Hello! We are working very hard on translating the Melee website. We decided to ramp up our translation focus on the character introduction pages in order to give everyone a better picture of Melee, and its character. Special thanks to soma for providing assistance with this translation.
All comments were originally written by Sakurai himself. You can see Sakurai’s individual picture comments by hovering your mouse over the image. Originally pictures were given their own page, but for the sake of brevity I combined them. The original page can be accessed here. [TN] marks a translation note.
Pikachu:
Updated: September 25th, 2001
It’s Pikachu. This popular yellow guy.
He’s the only Pokemon that’s a playable character by default.
I don’t really know about the unlockable characters, though. Just kidding.
Before people say anything, I want to preemptively say that while Pikachu can’t learn Skull Bash in Pokemon Gold/Silver, he can learn it in Pokemon Red/Blue.
We’re diligent about research into every character…
For this Pikachu, other than the cries, everything is based on games.
So it’s not weird from him to come out of a Poke Ball.
(Images taken during development)
1. The Pokemon Army appears! This time, all Pokemon are actual 3D models.
2.Thunder. [TN1]
3.Quick Attack. Sorry. It’s not “Agility.”
4.An aerial attack where Pikachu spins around.
5.Skull Bash. Build up energy by holding the button down, then release it all at once.
6.Thunder Jolt. As you can see, it travels along the ground.
| Special Moves | |
| Neutral Special: | Thunder Jolt |
| Side Special: | Skull Bash |
| Up Special: | Quick Attack |
| Down Special: | Thunder |
- Sakurai’s Internal Smash for Wii U/3DS Development Notes - June 23, 2017
- Kirby’s Development Secrets - April 19, 2017
- Sakurai Discusses His Game Design Philosophy In a Podcast [2002] - March 28, 2017
I find it interesting that he specifies how Skull Bash cannot be learned by Pikachu in Gold & Silver, and that a lot of research goes into each fighter. Now I know that that is true, but I’m curious as to what he says about Mewtwo’s up special being Teleport, which couldn’t be learned by Mewtwo at all at that point.
I know this is super late but Mewtwo can learn Teleport by TM in RBY
“Before people say anything, I want to preemptively say that while Pikachu can’t learn Skull Bash in Pokemon Gold/Silver, he can learn it in Pokemon Red/Blue.
We’re diligent about research into every character…” So that’s why Pichu damages himself when using Quick Attack and Skull Bash ( A move which he can’t even learn ) none Electric type moves, right? Just kidding of course, but this inaccuracy always bothered me.
I mean Agility, not Quick Attack.
“So it’s not weird from him to come out of a Poke Ball. ”
So, is it possible that this means that at that stage of development the characters still had unique entrances instead of just appearing out of a trophy? Well, or maybe he was just referencing the previous game, but it’s still interesting…
It’s a reference to the fact that in the anime, Ash’s Pikachu refuses to enter Pokeballs.
I know….
I was just trying to understand if Sakurai was implying if that in this game (Melee), this Pikachu came out of a pokeball. But now that I think, maybe he wasn’t referring to how this character is seen on the game, maybe just the character as a whole.
(By “referencing the previous game” I meant “Super Smash Bros 64”, where Pikachu gets out of a pokeball for it’s battle entrance. I hope you can get what I mean now..)