A couple days late, but awhile back VirtualTurtwig posted on /r/smashbros, Ivysaur and Squirtle were planned for Smash for Wii U/3DS…but were scrapped. Quick video. The post has the same information.
I made a comment pretty late to the thread stating the following:
For the first part of development, Bandai Namco worked on porting Brawl to the 3DS and Wii U. This actually occurred while Sakurai was still working On Kid Icarus Uprising. [The full timeline is here]
Shortly after, once Kid Icarus Uprising was finished, then the Smash for Wii U/3DS project plan was finalized, and work began on updating the engine and veterans, creating new characters and content.
MetalGear, Ice Climbers lack an emblem reference which in my opinion means they didn’t get that far in development (and Metal Gears sound folder was replaced by MegaMan). Sakurai tried removing bones and gravity but the duo couldn’t work. That probably happened very early in development…[possibly before Sakurai joined development].
Sakurai hasn’t commented on Squirtle and Ivysaur. The character database seems it was cleaned up (for the most part, the Virus boss character was the only thing I found), so it’s unknown how far, if at all they got into development. However, since other characters from Brawl are in the game, the nus3bank is most likely built upon ported assets from Brawl. The files only exist in the nus3bank…extracting the files reveals that Squirtle, Ivysaur and the other cut Brawl fighters don’t have narration files. Therefore, it doesn’t tell us much about Squirtle/Ivysaur.
So sorry, it doesn’t seem that Squirtle and Ivysaur got that far into development (at least, there isn’t ANY proof of them).
- 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
Huh, I think it was for the “better” of the game that they decided to cut transformable characters. I loved Zelda/Sheik, The Pokémon trainer and Samus/Samus, but if it they have to choose between that mechanic and new possible modes, like the 8 player smash and the 3DS version, it was a sad but logical cut.
Thanks for the info =)
And maybe in the NeXt iteration we can get some transformable characters, they are fun but really hard to master, and that’s entertaining… at least for me =P
I also want to say I remember Sakurai making a statement about another reason why they split up transforming characters. Something about a creative decision that they no longer wanted players to have to learn multiple movesets to use one character effectively?
https://youtu.be/7xUWnQu2Grs?t=17m43s
“All characters who used to change forms mid-match, will no longer change. Instead, you’ll be able to concentrate on a single moveset for the whole fight.”
Well, that’s good too. So they don’t become “red mages” either. Good but not good enough to shine alongside some more “always reliable” characters .
The reason given was that they wanted players to be able to focus on learning a single moveset.
The Ice Climber situation and some other indicators (The stage changes in 8-Player Smash, Olimar’s maximum Pikmin amount being reduced, lower framerate for certain NPCs on 3DS) make it pretty apparent that technical difficulties surrounding 8-Player and the 3DS version as a whole were a major factor in eliminating transformation characters, though.
I sent that info like two weeks ago via the contact section…
You did? We didn’t get the email 🙁 I’ll look into it when I get home
To be fair tho, how many cut veterans were actually mentioned after its absence? Probably only the Ice Climbers.
Yeah, the Ice Climbers were the only cut veterans we got an explanation for (since they were without question the most shocking cut). All the other characters who didn’t make the roster that received an official explanation were potential newcomers (Chrom, Ridley, Heihachi, Takamaru).
Your point about Mega Man and Snake makes me think Snake is definitely gone because Konami weren’t co-operating. There was speculation they never even discussed him when Kojima said Sakurai should put Snake back in Smash Bros but I’ve always been skeptical of this. I doubt they went through development of the game and Snake never once came up.