Remember, all of these amazing headers are created by Nirbion. So give him a shout-out!
Recently, I asked the Smash community on reddit to submit proof of these claims as I believe this image was unwarranted because Sakurai’s statements have been taken out of context, or because of mistranslations. However, I was open to the idea that perhaps Sakurai is a liar and looked at the proof submitted to me, objectively.
I hope this article will serve as a reference for the community. If I forgot something please leave a comment below and I will update this article.
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Special thanks to: /u/biggest_dreamer,/u/peppermint1201, /u/Ddiaboloer, /u/Masterofknees, /u/RCX42, /u/beltbuckle_at_work, /u/cmbsfm, JohnKnight11, SuperSmashBala, MrThatKidAlex24, Cart Boy, MidnightMuddy, Megmar and anyone else who I may have forgotten for their contributions.
Special shout out to: Soma, Nocturnal_YL and SutaMen for helping out with translations. Also, thanks to Spazzy for his help with proof reading.
For date references, please use Smash for Wii U/3DS Development History and Timeline of Masahiro Sakurai’s Life.
Is Masahiro Sakurai a liar?
No, he isn’t. (TL;DR below)
The reason that Sakurai has a reputation of lying or trolling is because fans often misunderstand what exactly Sakurai is saying. This can be the result of several issues. Often it’s because of mistranslations, or quotes taken out of context.
But a lot of times it’s because fans project their expectations onto Sakurai. When Sakurai said, “some bosses may appear” and showed Ridley’s shadow…he wasn’t saying that Ridley was going to be a playable character. He was telling people that Ridley was a boss character, no questions asked. This is why Wolf is not going to return, as Sakurai has stated numerous times that DLC is finished.
Sakurai is one of few developers to have a truly deep relationship with his fans. He’s written nearly 500 Famitsu Columns (Source Gaming has translated only a handful of them), given dozens of interviews, and even produced weekly/ daily updates for Melee, Brawl and Smash for Wii U! For Smash 64, he not only created an online resource that teaches players advanced techniques, but he also answered fan questions after the game’s release.
The amount of untranslated content from Sakurai is astounding. In my opinion, Sakurai’s writing is something that this fan base takes for granted. We don’t have many active developers promote their game as much as Sakurai does. Because of his active nature, he has developed a strong reputation in the community. Some people love him, some people hate him. But, in my opinion, you need to respect him. Part of that respect is to not put words into his mouth and to check the sources.
The only definitive time he’s ever ‘lied’ (that we’ve been able to uncover) was when he stated Zero Suit Samus was cut in the April 2014 Smash Bros. Direct. However, that “lie” lasted only a few seconds, and he didn’t even finish his sentence in Japanese.
Sakurai is usually very clear when he disconfirms characters. Sometimes to the point of being very blunt. However, he’s done ‘fakeouts’ a couple of times.
That’s…not what I was expecting (Image Source).
The first example I could find is a lesser known one where he seemingly deconfirmed Luigi for Melee. Also, you could count the misdirection in the April Direct when the Psuedo Palutena trophy was revealed, but that was more a case of ‘playing with expectations’ than a fake out. The last instance that we could think of was the MetaKnight “reveal” with the Mii costume being shown as a “Picture of the Day” prior to his proper reveal. In any case, I’ve included them in this article.
TL;DR:
1 Lie
4 Fake Outs
1 Debatable
12 Claims and Counterpoints
4 Projecting
2 Straight up Misinformation
List of lies:
+ZSS isn’t in Smash for Wii U/3DS Fake Out:
Stating that Zero-Suit Samus wasn’t in Smash for Wii U/3DS, and then moments later admitting he was lying.
Fake Outs:
+Luigi didn’t get an invitation for Melee
When Luigi was revealed Sakurai stated,
I never said “Luigi won’t appear,” not even once.
Rather than simply announcing Luigi as a starting member, we thought it would be fun for everyone to spend the pre-release this way.
More than that, I wanted him to be hidden at the beginning. —News Flash!! Super Smash Bros.: Luigi
+Pseudo-Palutena fake out
Already discussed above.
+MetaKnight costume reveal before his actual reveal
Another example of a fake out by Sakurai. However, it should be noted that some sites did correctly reported it as a tease.
+”Ness was in Smash up until now”
This quote comes from the Brawl site – Not a mistranslation, but it’s not intended to sound so “definitive” (Japanese link). It just means that Ness was in all the previous Smash games up to that point. It was not a direct confirmation that Ness was or wasn’t going to be in Brawl.
There is one debatable instance of Sakurai lying.
Debatable:
–”Namco not given special priority”
This somewhat contradicts his statement in My First Conception is My Landmark
Since I am creating the new Smash Bros. in cooperation with Bandai-Namco Games, it makes sense to include one of their characters, and Pac-Man is perhaps Namco’s most iconic character, so Pac-Man should join the fray.
It’s a pretty logical train of thought for anyone who has been playing games for many years. However, simply thinking about including a character in the game and the act of actually crafting the character and making them work are two entirely different things. It’s quite difficult for me because most players only think about whether a character is in the game and fail to consider the difficulties of bringing that character to life. — My First Conception is my Landmark
In that IGN interview he does state:
“Just like with Mega Man or any other third-party character, it would
have to be a very special situation.”
It should be noted that Pac-Man does follow this criteria, and it was likely the main reason Sakurai chose him. However, while he did later claim that he considered Heihachi from Tekken, he also did not consider him – or any other Bandai-Namco character aside from Pac-Man to be a strong candidate (as far as we know at this time).
Claims and Counterpoints:
Please note that I already did research on some statements in the past in Sakurai Didn’t Say That!
–“No Fighting Game Character”
The quote was taken out of context by GamesTM. For the full context read our breakdown here.
–“No More DLC”
Thisquote was taken out of context. Sakurai said that he and his team were not working on DLC at the time of the interview (November 19th), which for all we know, is true.
–“ATs in All-Star Mode”
This is a mistranslation by Nintendo.
–“Ice Climbers not a priority because of series future”
Mistranslation. Ice Climbers didn’t make it because of hardware limitations on the 3DS and a desire to keep both versions of the game the same. The combination of the two quotes originally came from Nintendo Everything who translated a summary of the Famitsu Column. If you are interested in the full column,Click here for the Source Gaming translation.
They have a future…in our hearts.
-”No plans for balance patches”
Keyword: plans. Plans change.
-”Villager/Pac-Man/Mii’s unsuited for fighting”
Sakurai changed his approach to designing characters between Brawl and Smash for Wii U/3DS. For more information on how characters are designed, check out Character Design 101 In particular, “Are the Characters Dancing?” is highly relevant to this section.
The original quote:
To tell you the truth, there was even a point where in the planning stages of the previous game, “Super Smash Bros. Brawl,” I removed the unsuited-for-fighting protagonist of Animal Crossing from consideration. (Note, The Villager was also referenced in the Iwata Asks for Brawl)
Sakurai has stated his approach to designing characters in Smash for Wii U/3DS was:
if I think I can do it then I can envision a concrete embodiment of the character, but if I cannot do that the character cannot be made.”
Between Brawl and Smash for Wii U/3DS, he was able to successfully envision Villager as a playable fighter:
…Villager and Wii Fit Trainer were not selected solely because they can show off their eccentricity. They each have their own individual fighting styles and strategies, and make the game more fun.
Miis: Sakurai stated:
The inclusion of Miis was considered for the previous game, “Super Smash Bros. Brawl,” but after thinking about it for about 1 minute, I dismissed that idea immediately.” — Everyone Joins the Battle! Anyone Can Join the Fray!
He was concerned about online bullying, felt they weren’t suited towards fighting, and thought they would be boring because they lack character. But in the years since Brawl, Miis became much more popular and iconic, and more than that, with Miis, “anyone can join.” For more detail, check out “Everyone Joins the Battle! Anyone Can Join the Fray!”
This doesn’t count as bullying.
Pac-Man: Similiar situation to the Villager and Miis. Sakurai changed his approach, and made Pac-Man work.
For all of these cases, Sakurai thought it was the truth at the time. There is nothing wrong with changing opinions based on new information, or a new approach. That’s not “flip-flopping,” it’s called growing.
–”Roster in Smash for Wii U/3DS will be less than 50 otherwise it would cause issues with balance”
This interview with Nintendo Power (Page 22, June 2012 Issue #279) comes from the pre-development period of Smash for Wii U/3DS when Sakurai wasn’t even working on Smash for Wii U/3DS. The base roster, before DLC or simple clones, actually reflected his original ideology. You could argue that Sakurai meant 50, as in a figurative number. And that he meant to show that just raising the character count without other changes isn’t good for Smash.
–“We believe that Samus is the best character in Super Smash Brothers for Wii U and 3DS”
This was in reference to the E3 invitational build (video link to the quote). This is probably his sincere opinion at the time, so it’s not a lie. On top of that, Sakurai states that he’s still balancing, so things would have changed since then.
–”Several more DLC will come”
Source Gaming translated this quote, and then proceeded to break down the meaning of it. The original Japanese is very ambiguous and we did our best to keep that meaning. If you look at our breakdown of the meaning, this is exactly what happened.
–”No paid Smash DLC”
Sakurai said at that time he wasn’t working on any, which is probably true. Even in the Final Smash Broadcast, Sakurai has always maintained that DLC only started production after the base game was finished.
–“DLC will be fanservice”
Source Gaming translated this quote. “Fanservice” is very ambiguous and can mean different things to different people. However, one thing that Sakurai has constantly maintained is that DLC was created after the main game was finished. Therefore, nothing that was “held back” made its’ way into DLC, a concept which Sakurai would probably see as fanservice. Plus, Sakurai could see the absurd amount of content in the game as pure fanservice in itself.
–“No Guns, but Bayonetta
The “no guns” quote actually became popular after I included it in my Definitive Unused Fighter List when discussing James Bond. Even in that article it states, “Can’t have realistic guns in the game.” It’s likely that Bayonetta was able to get a pass from the ESRB because her weapons are exaggerated. However, the rating for DLC might actually increase in some regions, so we will have to wait until she released. Sakurai has also gotten a lot better at handling rating boards. Except for that time Palutena almost delayed the game in Japan.
Who says Nintendo is just for kids, amiright?
–”New modes in DLC”
Source Gaming originally translated this statement. Tourney Mode and Share Mode are the new modes that became available after that translation debuted.
–”Last Smash Game”
Sakurai has claimed this numerous times. I believe he states this because he approaches every entry like it will be his last game. It’s worth noting that even afterhe left Hal Laboratory he said he wasn’t sure if he was going to come back to Smash.
“When I made the second one, I thought, there’s no chance there’s going to be a third one, but I did make a third one. So I do think there is a possibility for a fourth. But I think actually making it would be very difficult.” –GSL on Brawl (Translation in the works for Source Gaming. Stay tune for the full text. Translation done by Soma.)
He has said this even in regards to Smash for Wii U/ 3DS. If you read past the headline, then you will actually discover that he said, “I doubt” (でしょう) (Column #482 for reference, Source Gaming has not translated it yet) in regards to continuing making games in the series.
Regardless, most recently in his Fire Emblem 25 Anniversary Interview, Sakurai has since seemed optimistic about his future involvement with Smash.
Projecting:
Sometimes, fans are projecting things that they want/ think onto Sakurai. Then, after it doesn’t come true they state that Sakurai “trolled” or “lied” to them. If you go in with a clear mind, you can see that Sakurai did not mislead, instead fans only misunderstood.
–Characters in Melee’s opening movie aren’t playable characters, so Sakurai ‘trolled’:
Sakurai confirmed this on the official Melee website, only in Japanese. As far as I’m aware, it was never translated before today (thanks Soma!). Furthermore, nothing from official materials suggested that all characters were going to be playable.
All Pokemon, assemble!
–Greninja without any webbing:
If you look in the second picture, you can see Greninja’s tongue and you also notice that he is hangingupside down. I don’t think the webbing was removed in order to troll people into thinking it was Mewtwo. A shuriken of water was shot out at Charizard and Mario in the video (direct time) which further removes this as an instance of trolling and makes it more a case of fans projecting their wishes onto Sakurai’s work.
-Ridley is a playable character!
Sakurai said “boss characters” and showed Ridley’s shadow. The section was even in the “Yellow Devil” section.
-Wolf is coming back!
I already explained this, guys…come on.
Straight up made up information:
–“We wanted Brawl to be more air combo heavy”
Not sure where this came from. The closest thing Soma and I could think of was his comments on Brawl, that Soma translated. Here’s what we think this misquote might be referencing:
“Also, one of the things I felt when reflecting on Melee was that while a higher speed game is definitely exhilarating and fun, it makes the gap between beginners and higher level players too large, and you can’t really enjoy carefree, leisurely aerial battles.” I Answer Some Questions
–”No more clones” According to several threads on this topic, this is something that Sakurai has never said. In none of the Brawl interviews that Source Gaming has yet to translate was I able to find this. It is possible that eventually a source could turn up, but we will have to consider this misinformation since one has not been made available. According to Kinnian, it was made up by a user on Gamefaqs, and accepted as truth despite it lacking sources. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this happen and is the reason why you should always, always ask for a source.
Conclusion:
These are all of the purported lies, including the submissions by the community, that we could think of. If we missed something, please leave a comment below or send me a DM on Twitter.
This kind of work is not easy and takes an incredible amount of time and effort. If you enjoy this kind of research, please consider donating to Source Gaming’s patreon. We’ve increased the reward payout, and made our goals clearer. Please check it out!
Special Thanks:
- 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
you guys sure love to defend sakurai 😛
If you have any countering evidence we will add it in 🙂
i’m not saying this is bad or anything,nor disagreeing with anything xD
i’m just noticing that you guys do a lot of post defending sakurai in some form (like the artist/buinessman post).
i’m not mad about it.
They’re defending *the truth*. Being Smash fans, they thought it’d be a good idea to deal with all the lies thrown at Sakurai, and to translate the ridiculous amount of stuff a developer has written about his incredibly popular series that *noone* outside of Japan knows about. You’re trying to say they’re pushing an agenda by pushing an agenda yourself.
We’ve definitely have criticized some things in the past (most recently, I talked about why I didn’t like Corrin’s inclusion in Smash: http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/12/21/the-corrin-controversy/) but the majority of our posts would probably classify as “defending Sakurai”. This is only because we respect Sakurai enough to actually see what he says. When you look at things he’s said, there is logic in it so you need to at least recognize that before criticizing him. Once you at least attempt to understand that logic, then I think that’s where you can have meaningful discussion. That’s why we work extremely hard on providing accurate translations. If we didn’t bother with all the checks we do, we could probably post double the amount of stuff, but it’d be more prone to mistakes/ mistranslations.
I actually discussed this approach in “Our Dear Leader”: http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/07/08/our-dear-leader/
That really isn’t criticising. Most of that article is just explaining and justifying why he was in and that there was a controversy about him rather than actually criticising his inclusion.
http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/rumor-smash-bros-swaps-ice-climbers-for-ridley-others.119239898/
This is where I remember first hearing about “no clones”. Sounds like people (wishfully) forgot that it was part of a debunked rumor.
The fact that Ridley is constantly brought up as proof Sakurai is a liar is ridiculously backward.
If anything, it’s proof that he doesn’t lie. He showed Ridley’s shadow during a section of the Direct highlighting stage bosses, while talking about other stage bosses being in the game besides Yellow Devil. He would’ve been lying had Ridley been playable like people theorized. They’re essentially calling him a liar for being honest.
Wolf is pretty stupid, too. I don’t think Sakurai ever even mentioned Wolf when talking about Smash 4. The closest thing I can recall is when he mentioned that veterans were counted in the Smash ballot. It’s like the ultimate example of Smash fans projecting things onto him.
I’d say Sakurai, if anything, usually underpromises more than anything (like how he talked about not getting too many more DLC stages when revealing Peach’s Castle 64 and Hyrule Castle 64, then proceeding to release Mario Maker, Pirate Ship, Duck Hunt on 3DS, Midgar, and the Bayonetta stage).
Wolf and Ice Climbers: They have a future….in SSB4 molding (once Nintendo backs off peoples’ Wii U systems, that people paid money for). Then the real fun begins.
I honestly don’t care what Sakurai’s next project is at this point. I’ll be too busy focused on mt own SSB project to give a shit.
What I meant to say was:
Wolf and Ice Climbers: They have a future….in SSB4 modding (once Nintendo backs off peoples’ Wii U systems, that people paid money for). Then the real fun begins.
I honestly don’t care what Sakurai’s next project is at this point. I’ll be too busy focused on my own SSB project to care.
I guess only one question is left unanswered.
Is Wolf coming back?
No.
Love how you were like ‘いいえ。しずか。’
Really good article an all but can we take a second to think about the fact that someone spent TIME and EFFORT making sakurai look like Pinocchio?
Thank Nirbion!
Having his pants on fire would confused the European community as that phrase doesn’t exist there.
THIS!!!!! This is the article I’ve been looking for! This is the article that I’ve been trying to explain!! Thank you PushDustIn!! Thank you Source Gaming!!!
Definitely, Sakurai isn’t the liar at any meanings. But rather than being a liar, he’s a joker. He likes to joke around and even tease among certain things, but that’s in a good way. Although he doesn’t explain things briefly and deeply, he doesn’t want to spoil any fun to every fans and viewers as he want to give them a little hype. But at the same time, he can be easier to make people misunderstand. He is the man with many ideas and imaginations that nobody can see nor understand. He express things in many meanings, but that is something people can easily misunderstood or mistranslated. He’s just unique like how those characters in Smash are unique too. As I said before with no offense, fans are meant to be ignorant within things except for their own desires. They don’t believe in every official’s explanation, as they start to make up something that the officials never even talked about, or even promised about either. This is something what we’re having from extreme hardcore fans today; they just can’t listen and understand things right.
He also does change his mind when it come with choosing characters. I don’t know why people think changing mind is lying, because both are stictly different if they didn’t know. He may have commented that Animal Crossing isn’t fitful for a fighting game back in Brawl, but he got lots of time after the game’s release to think more about the next Smash, much more to make researches of certain characters. He was able to bring the Villager to Smash because he realized its uniqueness by researching very deeply into that character. That can be said the same to Pac-Man too because he realized what Pac-Man can do that nobody can’t. But he did also changed his mind not to bring Ice Climbers because of technical difficulties from the 3DS’s lack of power, Takamaru because he wasn’t known well in the west and changed him into an Assist Trophy, and even Chrom because he’d might end up being another blue-haired FE hero or a Marth clone and changed him as part of Robin’s Final Smash. Much more, he may plan to bring that character or not, but he did not promise anybody about it, which this doesn’t mean that he lied about anything according to his plans.
I don’t know if you could call the ZSS’s case a lie. This is just my typical view, but although the phrase “嘘=uso” means “lie” in Japanese, some point can mean as “kidding”. Sakurai wasn’t taking serious about this case, so rather than “lying” as a harsh meaning, “kidding” can be a right translation in a smoother way.
For the Wolf’s case, I know he didn’t say anything about it, and I don’t even know why people thinks he lied about Wolf’s inclusion. But there was one point people believed Wolf was going to return, which was not from Sakurai, but the commentator from the 2014’s San Diego Comic-Con. I know nobody here knows what I’m talking about, but viewers who watched the Youtube video of the event believed one of the commentators accidentally leaked out Wolf’s name during the conversation. He uttered before he was trying to say something, and many viewers believed that he was trying to say Wolf (or Falco), as falsely believing that Wolf’s returning. However, no matter how many times I’ve tried to listen to that part carefully, it didn’t even sound like he was trying to call out Wolf’s name, not even a single letter. Maybe he was trying to talk about someone else, but decided not to for some reasons. But people believed that this was a proof of Wolf’s inclusion, even it wasn’t from Sakurai’s mouth. Possibly they misheard or mistranslated it.
For Bayonetta’s gun’s case…I may say this because I haven’t played the game before, but couldn’t that gun be “magical”? I does make sense if they surpassed her using guns if she was using a “magical” bullets than “real-life” bullets, but I may be wrong on this…
As I said before, Sakurai is a man who can make any ideas and imaginations, and that’s something nobody could understand because he wants those to be secret for fun. Although he may change his mind if he realizes something, he cannot promise anything to anyone in order to prevent disappointment among hyping irresponsibly. He’s just playful when it comes with presentation, and that’s something he wants to do to entertain his audience, and its not harmful or criminal. Think about it, if there was any producer who have lied so many times throughout every production and presentation…do you think their career will last long?
PushDustIn I don’t think Bayonetta herself is going to cause the rating of smash to increase.
It was most likely that the reason for the E10-T appearing was Corrin’s trailer, it includes a cutscene from his own game which happens to be a T rated game
If people think Sakurai is a liar, they should see Niitsuma from Capcom. A lot of Sakurai’s comments can be dismissed as changing his mind as time went on. Niitsuma deliberately made statements to mislead people. Two off the tp of my head.
He said they weren’t adding anymore Darkstalkers in MVC3. Fans understood this to mean Morrigan and Felicia were the only ones in it since they are the only two known about but it turned out Hsien Ko was in at the time he made the comment.
Another one, one which people say was “taken out of context” or “mistranslated” is where he said Sentinel wasn’t in the game during an interview. I don’t care what the audio file said, the article says Sentinel wasn’t in the game.
In stringing fans along, Niitsuma is way above Sakurai.
“Characters take several months to develop.”
That’s 100% true. Cloud and Corrin were probably started around June.
I love the research done in this article. Its really easy for misinformation to spread and be treated as fact, and with a game so riddled with rumors and quotes taken out of context, its important to clear the air and sort out the information. Great work.
Look. We know Sakurai most of the time likes to change his mind…..But he doesn’t always lie. And also, The only characters that are made from scratch are the Newcomers and Melee veterans. The Brawl veterans are not made from scratch. The reason why I say that is because when a character from the previous game is developed, Their data from the previous game gets ported to the current game.
Can’t the only lie be a fake out in that situation
I feel this article is a little biased in Sakurai’s favour, leaving out several of his contradictions and trying to excuse another as “Debatable”. Namco Bandai did indeed get special treatment. Not only does “Since I am creating the new Smash Bros. in cooperation with Bandai-Namco Games, it makes sense to include one of their characters” outright contradict “Just because the game is being cooperatively developed with Namco Bandai involved, that doesn’t at all mean that they’d be given any special consideration for having characters in the game”, but Pac-Man was the only third-party to get a different new stage in each version of the game; Sonic just has his Brawl stage in Smash 3DS, while Mega Man has the same stage in both. Not to mention Nacmo was the only third-party to get its own items, the S-Flag and the Boss Galaga, as well as the only third party to have more than one enemy in Smash Run (Pooka and Bacura). Granted, this is not as bad now that things have been balanced out with SEGA and Capcom both getting a second character each, but in the vanilla game the Namco special treatment is definitely there.
As for contradictions that weren’t even mentioned, there’s Sakurai’s excuse for Takamaru not being playable which was something along the lines of not being well-known/popular enough with players, even though that didn’t stop him from adding Lucas in Brawl or Roy in Melee. Another would be how Chrom wouldn’t be unique enough and would be too similar to Ike and Marth, but then proceeds to add Lucina as a flat-out Marth clone. And before anyone excuses me of being a salty Chrom fan, I’m not; I was strongly against Chrom and wanted Robin in over him. But that doesn’t change the fact that the massive hypocrisy of someone not being unique enough and then adding an outright clone from the same game isn’t majorly facepalm-worthy.
As for the last one I can think of, and this one isn’t a contradiction but a flat-out lie, is that he said in an interview with EDGE Magazine that “we recreated all characters almost from scratch.” when it’s pretty clear that most of the veterans were ported from Brawl and updated, especially confirmed to be the case when he said in Famitsu that Mewtwo was harder to add than other characters since they couldn’t import his data from Melee. If characters were made from scratch why would Mewtwo be any different from someone who was in Brawl? Exactly.
Before the article was researched I asked on Twitter and on Reddit for examples of Sakurai lying. The ones presented in this article was based on the ones the community presented to me as evidence.
With Bandai Namco, I put it under debatable partly as there isn’t the original Japanese available for the “just because the game is being…” quote. As I show, Sakurai has been mistranslated and misquoted several times.
Takamaru wasnt added due to not being available in the West. When adding Lucas, Sakurai was unaware of the game not releasing in the West when he originally added Lucas.
Roy was a last minute clone, who was only added because there was enough time.
With adding Lucina, it is again the circumstances of a clone. Originally she was just a costume but for record purposes, she was given her own slot. Sakurai talks about this in “I answer some questions” which is on the site. Originally when that piece was translated it had several errors, so it’s worth checking out our translation.
As for the Edge Interview, I’ll look into it. Assets were ported over from Brawl — and Sakurai did confirm that. The source is in the development timeline for Smash for Wii U/3DS.
My apologies. You did a address the majority of complaints and you can’t be expected to remember every internet complaint so I apologise if I came off as accusing.
Okay, understandable.
But Roy and Lucas have came back as DLC, and both of them still haven’t had their games release in the west. I find it rather arbitrary to exclude him for this reason alone. I can accept that he’s not playable, I just find the reason behind it a bit dumb.
I am aware of what Sakurai said about the clone trio, but I still find it ridiculous that while Chrom was (rightfully) considered too similar what is literally “Marth’s moveset with a different on the hitbox” is apparently not. Especially because it wouldn’t have been hard to just add a special customisation option for Marth that gives him the balanced blade hitbox, meaning there’s no real need to assign a character to it.
Cool. Just so you know I want to clarify I’m not encouraging you guys to attack Sakurai or anything I was just trying to ensure it wasn’t too one-sided. Again, my apologies.