The Truth Isn’t That Simple, Sakurai’s Famitsu column vol. 505, published May 11th, 2016
Note: Do not repost the full translation. Please use the first two paragraphs and link to this translation. For additional information, please read this post. This translation is for fan use only, and may not accurately reflect the opinions of Masahiro Sakurai.
I touched upon this once before, but MOTHER 2 wasn’t delayed because Shigesato Itoi was off digging for buried treasure!
Back in 1993, the reason MOTHER 2 kept getting pushed back further and further is because they were remaking the entire game. This is common knowledge now. At the time, however, Itoi’s pursuit of the Tokugawa Shogunate’s treasure* was widely known, and many fans were up in arms over what they mistakenly perceived as the reason for the game’s delay.
“A is a fact. I also know B. Therefore, A because B.” People hastily connect the dots to draw their own conclusion.
I suppose this cannot be helped, as people are only able to make judgments based on what they see and know for themselves. But on the internet, what people see can be rather limited, especially if they only look at things that interest them. I advise everyone not to get too heated up over every little thing they read.
I, too, have been targeted by such hastily-drawn conclusions. For instance:
Smash for 3DS/Wii U’s cover art features Kirby and Pit. You’re focusing too much on your own games!
- Nintendo designed the cover art, not me…
XX is strong because you are biased towards that character!
- We balance based on match results and play data we collect from our playtesting team.
The only Kirby stages are from games you made!
- At the start of the project, we had planned a stage from Kirby’s Epic Yarn. However, those plans changed due to the announcement of Yoshi’s Woolly World, and we revamped the stage into the Great Cave Offensive from Kirby: Super Star Ultra.
There are so many Fire Emblem characters because you’re a fan of the series!
- I agree there are a lot of Fire Emblem characters, but the decision to include so many was strategic.
As you see, people have often suspected me of putting in extra effort in certain areas. Do recall, however, that I do not approach Smash as a fan. Regardless of who wins or loses, the outcome is the same as far as I’m concerned since I work on all of them. The opportunity to create all these characters is taxing yet extremely fortunate as well.
Creators, performers, and famous folk alike, they all incur some sort of censure and misunderstandings. However big or small the criticism, someone out there is guaranteed to find faults. What can be done about this?
I’ve heard the opinion that if I don’t correct every misconception or misunderstanding, it will negatively impact some people’s enjoyment of the game. Normally, however, I don’t address these issues whatsoever. I think that letting people think what they want is the only feasible way. I can comment on every single one of these problems, or defend myself in a column or on Twitter, but people who don’t want to listen, won’t. I don’t think it feels good to listen to a creator constantly explain themselves either. In the end, all that remains is what they create.
At the same time, by letting these misconceptions blow out of proportion, I feel like there’s a misconstrued image of me floating around, unlike the Sakurai known to my friends, staff, or to myself. Perhaps it’s because so many kids fall into the target age range for the games I make, but people seem to love creating conspiracy theories about me. The truth isn’t that simple, though: I bear no ill will.
By the way, I occasionally block or mute people on Twitter. My criteria for blocking or muting someone has nothing to do with the subject of the tweet. I only block someone if they’re unreasonably rude to me. Good manners are the cornerstone that supports communication, so if you don’t even attempt to establish that foundation of consideration, then there’s no reason for me to try building any sort of relationship through contact with you. Politeness comes first.
NOTES:
*Tokugawa shogunate’s treasure: the Tokugawa shogunate’s treasure, supposedly buried in Mount Akagi, worth roughly 3.6 million ryo (in modern currency, 360 billion yen. It’s historical value would be much more than that). There was an episode on the variety show “Give Me A Break” focusing on an expedition team led by Itoi, which became a hot topic.
A Mario Land stage was planned to be on the 3DS version, but it was replaced by the Game Boy stage.
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Translator:
Editors:
- Sakurai Discusses The Future of Smash - November 4, 2021
- The Melee Orchestra Concert Begins! - May 9, 2021
- Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX Review - September 26, 2019
Great work on a fast, quality translation everyone! Ah, they’ll never let him go about Fire Emblem, huh? xD
On a side note, Smash 4 modding is a thing.
Quick, someone reskin Great Cave Offensive into a Kirby’s Epic Yarn themed stage.
Wait, why am I even suggesting this? I hate Kirby’s Epic Yarn!
Wooly World was much better.
At least with Sakurai we know what bias to expect. People assume Fire Emblem “bias” is getting in the way of “insert popular Nintendo character here” getting in but we don’t know if a new producer could have more bias or if they also aren’t bias to “insert Nintendo series of choice here”.
Unfortunately we don’t know if the characters in question will make it even under a different producer. It won’t stop people within certain groups assuming the “problem” with them being included is gone. The saddest part is the grouping assumption made with both Sakurai and the fans themselves.
I don’t doubt he is bias but I’ve contemplated being in the driver’s seat and I can’t seem to figure out how to add more content for Donkey Kong, Metroid, Mother and F-Zero without effecting new franchises or Mario/Pokemon. It seems extremely hard to balance it.
To be honest I think the balancing with representation was fairer now than it ever has been in the past. Look at these categories.
New franchises
Existing franchises with new representation
Male to female ratio
Close combat to distance fighters ratio
Nintendo character to guest character ratio
At least in the first two categories, the balance is there. It just depends if you agree with the franchises chosen for increased representation.
Baloney. Using that system Sakurai exceeded plenty of times in the past in balancing representation he’s failed miserably this time. You cannot call Fire Emblem having more representation than Zelda balanced in anyway.
And Pokemon had 5 newcomers last time while Mario had one (if you count Wario as a Mario character which I do).
So this happened in Brawl as well.
If Zelda had more characters that showed up more than once we wouldn’t of had this problem.
Bottom line is, no matter what he does, you can’t satisfy everyone. It’s not possible. If he tried, we’d still be waiting for the game to be released.
Q: What about a Wario Land stage instead of a Mario Land stage?
Sakurai: *laughs*
You sound like Sakurai hates the Wario games, when we really don’t know anything about his feelings.
I don’t think Wario Land was as influential to the Game Boy as Mario Land – despite the two games being essentially from the same team.
Granted, If any game was meant to represent the success of the Game Boy, it would have to be Tetris – which alongside Mario Land and Kirby’s Dream Land (If only because it’s Sakurai’s first game) would have made the Game Boy stage a bit more unique. But that would have to mean getting The Tetris Company on board, which I assume they couldn’t.
But we merely got Dream Land because there seemingly wasn’t a Kirby stage otherwise.
Though I would’ve love to see what the Mario Land stage would’ve been like, it’s an understandable cut given the sheer amount of Mario stages in the game already. Though DreamLand is a cool stage, it seems a waste to have the gameboy stage concept be used on only one franchise and not multiple games at once.
I loved the Yoshi’s Woolly World stage and it also had the extra bonus of representing a game that hadn’t released yet. Though, the lack of Kirby’s Epic Yarn representation is kinda sad for how much I loved that game (a music track or two from the game would’ve been fine…)
Also, it’s interesting how Nintendo creates the boxart. Nice of them to put Samus in the center of the WiiU boxart and Link at the forefront of the 3DS one. It’s refreshing how Mario isn’t quite the main focus of them this time around.
To be fair to the others, Mario deserves the main spot the most. He is the king of video games after all.
I would have loved an Epic Yarn stage for the music alone. That game’s soundtrack was phenomenal.
“I agree there are a lot of Fire Emblem characters, but the decision to include so many was strategic.”
I love you Sakurai, but I’m calling bull on that. I not saying you were too biased, but admit you had more passion for that series than some others, likely due to more knowledge of the franchise. Which is fine, if you own up to it and realize that one man coming with what character deserves to be in is a bad idea, plain and simple, but that’s a topic for another time.
Besides, we all know a lot of them weren’t very strategic, with Lucina becoming full character due to a difference in combat ( I love Lucina, but her clone change is more of a curse than blessing.), Roy brought back despite already having Dr.Mario, so that his costume wouldn’t upset melee fans, and bringing back Mewtwo for his support from mostly melee fans.
But as long as Sakurai doesn’t say Mewtwo and Dr.Mario weren’t from Melee demand, it’s all fine, meanwhile Wolf didn’t make it back since Lucas was in, and he was declared “brawl veteran”, which is some inconsistent classification for characters that don’t get me wrong, I love a lot.
And as we all know, Corrin came in just for unnecessary Fates advertisement, lucky enough to have his dragon ability to differentiate from the crowd, despite still borrowing quite some moves.
Corrin’s inclusion, mind you, exceeded other first party characters that could provide just as much and even more diversity, and even might deserve the advertising much more. It seems very odd and not at all coincidental.
That’s just my meaningless opinion. I still love Sakurai and his work (most of the time) and agree with some of his decisions, but lately he’s been saying some odd stuff.
There’s nothing strategic about classifying characters differently without consistency to give one a comeback, only to turn around and use the same that brought back that character to argue keeping away a character, and advertising, which is understandable when the game needs it or it’s just tradition, like in Melee since Roy needed some support, and Greninja being a common tradition to bring in a new Pokemon from a new gen every game.
You may be top notch, but that statement was half-assed.
But at the same time it very well is strategic-
Lucina alongside Dr. Mario and Dark Pit were alts who were given different slots in the roster because they were made onto clones with play style differences… We were told that they were to kind of pad the roster in the short development time they had with nothing else to really work on and that they took a considerably smaller amount of work to make since they were balanced to whom they were cloned from and not the whole roster.
Same goes for Roy as well as being a fan favorite. Robin, Ike, and Marth are there for obvious reasons and are different from one another (Robin- Latest Lord, shows off the mage side of FE, Ike isone of the most popular lord outside of Japan also appeared in two FE titles as a major character, Marth is the original lord and “mascot” for the series.)
Corrin was a mix of promotion and potential and Intelligent Systems apparently tried really hard to show Sakurai how they could be different (probably knowing that the next smash bros game will be too far down the line to have him/her featured.)
Also the licensing and legal work costs time and money, so it is easier to work with things a company or its subsidiary owns, and with a company that is actively pushing for something to happen because they might be able to diffuse some of that workload/not having to pay royaltys/etc.
It is part of the reason Smash Run is very heavy on Kid Icarus representation-Sakurai mentioned that their models were already made with the 3DS in mind, he didn’t have to ask for permission to use the characters (Or get them Okayed that they are behaving in the way the original creator intended,) and because he admitted he designed things in Kid Icarus with Smash Bros. in mind.
The truth probably falls somewhere inbetween- He might be less worried about over representing a franchise he likes, but I don’t think he went to IS trying to add in a tone of FE characters or eagerly lobbied to add FE characters.
Fire Emblem also is one of Nintendo’s older series and has been a part of their line-up since the Famicom, so to some FE is as big of a series in Nintendo’s wheelhouse as Metroid, Zelda, Kid Icarus, Kirby, etc. and it holds the same nostalgia and prestige to them.
Whether you think it’s strategic or night, it does not justify the FE bias and its overrepresentation.
Yeah, Lucina might’ve gotten in due to being a (inferior) clone which are easier and take less time to make. But do you know who didn’t? Alph. He ended up getting the shaft as an alternate costume while Mario, FE, and Kid Icarus all ended up getting an extra representative (and IMO are bad additions gameplay wise). Pikmin should’ve gotten a second rep before FE got 4.
Roy was indeed a fan favorite and thus got back in. So was Mewtwo, who had a far bigger demand than Roy. Know who didn’t? Wolf. Despite Star Fox Zero being near release during those DLC days, Wolf was left in the dustbin and remains unplayable while Roy continues to overinflate the FE representation. Star Fox deserved the third rep before Fire Emblem deserved a 5th rep, or even a 4th, or even a 3rd! Instead, Star Fox has now become underrepped.
Corrin, as you said got in for both promotion and potential. Know who didn’t? Elma. Inkling. And PLENTY of characters who had potential as a fighter like Corrin did. I said Elma and Inkling in particular as they also could’ve given the advertisement and promotion for their respective games, and you can argue that they needed it more than FE Fates. Inkling could’ve represented a brand new IP in Smash while Elma would’ve lessened the favoritism. Instead, we find Fire Emblem getting more reps than ZELDA of all series. You can’t explain this as merely “strategic”; bias is also in play.
And the only licensing issues Sakurai would have are those of 3rd party characters and to a smaller extent Pokémon. Sakurai would have no issue in getting DK, Metroid, Kirby, or any other series six characters if he wanted to.
Finally, if you’re going to use Fire Emblem being “one of Nintendo’s older series” to justify, then WHY does Metroid, Zelda, Kid Icarus, Kirby, etc.” NOT have as much characters as Fire Emblem? It feels nothing but special treatment for the series, strategic or otherwise.
Sakurai is a great developer, but he needs to step up and admit that there was no justification for six FE characters while other series get neglected.
Dude get your facts straight. Fire Emblem has been neglected for years! Much longer than Metroid and Donkey Kong and whoever. Your Alph point is utter garbage because Alph was planned to be in alongside the clone trio with Rock Pikmin with full glory but he was ditched because Olimar was a pain to put in as it is. Here’s one of the many proof by Sakurai saying how Olimar was hard to put in. https://sourcegaming.info/2015/07/10/sakurai-didnt-say-that/#%5B2%5D “Olimar and his Pikmin were also extremely difficult, but I managed to at least get them to work.”
Are you serious!? Star Fox Zero didn’t come to the end of April 2016. Read my comment further. It addresses on why Corrin was better for advertisement. It’s the same case for Roy. He was the Melee part of the DLC. Mewtwo is actually KNOWN outside of Smash and before Smash because he has movies dedicated to the Pokemon. No excuses. Dr. Mario wasn’t apart of the DLC. Mewtwo was the overall favorite and was wanted by Sakurai himself to be put in all the Smash games’ main roster. Only one of them pulled through aka Melee. Smash 4 doesn’t really count because he was last second DLC. Wolf has nothing to do with Roy. Stop trying to blindly throw him under the bus just because he’s a Fire Emblem character.
Sakurai is making up for what Nintendo lacked to give in the first place. Proper localization to the FE series. Nintendo of America even tried to remove Marth and Roy in the American Melee version which would’ve lead to “censorship” complaints. FE an classic nearly as old as Mario almost died because of crap advertisement. Which would’ve never happened in the first place if Nintendo of America didn’t have such a strong hatred to Japan born games that aren’t that popular.
Fire Emblem has a lot to work with character wise, something a lot of IPS on their level like DK, Metroid, and Star Fox simply lacked. Even a front runner Kirby did due to the fact there’s no other character other than Dedede, Meta Knight, and Kirby that show up in major roles in more than five games. Star Fox…. Really? Brought to it’s best and picking out characters that REALLY represent the series it only gets like four? characters same for Donkey Kong. Metroid has NO characters that can work except for a shoehorned stripped to the bone Ridley, and Dark Samus.
Giving exposure=/=Over representation
6 Reps really doesn’t matter when Zelda and all these other series have their proper representation since 64. Fire Emblem just became an major IP now which they should’ve been a long time ago. /2016/04/28/fire-emblem-is-now-considered-a-major-ip-for-nintendo/
You’re saying Elma and Inkling could’ve got advertisement DLC? Nope. This is a quote that Source Gaming translated about Corrin’s inclusion:
“After internal analysis, we decided that if we’re going to make DLC, we would choose a character from a soon-to-be-released new game. After consulting many times with Nintendo and looking at the upcoming release schedule,Fire Emblem Fates was in just the right spot. It’s already been released in Japan, but is yet to be released overseas, making it a prime candidate in terms of timing. I personally felt that having too many Fire Emblemcharacters was a problem, but after talking it over with the development staff and discussing logistics, I felt certain that I could make them a fun character..” No excuses. Corrin was the best choice for advertisement. He/She is even on an 3ds game so they can easily take the model and put some improvements on it.
It’s time to stop this salt. It was very strategic to put Fire Emblem characters in. Don’t blame it on Sakurai that Fire Emblem made a comeback due to Awakening. Ironic thing is. It wasn’t even due to Smash! Awakening was planned to be the last game but it got a sudden increase in sales due to new content that appealed to the audience. So Fire Emblem lives on.
There is no bias once so ever. Fire Emblem simply got it’s time and challenged it’s fate so it doesn’t suffer what a lot of series that died did.
This is very inaccurate.
Dude get your facts straight. Fire Emblem has been neglected for years! Much longer than Metroid and Donkey Kong and whoever. Your Alph point makes zero sense because Alph was planned to be in alongside the clone trio with Rock Pikmin with full glory but he was ditched because Olimar was a pain to put in as it is. Here’s one of the many proof by Sakurai saying how Olimar was hard to put in. https://sourcegaming.info/2015/07/10/sakurai-didnt-say-that/#%5B2%5D “Olimar and his Pikmin were also extremely difficult, but I managed to at least get them to work.”
Are you serious!? Star Fox Zero didn’t come to the end of April 2016. Read my comment further. It addresses on why Corrin was better for advertisement. It’s the same case for Roy. He was the Melee part of the DLC. Mewtwo is actually KNOWN outside of Smash and before Smash because he has movies dedicated to the Pokemon. No excuses. Dr. Mario wasn’t apart of the DLC. Mewtwo was the overall favorite and was wanted by Sakurai himself to be put in all the Smash games’ main roster. Only one of them pulled through aka Melee. Smash 4 doesn’t really count because he was last second DLC. Wolf has nothing to do with Roy. Stop trying to blindly throw him under the bus just because he’s a Fire Emblem character.
Sakurai is making up for what Nintendo lacked to give in the first place. Proper localization to the FE series. Nintendo of America even tried to remove Marth and Roy in the American Melee version which would’ve lead to “censorship” complaints. FE an classic nearly as old as Mario almost died because of crap advertisement. Which would’ve never happened in the first place if Nintendo of America didn’t have such a strong hatred to Japan born games that aren’t that popular.
Fire Emblem has a lot to work with character wise, something a lot of IPS on their level like DK, Metroid, and Star Fox simply lacked. Even a front runner Kirby did due to the fact there’s no other character other than Dedede, Meta Knight, and Kirby that show up in major roles in more than five games. Star Fox…. Really? Brought to it’s best and picking out characters that REALLY represent the series it only gets like four? characters same for Donkey Kong. Metroid has NO characters that can work except for a shoehorned stripped to the bone Ridley, and Dark Samus.
Giving exposure=/=Over representation
6 Reps really doesn’t matter when Zelda and all these other series have their proper representation since 64. Fire Emblem just became an major IP now which they should’ve been a long time ago. /2016/04/28/fire-emblem-is-now-considered-a-major-ip-for-nintendo/
You’re saying Elma and Inkling could’ve got advertisement DLC? Nope. This is a quote that Source Gaming translated about Corrin’s inclusion:
“After internal analysis, we decided that if we’re going to make DLC, we would choose a character from a soon-to-be-released new game. After consulting many times with Nintendo and looking at the upcoming release schedule,Fire Emblem Fates was in just the right spot. It’s already been released in Japan, but is yet to be released overseas, making it a prime candidate in terms of timing. I personally felt that having too many Fire Emblemcharacters was a problem, but after talking it over with the development staff and discussing logistics, I felt certain that I could make them a fun character..” No excuses. Corrin was the best choice for advertisement. He/She is even on an 3ds game so they can easily take the model and put some improvements on it.
It’s time to stop this salt. It was very strategic to put Fire Emblem characters in. Don’t blame it on Sakurai that Fire Emblem made a comeback due to Awakening. Ironic thing is. It wasn’t even due to Smash! Awakening was planned to be the last game but it got a sudden increase in sales due to new content that appealed to the audience. So Fire Emblem lives on.
There is no bias once so ever. Fire Emblem simply got it’s time and challenged it’s fate so it doesn’t suffer what a lot of series that died did.
I REALLY WISH MY COMMENTS FILLED WITH MORE DETAIL WOULD STOP BEING FORCED TO AWAIT MODERATION.
Sorry, all comments need to go through moderation. With WordPress our options for moderation are pretty limited. I’ll see if we can get an add on to address it.
Don’t say that
Very interesting knowing that a stage based on Epic Yarn was considered. Even though Woolly World stage is nice and all it does feel empty knowing that the main floor drops from time to time. Who knows how much different the Epic Yarn stage would be from what we have now. However, it’s still great that the Yoshi series has a new stage.
Sakurai wouldn’t have to deal with rampant conspiracy theories if he addressed more questions. We’re left in the dark as to why Lucas is the exclusive “Brawl veteran” while Roy and Mewtwo are both “Melee veterans”, as well as the reasons for excluding Wolf, DK characters, and Metroid characters. People assume when they lack information, so Sakurai should give more information if he hates the conspiracy theories that much.
Also, Sakurai denying Fire Emblem bias is complete BS and he knows it. It’s quite clear that only Robin and Corrin were put in for “strategic reasons”. Like aguchamp33 above me said, Sakurai should just admit that he’s made mistakes, and that giving one person so much power over a project is inevitably going to show that person’s bias.
Wolf is easy to understand. He chose to add Cloud, Corrin and Bayonetta and (unfortunately) that prevented Wolf’s inclusion.
And Wolf would’ve been better than Corrin. Or Roy.
Less bias that way.
Wrong.
Wolf is absolute garbage.
I don’t see conspiracy theories stopping no matter how many questions Sakurai addresses. The number of questions people have pertaining to Smash is never ending as is, and sometimes his answers can just lead to more questions. On top of that, if people don’t get the answer they want to hear they’ll just claim Sakurai is lying through his teeth and go right back to touting whatever conspiracy theory sits best with them.
Mettaur, I’m pretty sure you’ve criticized a politician in the past whenever he/she has answered a question. It’s the same case here.
Except, Mewtwo wasn’t branded as a “Melee Veteran” the same vein as how Roy is or how Lucas is branded as the “Brawl Veteran” – Mewtwo was promoted mainly as the first DLC character and billed primarily from his popularity alone.
I mean, look at plenty of the promotional material regarding the two – Roy was strictly billed as the returning Melee Veteran while Mewtwo’s name and infamy carried his own weight.
Had Mewtwo been specified as being in because he’s a Melee Vet instead of being a fan favorite, I’d agree and wonder why Wolf was left out myself. But he’s not.
As far as reasons for excluding Wolf, DK characters, and Metroid characters. Well, going the reverse order here,
I don’t see Metroid really having many playable characters or any notable ones with unique traits other than Samus, Ridley (Who had already been talked out – but Sakurai said the same kind of things about Villager and Pac-Man not working), and Dark Samus – Sylux is the closest thing – but a role in one game, a foreboding cameo in another that wasn’t fully confirmed until years later, and interest from another producer does not propel a character into playable status just like that especially given the development for Metroid games lately being sparse.
DK Characters are even harder to pinpoint – I know it would be easy to imagine taking all of K. Rool’s boss moves, slap them onto a moveset without any real change of how he utilizes them – basically a 1:1 mirror of his boss sprites and moves matched onto a new 3D model: Because I’ve seen literally hundreds of potential K. Rool fan movesets literally copy/pasting his moves from the games. I don’t think it’s something that really speaks for or makes K. Rool unique or stand out. Same with Dixie – A lighter Diddy which would be more focused on flight – doesn’t make her stand out from the crowd.
And then there’s Wolf – Well, he nearly made it in Brawl for one – half his moves are taken from other characters and his model is seemingly unfinished at times. And really, that’s it. I don’t think Sakurai needed Star Fox Zero to advertise Wolf, he just didn’t make it in because reasons – maybe of the two, Lucas was easier to add into the game as plenty of his functions are already in via Ness. I don’t know.
Legit
still waiting on why he never even tried to get snake back
Better ask Konami for this.
It was because of Kanomi we will never see an 8-bit Snake in Mario Maker. Inconsiderate selfish jerks.
“The only Kirby stages are from games you made!”
To be honest, I was one of those guys who were complaining about that. I’m sorry.
However, there are some parts that Sakurai did brought some Kirby stuffs that wasn’t made by him. He made Kirby use the Ultra Sword, brought Magolor and his ship’s trophy for Wii U, brought musics from non-Sakurai Kirby games, and at least considered Epic Yarn stage before being cancelled. Although we wanted more, at least he did his best, and I’d respect that. But it would’ve been more perfect if Bandanna Waddle Dee were in it too…
I honestly don’t know about adding Bandana Waddle Dee, but even if the planned Epic Yarn stage was remapped – I still would’ve liked it to be from another Kirby game other than Super Star.
I mean, I love Super Star and the Great Cave Offensive matches the layout and feel perfectly – But maybe people wouldn’t be complaining so much if it wasn’t just from Super Star alone. Nearly every Kirby stage in Smash after the original N64 game and Smash4 3DS is taken from Super Star.
Nevertheless, I have to apologize for complaining myself. Just kinda wished that Great Cave Offensive wasn’t the only new Kirby stage – despite it being my favorite stage (Omega form of course…)
Sakurai honestly sounds a lot more worked up in this article than he usually is in others. I didn’t even spot a food analogy this time!
Jokes aside, I guess there’s only so many misconceptions that can float around you before you feel forced to respond, though he isn’t wrong when he says that people who don’t want to listen just won’t.
So Sakurai is aware of how much people misunderstands him. Despite being a big fan of the guy, I would hate to be in Sakurai’s feet during a production of a Smash game. Struggling with ideas for characters inclusion, balancing the content choices, supervising the development and playtesting, this is a nearly inhuman effort to praise a very demanding fanbase. People comes with tons of characters ideas because these people really believes that Smash can be an infinite game when this actually is far from being true. I already think the 58-fighter total is unreal, I was absolutely never expecting a roster this huge, just like I predict a bunch of cuts in the next installment in order to priorize new characters.
“People comes with tons of characters ideas because these people really believes that Smash can be an infinite game when this actually is far from being true.”
Actually I’d say provided you look at Nintendo characters for the part it is true. Anyone can work if you want them to. In the large group of Smash Bros fans someone has the imagination to get the character to work. Unfortunately the people involved with Smash Bros don’t.
Actually they do, they just don’t want it because they work with millions of ideas, and in order to pick the best ones, sacrifices have to be made. That’s why there are so many criterias for a character to join in.
Sometimes is simple, why there aren’t new F-Zero characters? Because the series is dormant. Why can’t King K. Rool join the battle? Because he isn’t popular enough (proved by the Ballot). And sometimes is hard to explain, Ridley is not playable because of its size and because there are characters more important than him in the Metroid series (such as Mother Brain), Ice Climbers were cut because having the same roster on both versions was the #1 design rule of this game, if one version can’t run the Ice Climbers properly, it’s cut.
Actually, telling that the people involved with Smash doesn’t know how to make a character to work is also questionable, depending of the person speaking this, it can be a case of putting its personal mindset over the developers’ mindset. EVERYONE has their own ideal of a perfect Smash Bros. game, including myself, of course, but until now, the real product is satisfying me.
You know it might just be my Metroid bias playing but I have questioned if Ridley is more requested for this game than K.Rool. Its because Sakurai commented on him but still hasn’t commented on K.Rool. Maybe he hasn’t been asked directly but he will know of the question given he got a Mii costume.
I have been looking at what Sakurai said about “industry trends” and he seems to pick characters from games out in the previous two years while development takes place. There are instances like Ness, Ice Climbers or Duck Hunt dog where he also picks a sleeping/unexpected choice but they mainly seem to be from that time frame. This frame of mind doesn’t seem to have changed over time, just his ideas around certain issues with inclusion (Animal Crossing character and Miis).
For redesigns of older characters he bases models off their latest appearance (Sheik and Ganondorf haven’t had major design overhauls since TP which explains Link and Zelda) and content from the latest key installment (Brawl = Metroid Prime, Wii U = Skyward Sword) so there are simple explanations in some cases.
Those are major discussion points we’ve both deduced because “A is true and we also know B”.
I still think its good Sakurai cleared this up as these are the biggest key topics.