This is a translation of Mario’s character page from News Flash! Smash Bros. Dojo, Melee’s version of the Smash Bros. Dojo. Thanks to PushDustIn, Sutamen and Soma for their help with the translation.
It’s a bit late, but Mario is here!
When starting development for Smash, we naturally start off with Mario.
That means modeling, movements, programming, sounds, effects, and parameters.
Here’s a simple explanation:
Modeling:
The character’s appearance, shape, structure and so on
Movement:
The character’s animation, including punches and jumps
Program:
How the character responds to the control on the actual console
Sound:
Voices and sound effects
Effects:
Visual effects such as light, splashes, and smoke
Parameters:
The values for things such as running speed, falling speed, and attack power
Everything moves forward using Mario as a foundation, so the direction and nature of the game is actually decided to a certain extent. This Mario has turned out like this.
 That presence! Mario’s here. |
 Mario Tornado! It’s stronger than it was before. |
 Super Jump Punch! Grab your coins. |
 Mario throws a Fireball. His glove’s on fire! |
 Mario’s Cape will turn enemies around. |
 It’s Mario’s forward smash, Fire Glove! |
(These images were taken during development)
Mario’s Special Moves
Neutral Special: Fireball
Side Special: Cape
Up Special: Super Jump Punch
Down Special: Mario Tornado
Check out the character portal for more!
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“Everything moves forward using Mario as a foundation, so the direction and nature of the game is actually decided to a certain extent. This Mario has turned out like this.” This is extremely interesting because he’s basically implying he uses Mario as the center for balancing the roster, maybe just for Melee, but possibly for the other games as well! Great stuff.
From a developer’s standpoint, this is how many games with multiple characters work… ESPECIALLY fighting games. It’s usually your “balanced, default selection on the character select screen” person. I’m not sure with Smash 64 because it was so experimental, but I can guarantee that Brawl and Smash 4 were developed with Mario as the first fighter and everyone else following suit after that. Especially for balancing, it just makes sense that you start with a perfectly balanced, perfectly neutral character, and from there say “this character needs to run slower than our balanced character” or whatever the case may be.
Ryu is another great example of this type of character as well. He not only applies to the Street Fighter series, but every “Capcom vs.” game.
Hmm, it may be fair to put this into the ‘misinformation’ bin, but I thought I heard a while back in one game that Fox was actually the first one created. Maybe it was Brawl?
I can’t validate this one’s source other than hearsay from years and years ago.
Fox was one of the first ones for Smash 64. See the quote/ interview below:
“As preparation for when we were going to go up to Mr. Miyamoto and ask “please let us borrow Mario,” first, we gathered some staff and created a prototype version with only four playable characters. I believe it was Mario, Donkey, Samus, and Fox?”
http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/10/11/itoi64-2/