The logo for Project M

Project M is a gameplay modification of Super Smash Bros. Brawl designed to make the gameplay more closely resemble that of Super Smash Bros. Melee, as well as Super Smash Bros. to a lesser extent. Project M's primary change from Brawl is that the speed of gameplay has been generally increased and the character landing lag is shorter, alongside the restoration of many Melee mechanics and elements, such as the addition of Mewtwo and Roy after their absence in Brawl. Project M's development team was partly descended from the original developers for Brawl+, later known as the PMDT, or Project M Dev Team (formerly the PMBR, or Project M Backroom), having members from over ten countries.[1] Development of the mod officially concluded on December 1st, 2015, with version 3.6 being the last official release of Project M.

Project M has been commonly featured at several national tournaments, such as the Zenith series, The Big House series, and Apex 2014, and it remains the most popular gameplay mod of Brawl in tournament settings. Starting in 2013, Project M saw a rapid rise in its popularity as more characters became playable and the mod became more familiar at Smash tournaments. By 2014, it began to develop its tournament scene, with the number of entrants for Apex 2014's PM singles event notably surpassing the number of competitors for Brawl. Despite the end of Project M's official development, it still has been able to maintain its tournament presence separate from Brawl, including the formation of its Backroom, the New PMBR, on July 21, 2016.[2]

Project M only supports NTSC versions of Brawl, and no PAL build was ever released. As a result, running Project M outside of NTSC regions requires either homebrew as to allow the Wii to run an NTSC version of the game; or an imported Wii.

Changes from Brawl [ edit ]

Project M's menu in Version 3.6. s menu in Version 3.6.

Project M has two different versions: Full Set and WiFi. The former has Stock Control and Input Assistance as new features, which allows newer players to use advanced techniques better and have a stock advantage over experienced ones. However, Replays and online play do not work properly as a result of L and R button light-presses causing online desynchronization. Replays are now functioning with the inclusion of Fracture's replay mod. The WiFi version allows these two things to work properly, and while it keeps the former version's battle features, these are not implemented for online play, likely because Stock Control would have caused potential griefing within matches (by the distant opponent always choosing the maximum amount of stocks). If a Project M replay is in regular Brawl, it may cause malfunctions when beginning a match, possibly because of the stage replacement.

Both versions massively alter the original Brawl gameplay to more closely resemble that of Melee, along with other changes to make the game more competitive in general. It maintains Brawl techniques such as crawl, wall cling, and DACUS.

Melee based changes [ edit ]

The following mechanics have been altered to match their Melee forms:

Brawl based changes [ edit ]

Aside from Melee restorations, the following techniques and mechanics from Brawl have also been changed:

Other changes and gameplay tweaks [ edit ]

Captain Falcon and Link square off in two of their new alternate costumes.

Meta Knight (in his new alternate costume) in the remastered Hyrule Castle stage.

Characters [ edit ]

Project M. The character-selection screen in

In addition to the many universal changes, every character received several individual adjustments in order to balance the game properly. The roster was largely buffed overall, creating an extensive collection of viable characters with varying playstyles, strengths, and weaknesses. However, certain moves were nerfed to further flesh out some fighters and break their dependence on repeated use of a single move or small set of moves. Some Project M characters are based on their appearances in Melee (such as Captain Falcon and Jigglypuff) while others are modified from their Brawl versions or a mixture of their iterations from both games.

The sourcing of previous versions of a character depends largely on previous attendance and performance, with high tier Melee characters being mostly reverted to their past formats (with some adjustments to add more balance for the other characters). This includes both normal and special moves, properties such as gravity, weight, run-speed and air mobility.

Aesthetic changes such as sound effects and costumes were included in more recent versions such as version 3.0 and were revamped in 3.5 and 3.6.

The entire cast was overhauled to match the physics of Melee. Characters that suffered from weak attributes and movesets in both Melee and Brawl (such as Bowser, Kirby, and Zelda), had their positive attributes from each game merged and are given entirely new and original buffs. Some returning characters, like Ganondorf, were given a completely revamped moveset to reference their abilities from their home series further and to distance themselves from characters from which they are cloned. New characters, such as Sonic and Snake, are given completely original buffs, nerfs and even entirely new moves to increase their variability and versatility.

Giga Bowser, and Wario-Man are optional playable characters, as they are selected if the player holds the shield button when selecting Bowser or Wario on the character select screen.

Based on the Brawl roster of 39 characters, Project M gives Zero Suit Samus, Sheik, Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard their own slots on the character selection screen (the latter 3 replacing the Pokémon Trainer) while including Mewtwo and Roy (who were both absent in Brawl) for a total of 41 characters (43 if the Final Smash forms Giga Bowser and Wario-Man are counted). Furthermore, a leaked development build indicated that development on four new characters was in progress at the time of the project's cancellation. This shows a planned total of 45 characters; these characters are Knuckles from the Sonic universe, Lyn from the Fire Emblem universe, Isaac from the Golden Sun universe, and Sami from the Advance Wars universe.

List of characters [ edit ]

* Characters not in Brawl

Stages [ edit ]

Project M 3.6 The Stage Selection Screen in3.6

In addition to characters, stages have also been completely overhauled: many stages were replaced or given tweaks and revised layouts to make them more competitive friendly, additionally new Project M original stages were added in. Starting with 3.6 beta, holding the L button while selecting a stage will load an alternate stage layout shown in a small preview under the main stage preview, and for Peach's Castle HD and Hyrule Castle HD, holding the Z button will load the original N64 version of the respective stages.

Turbo Mode [ edit ]

An image of the Turbo item.

In version 3.0, the Curry effect was replaced with the "Turbo" effect. In Turbo mode, players can cancel any successful attack, upon hit or shield, into any other action except the same attack, and all aerial attacks auto cancel when landing if they hit. Certain moves, such as Farore's Wind, consist of multiple actions and can thus be canceled into themselves. Turbo Mode has been compared to the Marvel vs. Capcom series because it enables skilled players to perform extensive combos.

Turbo mode is selectable from the Special Brawl menu, or temporarily granted by the "Turbo" item, which replaces Superspicy Curry. While in Turbo Mode, characters emit faint purple flame effects (compared to the red flame effects of Curry).

Turning Input Assist on removes the same-attack restriction.

Notable Turbo-related resources:

Tier list [ edit ]

The PMDT did not publish an official tier list. On March 26th, 2014, CLASH Tournaments published a preliminary tier list for version 3.02, followed by a finalized tier list on November 14th, 2014. Mewtwo notably received a perfect score of 10 out of 10, putting it in its own tier, the God Tier.

No tier list was ever released for version 3.5, though it was a general agreement that only two characters could be considered "bottom tier": Olimar, whose recovery was too unreliable, and the Ice Climbers, who suffered from a physics glitch that often caused Nana to self-destruct.

Version 3.6 fixed the Ice Climbers' and Olimar's issues, and a second tier list for version 3.6 was later released. Many fighters that did poorly in Melee and/or Brawl saw large improvements in their tier placings. Examples include Mewtwo going from the low tier in Melee to the top tier in Project M, and Captain Falcon notably going from the bottom tier in Brawl to the top tier of Project M.

The Project M Backroom released a third tier list for version 3.6, which, published September 9th 2017, is the most recent and widely accepted one. Donkey Kong, the Ice Climbers, and Sonic rose the most on the tier list, while R.O.B., Roy, and Fox dropped the most. Mewtwo entered the top three again, while Kirby and Bowser remained the second worst and worst characters in the game, respectively.

Release history [ edit ]

Demo 1.0 [ edit ]

Logo of Demo 1.0

Released February 8, 2011

Demo 2.0 [ edit ]

Logo of Demo 2.0

Released April 17, 2012

Demo 2.1 [ edit ]

Logo of Demo 2.1

Released May 23, 2012

The following, but not limited to, changes: Carrier items such as crates and capsules no longer explode. Random character select no longer favors Mario. Re-introduction of Brawl' s footstools, now done with the down taunt input. The unlockable menus in Brawl are now selectable. Momentum at end of dashes and moonwalks now preserves properly. AI can now wavedash.

Skyloft, from the The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, is added, replacing Hanenbow.

Demo 2.5 [ edit ]

Logo of Demo 2.5

Released December 29, 2012

The following are in the release, but not limited to:

Ledge teching implemented.

Melee' s knockback stacking implemented.

s knockback stacking implemented. Input Assistance and Stock Control implemented.

and implemented. Input Lag from Brawl is fixed.

from is fixed. New aesthetic changes which include new palette swaps for the characters and new menu designs.

Every character's AI has got updates to various degrees.

Demo 2.5b [ edit ]

Released January 6, 2013

Various fixes: Entering an existing name will bring the player to the name. Demonstration battles after the title screen are less likely to freeze. It takes 9 minutes for the audio to fade instead of 3 in the WiFi set.



Demo 2.6 [ edit ]

Logo of Demo 2.6

Released July 17, 2013

Added Meta Knight to the roster

The PMDT announced Project M 2.6 along with their new website design.

Demo 2.6b [ edit ]

Logo of Demo 2.6b

Released August 15, 2013

Extended the use of the footstools to the side and up taunts. Also, footstooling someone who is under paralyze does not put them in the jumped-off-of animation.

When a character is respawning, the camera refocuses instead of staying focused on the characters that are currently still alive.

All armor has been standardized via knockback as light, medium, or heavy. There are color indicators for the characters that have armor during their moves, such as red for Bowser and blue for Squirtle, with more opaque overlays typically indicating stronger armor.

The removal of Screen KOs.

All music tracks are available regardless of being unlockable.

Logo of version 3.0

Released December 9, 2013

The mod officially leaves the "Demo" development and is now an official mod. 3.0 also marks the first version to contain the entire Brawl roster, along with Roy and Mewtwo, and becomes the final roster onward.

Released January 11, 2014

A new launcher is released with the following features: Support for SDHC cards larger than 2GB (Hackless method still limited to 2GB, an exception being Letterbomb). A news ticker will display current news for Project M which will update if the Wii has a connection to the Internet. The ability to update and patch both the Launcher and the version of Project M. If 3.0 is present on the SD card, the Launcher can automatically download and update to version 3.01. Faster and more reliable file loading.

Fixed the lag from the imported models such as Roy, Mewtwo and the alternative costumes.

Salty Runbacks (of 20XX recognition) implemented. Holding L+R+Y at the end of a match or L+R+A+Y+Start at the pause screen will cause the match to restart with the same characters and stage. This feature is not available on Pokémon Stadium 1 , Lylat Cruise , or Castle Siege . Similarly, it's possible to abort a stage loading by holding L+R+A, as in Melee, but faster loading times make this more difficult to perform.

, , or . Similarly, it's possible to abort a stage loading by holding L+R+A, as in but faster loading times make this more difficult to perform. Various bug fixes, including (but not limited to) the following: Roy's Final Smash is reworked and no longer causes game-breaking glitches. Many of Kirby's copy abilities updated.



Released January 13, 2014

Various bug fixes: WiFi codeset fixed to have the proper codes and menu descriptions. Nana no longer disappears instantly on Norfair. Jigglypuff, Ness, and Lucas no longer get stuck in water. Giga Bowser causing crashes when on the Green Team has been fixed. Squirtle, Yoshi, and Olimar now properly attack/roll on-stage when above 100% on Yoshi's Island (Brawl) . The Random option under "Stage Choice" doesn't crash anymore. Removed the color bars and caution signs from the character select portraits.



Logo of version 3.5.

Project M 3.5 The new Stamina Mode in3.5

Released November 14, 2014

Various character changes to adjust game balance, most especially to nerf recoveries and burst movement options that were seen as overpowered in previous versions.

Logo of version 3.6β

Released June 24th, 2015

Logo of version 3.6

Released August 16th, 2015

Kane Jungbluth-Murry replaces Brian Mckeever as the announcer.

replaces as the announcer. WarioWare revamped into a Wario Land themed stage, with the original Brawl version available as an alternate stage.

revamped into a Wario Land themed stage, with the original version available as an alternate stage. The return of Rainbow Cruise and Bridge of Eldin as alternate stages for Peach's Castle and Hyrule Castle , respectively. Only applying to the latter two stages, players have access to "Hidden Alternate Stages" by holding the Z button. This accesses the N64 versions of Peach's Castle and Hyrule Castle .

and as alternate stages for and , respectively. A competitive version of the Bowser's Castle stage added as an alternate stage to the original.

Errors [ edit ]

A graphical glitch that occurs if the winning character is KOed at the end of a match and has another character in their next stock.

Due to Project M's focus on the competitive aspect of the game, the mod experiences some errors and perticularies regarding non-competitive aspects:

Downloading instructions [ edit ]

The mod can be downloaded here and requires only an SD card, non-PAL Wii or Wii U, and a non-PAL Brawl disc.

Hackless Method:

Homebrew Method:

Developers [ edit ]

The team has dissolved after ending the development of Project M, but they are of course still credited.

Legal issues [ edit ]

The legality of Project M is ambiguous: by itself, and much like any other hack, the mod is a derivative work, for it branches directly off of a copyrighted product. While derivative works are not inherently breaches of any law or rule, the patch files for the mod include various copyrighted assets not present on the original disc, such as the Fountain of Dreams stage. In addition, the act of launching PM relies on circumventing some protection on the console, thereby breaking the console's end-user license agreement and warranty. Likely as a result, Project M has not been featured at any tournaments sponsored by Nintendo, as doing so would essentially be sponsoring hacking their own consoles and misappropriating their assets and characters.

Though Nintendo has not given an official response to Project M, policies enacted by the company have suggested that it does not approve of the mod. One of its policies included issuing bans for mentioning Project M by name on any of Nintendo's Miiverse channels because it allegedly constitutes "criminal activity". This had the potential to result in erroneous bans when talking about other subjects such as the development team of Metroid: Other M, which was also named "Project M"; bans could also be issued for using the abbreviation "PM", even if it was referring to another game or series such as Paper Mario (although this was allowed on the Paper Mario community) or when used for miscellaneous purposes (such as denoting the daily time-span between noon and midnight).

In October 2014, it was announced that Project M would be dropped from the lineup of Apex 2015, with many qualifying tournaments also suspending their Project M events. While some qualifiers did feature Project M, no official online streams were available for such events apart from B.E.A.S.T 5, which was streamed on VGBootCamp; commentators on streams provided by VGBootCamp were also reportedly instructed to not mention Project M while on air. These were strongly suspected to be a result of intervention from Nintendo, which had previously begun involving itself with the competitive community, such as through the Super Smash Bros. Invitational at E3 and a video presentation from Nintendo of America's president Reggie Fils-Aimé at the conclusion of EVO 2014. A later announcement in January 2015 said that Apex had officially partnered with Nintendo for Apex 2015, giving credence to this theory.

Following Apex 2015, Project M saw a noticeable drop in exposure. Many major tournaments dropped Project M from their rosters; VGBootCamp, which became well-known for popularizing the mod, later announced that they would no longer stream Project M, and subsequently removed all such content on their channel; and monetized streams on Twitch reportedly also faced difficulties regarding streaming the mod and its questionable legal status. All of these actions have attribution to either behind-the-scenes intervention by Nintendo or fears of encountering legal issues for featuring the mod.

On December 1st, 2015, the Project M Development Team ultimately chose to conclude development of the mod, shutting down their official page, removing the download links from the site, and leaving a farewell message on the main page. Officially, the developers felt their work on the last version of Project M was complete, and the numerous group members chose to follow their original endeavors. However, this message was contradicted by the fact that various art assets, such as additional alternate costumes, had been posted to the team's Facebook page following the release of v3.6 with a planned inclusion in a future version, as well as by the fact that a PAL version was explicitly planned though never released. Although a tweet claimed the end of development was not the result of legal issues, a later statement from a former member of the development team argued that Project M's development was in fact shut down as a preemptive measure for fears of potential legal action from Nintendo.

Legacy [ edit ]

Despite the cession of development in 2015, Project M inspired several successors. These successors built off of Project M, then introduced new characters and stages.

Legacy TE [ edit ]

Legacy TE is a tourney-viable modification of Project M 3.6 that aims to add new content while also keeping core, fundamental gameplay unmodified. It features a variety of tourney-safe alternative stage skins, costumes, and quality of life features. This includes shortcuts to edit a players' controls without leaving the character selection screen, an improvement to character files to reduce crashing likelihood, and an improved menu interface. A debug menu made for the mod allows players to train their skills for professional tournaments. For example, there is an option to show DI lines that show how directional influence affects where an attack sends an opponent, with a clearly defined end point that either aims to the ground or stops in the air. A variety of tools and resources have also been made for the mod, allowing tournament organizers to easily customize their builds, including changing the stagelist, replacing costumes, or editing brand assets on menus. Legacy TE has received worldwide adoption and is generally considered the go-to edition of Project M by tournament players. Version 2.11 was released in January 2019. Version 2.5 was released on August 26, 2019, and features 15 costumes per character, stage alt toggle options in the code menu, and many other features. On March 13th, 2020 the Legacy Team announced that development of Legacy TE had concluded and that Version 2.5 was the final release.

Legacy XP [ edit ]

Legacy XP is a modification of Project M 3.6 that includes more characters, 700+ additional stages and new modes. While the characters from Project M were mostly unaltered (Yoshi and Link received some non-PM 3.6 moveset-fixing edits and Snake got the ability to walk while using his box taunt), 10 more fighters were added: Young Link, Pichu and Doctor Mario returned from Melee and Waluigi, Geno, Metal Sonic and two characters who would debut in titles released after Brawl; Ridley and Lucina, were added in the beta build released in September 2016. Shadow and Mage Ganondorf (inspired by his Ocarina of Time appearance) followed in version 2.0 Full in May 2018. Version 2.1 featuring some balance changes was released in March 2019. Another minor update, Version 2.11 was released in January 2020. On March 13th, 2020 the Legacy Team announced that development of Legacy XP had concluded and that Version 2.11 was the final release.

Legacy XP Lite is a combination of Legacy XP with some of the more competitive friendly stages from Legacy TE greatly reducing the number of stages and the mod size from over 5 GB to under 2 GB. Version 2.1 was released in March 2019. Version 2.11 was released in January 2020.

Project+ is a modification of Project M 3.6 (based on Legacy TE) with the aim to improve the balance among the cast by making small moveset changes to all or most characters. Project+ is currently the main mod over Project M in several tournaments, most notably and recently Blacklisted 5, Low Tier City 7, and The Encore. Project+'s development started in 2018, with the latest patch (v2.15) releasing on June 23, 2020. Version 2.0 brought many new additions including a new character, Knuckles. [7]

Trivia [ edit ]

Since 2013, the Project M main site has posted fake news announcements to its news blog on April Fools' Day. In 2013, Turbo mode was introduced, with its corresponding video claiming that Pichu would be playable in a future build. Turbo Mode later became a reality in version 3.0. In 2014, a tagteam character, the "Ike Climbers", was introduced, featuring two Ikes working together similarly to the Ice Climbers. Slippy Toad was also introduced as a playable character, ostensibly as a joke character that could not attack and could be easily KOed. The end of the video also implied that Ridley would be playable, as a reference to speculation surrounding the then-unknown roster to Smash 4 . In 2015, the PMDT claimed that they would port Project M to the Nintendo 64. All models in the game were given low-polygon counts as to simulate the limited graphics of the Nintendo 64, with the "perfect attendance crew" using their models from Smash 64 . There were replacements for all sound effects and music with those from the original game, and the video frequently featured speech balloons overlaid with humorous onomatopoeia as a reference to Smash 64's official artwork. The end of the video also implied that Parasect, Pokémon number 47 in the Pokédex, would be added to the roster, as a reference to the number 47 that covertly appeared in past videos.

main site has posted fake news announcements to its news blog on April Fools' Day. Mentioning Project M by name on any Miiverse community could trigger an automatic ban for discussing "criminal activity". This included using the abbreviation "PM", which could result in erroneous bans when talking about other games or series with the same abbreviation (such as Paper Mario or Pac-Man .).

V-cancelling is the only known Melee advanced technique to not return in this mod. This is because all of its updates were released before this technique was popularised.

References [ edit ]



