Saffron City
General
Info
Background
Layout
Hazards
Item Appearance Spots
Character Appearance Spots
Strategies
-Luigi
-Mario
-Donkey Kong
-Link
-Samus
-Captain Falcon
-Ness
-Yoshi
-Kirby
-Fox
-Pikachu
-Jigglypuff
My Opinion
General Info
For those who are not into Pokemon, Saffron City is a famous city that is featured in the Pokemon TV shows and games. Of course, in Smash, this stage is the home to both Pikachu and Jigglypuff. This stage takes place on the top of a few skyscrapers in the Saffron City skylines. Funny how the police never shows up to make the fighters stop...
Background
The background of Saffron City features some more sky scrapers and than behind them are some mountains and the sky. There is also a balloon shaped like a Pokeball dragging a banner that says "Gotta Catch'em All." If you have lots of free time, you can look in the background and sometimes interesting Pokemon will fly by.
Layout
This is a pretty big stage. I'll start with the left. There is a shorter building(2) on the left and beside it are two metallic platforms(1) that have propellers on the bottom, so they move up and down periodically. In the middle is the main building(3). On the right side of the main bulding there is a door(4). The door will open and close periodically and you probably don't want to stand too close to the door while it is open. On the right of the main building there is another skyscraper(5). The two buildings at the sides are so narrow that I wonder how what can they be used for, since the stair itself will have taken up the entire area of the building. Just my two cents, that's all.
Hazards
Well, obviously there are a bunch of pits that lie beside and between the skyscrapers in the level. You also figured that there is something about those door on the main building that is not good for you. You are absolutely right. There are things that lurk behind those doors that want to hurt you, and those evil monsters are... Pokemons! Wild Pokemons that is. It's seems weird to me that wild ground based Pokemons will come out of the roof of a skyscraper in a busy city to attack people, but games don't necessarily have to make sense. Just look at those narrow skyscrapers. Anyways, these are not the cuddly Pokemons everybody has come to love. Most of these Pokemons are not exactly what I would call friendly. So here is a list of them. Remember only one Pokemon will appear at a time and the door will shut after a Pokemon has returned into the building or has been killed.
Active Hazards
Pokemon Door
Pokemons List
Chansey
Looks like: A pink egg shaped creature with a pocket on her belly.
What does it do: Remember this is a wild Chansey, and is not the same
Chansey as the one that comes out of PokeBalls. However, she's still
pretty friendly. If you stand near the door when she comes out, around
5% will be taken off your damage meter. Chansey will also produce a
Chansey egg and drop it on to the stage. If you really want to kill
something, you can kill Chansey by hitting her with a power move and
sometimes she will die. Don't be mean and leave Chansey alone. Not to
worry, even if you killed a Chansey, there are many more there to take
her spot, so Chanseys will keep appearing.
Charmander
Looks like: A smallish orange lizard whose tail is on fire.
Attack No.1: Tackle
Damage: 9%
Reach: Medium
Flight Path: Regular
Attack Description: Charmander will come quickly out the door and tackle
anyone who happens to be in the way.
Attack No. 2: Contact
Damage: 5%
Reach: Short
Flight Path: Regular
Attack Description: If a character touches Charmander during any part
of his appearance, the person will get burned slightly and pushed away.
Attack No. 3: Flame Thrower
Damage: 2% per blast
Range: Short
Flight Path: None (Very Little power)
Attack Description: Charmander will open his mouth and spew fire forwards.
Anybody who gets hit by the fire will get damaged. Charmander doesn't
always do this when he comes out.
Other Info: Even though Charmander can cause a bit of damage, he can't
really kill anyone with his attacks. If you don't like him bothering
you, hit him with a power move and he might die.
Porygon
Looks like: A big pink and blue duck that has very rigid lines.
Attack No. 1: Tackle
Damage: 18%
Reach: Long
Flight Path: Regular
Attack Description: Like all tackles, the block head Pokemon will rush
out the door and hit anyone in his way. Even though this move does a
lot of damage, it seems to be pretty weak and can't even kill during
sudden death matches.
Attack No. 2: Contact
Damage: 8%
Reach: Short
Flight Path: Regular
Attack Description: If a character touches Porygon during any part of
his appearance, the person will get damaged and pushed away.
Other Info: Porygon can't really kill anyone, but he can cause a lot
of damage if you don't watch out. Since he's pretty big, a character
standing right above the door will still get hit when he comes out.
Unlike Chansey and Charmander, you can't kill this guy. Well, if something
doesn't die after about a dozen hammer hits, then it probably can't
be killed.
Venosaur
Looks like: A giant blue toad like creature with a big flower bulb on
his back.
Attack No. 1: Tackle
Damage: 20%
Reach: Long
Flight Path: Regular
Attack Description: The big lug will rush out the door and hit anyone
in his way. Even though this move does a lot of damage, it seems to
be pretty weak and can't even kill during sudden death matches.
Attack No. 2: Contact
Damage: 8%
Reach: Short
Flight Path: Regular
Attack Description: If a character touches Venosaur during any part
of his appearance, the person will get damaged and pushed away.
Attack No. 3: Razor Leave
Damage: 3% per leave
Range: Medium
Flight Path: None
Attack Description: Sometimes when Venosaur comes out, he will open
the flower on this back and start firing leaves forward at very fast
speed. Anyone who gets hit by the leave will be juggled in place to
be hit by more leaves.
Other Info: Venosaur can't really kill anyone, but he can cause a lot
of damage if you don't watch out. Since he's pretty big, a character
standing right above the door will still get hit when he comes out.
Like Porygon, you can't kill this guy. I hit him tons of times with
the hammer, and he didn't even move.
Electro
Look like: A PokeBall with an angry face.
Attack No. 1: Self Destruct
Damage: 30%
Reach: Long
Flight Path: Regular
Attack Description: Even though the other Pokemons can deal lots of
damage, they usually won't be able to kill anyone. This guy is different.
He can deal a lot damage and he can definitely KO people. Electro is
a basically a big round bomb and when he rolls out of the door, everybody
better clear out. Electro will flash and blow himself up after a few
seconds. The explosion's radius is actually a lot larger than the animation.
It will hit people standing on top of the door and near the middle of
the building. This blast is at least as powerful as a blast from a bob-omb
and is unblockable. Even Kirby in stone form will get blown up by this
huge explosion. You can't kill Electro either, since you won't be able
to touch him when he appears.
Item Appearance Spots
Items will fall on to the two hovering platforms, the left and right skyscrapers and left edge and middle of the main building. Of course, whenever Chansey appears, a Chansey egg will be released on to the main building.
Character Appearance Spots
Everybody will start on the main building. Going from left to right, we got 3P on the left edge, then 2P, and then 3P in front of the door. 1P stands on top of the door. The character reappearance spot is above the middle of the main building.
Strategies
Here are some strategies and pointers I can think of for this stage.
-Don't stand in front of the door when it's open. If you can, knock
your opponents into the attacking Pokemons to damage them further.
-Be very careful about your jumps since there are many gaps on this
stage that you can fall into.
-Here's a piece of interesting fact: for some reason, Cpu players on
this stage don't seem to be as agressive as they usually are. A lot
of the time they just jump around and do nothing. It's also pretty easy
to KO them if you stand on the two smaller building. The Cpu players
usually will just try to jump on instead of trying to kick you off,
so you can easily attack them when they or before they land on your
area.
Lets take a look at some character specific strategies, even though
for there isn't much stuff for each character.
Luigi
Luigi is okay on this stage. Just watch the gaps and Luigi should be fine
Mario
Mario is about the same with Luigi, but he can stand on top of the door and use his fireballs to hit people far away.
Donkey Kong
DK is not especially good here, because his recovery move doesn't give him a lot of vertical, so if he falls into a gap, he's kind of screwed. Also since DK doesn't have a lot of traction at the end of his recovery move, he might slide off the narrow buildings and into the pit.
Link
Link can stand on top of the Pokemon Door and drop bombs on people, but since he's a very bad jumper, be careful when fighting near the gaps since it's quite easy for Link to fall into them.
Samus
Samus is okay with this stage. There are a bunch of gaps so Samus can spike here, and the stage is wide enough that Samus can do some long range hitting with her charge shot.
Captain Falcon
Captain Falcon is not too good on this stage since he has a hard time jumping back and also his ground speed advantage is taken away since a lot of jumping is needed to move around the stage.
Ness
This is Ness's worst stage. If he falls down one of those narrow gaps, he's pretty much screwed since there is no room for him to maneuver his PK Thunder. You have to be very careful with Ness on this stage or he might self destruct a lot of times.
Yoshi
Yoshi is okay on this stage. Just don't fall into the narrow gaps and Yoshi should be fine.
Kirby
Kirby is pretty good on any stage, so you shouldn't be too concerned about using him here. Kirby has a lot of jumps and a good recovery move to get him out of the gaps and helps him get around the stage. This is also pretty good spiking grounds for Kirby.
Fox
Fox can be pretty good on this stage if you know how to use him properly. The stage is pretty wide so Fox can do some blaster spamming, but the best part about the stage is the gaps. Now Fox himself is alright at recovering from the gaps since his recovery carries him fairly far in any direction, but other characters are not as fortunate. The gaps are the best place to use the reflector to spike people down. The victims will have trouble getting back up and Fox can bounce them again with the sheild or hit them with another move.
Pikachu
Surprisingly, Pikachu is not very good on his own stage. If he falls down a gap, it's very hard for him to use his double quick attack to get out. He might hit the wall during the quick attack or he might overshoot and quick attack into an adjacent gap. Just look at the cpu Pikachus and you'll know what I mean.
Jigglypuff
Jigglypuff is okay on Saffron City. Just watch for the gaps and the wild Pokemons.
My Opinion
Saffron City is a pretty fun stage to play on. It is very easy to commit suicide on this stage, but that just proves that you need to practice some more so you won't die for no apparent reason. Saffron City is pretty cool stage with an unique design, a lot of features and it's pretty big, so you have room to maneuver.