Despite being a boss character, Master Hand is considered worse than any regular character in competitive play when unlocked through the Name Entry glitch. This is due to his high power and unconventional win conditions being nullified by his lack of defense options, slow attack and non-existent movement speed, and - in the case of doubles - his inability to attack the member of the opposing team with a lower port number.

Due to Master Hand being an undesirable character to play as, he is rarely explicitly mentioned as being banned in Melee tournament rulesets. However, he will usually be banned at a TO's discretion in the rare occasion he pops up, due to his win conditions stretching matches out extremely long and his matches always ending with the game crashing.

The song "Mother", which plays in the stage Onett, is an orchestrated remix of four songs from the game Mother: "Bein' Friends", "Eight Melodies", "Mother Earth", and the jingle that plays before a battle begins.

Roy's belt buckle has the image of a lion on it. This is likely a reference to his endgame title of "Young Lion" in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. He was also referred to by this title in the Fire Emblem Awakening DLC.

The reflections found on the Fountain of Dreams and the models inside the magnifying glass when a character is offscreen are not actually the character's model, but rather a low res version of the model. These versions of the models don't show any item the character is holding, nor do their facial expression change.

8-Player Smash (a mode introduced in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U) was originally planned for this game. However, due to technical performance, Sakurai stated "it was more than impossible."

In the Mushroom Kingdom stage, pausing the game and looking off to the left or right of the stage to see outside of the standard gameplay field of view, it's possible to see walls with warnings signs reading "Danger" on them, warning the player of the stage's boundary. Despite the Mushroom Kingdom stage having a different design in Super Smash Bros. Melee, these signs still appear in the stage.

The last sentence of Pit's Trophy description reads, "Will Pit ever fight again?", possibly foreshadowing his role as a playable character in the next entry of Smash Bros. released 7 years later, Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

In a prerelease build, the "Temple" stage originally had an elevator that led to the bottom of the stage, and had a fixed appearance. Players could also walk through the laboratory in Great Bay. Hyrule Temple had two mysterious platforms in the center of the stage. These platforms can also be seen in the game's Special Movie.

A segment of the remixed DK Rap used in the Kongo Jungle stage has the Character Select theme from the original Super Smash Bros. mixed into it.

In the PAL version of the game, the Rainbow Cruise stage is renamed to "Rainbow Ride", likely for consistency with the international versions of Super Mario 64.

When the game was revealed during E3 2001, the game's introduction sequence was played, followed by gameplay footage demonstrating each character's movesets. The only changes made when adding this into the game was to the gameplay footage.

Like the original Ice Climber, Topis were changed from seals to yetis due to the controversy of seal clubbing. Oddly enough, the English trophy description is exactly the same as in the Japanese.

The bonus for getting a Star KO on all of the opposing team's members is called "Rocket KO". This may be a reference to Team Rocket from the Pokemon TV show, as they are commonly seen blasting off into the sky, punctuated by a star glint.

There is an unused audio clip of Captain Falcon saying "Come on!" and "Blue Falcon". The Blue Falcon is Captain Falcon's final smash in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and both voice clips appear in that game. It's possible the developers were experimenting with final smashes, just as they did in the original Super Smash Bros..

Event 22's name, Super Mario 128, is a reference to the series of experiments done to test technology that was eventually used in later games from Nintendo, as well as a reference to a sequel to Super Mario 64 that was never released.

The Rest Area Music in Allstar Mode is a remake of The Great Cave Offensive's Save Area Music from Kirby Super Star.

Allstar Mode itself may be based on Kirby Superstar's Arena Mode, as both have the player fighting a number of random enemies, finishing off with a consistent final opponent. Both modes feature a lobby between fights that displays which opponent the player will fight next, and a limited stock of healing items that do not replenish between fights.

The main menu theme sounds strikingly similar to the first part of the opening segment of the Super Nintendo RPG Terranigma, which was published by Nintendo in Europe. The composer for Melee may have taken inspiration from it.

In the Stage Select screen, the symbol representing the stage of the game of origin appears briefly before an outline of the level is generated where the name of the stage is displayed. Although Final Destination has the traditional Smash symbol, being an original level, Battlefield strangely displays a shattered circle. The reason why is unknown.

The Ice Climbers' Target Test Room only has Popo (or Nana depending on the color) and instead of the Target Test music, it plays the Ice Climber music. This could reference the game Ice Climber, as Popo climbs to the top alone (unless there's two players), along with breakable blocks and scrolling clouds. The condor appears holding the last target which is referencing how an Ice Climber needs to grab onto the condor at the end of a bonus stage (which Target Test also is). The targets could also reference the vegetables in Ice Climber that the player needs to collect for points.

Early trailers for Super Smash Bros. Melee show Samus' Grapple beam being more narrow and electric looking compared to the finished product.