Original storyboard artwork for the iconic opening cutscene of Super Smash Bros. 64 has been unearthed and shared online! Content creator David V. Kimball stumbled upon the designs while exploring an old version of HAL Laboratory’s website via the Wayback Machine. The panels include detailed illustrations by series creator Masahiro Sakurai.
This is nuts!!
I accidentally found the original Smash 64 storyboard artwork created by Sakurai himself.
I wasn't able to recover all of it, but here is most of it.
(post reply contains the rest). pic.twitter.com/cHSMkpufV4
— David V. Kimball (@davidvkimball) July 29, 2024
The panels include art of the Nintendo 64 fighter’s iconic opening cutscene, wherein Master Hand flies around a bedroom and places a Mario toy on a desk. The toy springs to life, the desk morphs into a stage, and the action commences. For the sake of comparison, the opening can be viewed below.
You can also view the documents via the archived HAL website yourself – while the thumbnails are broken, most of the links still work, though sadly there are a few that could not be recovered.
Kimball regularly produces Super Smash Bros. Melee videos on his YouTube channel. Funnily enough, finding these storyboards wasn’t his intention – he simply stumbled upon them while doing some research for his next video.
“These were only available on the site between a very specific period of time, so that may be one reason they weren’t discovered in the last 15 or so years,” he says.
The original Super Smash Bros. turned 25 this year, and it kicked off a franchise phenomenon like no other. If you missed our recent celebration of this Nintendo classic, be sure to check out our feature and retro unboxing video of a pristinely preserved Japanese version of the game.
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Written by Reece Heather
A veteran Zelda Universe editor and First-class journalism graduate, Reece emerged with a Nintendo 64 and a lifelong obsession after a narrow escape from Santa’s Naughty List in 1998. Outside of games, he’s reading Punisher comics, being bossed around by his cocker spaniel, and cornering innocent bystanders to rant about the importance of game preservation.
