Ok, so I can’t count that well. I made a mistake and said the last featured comments was 6 instead of 7. My apologies! With this post, we should be back on schedule for featured comments. Thanks again to everyone who is actively commenting / discussing our stuff :).
Thanks for keeping track 🙂
This post features comments made from February 21st – 26th (Japan time!).
Thanks for the compliment! We are working on improving the discussions because it will allow us to reach a wider audience. However, we won’t abandon written pieces as we know some people (like me) prefer them. The discussion was done in order to assure that the information could get out as soon as possible. When we started recording it was 1 AM for myself, it was either record that discussion or maybe finish an additional part (the whole interview would’ve been impossible). I ended up staying awake until 6 AM to get the video uploaded (I also worked a bit on the translation itself). Basically, it was a judgement call to do discussion first, written piece afterwards. Arcaira is actually composing some background music for our podcasts/ videos so we will have something in the future!
Thanks for the correction! Yeah, I’m on the fence about the whole unique argument myself and I get annoyed when people use it. In the end, I think Corrin was the last character added and was picked out of a pool of candidates to ensure the roster wouldn’t get dated. Hasn’t been confirmed, but it’s just a theory. —Discussion on Sakurai’s Post DLC Interview LOTS OF NEW INFO!
I forgot if we explained this in Part 2, but essentially Part 2 was very long. Overall, the whole interview was 17 pages long and we were trying to get it out before other sites published it. We had an advantage as we physically bought the magazine itself (Thanks patrons!) so we got it way before most of news sites. Part 3 was shorter, and was just finished first. Sorry for the confusion!
Yup! I look forward to seeing how the series continues to evolve!
I have nightmares about translating that line! It was a very difficult line to translate as it’s incredibly ambiguous in Japanese. We had a long argument over what exactly Sakurai meant. I did try to warn everyone not to expect a lot of DLC characters! Unfortunately not that many people read that article and took the advice to heart.
This is actually something Spazzy_D, James Montagna and I discussed in the podcast. The main issue with K. Rool, is that he doesn’t appear until the very end of the game. Therefore if you are a casual fan, or if you never beaten any of the DKC games, then it would be understandable if you weren’t aware of who the character was. Smash has a history of using primarily protagonists for its’ fighters and that’s because Sakurai wants the players to have a connection to that character. Recurring bosses are the second major set of characters. And then there’s Sheik (and I guess Geno since he was wanted). It’s not impossible for K. Rool to join the battle (I think it’s likely for the E3 reveal, as he has been requested in Japan and the US), but in my opinion, it’s understandable why the invitation hasn’t been sent yet.
More than likely, it’s NDAs! Would be great to talk to the other people that worked on Smash.
Fixed! Thanks for pointing it out!
- 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
I Strongly disagree about K. Rool. Any game you bought new or complete at the time, there was a manual that came with it (remember how fun those were to read?), & I vaguely remember they mentioned K. Rool a lot in it & what happened to Donkey Kong’s bananas.
To add to this, unless I’m horribly misremembering K Rool did appear at the start of and throughout at least one mainline DK game. DK64.
Yes, King K. Rool did appear in DK64 frequently thorughout the game’s cutscenes. King K. Rool was also in every episode of the DKC series, and he appears throughout games such as Jungle Climber and Mario Super Sluggers. The point being made of King K. Rool being shown only towards the end of the original DKC games is a solid point, but I know for a fact that he is still referenced in the beginning of both DKC1 and DKC2, I forget if that also applies to DKC3 or not. King K. Rool has so much going for him except for relevance, and I have a great feeling that he will be one of the newcomers of a potential Smash 5.
Yeah, the real problem with K. Rool is that he hasn’t had an appearance in a mainline DK game since 1999. Non-protagonist characters (IE Bowser, Peach, Zelda, Palutena, etc) were all in at least one important game in their series by the time their respective Smash games had their roster planned. Melee’s roster was planned back in 1999, Brawl’s was planned back in 2005, and Smash 4’s was planned right after Kid Icarus Uprising came out in 2012. In that sense, Rool had his chance with Melee and MAYBE Brawl. Until then, I think he’s gonna need a major game appearance in his series if he’s ever gonna be playable in Smash.
In the interest of fairness, if Palutena got unique special moves, a mushroom cloud final smash, & her very own easter egg, Krystal should get even more than that. Like Palutena, you had to rescue her, obtain a weapon she once owned, & you normally talked with her throughout your adventure. The last time I checked, Palutena was never a playable character for a period of time.
By the way, K. Rool was the villain of 10 different games.
Krystal’s last appearance before Brawl’s planning period was 2005, so she had her chance with Brawl, but ultimately she wasn’t hugely considered, and the only reason Star Fox even got another character was because Wolf was easy to make. Her last game appearance was back in 2006, so once again it’s not hard to see why Sakurai didn’t consider her by 2012 especially since Krystal ended up being written out altogether with Star Fox Zero.
And yes, K. Rool was the villain of many games, but those many games were from a loooooong time ago. If he was in DKCR, he’d probably had a much bigger chance getting into Smash 4.
This is the only logic Sakurai ever uses: If he doesn’t like a certain character’s game, he’s not in. It didn’t seem to matter how long ago Pit had a game. It didn’t seem to matter how long ago Ness & Captain Falcon had games.
Also there is a reason why her last game was in 2006. No producer felt like making another SF game after that, then they made a 64 remake, & now they’re making a “re-imagining” of that game. They keep going back to the old storyline which took place before they went to Sauria, so an appearance by Krystal wouldn’t make the least of sense.
The difference between Pit and K. Rool is that the former was the protagonist of his series brought in as a retro character, a similar thing with Falcon and Ness. And technically, F-zZero DID have games by the time Smash 64 came out, considering F-Zero X came out in 1998. As for Mother, Earthbound came out around four years prior to Smash 64 and had a sequel in the works at the time, so it wasn’t completely irrelevant.
& Geno debuted not too long after K. Rool, but Sakurai “wanted” him included. He even admitted that in that interview while he pretended like King K. Rool didn’t exist. K. Rool was probably the front runner in the “fan ballot”, but then pulled him from it 3 months before it even ended. If you’re not even going to consider a character fans actually wanted, why even create that form in the first place? & for Sakurai to do so without all the people that voted for him even knowing that it wasn’t a possibility was a real dick move on his behalf. Geno appeared in only 1 game, so why would that be fair?
Nintendo might not ever make another F-Zero, Earthbound, or Fire Emblem game starring any given old character again. However, they STILL make DK games. They got a dev that’s going in new directions with the series, & they still sell adequate in Japan. If I were to say Dixie Kong, it would be a whole different excuse, but considering that Donkey Kong needs a villain that’s not a “Ridley” & Smash Bros. needs more than 3 big men, K. Rool should be a no-brainer at this point.
“If you’re not even going to consider a character fans actually wanted, why even create that form in the first place? & for Sakurai to do so without all the people that voted for him even knowing that it wasn’t a possibility was a real dick move on his behalf.”
Because the form was a suggestion box like every Smash poll before it. I’m not sure why you can’t wrap your head around that. If you looked at the results of the previous polls, you can see that popularity has never been the only factor or even the main factor when deciding the roster in any Smash Bros game.
Really, Sakurai’s comment makes me worried about Bomberman’s chances. (Yeah, there was no way he’d be in Smash 4 due to the current state of Konami, but maybe they’ll be less screwed-up by Smash 5 and have realized that, y’know, licensing out characters they’re not using is almost free money.)