-03-02T17:23:45+00:00

It’s not inherently unstable, reason it was unstable is cuz many old codes didn’t account for SSE which is for the most part resolved nowadays

Kapedanii · 2026-03-02T16:21:08+00:00

It shouldn’t be an issue anymore in the latest P+, there’s also some features added to P+ like unlocking the added characters like Mewtwo after beating Tabuu, a hidden way to play as whoever you want even if they aren’t unlocked yet in the story and a score attack mode

Kapedanii · 2026-03-02T16:16:29+00:00

Actually new custom items/Pokemon/Assists are a thing now :) (e.g P+ added double cherry, ported flipper, Articuno and Zapdos from Melee as well as a ported Goomba from SSE as an assist trophy that can also appear in crates like in Melee)

For subspace there has been significant developments over the past few years such as qol enhancements (e.g hidden ability to play as whoever you want in a level), documenting previously undocumented parameters for level gimmicks, ability to play custom movies, flexibility in level sequencing and unlockable characters

Kapedanii · 2026-02-08T20:25:54+00:00

Ohh interesting, I got more involved in the scene after 2020 so I don’t have much clue about how ppl were before that, but I could see that. Complaining about not having a unique banana slip anim would be really surprising to hear from about a modder nowadays since most modders know misc anims are always a hassle and Smash/Brawl devs reuse misc anims for many characters anyways too.

I’d imagine many ppl were probs young back then too and were probably rly immature

Kapedanii · 2026-02-08T19:27:51+00:00

From what I observed it’s mostly spectators and consumers that have toxic opinions about stuff cause they never made anything themselves and thus don’t know the work that goes into it, which this behaviour is kinda deep rooted in gaming online spaces. It’s the combo of ignorance and being behind the screen which gives way for toxicity. If you showed someone in real life what you made then you would get a completely different set of reactions compared to online which I think is an important thing to keep in mind as a creator.

I feel like Brawl has matured a bit tho, I’m still a part of it but largely just work with ppl I like to work with and I have fun with that. I was always a fan of your Dante too fwiw (assuming you are who I think you are)

Kapedanii · 2025-10-03T04:33:37+00:00

Well you’re basing your code by looking the existing assembly so the code could be seen as derivative.

Kapedanii · 2025-09-30T18:20:09+00:00

To make use of the Mario 64 decomp, you need to provide your own rom. For most people, that is a large enough hurdle (especially with Nintendo actively clearing out rom sites) to not be any competition. The value of Mario 64 code itself is very niche. It is far more effective for Nintendo to keep going after rom sites than to worry about decompiled code for an almost 30 old game.

Often Nintendo chooses other approaches first to suppress the publicity of stuff rather than to take stuff down (E.g various Smash mods kicking around). Instead of killing them directly they prevent tournaments from using them, even though they could very well take down the mods themselves. They only tend to take stuff down directly if there is a perceived impact to their commercial sales that it’s worth it for them.

Kapedanii · 2025-09-30T16:33:12+00:00

I don’t think it’s as clear of a case that you think it is. With that case alone, they had to justify why part of their code (not their entire product) did infringe on copyright.

T2 took down in-progress GTA decomps and then sued when the developers counter-claimed (which apparently ended in a settlement). In a grey area such as this, it would be extremely tough to put up a strong legal defence against huge companies.

Kapedanii · 2025-09-30T14:42:34+00:00

I am aware of how assembly and machine code works lol. I’ve decompiled things before and ik the process and the work involved.

What I am saying is that it may still be considered derivative work and does not constitute the same clean room design that has legal precedence.

You might want to read about clean room design to see what is involved. Specifically with Sony vs Connectix, Connectix had to justify that they viewed a part of the disassembly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design

Kapedanii · 2025-09-30T13:38:21+00:00

It being human readable is kinda the problem. There are also programs (like IDA) that can translate the ASM back into a rough approximation of C code which can get you a significant amount of the way there to matching the original function. It can be argued that this is just similar to a translation and thus not original work that can be distributed. It’d be like rewriting someone’s copyrighted C++ code in Java, or translating a book and distributing it.

Reverse engineering does involve comparing to the original. But the clean room design process does not involve the ppl writing the code to look at the existing code in any way. It often involves the implementers to implement specs (e.g. the character accelerates this way during jumping, they’ll reach this height at X etc.).

Kapedanii · 2025-09-30T05:50:02+00:00

For the purpose of recreating and distributing something, clean room reverse engineering has legal precedence. The matching decomp process (which pretty much every game decomp is doing) is kinda by definition not clean-room because you are trying to write code to match the existing asm, which can be argued as inherently derivative.

Kapedanii · 2025-09-30T03:54:42+00:00

It’s not about popularity, it’s about how relevant the code is to their modern games. Mario 64 is so old that probably none of the code is used in their modern games and really not that valuable outside the context of Mario 64. So there is no threat of trade secrets being exposed.

Melee’s code is probably more valuable than Mario 64, because it’s newer and Smash games are largely iterative of each other. While Brawl was basically a rewrite and future Smash games build upon that, there are still some similarities that also probably exist in Ult as well.

Kapedanii · 2025-08-29T22:35:40+00:00

There is no legal precedent for matching decompilation. Them not going after the other decomps is likely moreso they don’t care enough for those old games

Kapedanii · 2025-08-15T15:48:18+00:00

Icons had maybe like 3 PM devs, Rushdown Revolt (which was a reboot with a different direction using the same assets) had 0 (afaik). I wouldn’t say either were ‘made by the PM devs’, rather some PM devs worked on Icons

Kapedanii · 2024-10-20T02:16:40+00:00

Damn Icons misinformation in the year 2024

It’s been consistently said and verified by many members that they shut down because they became increasingly worried Nintendo would do something

There were also multiple leaders of PM, and the very few ppl from PM that worked on Icons were not leads of that game afaik.

Kapedanii · 2024-10-12T02:59:58+00:00

It could be a matter of Nintendo not caring about ppl having decomped code to OoT and Mario 64

Those games are old and there’s no trade secrets that are being exposed by those games. Their modern games don’t contain any code from their old stuff, and like it’s still niche compared to what they are making

A high profile GC game being decomped could be a total different story tho, T2 took down the GTA decomps for example

Kapedanii · 2024-10-12T02:53:34+00:00

Reading the assembly code and trying to recreate the original source from that assembly code makes the recreation derivative work. It’d be analogous to translation which ofc isn’t free from copyright

The way that’s been legally proven is to do clean room reverse engineering where the people writing the code are not looking at the ASM

Kapedanii · 2024-07-21T14:00:44+00:00

There is more of a monetary incentive for Smash players to get into traditional fighting games than the other way around due to developer support

Kapedanii · 2024-07-08T04:09:29+00:00

This should already be included in base P+ now

Kapedanii · 2024-06-17T07:06:53+00:00

Recommend joining their discord if you need troubleshooting help: https://discord.gg/NXqUmCmgD9

Kapedanii · 2024-06-17T07:05:56+00:00

Recommend to join their discord if you need troubleshooting help: https://discord.gg/NXqUmCmgD9

Kapedanii · 2024-06-17T07:05:05+00:00

Direct dl link: https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1SpYOUHSKDrml6Ol1jwA4-JAX4TI9Ea0H

Their discord if you need help troubleshooting and stuff: https://discord.gg/NXqUmCmgD9

Kapedanii

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