There’s been an influx of new information over the past few days. In particular, Sakurai has released two new books, and Sakurai’s latest Famitsu article: Ryu, Roy and Lucas join the Battle! which was translated by Soma. With this, I’ve seen some misinformation about both of these topics, so I figured I would address them head on. Also, this will give some insight in how Source Gaming operates, so it’s well worth the read.
First off, Sakurai has released two new books. These books are actually better classified as “anthologies”. Inside these books are reprints of Sakurai’s Famitsu column, “Think about the Video Games” (Official translation of the title) with additional interviews and tidbits. Currently, Sakurai has released 8 collections. Sakurai started writing his Famitsu column on April 18th, 2003. As of writing, he has released 481 columns. The “Think about the Making of Video Games 2” goes up to #469, or Christmas of 2014. We will be translating more from these newest books, and his older collections in order to give you guys even more information about the making of Smash, and Sakurai himself. Stay tuned. Subscribe. Get popcorn.
Secondly, there has been some confusion over the latest translation, “Ryu, Roy and Lucas join the battle! vol. 481”. Some people have complained about the wording, in particular the ambiguous nature of the translation. First off, we welcome anyone to check any of our translations. We transcribe most of these articles and translations ourselves for internal use, but we will send the transcription if someone requests it. The reason parts of it is ambiguous is because the language that Sakurai is using himself is ambiguous.
Currently, we have seven members working on translations. The large number of translators allows us to not only work on several translation projects simultaneously, but it allows us to have the translation checked before it’s posted. When it comes to controversial subjects, or translations, we bring in multiple people. When I noted that the article, “The Act of Balancing” was completed through the efforts of four people I was not joking. We take translation very seriously, and we will do our best to provide an accurate translation.
The following is my opinion:
I have recently wrote an article titled, “The End of Smash DLC”. In it, I take a very pessimistic view on Smash’s DLC development. Essentially, I stated the chances of Smash’s DLC ending soon is very real. I personally believe that two additional characters would be made, influenced by the ballot. As of right now, I have not fully abandoned that mindset. This is because in the latest translation, Sakurai states the following:
There is a fighter ballot on the official Smash for Wii U/3DS website. We’ve received an extremely large number of votes, but of course, Lucas, Roy, and Ryu were in developed even before the ballot was created. I had a grasp on their popularity and demand, though.
From now until the end, it is going to be fan service , but I can’t keep the development team together forever, so there’s only going to be several more characters. I also ask for your patience, as we need time to develop more content.
There may be unforeseen circumstances that arise as well, but I’ll try my best!
The statement, “From now until the end” indicates that the characters we receive in the future will be directly influenced by the Fighter Ballot. This is because Sakurai went out of his way to explain that Lucas, Roy and Ryu were developed before the ballot was created. After mentioning that fact, Sakurai then states it’s going to be different from now on. I feel like I’m going over basic English grammar, but I’ve seen a lot of people in denial over this particular statement. The pre-ballot is 100% over, sorry. We had three people check the translation, one of us is a professional translator. Again, if you would like to check our translation we will provide it.
Another nugget of misinformation that I’ve seen is a lack of understanding of Sakurai’s working conditions. Sakurai is a freelance employee (See “I’m Quitting Hal Laboratory” for additional information), meaning he does not belong to a particular studio. Instead, he is bounded by his contract. In this case, he is borrowing staff from Bandai-Namco and from Nintendo in order to complete this project. Sakurai does not have unlimited time to create DLC, and contract issues–such as losing additional staff, or the studio ending development (my personal interpretation of “unforeseen circumstances”) may cause DLC production to halt earlier than some people are expecting. Again, we already know that the development time has shrunk.
The only thing that has changed after reading this column, is that I now believe that it’s possible we may get more than two characters. However, if I was a betting man, I wouldn’t bet over five. As Ryu, Roy and Lucas were in development from before April 1st, but we don’t know for how long exactly. They could have been in development since the game was officially released with most of the initial efforts going to building Mewtwo and the distribution system. The lack of new stages shows us that Sakurai is indeed trying to include as many characters as possible, but how many he will be able to include is still debatable.
If you have any additional questions, please comment below.
- Smash Ultimate Development Timeline - May 16, 2020
- Straight from the Source: Koji Igarashi on Castlevania in Smash, Bloodstained - October 16, 2018
- Sakurai Discusses Isabelle, Echoes, and Newcomers - September 26, 2018
The wording “fan service” is as ambiguous as “only a number of/several,” in my opinion. As Lucas (which Iwata in the Nintendo Direct noted) was added (at least partially) due to fan demand, there’s no reason to assume that there can’t be more added as “fan service” that are already planned. He doesn’t explicitly state they’re being added from the ballot responses. Ryu was certainly not a fan demanded character, and that could be what he is referring to.
The fact that Sakurai goes out of his way to mention that Ryu, Roy and Lucas were decided without consideration of the ballot and then immediately state, ‘from now on until the end, it’s going to be fan service’ (He stated the Ryu, Roy and Lucas were decided by him, because he had a grasp on their popularity). This suggests that it wasn’t 100% fan service before, and the following characters will be ballot characters. He’s probably being ambiguous because he’s not really sure himself how many characters he can be added. He doesn’t want to commit to anything, as things may change in an instant.
The “The End of Smash DLC” link is broken. it leads to the edit of the article, which we have no access to.
Thanks, I fixed it! I was wondering why a lot of people were requesting access to my private doc :P.