Joining the Melee – Beginner’s guide to online play
Intro
Hi r/SSBM,
This thread will serve as a walkthrough of my journey to play Super Smash Brothers Melee. It will contain the path I took to get to play the game and include pricing, hardware, and pitfalls. This is an in-progress guide.
Who am I?
I go by Gami online. I last played Melee circa 2016 – 2018 in Arkansas as a Captain Falcon player.
Since then I moved back home to the west coast of the U.S. in March of 2020.
Getting Started
What do I need to play Melee online?
-
A physical copy of Super Smash Brothers Melee — v1.02: Ordered from eBay: $72.52 with tax & shipping. Purchased on May 19th, 2026.
Before purchasing the copy I reviewed the eBay seller's photos and confirmed that the inner ring on the back of the disc read DOL-GALE 0-02. I also confirmed that the case of the game was the version with the yellow "Player's Choice" banner at the top. Nintendo Wii — Approximately $161.00 from a local store. Purchased on April 7th, 2026.
PC
[] A GameCube controller 🔎
A Controller Adapter + USB Cable — Ordered from Input Integrity for $66.01 with tax, U.S. tariffs, & shipping. Purchased on May 19th, 2026.
[] SD Card 🔎
[] Slippi
Steps Taken
Read the FAQs on the sidebar
Pitfall #1 — Some of the links in the FAQs are broken.
a. Link to https://blippi.gg should be https://melee.tv/
b. Link to the Official Smash Ultimate Controller leads to a 404 Error on Amazon.
Visit Get Melee Online as listed in the sidebar
- Purchase a controller — I chose to use the links available on the https://melee.tv website to get a controller.
Putting it all together
- Once the hardware arrives I will put together a final summary.
Thank you for reading this far! Looking forward to playing Melee again in the near future!
EDIT 1: — Remove HTML tags as they were not rendering properly.
EDIT 2: — Update post with controller adapter purchase information.