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This article looks at comments made from the September 15th- September 18th (Japan time).

Thanks to TheAnvil for covering the previous week. Tokyo was a lot of fun, but now I need to catch up on my sleep. This weekend we’ll be an interview with one of the voice actors from Smash for Wii U. Stay tune for another interview straight from the source!

Remember, don’t insult other posters. If you insult other posters, your post that you might have spent so much time on might not get approved, and thrown in the trash. Stay classy!

Anonymous

I would like to see another article of yours or another member on why you consider Black Shadow receiving Dorf’s current moveset being a disservice to the character as well.

From: Ganondorf is Fine the Way He is

Already replied:

https://sourcegaming.info/2015/09/07/ganondorf-smash-bros/#Respect
Frostwraith has already written it. I should have linked it in my actual article.

Munomario777

I agree that as-is, Ganon’s moveset portrays him as the manipulative powerhouse that he is in the Zelda games. Reads are crucial, and it’s important for Ganon to manipulate his opponent and find a “weak point” in the foe’s habits. However, at least in a one-on-one setting, Ganon has some flaws which hold him back from showcasing the true potential of this playstyle. What I’d like to propose is a change to Ganon which keeps him familiar to veteran players, reinforces his current playstyle while making it more effective, and adds some moves from Zelda too.

Of course, before a moveset can be fixed, the problems must be identified. In Smash, Ganon is meant to be the ultimate bait-and-punish character. He waits for or baits out an opportunity, and then punishes it with attacks that can kill in five hits. His Flame Choke is a good example of this, as reading a foe’s tech option can net an extremely long string of Flame Chokes or even a KO with a strong attack. However, with Ganon’s power comes sluggishness in both attack speed and mobility. As such, he ends up being less effective at punishing mistakes than say, somebody like Sheik, who has long combos and the mobility to get them started. In a fighting game, power comes in many different forms, whether it be raw attack strength, combo potential, or the ability to overwhelm the opponent with lightning-fast moves and mobility. Those with raw attack strength often lack the speed needed to compete with faster characters, lessening their effectiveness overall. So for Ganon, I think that it’s worth exploring other kinds of “power,” and how they could play into Ganon’s core character traits and make him a force to be reckoned with.

Giving Ganon Sheik’s mobility and weak-hit combos is, of course, a bad idea, as it would stray far away from his main concept. With that said, however, he could still use a bit of a speed buff; maybe his run could be about as fast as Link’s, and his aerial mobility could also be increased a bit. To compensate, his attacks could be made a bit weaker (which also helps balance out later additions to Ganon’s arsenal). However, Warlock Punch’s midair variant, Flame Choke’s startup, and Wizard’s Foot would be given launch resistance – this will be come relevant in a moment. Even with a slightly increased run speed, Ganon is not fit to punish attacks with a hit-and-run style, so how are we going to make him more capable of punishing mistakes?

One of the major attributes of Ganon in the Zelda series is his ability to manipulate his opponent. [spoiler warning] In Ocarina of Time, he keeps tricking Link into thinking that he has won, and in Wind Waker, he even manages to trick Link into pulling the Master Sword and unleashing Ganon’s true power. In Smash, then, Ganon should be able to manipulate his opponent in a similar way. He will put the opponent into a tight situation, and then, right when they think they’ve figured out how to avoid it, Ganon will be right there waiting for them, predicting the opponent’s every kove.

The key to implementing this idea into Ganon’s moveset, oddly enough, lies in Ganon’s hover – his new up special move. It’s similar to the old Dark Dive, except Ganon gains less height in exchange for a one-second-long hover, acting like a slower version of Palutena’s Jump Glide. While Ganon’s slow walk is menacing and iconic, his hover also shows his confidence. Ganon is above you, literally and figuratively, and he knows it. Besides recovery, Ganon can cancel this into any aerial attack, but not an air-dodge; thus, Ganon leaves himself open to attack if he just hovers around, but still has options out of the float. He will not enter helpless after canceling the hover, or after it ends. The main draw of the hover, however, is Ganon’s second set of special moves that he gets by pressing B + a direction while hovering. This may be more complex than some other Smash sets, effectively having four more special moves, but it is not unheard of. Rosalina and Luma have a different set of standard attacks, and the same goes for Zelda / Sheik and the Pokémon Trainer from Brawl. This is the ideal way, I think, to make Ganon familiar to those who played as him in the past but also give him new tools to use.

Anyway, Ganon’s signature Dead Man’s Volley appears as his hovering Neutral Special, and it has indeed seen “some major tweaking.” After a lot of start-up time, he throws a giant orb of dark energy forward, at a slight downward angle. It does not home in on the nearest foe, though an aiming function could be implemented by holding up / down during the start of the move. The projectile deals a lot of damage, KOing at high percents, and is rather large too. Shielding the projectile is effective, as it deals surprisingly little shield damage given its raw power, and it can be knocked back at Ganon with a strong enough attack. Given these properties, running away and spamming the move is not an effective strategy, and shooting it at point-blank does not work due to its startup lag. The main use of this move is not as a way to score kills directly, but rather as a threat. By throwing his orb, Ganon forces the foe to react in some way, whether it be jumping, shielding, dodging, or hitting the orb back. With a read, Ganon can easily get a punish on the opponent. The super armor on Ganon’s other specials helps if the foe decides to hit it back, since he can simply power through the orb with a super-armored short-hopped Warlock Punch! Of course, if the foe decides to dodge, jump, etc, Ganon can be punished, so this is a very risky decision. A safer option might be to hold shield and punish with a tilt, or to use Flame Choke and power through it with a grab hitbox and less lag. Of course, the other options that the foe has can be punished in different ways, e.g. punishing a jump with a midair attack or anti-air. Given Ganon’s newfound ability to force a reaction, it makes sense that his raw strength would be lowered to compensate for this different type of power.

Down Special while hovering has Ganon plummet down and slam the ground with his fist, creating a shockwave like in Ocarina of Time. The shockwave can stun the opponent like Zero Suit’s Paralyzer, but jumping is an easy way to avoid it. Ending lag makes it punishable if whiffed, but the stun means that Ganon can still land a follow-up attack. Ganon can force the opponent to jump with the threat of his shockwave, or if they commit to a grounded option, punish it hard with this move. Up Special could be a teleport, with short range to compensate for the hover. Another idea with the teleport is that Ganon could perhaps drag an opponent into a dark portal with him, and upon reappearing, perform an attack similar to this: http://i0.wp.com/sourcegaming.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/462px-OoT_Link_Ganon_Artwork.jpg?w=462 As for Side Special, while this move is not strictly from Zelda, I think it could be neat to have Ganon raise his arm up forcefully, causing dark energy to erupt out of the ground in front of him. This would knock the opponent upward a short distance, allowing the hovering Ganon to perform an aerial follow-up. Another option could be to have him fire a multitude of smaller projectiles similarly to the Phantom Ganon battles from Wind Waker, but that may be too overwhelming, and also similar to the proper Dead Man’s Volley.

Ganon’s other moves, save for some frame data buffs / damage nerfs, could stay the same. However, I’m not opposed to the idea of Ganon having a sword. It could appear / disappear when needed, such as summoning the sword for a second hit of Forward Smash ripped straight out of Twilight Princess, or he could pull it out via Down Special to enhance his Smashes, Specials, and possibly a couple of his Aerials, and use the move again to throw it away with a spin similarly to Pig Ganon’s trident throw. With that said, I don’t think that it’s entirely necessary given the changes described above, but it could still be a nice addition. I also agree that Ganon would likely have sword moves similar to Ike’s, especially if he were to use his Ocarina of Time or Hyrule Warriors appearance (as the swords in those games are even more massive than Ike’s Ragnell or Cloud’s Buster Sword).

Overall, this is probably my ideal version of Ganon in Smash, all things considered. It stays true to Smash’s portrayal of the character while also drawing inspiration from Ganon’s canon appearances, and expands upon what Smash started. It makes him more viable for competitive play, and I also don’t think that it would be too overwhelming in free-for-alls (though admittedly, Dead Man’s Volley and the shockwave may be rather powerful in this setting; but then, the same can be said for other moves such as Bowser Bomb or Charge Shot).

This comment turned out to be very long, but I hope that I’ve conveyed my ideas in a way that makes sense, haha.

From: Ganondorf is Fine the Way He is

I do like the ideas that you presented in this comment. Very well thought out!

Spiral

As a Ganondorf main, I have to agree with a lot of points in this article. Ganondorf’s brutal playstyle has always felt right to me. Considering he has the Triforce of Power, I expect him to come to Smash with an array of heavy-hitting moves to dish out heavy punishes on opponents who make mistakes. I also don’t really see a spot for him with a moveset that relies on his sword since Ike does fill that, though as I have said in the past, I would be okay with him bringing it out for a few more moves.

When I see people talk about re-balancing Ganondorf, I get a little skeptical. I mean, I truly believe that Ganondorf is competitively viable, so maybe I’m not the right person to judge, but after I’ve spent so much time with the character, I have to wonder how these buffs people have mentioned would really affect him. Bannedorf says he could have a stunning projectile, but considering Ganondorf’s huge arsenal of KO moves, being able to immobilize an opponent for even a brief moment like that would make him extremely powerful. Munomario777 suggests that he has some launch resistance on his specials, but that would make him nigh unstoppable on the ground. even with less damage, and especially at lower levels of play. We already know the stories of how new players felt that Little Mac was overpowered because of his super armor on his smash attacks.

This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t be against a few buffs for him, though. I wish Dark Dive had a little more utility outside of building up damage, and it just feels odd being one of Ganondorf’s few moves that can rarely take stocks (I’ve taken more stocks with the uppercut you get when the move misses than with the move itself). If Flame Choke maybe had a little less cooldown when you landed it, especially the aerial version, it would be easier to cover rolls away from Ganondorf with a more appropriate move, but sometimes it’s hard to punish with anything other than another Flame Choke. That would help it be a more consistent kill setup, but would still rely on predicting your opponent’s movement.

Ganondorf is a very high-committal character with exploitable weaknesses, but I do believe that if you can properly read your opponent, then there is hardly a better character to choose. He does have options to make this easier on the player too. If you can land a Flame Choke, your opponent only has four options they can choose, and Ganondorf can cover all of them with the right timing. When the opponent is off-stage, any of Ganondorf’s aerials can be fatal, and that can condition an opponent into rushing for the ledge, which Ganondorf can cover with a properly timed up-tilt (which is admittedly punishable if timed poorly). Opponents who shield too much have the risk of having their shields broken by several of Ganondorf’s moves, at which point even the slightest bit of percentage can mean their stock is already gone. Plus, despite what people may feel, Ganondorf does have a few simple combos that can rack up percentage reliably at low percents. Once the opponent is in mid percents, they are already at risk of losing a stock.

Last thing I will mention: Frostwraith mentioned in the Discord chat an idea to overhaul Ganondorf, but keep his playstyle the same, giving him new animations and utilizing his more recent design in Hyrule Warriors, but keeping the his moves functioning similarly. That was an idea I could get behind, since it would ‘de-clone’ him while keeping his playstyle intact.

From: Ganondorf is Fine the Way He is

I saw Frostwraith mentioning that idea — I’d like him to explore in what ways that could be done. It’s kind of a neat compromise that I think a lot of people could really get behind.

Arthur 97

I think that this article is fundamentally flawed in that while, yes, his playstyle may fit him, the moves don’t (excluding a few outliers) which is the major issue. It should not be as hard as you make it out since you already stated that it doesn’t have to be %100. Dead Man’s Volley for example could be a simple projectile, stunning optional, maybe even make him fire it down when in midair. No homing, no special reflection (though Dedede’s Gordos already do that so it has a precedent) just a plain old projectile that would go a long way into making him more in character.

From: Ganondorf is Fine the Way He is

To be honest, Ganondorf is Fine the Way He is is an article I don’t really feel proud of. I sat on it for awhile, but I couldn’t find ways to improve it so I just went ahead and published it. My main goal was to try to rationalize why Ganondorf doesn’t really need to be changed as it’s a viewpoint that doesn’t get a lot of coverage. It’s a pretty hot button issue in the Smash community, and the article got over 40 comments. Anyway, I think there gets to a point where if you have to change so many of the properties that makes an attack what it is to make it work in Smash…it loses some of its’ appeal. If Dead Man’s Volley was a simple projectile…would it still feel like Dead Man’s Volley? I think the answer depends on the person.

Mettaur

Its an issue of whether or not you believe characters should be majorly overhauled after their inception into the series. Personally, while I can certainly see casual players being confused by drastic changes to a character’s moveset between games, I don’t think its as big an issue as its made out to be. What are the actual negative repercussions of briefly confusing a few players? Casual players may have also been confused by the inclusion of more obscure characters they’ve never heard of, or the inclusion of clones, or the spiting up of characters who used to transform into each other, or the removal of certain characters who were in previous games. The only real negative impact I see in drastically changing a single character’s moveset is upsetting those who liked the old moveset. However cutting characters has the same issue yet its happened numerous times. Obviously you wouldn’t want to completely rework a large number of characters, just as you wouldn’t want to cut a majority of the cast. But I think Ganondorf is really the only character who truly needs this change, and I don’t believe the negative repercussions as being any greater than those of cutting a character, a clone no less.

I understand why Ganondorf is the way he is, but that doesn’t automatically mean he’s well represented. Ganondorf isn’t a fist-fighter, he just isn’t. Ganondorf uses magic and swords primarily in every battle in the series, even in his appearances as Ganon his fighting style heavily relies on wielding a trident, using magic, and teleportation. Having a moveset that reflects a character’s character is all well and good, when there’s nothing else to go off. The Star Fox characters are expertly portrayed in this way with Fox being a ridged, by the books martial artist, Falco having a lot of the same fundamentals but being more prone to improvising and just doing what feels natural, and Wolf being much more aggressive, wild, and erratic in the way he fights. The Star Fox characters spend the majority of their games piloting ships and thus don’t have much in the way of moveset potential, thus having movesets that represent their character and how they differ from one anouther is one of the better options available. However Ganondorf doesn’t need some hamstrung made up moveset to cover for a lack of actual moveset potential, because potential is something he is absolutely bursting with.

“Being a clone might’ve been the only way for the King of Evil to have gotten into Smash.”

This is probably the biggest problem I have with your argument as it simply isn’t true. Being a clone was the only way for Ganondorf to get into Melee, NOT Smash a whole. Had Ganondorf been passed over for Melee and introduced as a newcomer in Brawl I’m incredibly doubtful his moveset would look anything like it does now. And therein lies the problem, Ganondorf isn’t keeping his moveset because it’s suitable, he’s keeping it because its established. Established under less than ideal circumstances with being able to get it done fast being prioritized over doing it right. The conception of Ganondorf’s moveset is fundamentally flawed, insofar as being true to the character is concerned. Regardless of the little tweaks made game to game his moveset is still a square peg that’s been forcefully crammed into a circular hole.

He doesn’t need to have his moves be one to one with the games, very few moves in Smash are, but he should at the very least retain the same relative fighting style as he does in his games. Look at Ganondorf in Hyrule Warriors, the specific moves he uses are almost all completely made up, yet you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who claims he doesn’t feel like Ganondorf in spite of this. That’s because he still has a focus on weapons, magic, and references to Ganon. This is how Ganondorf fights, these are things I could see Ganondorf doing in a Zelda game. There’s more to power than the ability to punch really hard and there’s more to Ganondorf than Ganondorf = power. Smash Ganondorf is Ganondorf in name alone, and no amount of bandaids is going to fix that issue. While its perfectly fair and valid to prefer characters aren’t change drastically for the sake of consistency, I would personally prefer the ability to play as Ganondorf in Smash.

From: Ganondorf is Fine the Way He is

You make a fair point. I sometimes wonder what Wario’s moveset would have looked like had he gotten in Melee. As you mention, Ganondorf most certainly would have gotten into Brawl. I do agree with’s Spiral’s reply to this comment about confusing casual players (featured below).

Spiral

“Briefly confusing a few players” isn’t quite telling of the whole story. Remember that Smash primarily sells to a casual audience that’s more likely to pick a character based on personal preference than based on how they play. And there’s a difference between introducing a new character and changing an existing character, since if there’s a new character you’re not fond of or don’t like playing, you can just not play that character. If you liked playing a character from a previous game and that character gets a large change to their moveset, you might not like playing that character anymore. You should also remember that cuts typically don’t happen intentionally, I don’t think Sakurai’s ever been working on a new Smash game and decided “X and Y character aren’t allowed to return”. Through his interviews on the topic, it’s more like there wasn’t enough development time to bring back all the characters they wanted, and they’d probably want to focus more on the characters that are likely to make a large impact and resonate with more people.

I also find it interesting that you find Falco to be well represented, since Falco started as a direct clone of Fox before having aspects of his moveset changed. The same can be said with Ganondorf, and according to this analysis – http://www.ssbwiki.com/User:Toomai/Cloneosity#SSB4 – Falco and Ganondorf have roughly the same amount of moves in common with Fox and Captain Falcon respectively. I’m not arguing on whether or not Falco is well represented, I’m just curious what your criteria is.

From: Ganondorf is Fine the Way He is

 

MagcargoMan

I’m gonna be completely honest and blunt here, sometimes I feel that between multiple Falcondorf articles, the article justifying Wario being 90% WarioWare-focused and the articles defending Cloud and Corrin’s inclusions that sometimes this site might like to be… perhaps the best word for it is “contrarian” about things.

I’ve read that first Ganondorf article and it really reaches to justify his whole moveset just because a couple of moves are ones he used in Twilight Princess. Stuff like Warlock Punch being based on Ganon backhanding Link in Wind Waker or suing Flame Choke in the air being his Ground punch from Ocarina of Time is really grasping at straws. Just because he has the Triforce of Power, doesn’t mean simply giving him powerful moves and calling it a day represents him well. Now, as for points brought up in this article:

“Being a clone might’ve been the only way for the King of Evil to have gotten into Smash.”
This is wrong though. While is true it was the only way for him to get into Melee, if he was never added he definitely would have been in Brawl, due to (his Gerudo form) appearing again in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, and that’s not even taking account you couldn’t just ignore the main villain of the Zelda franchise.

“If Dead Man Volley is in the game… who does it go after? The closest character?”
Who said it has to be homing in Smash? It could just fly in the direction you tilt the control stick and stay in that direction.

“Another request: Ganondorf needs to hover. Honestly…he doesn’t. He’s hovered in Ocarina of Time, but he didn’t really hover in Twilight Princess nor Wind Waker.”
I find this rather poor as there are many characters in Smash who have moves that only showed up in one game. Three of Zelda’s specials are based on spells that only appeared in Ocarina of Time and her new Down Special of having a Phantom aid her is something that only happened in Spirit Tracks. Mario’s Side Special is the Cape from Super Mario World, a power-up that hasn’t been seen again. Ganondorf hovering has even been acknowledged in Smash by his Melee taunt, which returned in later Smash games. I think I should clear up though I think he should only hover for a special, rather than replace his walk animation.

“Ganondorf needing a sword is a request that straight up annoys me. First, when he was introduced in OoT, he didn’t wield a sword.”
Kirby couldn’t copy abilities in Kirby’s Dream Land and Samus couldn’t use Super Missiles until Super Metroid. While does Ganondorf need to be held to what he could do in his first appearance?

“Second, there is some overlap between the people that complain that there are too many swordsmen in Smash and Ganondorf’s representation (some, but not all).”
“Lastly, Ganondorf with a sword based moveset would probably need need to be like Ike, for balancing purposes.”
Many people (including myself) don’t want him to be a full swordsman, just have some moves involve it. This makes sense too as Ganondorf has been sword to be both a sword user and a dark wizard, so having only some of his moveset use the sword instead of all it is a logical direction to take it. I’d probably only have it show up in Smash Attacks and maybe some tilts/aerials, but that’s just me.

“Don’t even get me started on moving his moveset to Black Shadow”
I agree with this notion, but not for the same reasons. I don’t think it wouldn’t be fair to Black Shadow… I think it would be fair to F-Zero and it’s fans. Can you imagine: F-Zero finally gets a second playable character in Smash, only for it to be a clone, and not just that, but a moveset that’s already been in previous games. So even worse than a clone, a replacement clone.

The fact is that, if Ganondorf was never a clone in Smash, literally nobody would be going “Gee, I wish they made him a slow but stronger Captain Falcon instead”. In fact, I guarantee that back when Melee was first announced, there was no-one thinking “If Ganondorf gets in he should totally be a Captain Falcon clone”. It feels like people defend it only because people complain about it. It’s sorta like with Color Splash how defenders cropped up after the backlash and were never this vocal when it Sticker Star being criticised, which didn’t much complaints until it was released (notice how Zip Lash wasn’t liked after it came out, but since it wasn’t loud nobody showed up to defend it?).

Ganondorf is not right in Smash, and he never will be until he gets a fresh moveset that properly acknowledges his repertoire of dark magic, sword and/or trident and other abilitiies, not a slow Captain Falcon who uses dark energy instead of fire. I find the whole idea of trying to argue against a proper Ganondorf ridiculous and it makes me wonder how discussions of other characters would go down if they were made ill-fitting clones of other characters (Rosalina as a Zelda clone perhaps?).

Also, forgot to reply to this part:

“I know you some of you guys want better movement options so he has a chance of rising in the tier list, but Ganondorf and the rest of Smash just were not designed exclusively around 1v1 play on a select number of stages.”

I don’t think it’s really fair to let a character be constantly awful in each iteration of Smash for the sake of “only being useful in a free-for-all”.

From: Ganondorf is Fine the Way He is

Let me discuss your “contrarian” point first:

My goal with Source Gaming is this: first, provide the sources without any extra information. We don’t add commentary or editorialize translations nor interviews. We essentially provide those ‘sources’ with as little bias as possible. It would actually be in our best interest to editorialize the interviews. More people have read our translations on outside of Source Gaming than on it. Walls of text intimidate some people, and we often get the “tl;dr” comment. But…I feel the community deserves the full context. Too many times have quotes been taken out of context and given the wrong impression. Providing the full translation helps combat that.

Then the second step is to use those sources, and come up with conclusions. Pure opinion articles are marked by the purple capsules, more fact based articles are indicated by green capsules (Orange is for translations, blue for interviews, light blue is for site, character/stages are red, and news is yellow). Nirbion and I came up with that system in order to make it easier for the audience to visualize what kind of information is being presented. We are in the process of rethinking the site’s design/organization so that might change sometime next month…but that’s the system we have now.

We don’t turn down articles that offer a different point of view. My only requirement to be published on Source Gaming is to provide evidence for the argument the poster is presenting. In fact there’s a guest article that is being worked on right now that is very anti-Sakurai. After reading it, we told them ways to sharpen their argument, and I’m really looking forward to reading the 2nd draft. There’s a lot of times where I disagree with the other staff members. We’ve been in day long arguments over a ton of topics in the staff chat before. I have disagreed with Soma about the competitive nature of Smash in the past…I have disagreed with SmashChu and TheAnvil on other topics as well, such as Gematsu. A couple of other bloggers have actually asked me why I allow so many different viewpoints on Source Gaming as they feel it detracts from the ‘site having a core message’. One thing that I have constantly fought is the ‘echo-chamber’ in the Smash community. In my eyes, it’s a pretty big issue, and has caused the fan base to be blindsided when they really shouldn’t have been. Wolf not coming back was clear as day. The fact that we weren’t getting a ton of DLC characters should have been clear, but a lot of people were still predicting an outrageous number of additions to the roster. To be frank, I want people to have actual conversations, and not blindly circle jerk each other. The only comments we don’t allow on the site are comments that flame other users. Otherwise, we don’t censor comments for not agreeing with us. If I find a writer doing that, then they would get in trouble (and it did happen in the past, and I fixed it).

Obviously, I do have my own bias, and I think it’s pretty clear for anyone who has read my opinion pieces/ heard my on the podcasts. I do think Sakurai is a great director. I don’t think I would run Source Gaming if I didn’t think that. That being said, I don’t believe he is perfect. Kid Icarus: Uprising is essentially unplayable for me because I’m left handed. The random equipment/ custom drop system in Smash for Wii U/3DS isn’t very well thought out. Tripping. His obsessive personality can be a good thing, but it can also be a huge drain on development. As I discussed in Our Dear Leader, I think understanding  is a critical step before meaningful criticism can occur. We’ve been trying to provide that understanding as it wasn’t readily available before SG started. Mettaur kind of hit the nail on the head in his reply:

Mettaur

On the topic of Source Gaming’s more “contrarian” articles, it honesty just seems like they’re trying to provide a differing viewpoint and insights, rather than going against the grain for the sake of it. With how much of an echo chamber the Smash fandom can be at times its valuable to at least get as sense of where the thinking behind certain decisions might have come from, even if it doesn’t actually change anyone’s stance on the subject.

The amount of articles defending Sakurai’s decisions far outnumbering the amount of articles criticizing them can give the unfortunate impression that SG believes Sakurai to be infallible, but I think it’s just a matter of preferring articles that put a positive spin on things to articles that paint things in a more negative light. There also wouldn’t be much point to writing an article that simply reiterates stuff everyone else is already complaining about.

In any case, they certainly don’t seem to believe Sakurai shouldn’t be questioned: https://sourcegaming.info/2015/07/08/our-dear-leader/

From: Ganondorf is Fine the Way He is

Nintendrone

It’s a shame that publishers have a stranglehold on professional game journalists, since publishers can withhold review copies and event access if the journalists weren’t positive enough about their games. Sometimes it reaches the point where publishers will threaten journalists for less than stellar reception of games, such as publishers pulling ads from a magazine or site, or refusing to send future review copies. There needs to be a way for professional journalists to share their honest thoughts on games without publishers breathing down their necks.

From: Advertiser vs. Journalist

I’m not sure if it would ever improve in a meaningful way. Like I said, we are caught in a difficult position as video games are forms of entertainment. The rise of unprofessional gaming journalism (YouTube, blogs) will help combat this, but the number game (Focusing on relations with the biggest sites/channels) can still provide a bottleneck of control for publishers.

Zerinus

That’s interesting. I’ve been paying more attention and even considered on how life would be if I were to be a gaming journalist. but really, all I really want is to talk about games out of passion, not talk about games because a publisher wants me to sell a game for them. I mean I guess it’d depend on whether if i am truly interested or not, but i don’t see that actually being an issue in my life.

I am curious about the big picture on relationships with being a journalist and being a publisher though. I really despise the idea of publication for being a sellout though.

From: Advertiser vs. Journalist

The number of paying jobs for gaming journalist is extremely low. I’ve heard a lot of gaming journalist will do writing for other publications in order to make ends meet. It doesn’t pay well, and with YouTube and blogs, it pays even less than it used to. Going on your own is the best option it seems.

mikesharpewriter

Well. In UK, The rating system was rather weird… But more on that later.

Most of the games my parents got me pre-dated PEGI and most likey ELSPA and ESRB too. My parents usually got PC games which was usually very safe and usually vetted them before hand, such as Sim City 2000, Lemmings and a few Star Trek Tie ins. I was already in my teens when I got played Doom for a significant about of time, and then it was the Shareware demo, not the full games I only got in my Mid 20s. Most Cover disks that we got didn’t even have questionable content in their games.

The PEGI rating that came in after FFX and Smash Melee, and happened to around the same time I starting to get in to Gaming, and at that time I was almost old enough to buy the games Rated 18. (PEGI and BBFC uses age Ratings)

Alot the games I saw as a Kid so reflects on the types of games available as I was growing up, a large amount of them where indeed safe for Kids, but then it was SNES Era.

I was old enough to remember that I there was some thing about Mortal Kombat during the SNES/Megadrive days but then I didn’t have access to a console and the PC at the time barely could even play it. I totally Missed Conker’s Bad Fur day around release, party I was more invested in the PS1, PS2 and DreamCast.

The UK rating system for games used to use one of two rating systems. Most games where rated with the PEGI System like most of Europe. Until recently some games also got rated via the BBFC, the British Movie board. These usually are the Violent games, or in the case of Playboy for other things. So many M Rated games got a BBFC 18 rating on it, almost every GTA games but GTAV, and Bayonetta for 360 and PS3 just to name a few.. Bayonetta 1 Wii U got didn’t get a BBFC rating, just a PEGI one. ELSPA was PEGI’s predecessor and their stickers are on my FFX and Melee box.

It doesn’t help most movies I’ve seen are shown on the TV, and are usually slightly Sanitized.. “See what Happens when you find a Stranger in the Alps.” (The Big Lebrowski)

Personally, I think It’s more down to the controls or the situation the player character is in than the actual game content. I’m just thinking of the Angry german kid video in which he goes crazy just as a game loads..

From: My Initial Thoughts on Violent Video Games

Thanks for sharing the information about the UK rating system. I never knew!

 

Bob

I remember hearing about some research being done on as to whether or not violence in video games increases aggressiveness. Instead, they found that it was competitive video games rather than violent video games that causes aggressiveness. To prove this they had players play four different types of video games (violent, competitive, both and neither) and have found that regardless on as to whether or not there was violence in the video game it was always the competitive video games that made the players more aggressive. I’m not sure if their research is accurate nor do I know what link to the article that claims this study is, but it does make sense since competition does tend to make people more aggressive.

From: My Initial Thoughts on Violent Video Games

I believe I actually read that paper in college. If I remember correctly, they had respondents fill in words missing a letter/ a couple of letters in order to measure aggressiveness. So for __unch could be “bunch” or “crunch”, etc. “crunch” would give the person a higher aggressiveness rating in the study. There’s some issues with the methodology, and one study on its’ own doesn’t prove a point (especially if it’s not peer reviewed). I’ll have to see what else has come out. I’m still reading On Killing!

Menshay

I admit I did not fully consider how existing characters are sometimes indeed combinations of several versions and can even include moves from other characters. My main concern is that the fact that I feel the various Ganondorfs are more distinct flavour-wise that the various Links and Zeldas: Ocarina Ganondorf is the mage, Wind Waker Ganondorf is the elegant swordsman, Twilight Princess Ganondorf is the huge and menacing swordsman, and I feel giving one moves belonging to the others clashes way more than having Twilight Princess Zelda use moves from Ocarina and Spirit Tracks. This is why I proposed waiting for a new official Ganondorf or going the Hyrule Warriors way and creating a Smash-specific hybrid Ganondorf; after all, Pit (and Palutena) in Brawl shows that Smash-specific redesigns are a possibility.

I cannot say anything worthwhile about your feeling that current Ganondorf is not Ganondorf: you and several others are not satisfied, PushDustIn and several others are, and I cannot see one of the sides being objectively, absolutely more “right” than the other. Actually, I don’t feel decisions can be considered definitely “right” or “wrong”, “good” and “bad” when dealing with a field like video games and entertainment in general. And I cannot see “just use Falcon” as a valid advice: I use Falcon, I like Falcon, but I just like Falcondorf much more than him.

From: Ganondorf is Fine the Way He is

I think this is a good comment to end on. At the end of the day, I do think the other side has valid points and isn’t “wrong”. It’s an opinion on what you prefer.

 

8 comments
  1. I do think the Deam Man’s Volley attack could still feel right. Give it an angled aerial trajectory (ala Ness’ PK Fire), maybe give it some stun, and you could make it work similar to Dedede’s Gordos just reflected straight instead of bouncing.

    In any case, that is all I will say on the matter here.

    Arthur 97 on September 20 |
  2. To be fair, I guess most characters would probably have come out differently had they been added in a later Smash game, not just Ganondorf. The Smash series seems to be getting better and better at portraying character true to their source material as well as allowing for more unconventional movesets and gimmicks. Its interesting to think about what a lot of characters might have looked like had they been added a game or two later.

    Would Samus have been a more ranged focused fighter similar to Mega Man?

    Would Kirby pull from a wider variety of his abilities rather than primarily just using Fighter’s moves outside of his specials, once again akin to Mega Man?

    Would Fox utilize any weapons from the ground based portions of Assault had his moveset been conceived after that game’s release?

    Would Ness still need to borrow offensive moves from other characters in his game, or would Sakurai have figured out a way to make a moveset centered around his status inflicting powers?

    Would Captain Falcon have still gotten a moveset (possibly) inspired by Dragon King if the concept hadn’t been so fresh in Sakurai’s mind?

    Would Zelda’s strong associated with the Light Arrows in recent titles lead to them being a more prominent part of her moveset, beyond just being her final Smash?

    Would Pit use more of his Uprising weaponry if he had been added in Smash For?

    As you said it works the other way too, with characters like Wario who were long overdue, and others who just weren’t major enough to warrant an appearance in earlier games.

    Would Bowser Jr. use his paintbrush more if he had been added when Sunshine was still the most recent 3D Mario Platformer?

    What would Diddy Kong have looked like way back in Smash 64, before he got his popgun and jetpack from Donkey Kong 64?

    How would Olimar have worked with a more conventional moveset in Melee?

    What on earth would Palutena have pulled her moves from in a pre-Uprising world?

    Obviously a lot of these scenarios probably never came close to occurring while we know Wario and Ganondorf very nearly did and didn’t make it into Melee. Regardless, I think its interesting to consider how different some characters might have turned out if they’d simply been added at a different point in time.

    Mettaur on September 20 |
  3. I like Mettaur’s comment.

    It’s near impossible to provide an opinion without coming across as contrarian to someone. As a result, I think it’s important to acknowledge both sides of a subject when writing about it, like the above mentioned Ganondorf debate. For instance, I might give a positive review to Federation Force but I do acknowledge glaring flaws the game has which prevent me from enjoying it fully. To me, balance is key when debating.

    LIQUID12A on September 20 |
  4. It seems it’s hard to talk about Ganondorf in Smash without causing some debates. But as long as things stay civil (and of the comments I’ve read, they are, so I’m not calling out anyone), then discussion is great. It often seems that people are either strongly for or strongly against his current representation, but even in those broad categories, there’s variation. I think Ganondorf is fine right now, while Frostwraith would like an overhaul that keeps his playstyle similar, just with updated animations to match his newer incarnations. On the other side, some people argue for giving Ganondorf a sword or his trident, while others would base his moves more on his appearance in Ocarina of Time. There are a lot of ways to look at it, and I’ve come to respect all those other ways more now.

    Spiral on September 21 |
  5. A couple possibly incoherent thoughts about “bias”.

    First of all, I feel the distinction between fact-based and opinion-based articles is clear enough (just look at that huge disclaimer at the beginning of the recent Ganondorf article). That said, opinions are what they are, and carry an inherent bias by definition.

    I don’t see this a a traditional news site (you all don’t even get direct monetary compensation for this), one which should be as neutral as possible all the time. I’m mostly under the impression that this site is ran by a group of friends/acquaintances which happen to share several opinions and are brought together by them: if said opinion is (I’m generalizing a bit here) that Sakurai is doing something right, would it be “fair” to request – or even force – the inclusion of different writers with an opposite point of view, so that a specific (small? large?) group of readers feels represented? Would the team like having to do this? (Note: these are not rhetorical questions.)

    (For the record, my previous comments weren’t mean to belittle the idea that Ganondorf should get new moves; I see it as a definitely valid position which, like others, has several pros and cons.)

    Menshay on September 23 |
    • I think (generally speaking) everyone on the article team is here because they love Nintendo and consider themselves big fans of Nintendo, and they also love Smash. Of course they won’t all have the same opinions, but that is how I would describe everyone on the article team (including guest writers). I think everyone at least respects Sakurai, even if they may not agree with certain choices he makes. They also tend to care about how characters are represented in Smash, to varying degrees.

      Also, funnily enough, I think a “should Sakurai return as the director of the next Smash” article series is in the works. Obviously with a better title than that of course.

      The translation team is a bit different, in the sense that, well, I am the majority of the translation team (at least at the moment :P).

      Soma on September 24 |
  6. “Last thing I will mention: Frostwraith mentioned in the Discord chat an idea to overhaul Ganondorf, but keep his playstyle the same, giving him new animations and utilizing his more recent design in Hyrule Warriors, but keeping the his moves functioning similarly. That was an idea I could get behind, since it would ‘de-clone’ him while keeping his playstyle intact.”

    Agreed. I want Ganondorf to play the same. Granted, I still wouldn’t mind dual swords & trident like in Hyrule Warriors – but as long as he still has the same playstyle Ganondorf currently does only with new animations and a slight change to compensate for his new weapons, I wouldn’t mind it either…

    KL-Cobalt on October 6 |
  7. Sorry this is a really late reply, but these days there’s a lot of sites I read and I tend to put things off to get others out of the way. I’ve been meaning to reply to this for a while.

    I apologise if I came off as rude with the “contrarian” comment. Perhaps I thought the word was stronger than I thought it was. I think the article’s name was what rubbed me the wrong way as it kinda came off as a bold statement rather then an opinion, and an attention-grabbing one at that (I don’t mean clickbait, but just something that people are guaranteed to reply to). I’m a very opinionated person and I’m too argumentative for my own good.

    i really do appreciate all this effort put into translating sources to provide facts, I truly do. For example, because of this site I learnt the “Pit and Meowth were planned for Smash 64” thing was a lie, and that Leif wasn’t planned to be in Melee before Roy showed up. It’s a great thing that this site exists, and I hope it continues to exist for many more.

    I didn’t know the capsule’s colours were coded. That is a pretty neat system. In hindsight, it does make sense looking back on some articles sharing colours with similar topics.

    I’m not asking for anti-Sakurai content, as much as I’ve disliked his decisions with Smash 4. Make what you want. I just sometimes can’t help but feel that there’s some times where it feels like it’s trying to be justified only because it received criticism. But maybe that’s the point.

    I really don’t see how agreeing that Ganondorf needs changing is a circlejerk though, because everywhere I have talked about the subject there are people who disagree on that. Even if it was widely agreed I don’t see the problem it regarding something as fair as just wanting a faithful Ganondorf.

    And regarding Mettaur’s comment, I understand, yes, there are reasons why certain decisions have been made, and maybe it isn’t clear to some people, but at the same time I feel just because something has a reason behind it, doesn’t mean it’s a good reason.

    Anyway, I’m sorry if I was being a bit obnoxious with that comment. I’ll try not to say something like that again.

    MagcargoMan on October 18 |