OH BOY! What a week! The Switch got revealed, and we got a TON of feedback on our Sakurai articles. Time to look at the comments!
Congrats to Peridot Gem for reaching 200 comments!!
This article looks at comments made from the October 18th- October 22nd (Japan time)!
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!
James Jackson (@JJtheTexan)
Interesting topic! I seem to remember reading somewhere that Satoshi Tajiri once said he believed Pokemon should be easy for children to draw or sketch (the earliest designs, anyway). Pokemon are more based on fanciful / fantastic renderings of real-life animals and are easy to identify, often with localized names that match their description (Ratatta = a rat; Pidgey = a pigeon, etc.). Yo-Kai designs are very bizarre by American standards, and lack that approachability to Westerners; just look at Hungramps and that sperm-cell-looking ghost thing in the image used for the video. I don’t fault Nintendo for giving Yo-Kai Watch a chance in the West, but I doubt very much that we will get any more games beyond Bony / Fleshy, unless they are somehow wildly successful.
From:
That’s an interesting point about the design of Pokemon. I’ll have to look into it to see if I can find a source for it. Thanks for bringing it up!
MagcargoMan
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.
From:
Hey man, no worries! No offense was taken.
To be honest, I feel a lot of people have that impression about us. When we did the Mega Smash Poll: Post DLC, a lot of people did say that SG was slightly biased. Not surprised as we had to go against the accepted narrative in the Smash community several times. I feel when I started SG, the Smash community really hated Sakurai. They thought he was a liar, and couldn’t understand his thought process. A big goal of mine was to shed light on it, expose the actual liars, and build the information available to the community. Now that the information exists, I feel we can really have good, meaningful discussions on the pros and cons. There’s some gaps here and there in knowledge, but the gap is a lot less than it was.
Anyway, I don’t want to discourage disagreement with my approach/ SG itself. I like it when people point out our shortcomings, as that gives us an idea on what to improve and to work on. I’m hoping that future content on Source Gaming will continue to be valuable!
Igiulaw
From what I hear, the demo has a lot off easter eggs that reward multiple playthroughs (much like the ORAS demo. That includes bonuses that won’t be available for a few more days or weeks.
No, listing type advantage does not undermine “strategy”; it undermines guesswork. It takes a convoluted mechanic that advanced players already do by memory and makes it accessible to more people. Hell, the notoriously hardcore Shin Megami Tensei series already does nearly the same thing in its recent entries. Nobody wins at competitive Pokémon merely by knowing how type matchups work, but you don’t deserve to lose just because you haven’t memorized a giant chart.
From:
Completely agree with you. Remembering type advantage is annoying for casual players of Pokemon. Some of them are very difficult to remember. They also seem to have made Pokemon Sun/Moon more interesting as each Pokemon has a unique gimmick it seems. I know it’s been like that, but there’s a lot of Pokemon with ONE new thing and they’ve done a good job highlighting it in the reveals.
MagcargoMan
The Toad and Captain Toad are actually separate characters according to Treasure Tracker’s producer: https://miiverse.nintendo.net/replies/AYMHAAACAAADVHhqTRtYFw
“By the way, Captain Toad is actually not the same Toad as the Toad who’s playable in games like Super Mario Bros. 2 and Wario’s Woods”.
The whole Toad having the same name and look as others of his species is a bit annoying, but they do the same thing with Yoshi. There’s other Green Yoshis besides the main one.
From:
Ah, thanks for letting us know (and providing the source)!
zoniken
I’ve heard about Ace Attorney (aka Gyakuten Saiban) for a long time, even my friend in Japan was recommending me a lot to play the game. And as I bought the 3DS version of 123 game from Japan, I’ve got obsessed by it as I really like the characters, storyline, mechanics, musics, and even those crazy events that sounds so insane, way out of the common sense. It really gives me laughs, even some character’s ridiculous vocabularies does give me headaches, but very enjoyable to read it out loud by making voices at home (not outside I don’t do that).
Having Pheonix in Smash can be an interesting thing to see in game. As we have those non-fighting characters like Wii Fit Trainer and the Villager, having a lawyer with wacky movesets does look perfectly fitting for Smash. I do see most of the movesets aren’t just only from the original series but also brought from Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3, and it really looks interestingly unique. It’s odd why you didn’t bring up Project X Zone 2 for this point since he appeared in that game, even in Taiko no Tatsujin Mystery Adventure for his another crossover appearance (http://3ds3-mys.taiko-ch.net/adventure_02.html). But even then, it looks great.
I could imagine his stage will be a courtroom, but I can’t think of what gimmick the stage could have. Maybe the judge could slam the players away by pounding his mallet? Anything can be possible.
Once again, great article!
From:
I think Pheonix Wright would fit right in too! I hope one day he’ll make it in.
Spiral
(the puns at the start are proof enough that this would be worth it)
Around 8:30 in is one thing that gets said often about Metroid, but I feel isn’t telling of the whole story and it sorta bothers me when it’s thrown out. The appeal of Metroid games is rarely on any specific notable characters; heck, even Samus herself rarely says anything, outsite of Fusion and that one game which shall not be mentioned. As far as iconic characters go, there’s Samus herself and then there’s the recurring bosses, and that’s not a huge list. That’s not to take away from characters in the Metroid universe who are interesting or unique enough to deserve a shot, as there are definitely a few of those, but when you consider that, with the Mario series as a stand-out exception, pretty much only the main characters of a series get in, it’s understandable how Metroid wound up with “Samus and Samus again”.
Also, at about 10:50 in, Ridley isn’t quite as comparable to Bowser or Ganondorf. Bowser exists in a universe where changing size is common, and Ganondorf is reborn as a new version each time, so it’s not always the same ‘Ganondorf’. Ridley gets revived or rebuilt often, but as far as I know (please correct me if I’m wrong), it’s the same ‘Ridley’ and there aren’t in-universe explanations as for how he could change sizes. The argument that they just didn’t want to spend the development time wouldn’t explain why they would then instead spend development time making him into two separate boss battles in Brawl and the most in-depth stage boss in Smash 4, since even if it’s not designing a full character, there’s still clear effort that went into it.
From:
LIQUID made so many puns. Some of them happened before recording, so they didn’t make it in the final cut.
I agree with you — Metroid is a solo game in every sense of the word.
I’m not too familiar about your second point, so I’ll leave it to ze (who provided a reply!)
ze
ridley’s size is all over the place in metroid games. in super he’s not much bigger than samus (he looks bigger because his head is enormous), in prime he’s a giant, in prime 3 you fight him two times and the second time he’s much smaller than the first.
it’s not a matter of how canon it is to alter his size, it’s just if it can work.
by the way smash 4’s ridley is a great example of wasted time and effort. as a representation of ridley it is so lame. he’s slow and stupid, he doesn’t use not even one of his classic attacks like the diagonal fireballs, the pogo-tail and the grab thing, and i think he’s even bigger than he’s ever been in any metroid game. plus he makes the matches too caothic (still better than the yellow devil, though).
i still can’t explain myself what they were thinking when they did that. ridley is clearly there, looking almost playable with even a stock icon, to throw a bone to his fans. yet none of his fans cared about it, and he doesn’t even feel like ridley at all. those who didn’t care about ridley could very well live without the stage hazard. what purpose does it serve?
but honestly, metroid seems to be the only series that sakurai doesn’t really “get” at all. it’s not just ridley who’s half-assed.
From:
Metroid stages in particular seem to be stuck on the “lava” imagery. DK gets “jungle” too. I think it’s to ensure the overall stage balance doesn’t conflict with each other (so each stage still has a motif), but it sucks as I know there’s more to both of these series than just “jungle” and “lava”.
Anyway, time to get into the Sakurai responses. OH BOY!
ABCZYX
” However, because of the delay, the Wii U suffered from not having a Smash title at launch.”
I don’t get this point at all. The development of Smash 4 didn’t even start until Kid Icarus Uprising was complete, which was in 2012. How would’ve it been possible to release Smash Wii U in that same year?
From:
I broke down the history of the development here.
Smash was announced in late 2011, but didn’t come out until 2015. Some might argue that if they focused only on the Wii U version, then it could have come out earlier, and then saved the Wii U. I don’t necessarily believe it myself. My goal in those two posts were to provide an argument for both sides (that’s why at some points, I was arguing against myself).
Igiulaw
The biggest reason I can think of is the combination of Sakurai’s work ethic (obsessive personalities have their perks!) and his understanding of how to run an efficient development cycle. Do you want less content in Smash? Because booting Sakurai is how you get less content in Smash.
From:
There’s definitely a pro and a con to Sakurai’s work ethic. I think he made Subspace Emissary great by literally acting out the characters, and paying attention to those details. But it also made development much longer. He probably drives the staff insane with his micromanaging.
Nintendrone
I wouldn’t mind Sakurai staying director for the next Smash, but it’s exactly not something I’m dying for. A big point in Sakurai’s favor over other possible directors is other creators respecting him, which gives him room to flex his creative muscles in a crossover with others’ characters. As an example of what happens when the respect is not there, I hear that SuperBot Entertainment got pushed around by other companies a lot when making PlayStation All-Stars.
From:
You make a good point to look into. Some research on PlayStation All-Stars and SuperBot would be interesting to do and read.
Nintendrone
It seems that all of these points against Sakurai stem from one thing: his apparent stubbornness, which leads to his highly controlling and obsessive work ethic as a director. While I appreciate that Sakurai stays true to his creative vision and has an eye for the little things, I feel that his mindset is somewhat limiting the development team (as it undermines the team effort that the name implies) and Smash by extension. Sakurai also seems to be the overbearing type of creator: one that firmly believes that there is one superior way to enjoy his works and does not seem to want to learn why people enjoy them in particular ways. This is similar to a creator losing sight of what made their works popular, although Sakurai clearly knows that characters are the primary draw to Smash. Sakurai not fully understanding what hardcore Smash players want will eventually drive them away. This would be harmful to the series, as hardcore players constantly introduced Smash to new people by showing their friends or through the competitive scene.
Personally, I’d be totally fine with Sakurai out of the director’s chair (and into an advisory role), mainly because I feel that many of his shortcomings could be alleviated with some fresh blood. Sakurai is an excellent game designer, but I feel that he’d hold the series back if he doesn’t learn to tone down his stubbornness, which would allow him to more easily consider new ideas, trust his development team, and fully understand what made Smash popular to so many different people.
From:
One thing that has changed, that I should have brought up in the pro article, is Sakurai has “let go” of the balancing a bit. The Bayonetta patch came when Sakurai was taking a breather, and he has said he kind of took a step back from balancing.
Munomario777
My two cents:
Sakurai has indeed said that he places a significant focus on casual play and making the game accessible, and this is evident in Smash’s design. However, I think that this is also beneficial to the competitive scene in some ways. By making the game more accessible, it opens up the competitive scene to newcomers. A new player may be intimidated by Melee’s wall of tech skill, but with a game like Smash for Wii U, it is much easier to learn the ropes. With simpler mechanics, new players can more easily follow high-level matches, and understand the skill that is involved – and thus, it seems more possible to achieve. And while Melee may be more intense and fast-paced, the Wii U game is still exciting enough to play and to watch. Also, while it is true that Nintendo is not as supportive as other companies are in terms of the tournament scene, this is not likely to be the fault of Sakurai himself. While it is possible for Smash to cater more to the competitive scene in terms of its design, I think that what we have right now is more than good enough to have a great competitive scene and high-level gameplay.
The other primary case against Sakurai is his bias, or his character choice. As noted in the article in favor of Sakurai’s return, much of his “bias,” and other things such as the addition of clones, can be justified through other means. Clone characters, which also make up a good chunk of Smash for Wii U’s “bias” picks (Dark Pit and Lucina), take up barely any development time, and were originally simple alternate costumes. The point of clone characters overshadowing the originals does hold some amount of water, but much of it is based on preference. Marth’s tipper is stronger, but Lucina’s blade allows for more leeway in terms of execution. Dark Pit’s Electroshock Arm KOs earlier in ideal circumstances, but Pit’s added arrow control and more consistent Upperdash Arm give him different advantages and disadvantages, and the two are generally seen as very similar in terms of overall strength.
It is true that Sakurai has dismissed characters such as Waluigi and Ridley in the past. However, as we have seen with the latest character roster, Sakurai has also been known to change his mind. Villager, Pacman, and the Miis are examples of this: during Brawl’s development, Sakurai could not think of a good way to implement these characters into the game. By the next game, however, he came up with good ideas and implemented the fighters into the game. For future entries in the series, the same could very well happen for Ridley or Waluigi. And of course, one other thing must be considered. If Sakurai were to be replaced, there is no guarantee that the next director in the series would not be biased. In fact, assuming that the new director is in fact human, it is almost guaranteed.
Sakurai’s best attribute is how much he cares about Smash and the characters and series that are represented. As noted, again, in the other article, he puts a lot of attention-to-detail into the games, with little touches that make everything feel just right. While a new developer may start anew and cut down the character roster, Sakurai cares about each fighter, and is hesitant to cut characters that are beloved by fans. Of course, given development constraints, some cuts are inevitable, but Sakurai tries hard to bring back as many fighters as possible.
In the end, the question of whether or not Sakurai should be replaced depends on his replacement. Sakurai has several flaws as a game designer, and a new designer could indeed remedy those issues. However, that also comes at the risk of losing what makes Smash special. Sakurai cares deeply about each character, series, and detail; he is friendly with many big names in the industry; and he has been with Smash the whole way through. This may all be lost with a new designer, and with Sakurai’s track record, I am more than content with keeping him around.
From:
Very well said. A new director could fix those issues, but they could also introduce a whole new set of issues. I should have added that to the article :3. Maybe I’ll do a follow up.
anonymous SG fan
I’m glad SG decided to make a balanced argument for each side to avoid bias, but in my opinion its not even a question worth asking. Even if Sakurai were to resign as the director for future Smash titles, I don’t think Nintendo would choose to radically deviate from Smash in it’s current form or make any attempt to make Smash more competitive; considering the innovation we’re seeing in the current Smash 4 competitive scene I don’t see why anyone would even want to change it. I guess its easier for some people to take a “grass is greener” approach to directing but personally I feel the complaints on the ‘shouldn’t’ side don’t necessitate the need for Sakurai to step down. Nonetheless the same people who demonize Sakurai now will probably continue to do so regardless of how well respected he is in the industry.
From:
I really enjoy discussing both side of arguments, as it’s a discussion that I think is important and not very well understood.
There’s one point against that, and that’s the Switch commercial featuring competitive Splatoon. Nintendo might see some success with competitive Splatoon, and want to try to emulate it with Smash (of course, that commercial came out after your comment). Sakurai’s latest comments on competitive Smash have also somewhat changed.
Peridot Gem
I understand the arguments against Sakurai but people cannot use “balancing” as a legit argument. It’s literally IMPOSSIBLE to completely balance a roster with this diversity, size and contrast. You cannot look at a 4-way between Link, Bayonetta, Jigglypuff and Game and Watch and say “Hey! I can make this fairly evenly matched and preserve everything about them and keep their gimmicks while not raising the game’s rating (Bayonetta, Snake)!”. There will always be a best character, a worst character and stuff in-between. Them’s the breaks. It’s how it works in a meta.
“Sakurai is biased/He messes up, rid of him!” If you truly believe there’s a non-nobody dev out there that has 0% bias toward anything and cannot make mistakes in experimenting. …I got bad news for you. Sakurai has been at least doing his best to keep his bias toned down. He literally held off Meta Knight and DDD in Melee in fear of it. “B-But the FE characters!!!” They ending up at 6 out of pure CHANCE. How was Sakurai supposed to know Lucina was going to make it 6 back when there was only 4. Which is a fair amount especially where the series is at right now. Roy got in because of popularity and Corrin because of advertisement, Fates was around the block when the two ORIGINAL characters were fully functional and complete. Timing and time limits play way too big of a part to be ignored. Other characters got in for this reasoning too so Roy and Corrin are not “special snowflakes”. ((Greninja. Mewtwo etc.))
From:
Personally, I agree with you about balancing. Sakurai has talked about it in his Little Mac Column. If Smash were to be balanced, the characters might feel dull or inspired as they would all need to be toned down. I think a perfectly balanced roster would damage the fun factor of multiplayer Smash. Some competitive players say it’s possible, but I’m just not sure. A lot more time would have to go into it, and that would take away from other content.
Peridot Gem
Smash and just Nintendo characters in general are about gimmicks. Literally their own gimmicks is why Smash is so interesting. You can see Ryu landing a shoryuken on Mario while Sonic’s spindashing away from Cloud’s limit break.
Yes he can but he also can explain why he did it and he doesn’t automatically have to bend over backwards and do everything everyone says. Mega Man and the Miis had originals too. I’m sure if there was time everyone would’ve got it but that would take too long and there’s better things to do. Just clones in general take little to no time actually. Like the last few days before release lol.
Wolf got a crap ton of backlash, really noticeable backlash. It doesn’t help that unlike Corrin who I can confidently say is much more original. Wolf had copy pasted moves from Fox and Falco to the rest of the cast or just generic stuff that’s buggy. Speaking of buggy Wolf has some serious problems when it comes to functionality. An arm came off in an animation. Star Fox has getting neglect lately and Wolf hasn’t made any noticeable appearances. It makes sense why he wasn’t considered.
Mewtwo is just waaay too popular to be disregarded as the Melee veteran. He was supposed to be in all the games in the MAIN roster. Only Melee did that. DLC doesn’t count. I’m sure he already had a model before getting scrapped and was decided to be the test subject ((which is ironic with his past LOL)) for the first ever DLC gimmick. So it honestly makes sense. Lucas got all his popularity from just Brawl and it’s the same case for Roy. It’s so weirdly organized….
Mew2 = Test
Lucas = Brawl
Roy = Melee
Ryu = Fighter Newbie
Cloud = RPG Newbie
Corrin = Ad
Bayonetta = Ballot Winner/Hack N Slash Newbie
From:
Mewtwo was probably part of the original plan, as he was designed to be the bonus for 3DS/Wii U owners. Lucas and Roy were also probably decided because they could port/ reuse assets while they decide the rest of the DLC. That’s why I was confident about Wolf not returning, it became clear that each of the DLC had some sort of “theme” to its’ selection.
DekZek
Catering to the competitive scene comes in a few forms.
One, more competitive stages. As it is now, barely any of the stages are competitively viable, especially in contrast to how large the list of banned stages is. Even disregarding that, Omega stages feel like Sakurai didn’t really know what he was doing. FD isn’t actually that balanced, and Battlefield would have been a much better Stage to have everything be a reskin of.
Two, decent competitive balance. I know Smash caters towards casuals, but that’s not the issue. Casual players will be fine so long as it’s somewhat balanced for them. The only time minor changes need to be made (Every change Sans Bayonetta, she was OP for casuals (Not going on tangent) ) is when either A. It’s a fix to a bug, or B. Competitive play. If that were the case, only the characters at the top of the list would get nerfs, or someone would have noticed the bugs.
Three, A better For Glory. Competitive Smash does not revolve around one stage, and if you’re going to try and have a competitive format, do it right. It’s Stocks, never time, regardless of which game you’re playing.
From:
I think there should be more options for stages, but a thing that would fix this is a better stage creator. Competitive Smashers want a balanced stage, they should create their own. Actual developed stages should still be unique/gimmicky as that’s what casuals enjoy. I also think the Smash community can be a bit too quick to BAN stages. I think Midgar could be viable, as the summons take awhile to appear and are very clear.
Already discussed competitive balance above.
Agree about a better “For Glory”. Tournament Mode getting shut down so quick is a disappointment too.
Arthur 97
Calling it chance isn’t really fair either. He made a conscious decision to put Roy and the Corrins in AFTER the game was produced. He knew that it would stack the roster and the DLC. And honestly, as far in advance as they plan these things, he probably knew that the Corrins would be in it before Roy was released. Plus, it’s not like he just HAD to promote Fates.
From:
With my estimate, DLC characters took around 6 months to work on (I explain it here). Therefore, it’s possible that Roy had *just* come out when they decided Corrin. Corrin is the *last* character in 3DS, so he might have been the last decided character, for as far as we know.
Spiral
I didn’t expect my comment about poop to get featured D:
For real though, those were really interesting articles. I know you referenced them before in the “Why does Wario Fart?” articles, so getting the chance to see the rest was a treat… a gross treat, but a treat nonetheless.
From:
It was great to finally translate them! I have a huge backlog of stuff I want to work on…not enough time :(. I feel like a lot of Wario fans didn’t believe me when I published Why Does Wario Fart?, so it was great to finally get around to posting the evidence. (insert evidence.jpg joke)
HolySeadramon
I would like to point out that while Roy received some hate, it reached much higher levels when Corrin was announced. People would argue that Corrin was the sixth Fire Emblem character, and it was just too much. People were expecting new Nintendo characters, and the outrage when the only one announced was ANOTHER Fire Emblem character is undertandable. I love Fire Emblem, and I love Corrin’s concept in Smash, but even I was a bit dissapointed despite the fact that I could not wait to play as him. The case is, in my opinion, it is not Corrin the one who surpassed the limit of reasonable Fire Emblem representation.
Marth is the original character. Ike was the second FE character in Smash and is popular. Robin is one of the main characters of the FE game which was going to be the last one, but instead became the first in a new opportunity for the franchise. Lucina is a clone, true, but she was the most popular character in Awakening and I have never seen before so many people so happy that she got announced even if she was a clone. Corrin is very unique and it is true that he was released within a perfect timing. On the other hand, I get that Roy is popular and people missed him. He was my second main character in Melee. But if Sakurai was going to reveal Corrin, he may have better not done Roy. The game did not need a half-clone of a character that already had a clone. The game would have been perfectly fine with 5 Fire Emblem characters, only one of them being a (reasonable and popular) clone. Sometimes it is better doing the best for the game as a whole rather than fulfilling the desires of some fans.
Another point I want to make is about detail put in everything. It is amazing in graphics, stages, animations… But even here we can find some bias. Or may I say negative bias. There are 5 Zelda characters, except that isn’t totally true. From the 5 characters, there is only ONE moveset based on Zelda games. Sheik never entered in battle during a main game, so her moveset is completely invented, and I don’t remember Zelda throwing some random glitter or kicking people out of Hyrule. She surely has the spells from Ocarina of Time, but that is about it. There is nothing taken from the actual character except from the new down special attack. Ganondorf and Toon Link are perfectly fine characters worth representation, but did not bring new movesets with them. So, that leaves Link’s moveset as the only one truly inspired by The Legend of Zelda… I would really like to see Sakurai put a bit more love and care on one of the most important and beloved franchises from Nintendo.
Now, I don’t think Sakurai should be completely replaced or removed. He has done lots of amazing things so far, and Smash would probably not be the same without him. But I do believe that choosing a new co-director could do some good, both to the franchise and to the amount of work Sakurai has to do with each game.
From:
Actually Roy was the second FE character in Smash :3
I agree that FE is overrepresented. I even wrote about it in Corrin Controversy.
Peridot Gem
Answer me this: Sakurai has always gave spots to playable characters in Smash if they have some legit reasoning behind them. Advertisement, Popularity, Relevancy and History (thus the entire roster). 95% of the entire Zelda cast are one-offs that are lucky to even appear in a second game.
You may not remember Zelda doing that but she hardly does anything noteworthy, gameplay wise. What’s wrong with getting creative with Sheik and Zelda’s movesets? Blame the series for keeping Zelda as this elegant princess who doesn’t do anything. Sheik was based off all those ninja content you would see. There’s nothing wrong with it when that gives more leverage on what they can do in the future. Especially when a person (forgot his name) said he wanted to make a Sheik focused game. Smash can be some heavy material for that. ((Zelda IS starting to acknowledge Smash a little more, like from what I heard Toon Link in Hyrule Warriors had one of his taunts as an attack or something.)) Using Zelda from Hyrule Warriors would be an inefficient path forward since that would not represent Zelda at her best which Smash did much better in my opinion.
Toon Link may not be original but he’s the same person what did you expect? I don’t mind minor tinkering with the current Ganon like some new animations and such but definitely not an overhaul with that jank ridiculous PM moveset.
I can understand where you’re coming from and Zelda needs a new character but everything is definitely in fact fine the way it is.
From:
Remember, Sheik was also a part of Zelda’s moveset (or Sheik a part of Zelda’s moveset?). That was the unique gimmick that drew Sakurai to them, and is totally cannon. Agree with Zelda representation. It got a lot of love with DLC stages, in game stages and ATs.
mikesharpewriter
Ok, Here’s some of thoughts..
Skyrim on the NX, erm, Switch.. While it was a 360 game, There is a Skyrim Remastered which is for a PS4, Xbox one, and PC. I can’t tell which set of Assets they’re using for the trailer.. Mind you the Remastered assets may look closer to the Classic Skyrim, and I’m used to seeing Lots of Asset related Mods. One “Selling” feature of Xbox one and PS4 version is that Mod Support is finally available. Could Mod support be added to the NX? Bethesda already limits “questionable” content for FO4, which is a huge concern for Miiverse.
While the dock/undock function was being shown, I wonder if all games can scale on demand. 1080p60 I’m not too sure if most engines can cope with the undock procedure.. While some game can scale on demand on PC, (due to user changing settings) I am slightly worried if a engine can’t cope with me Pulling out the tablet without a quick save, reset and load session.
This may be the first system that a Main series Pokémon game that I could stream without hardware Mod or emulation, since Emerald over 10 years ago!
From:
I wonder if Skyrim will come out. Now that it was featured in the trailer, it’d be weird to NOT see it.
I’m hoping for scaling…that BotW gameplay on the mobile until looked a bit laggy…maybe it was the commercial?
Link
It turns out the console is exactly what we were told by various leakers over the year. I think the controller will be really weird to use when detached, especially if you have large hands. Also, we’re probably going to be hearing a lot about broken or missing controller parts as more and more people buy the system. But it’s nice to see a pro controller option. The graphics are acceptable, especially for the more cartoony look that Nintendo usually goes for. The Mario portion looks great, it actually kind of resembles that fan made demo using the unreal 4 engine.
The main thing I’m interested in knowing is whether or not the dock will be as some of the rumors suggested, and act as a supplemental computing device. Also, hoping for a decent price point, but we’ll see. And then lastly, I’m just hoping for a proper Metroid game, a confirmation of the Smash NX rumor (hopefully with additional content), and definitely 3rd party exclusives. Time will tell. Just happy the thing is finally revealed so we can talk about what we like and don’t like instead of speculating what it actually is.
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Those leakers are the Switch Snitchers!!
We’ll be covering a lot about a possible Smash for Switch in the coming weeks. Nintendo said they aren’t talking about the Switch until next year, but we have a TON to discuss. I spent today setting up a lot of discussions.
backup368
You forgot to point out these things:
Both versions have same number of characters, but priced different on two different consoles, one being far more popular than the other.
Insisting on new characters only for the reason that they’re new, such as WFT & the flavor of the month Fire Emblem characters that are never used again for the next game.
Trying to use Smash Bros. to add popularity to games rather than games trying to gain popularity themselves.
Creating his OWN Smash Bros. characters before even thinking about creating his own Kid Icarus characters.
Also not very creative.
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Prices are different because of they are different systems, and needed different development teams. Though Sakurai has said he made the 3DS a true bargain with the amount of content it has. Smash 4 = Smash for3DS. Smash 5 = Smash for Wii U.
Only a few characters have been totally cut. Most of them were clones, or characters that were probably difficult to develop for.
He sees Smash as a way to advertise Japanese games.
He doesn’t own Kid Icarus, and an original Smash Bros fighter would be weird. Peridot Gem replied in line, if you are interested in reading their thoughts.
backup368
He still made a bad choice that negatively affected a console’s sales. Just because a new system comes out doesn’t mean he could do no wrong.
Wii Fit Trainer, does that sounds like a character that is timeless, or a character that is outdated? If Wii Fit Trainer can be a character, then any Nintendo character can be in Smash Bros. Oh, what about Captain Rainbow? It would be a “surprising, fun-filled” choice too.
I owned Radiant Dawn & nothing about that game was popular. LOL. The only reason people have known about Fire Emblem was because of Sakurai. That’s like saying my favorite NFL team is the Browns, so therefore they’re the best team in the league. I would not say Fire Emblem is one of the worst Nintendo franchises, but nowhere near worthy of having 6 whole characters.
You know why you consider Robin original? Because Sakurai did nothing to make Ike or Roy so, despite what they are able to use in their respective games. Some creative mind.
Of course, it’s his game, so he’ll want to promote it. He’ll want to use Smash Bros. as a vehicle to make his games more popular than they really are. Kid Icarus got two new characters, both of which aren’t even fit or worthy of being playable characters to begin with, in favor of Paper Mario, Krystal, or Dixie Kong. They don’t matter to Sakurai, therefore, their series are inferior to the ones he cherishes.
What if I told you many of those move-sets suck? You didn’t even mention Mario, whose special moves are worthless. You didn’t mention Donkey Kong either, who still has a useless & highly inappropriate Final Smash. Wario has gotten worse, & doesn’t even reflect the moves he did in his own games. As for the new characters? What can I give Little Mac? Oh I know: A counter! Let’s give them all counters because I can’t think of anything better to give them.
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Wii Fit Trainer represents Wii Fit, which had multiple entries…even on the Wii U. It also sold a TON. Captain Rainbow (as much as I love the game), wouldn’t be a good choice as it’s Japan exclusive.
I agree that FE owes a LOT of its’ popularity to Smash. I think Smash saved the series.
I think Pit (who was in Brawl before KI:U was even conceived mind you) and Palutena (an extension of the KI representation) makes sense. I think Paper Mario, and possibly Dixie Kong should make it in.
Not sure why you think Donkey Kong’s Final Smash is highly inappropriate. It made 100% sense in Brawl, as the Konga video games were HUGE in GameCube. They made 3 of them in Japan. Wario, I’ve been over. Mario special moves seem to make sense, I’ve never really heard anyone argue against them. Little Mac is a boxer. A counter actually makes sense for him.
KL-Cobalt
No probs. If you want more on Kirby and Kirby lore, I’m your guy.
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Consider submitting a guest post! We could use more Kirby content!
KL-Cobalt
About the only thing I could argue as to why FD was chosen over Battlefield was more due to data gathering by Nintendo during Brawl’s days. IIRC – When Brawl started you could allow Nintendo to take data from your fights and ‘use that data in ideas for future products’ or if anything else the data and replays that were used for Spectate mode.
Brawl’s Basic Brawl mode ended up with everyone being able to choose a stage and nine times out of ten, Final Destination was picked. This data I feel was more than likely used to decide what For Glory should be about. I don’t think it helped that competitive Melee players also relied heavily on Final Destination instead of Battlefield at the time Brawl’s data gathering was happening so the mentality that Final Destination was perhaps the most balanced stage at the time spilled over to every other part of For Glory’s design.
It’s a theory though. Thing is, I can’t blame Sakurai for that if that’s what the whole thing came about – it’s a lack of communication between fans and developers. But at the same time, I have to say that perhaps some fans expect the game to cater to their needs a bit too much and might be looking through tunnel vision.
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I think this is why. Also, I heard the Japanese scene is more restrictive with stage selection, so he might have heard that FD was the #1 choice.
Mettaur
Ah, the ever elusive Rhythm Heaven rep. Its too bad they missed this iteration of Smash but so long as the series keeps going strong I imagine they’ll still have a good shot at making it into the next installment. Regardless of who the spot ultimately goes to I think they absolutely have to reference a wide variety of rhythm games in their moveset as you’ve laid out here.
I’m not convinced Tibby is being set up as a series-wide mascot yet, and could easily see him going the way of Marshall and simply remaining the face of Megamix. Still, if you had to pick one game’s mascot the one from the game all about celebrating the history of the series is probably a fair choice.
Its by no means a must have but I’d personally like the Rhythm Heaven rep to have some obvious association with music in their design, something Tibby lacks. I just kinda feel this would be effective in representing what the series is about to players who aren’t familiar with it. For this reason if I had to choose a character I think I’d go with the Chorus Kid(s) (with them being singers and the pseudo mascots of the DS game by virtue of being the only characters on the boxart) or the Barista (the headphones serving as a clear connection to music and the character having a major role in every game, though they often aren’t actually seen). Tibby is still a choice I’d be fine with though, even more so if he really does end up having major roles in future games.
The beat keeping gimmick is something I’ve thought about, and while it may work it has its fair share of problems to overcome. If the beat is consistent for the whole match then it would be challenging to pick up once lost without some visual or audio cue. If the beat can start, stop, and be reset, then after starting a beat how long must the character wait without attacking before they’ll be able to start another beat with an attack as opposed to being considered off-beat? If the time frame is too long you run into the same problem as having a constant beat, if its too short you run the risk of having every attack the character performs starting a new beat and kinda defeat the purpose of the gimmick.
There’s also the issue of background music. Keeping a beat is much easier when listening to music that follows it, however its even more difficult to do while listening to music that has a different beat. In Smash’s case that latter scenario would almost always be true. Tibby runs the risk of being a character that’s easier to be successful with in absence of music.
Another potentially issue with the way you’ve implemented this mechanic is there seem to be a fair number of moves that punish the player for missing the beat. I see this potentially turning off any players who aren’t willing to learn and adapt to Tibby’s unique playstyle. Compare this to Ryu, there are benefits to using his unique mechanics but nothing that would lead players to believe their being punished for playing him like a normal character. Making sticking to beat deal more damage seems fine, but having attacks visibly fail or mess up for missing a beat might be pushing it if done too often.
Its a tricky mechanic to be sure and I can’t honestly say I have any idea how well it’d work with the inability to actually try it. If it did turn out to be too impractical you could probably slim down the general concept enough to make it work though. Perhaps simply give him moves that rely on timing. Maybe akin to the Wii Fit Trainer’s side-B which shoot a projectile at a different angle depending on the time between button presses, or her down-B which requires timing to get the best result. Your smash attacks already kinda seem to work like this. I like the general idea of making timing a more important factor for the RH rep than it would be for most characters, so you’re certainly on the right track.
As to the moveset itself you did a great job pulling actions from a variety of games and converting them into attacks. Given how many games there are to pull from you could probably make several movesets in this style without any overlap, Tibby is certainly not lacking in potential. The one thing I think I’d change is the Final Smash, rather than having it reference a single game I think I’d have it take the form of the series’ ultimate showstopper, the Remix. I don’t really have any specific details in mind but I imagine the move would pull characters and elements from a lot of games and have them wreak havoc across the stage. Perhaps similar to how Pit’s FS throws out a wide variety of different attacks in quick succession. Remixs are meant to be the most challenging of the series’ games and also have arguably the most spectacle, seems like a natural fit for a Final Smash.
Solid job overall, nice to see Rhythm Heaven getting the recognition it deserves.
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I think your point about background music/ keeping a beat is an important one. It’d be difficult to time their attacks if needs to be on beat. Though, I can’t imagine a RH rep not having some sort of “beat” gimmick. I wonder how Sakurai would approach it?
MagcargoMan
While I agree Corrin wasn’t the one who surpassed the limit, keeping him even without Roy would still have Fire Emblem overrepped. Five Emblem is not big enough to warrant five characters. Hell, even Lucina was pushing it.
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I agree that FE is overrepresented. However, Lucina does make sense as she was originally an alt. Roy might have happened because of the following situation:
“We need a popular Melee vet”
“But Mewtwo is already coming, so we don’t need another Pokemon. Toon Link is too similar to Young Link. Ice Climbers are impossible. Shit, that leaves Roy”.
You can argue that Sakurai put himself into a corner, which I have in the past (and the sequel).
MagcargoMan
Clones are bad game design and not everyone is willing to blindly defend them because they were made by Daddy Sakurai like you do. Don’t like it that people don’t like lazy rehashes? That’s too bad.
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Guess you don’t like any fighting game, as almost ALL of them have clones. Ken, Ryu, Evil Ryu, Akuma… King of Fighters has a ton of clones, Mortal Kombat…and correct me if I’m wrong, Tekken does too. Heck the original Smash secret characters were clone characters. I know you’ve heard this before, but clones take up less time to develop. So it’s not a matter or getting newer content…it’s a matter of getting content at all.
Sorry guys, that’s all I have time to respond this week. I’ll need to do extra days next week! Keep on commenting and follow SG on Twitter!
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speaking of… your comment to my comment (lol), i agree: stage variety is a problem that metroid shares with DK (it’s not only those two, though). i think that it’s fine and pretty natural to have DK provide the jungle stage, metroid the cavern stage, earthbound the city stage etc. … but with returning stages, it becomes very redundant. there’s no need for 2-3 jungle stages. why not make a stage in the brambles? or one in the ruins? you’d better represent the series and also have more variety in general. but then, it’s a problem that only, like, mario, zelda and kirby manage to avoid.
and DK feels very neglected too, even more than metroid (how come by smash 4 we still don’t have dixie? it doesn’t make any sense). but i don’t know, i get the impression that old sak gets it a bit better. donkey and diddy have a lot of references to the original games, even niche ones like DK64 or donkey konga, which is pretty cool, and in the subspace emissary i think they were by far the two characters who were funnier and felt the most like themselves. plus, the music selection is good (or at least, it was in brawl, before we got 20 DK swing remixes), with a couple of fan-favorites like k.rool’s theme and the stickerbush symphony. though, with how good DK’s music generally is, it should have like 20 tracks. i mean different tracks. but at least in brawl it was good.
metroid never really got any of this. the music looks like it’s selected randomly (no lower norfair? no green/red brinstar? no torvus bog? and instead, the fucking burning lava fish??? other series all have their most iconic tunes in), the stages all look the same even way more than DK’s ones, zero suit samus feels like they took an incredibly small part of samus’ character and of the series in general and randomly made a big deal out of it, pulling almost the whole moveset out of nothing. they never made a stage out of metroid prime, save for the incredibly generic frigate orpheon that’s a very small and unimportant part of the game. they took the character designs from other m, the less beloved entry in the series, seemingly with no reason. they even changed samus’ run from super metroid’s one to other m’s. and then of course smash 4’s ridley is completely wrong, from the way he moves, to the random transformation he never did, to the fact that you can get him by your side which feels so random… like, why can you side with ridley but not with metal face? and samus’ moveset at this point feels very old and disconnected from what the character really does. it was fine for smash 64, but now it would be the time to change it up a bit. samus isn’t this physical and limited.
it’s like the attention to detail that applies to all the other series is completely lost on metroid. it’s pretty frustating and that’s one more reason to not really trust old sak’s opinion on ridley.
it feels like he really has no idea about what metroid is about and what it is that the series’ fans love most. the locations, the music, samus’ characterization, what you feel when you fight against ridley (i’ll say it: an equal match to the death, with a very fast pace, the only boss in the series to do this, that’s also why so many metroid fans feel like he is a good pick to be playable), which games are the most beloved entries… they sistematically get it all wrong. sometimes it feels like he never even played them. DK gest criminally few things in smash, too, but i’d say it has all the essentials things and they’re made well. metroid doesn’t.
and, to give my 2 cents on wario and the fire emblem overrepresentation:
wario is fine as he is. it’s a bit of a shame for the shoulder bash (at least make it the slide attack…?), but the way he is now provides a lot of variety to the cast and he still feels a lot like wario, really. the only thing i’d change is that i’d make the overalls the default costume. i know he’s based on wario ware, but for me wario will always have that attire. plus, online you only ever see overalls wario.
for fire emblem i think it’s just justification after justification to really make what he wants.
-“see, the circumstances really make it so that we reclutanctly have to bring roy back. we need a veteran for melee and one for brawl.”
-“but melee already has mewtwo.”
-“yes, but he doesn’t count because reasons, so we’ll just bring back the second most popular one… except of course the ice climbers, we can’t make them. and except young link, too, since there’s alreay toon link. guess it’s gotta be between pichu and roy, soooo…”
-“why not just have two veterans from brawl then? it’s still missing quite a lot of char-…”
-“SSSSSSSSSSSST.”
it applies for corrin and lucina, as well. how coincidential that the stars always line up just for fire emblem! (and kid icarus too).
plus, hadn’t he had the idea about robin, we would have gotten boring-ass chrom who already had a moveset ready. so i don’t think uniqueness really had that important of a role to play. apparently chrom would have been allowed to be “boring”. while dixie kong didn’t. bah. i’d respect him more if he just said “i fucking love fire emblem!” and leave it at that.
I think that in a sense for the most part, Sakurai’s stage selection is more or less based on which part of the series is ‘Iconic’
For example: Mario stages usually deal with the 3D game’s hub or the starting level, with some exceptions like Rainbow Cruise. These usually represent Mario as a whole which is why we’ve yet to get a Bowser’s Castle stage as that pertains mostly to Bowser himself.
For Donkey Kong, I feel the premise is mostly the same, while Donkey Kong has a rich layer of locales like most of the series represented, that’s why it usually is given a Jungle stage. Aside from that, there was 75mm – which brings back more of the arcade. But at the end of the day, a bramble stage would not be chosen because it wasn’t ‘recent’ – and Tropical Freeze barely made the cut to showcase an idea outside the main theme – Which I think Windmill Hills would’ve likely provided the stage. But Return’s Jungle Hijinx brings forth the idea of twisting around the stage with the dynamic barrel sections, which is why I believe it was chosen to represent DK – It’s a Jungle stage yes, but it’s a jungle stage that adds a new twist by blasting you between the foreground and background, just like the first stage in Returns implemented.
A similar argument could apply to having Dixie as a character, She didn’t make a new appearance in the series until Tropical Freeze, especially after Retro studios basically rebooted the series in a sense. We seem to know that Dixie was considered in Brawl, to be a a team with Diddy, which recounts the idea of iconic in a sense as Diddy’s most notable adventure was DKC2 where Dixie debuted, and Dixie was prominent in her appearances leading up to Brawl, but between then and Smash 4 – her appearances lowered and of course Retro’s Returns excluded her entirely.
As for Metroid, the changes to Other M was based on the fact it was the newest title, plenty of characters for better or worse changed their looks to represent their more recent looks and stages, and closer to the series they hail from than a more uniform look. (The only exception is Zelda, as Twilight Princess was still the most recent title to use Ganondorf and Zelda’s standard robes)
Frigate Orpheon was the start for Metroid Prime, while other areas of Tallon IV would’ve been a more iconic point, the fact that Frigate Orpheon started the game and blacks out every now and again, kinda describes the feeling of isolation from the Metroid series in general, don’t you think?
And I think Biker Wario is fine as the default. It gives Wario more variety and makes him pop out, be his own character as opposed to behaving more like Mario and Luigi who are similar in how they perform their moves.
yeah, i agree with you about how the stages are being chosen with iconicness in mind, but still they’ve gotten redundant. for example, the lava location is a staple in metroid games, but so is the ruins location, the water location, etc., yet they sistematically pick the lava stages. for DK it’s pretty much the same. a factory stage wouldn’t be appropriate, you’d have to keep the naturalistic theme, but DK has so many locales besides the jungle. i said the brambles, but it could be the forest, the temple, the galleon too, since piracy has always been a big theme of the series. or the hills, like you said (smash 4 has a woolly world stage… i think there would have been a way to get something from tropical freeze).
my wish would be to have a smash where every character has his/her home stage. you’d represent a lot more of the games this way and it would feel more badass (like, DK: jungle stage, diddy: brambles, k.rool: the galleon), but i can see why they’re not doing it.
about dixie it’s not that easy, i think. first, smash used to be a celebration of nintendo as a whole, old and new, not just recent stuff. dixie is one of the few really iconic characters who still aren’t in. i think her, k.rool, toad and ridley should be necessary in smash, much more then the random flavor of the week characters like rosalina. they can and should come, of course, but only later. when brawl included diddy, diddy hadn’t had a major appearance in years. the last one was in DK64. he got added because he’s fucking diddy kong, not because of recentness or even moveset potential. it should be the same with dixie, really. it’s not like she hasn’t absolutely nothing to offer.
i don’t sit well with the other m-ification of metroid. the zelda characters like you said are still in their TP versions, but it’s not just them. since we were speaking of donkey kong, him and diddy are closer to the classic country games than to the modern ones. fox and falco are a mash-up of designs they had over time. pac-man has his old, more well-liked design. megaman is taken straight from his NES games. and then, when smash 4 started development, other m was already a huge ass flop. why celebrate it? as i said, smash was once about the best of nintendo history, not just about whatever happens to be recent enough regardless of everything. they went with the most recent thing mindlessly and they were done with it, because they never put a lot of thought about anything that comes from metroid.
frigate orpheon is not exactly bad, but it’s very random. i think the ruins, maybe with the occasional ghost, or the bottom of the phazon mines, or… anything else really, would have captured metroid’s feeling of isolation just as well, with the bonus of representing an actually important part of the game. and to provide some more variety to metroid stages, too…
lastly, yeah biker wario as the default is fine. it makes him feel more of his own thing and less of “yet another mario character” (wario would have every reason to be in smash regardless, though). it’s just a bit annoying to have to change to the overalls every time i select him 😛
But that’s pretty poor reasoning. You’re whining about recent stuff yet you want some appearance from one game to be a stage. The noticeable stuff from Dk was Jungles and construction zones from his arcade days. ((75M))
Dixie’s iconic but she’s not in due to the lack of originality. Unless you want her to be a clone. Every original character has a contrast except Dixie which is just hair whipping… Not that original. Diddy was added in because of popularity and there was no one like him, not even similar. It’s a separate case for Dixie, she would bring NOTHING new, ZERO. What? Hair attacks? We can get that from Shantae and she would bring more like her transformation to other being gimmick.
Metroid didn’t have just lava. There was another stage in Brawl that represented that feeling of isolation. What about Frigate Orpheon or Pysrosphere? Those aren’t lava based stages.
Smash 4 isn’t celebrating it. Just upgrading some designs, Smash Bros in general has been a mashup of old and new. Link in Smash 4 feels like his Twilight Princess design has been altered to where it’s just Link in general.
but pyrosphere IS a lava stage, even if it isn’t an hazard. frigate orpheon doesn’t represent metroid prime that well. you spend there like 10 minutes in the original game, and those gravity shenanigans never happened. neither there, nor anywhere else in the game.
shantae?? come on. now that’s a character we’ll never, ever see in smash, and you know it too. have you ever played a DKC (or a metroid, for that matter)? dixie can bring in much more than her air. she has a completely different style from diddy, she can be at least as different from him as falco is from fox, or lucas from ness, or even just take a couple of clues from diddy and then be completely original. for a character of her caliber, it’s more than enough.
the brambles were just an example. i don’t want that specifically, just not always jungles (but then, mario got rainbow ride and delfino plaza, zelda got the great bay, and recently kirby got the great cave offensive and the halberd, mother has magicant <3, kid icarus has that viridi stage, and on and on… it's not like other series are always stuck to world 1-1 and to the most recent game).
though bramble blast comes particularly easy, it even has a gimmick that writes itself.
actually i think the zelda characters are even more specifically from TP than they were in brawl, judging from ganondorf's scar. but then you can't deny that up until brawl recentness was much less of a focus. recent shit was certainly there (as it should), but mixed with a healthy dose of classic stuff (as it should, too, but that smash 4 kind of forgot).
Hmm? I don’t know entirely about that in terms of all Dixie can do, and I played the games when they first came out.
Dixie’s biggest point is her air mobility where she’ll spin her hair to slow her fall and give more precise jumping and control. I think that in retrospect, Dixie would be the middle ground between Donkey and Diddy in terms of speed and power, with the advantage of being more floaty, but disadvantage of being more light.
But even then, that’s really stretching it as far as her moves go – I’m having trouble visualizing a moveset that differentiates her from Diddy, honestly.
As far as Zelda stemming from TP goes, well surprise surprise for spoilers, but Twilight Princess was the last appearance of Ganondorf in the Zelda series, not counting Hyrule Warriors where obviously nothing from that game made it into Smash due to how new it was.
The last major 3D game was Skyward Sword which gets referenced with Link’s trainee outfit and the Skyloft stage – but everyone is still in Twilight Princess style (albeit given a brighter paintjob) because Skyward Sword didn’t have the convential designs – Zelda was mostly in a maroon blouse or a white dress, and that incarnation while the most memorable personality wise, would never translate to the same moveset that is in Smash because Zelda in that game lacks that dignified royal approach to her (she does get it in-game, but it’s brief)
And finally, as stated before, most stages take the more iconic approach. They’ll either be the start of their adventures in their hubs like Mario, Earthbound, or Donkey Kong have had (and Metroid Prime’s Frigate Orpheon) or at a pivotal or iconic point – like Pyrosphere in Other M.
It makes little sense to classify the stages as “the Jungle stage” and “the Lava Stage” with their franchises, and more sense to look at them with how they represent or celebrate the games and franchises they’re from. Which ironically enough for Donkey Kong and Metroid, just so happens to be Jungle and Lava stages.
At the very least in retrospect, Sakurai initially wanted to do the Kirby stage in the vein of Epic Yarn as it seemed unique in terms of design and flavor, but opted for Great Cave Offensive when Yoshi’s Woolly World (Really fun game BTW) was announced and Sakurai thought that the yarn motif would fit Yoshi better as it was his latest game.
I’m kinda sad he didn’t look at Return to Dreamland, like at all in terms of stage direction, or even Air Ride, but given Great Cave Offensive’s focus on exploration, it makes sense for the Kirby stage to be based on that given the focus on 8-Player Smash. Although that did make me call out Sakurai for a while for only focusing on Super Star for almost all of Kirby’s stages – I have to admit that… There really isn’t much to Return to Dreamland without looking deeper into the game and if it did, it would likely be a grassland stage based on Cookie Country…
Lol, Pyrosphere is literally the lava area of Other M.
It’s also there because of it’s involvement with Ridley so…
“my wish would be to have a smash where every character has his/her home stage.”
I’d had this idea too. The problem is it’d become really unfeasible if your roster is really large (for example, my roster has seven Mario characters, six Pokemon and five Zelda characters, but that would be eighteen stages already, leaving less time to make stages for other series).
“I think that in a sense for the most part, Sakurai’s stage selection is more or less based on which part of the series is ‘Iconic’”
But lava areas aren’t even iconic to Metroid. They’ve always been present, but they’ve never been the iconic area. Brinstar is the most iconic area in Metroid/Super Metroid (we’ve had it as a stage before but I’d like the jungle version from Super). And I’m sure most people who played Prime would say Phendrana Drifts was more inconic than Magmoor Caverns. I don’t even understand why Sakurai thinks lava environments are a major part of the franchise.
It doesn’t matter if Dixie wasn’t in Returns or DK64. That’s a poor excuse to leave out such an important DK character.
Brainstar deals with acid. And one can’t deny that Pyrosphere is iconic, given it was essentially the climax of the Ridley sub-plot in Other M (it appeared in Dead or Alive Dimensions for the 3DS’s sake)
But when it comes to Metroid Prime, as stated, Frigate Orpheon is the starting area of the game – and aside from stages taken from the most iconic, they also tend to take place in their starting areas.
No clue for Norfair though – Only guess is Sakurai wanted to keep with the gimmick of rising/falling hazards present in nearly every prior Metroid stage since the 1st, only using Lava instead of Acid. (And no one apparently liked Brainstar Depths to want to stick with the rotating stage mechanic.
I know Brinstar wasn’t a lava area in Smash but I’m just saying overgrown Brinstar from Super would be more unique than the rather bland-looking cave design from the original/Zero Mission.
It’s trend, but it shouldn’t be a defining one. Kid Icarus got stages in Smash 4 based on Chapters 11 and 20 (the latter more loosely) of Uprising. F-Zero had Port Town Aero Dive (which is from the second cup in GX) and Mother had New Pork City (one of the final areas in Mother 3) in Brawl. Zelda had Great Bay and Kirby had Fountain of Dreams in Melee. All these examples are the first time these games received stages in Smash, so it’s not like they already covered the first levels/areas of those games already. Why can’t Metroid explore more late in game locations instead of just firsts and lava areas?
Sakurai hasn’t even touched Metroid II, Prime 2, 3 or Fusion. Plenty of material to work with there.
The most I can say regarding not touching the older Metroids is probably because they’re older Metroids
As far as the others are concerned, the most I can say is about Great Bay coming from Majora’s Mask which was the latest console entry at the time, and possibly one of the more iconic areas of that game aside from Clock Town (As well as the Turtle) and Fountain of Dreams which in all honesty seems to be more referring to Super Star’s Milky Way Wishes, where Kirby traveled to each Fountain of Dreams to gather the stars to call upon Nova (The Melee trophy pretty much confirms this stage was meant to represent Milky Way Wishes.)
As for the reason why Metroid doesn’t explore anything more? I dunno, it’s just always a trend for the series to have those areas picked. It’s like asking why every Star Fox stage is a galactic space battle?
Are you serious!? No way should it go to another Brawl character! That would absolutely ruin the pattern. “The Brawl character! annnd the other Brawl character….?” That’s just a lazy excuse to not pick Roy. Nice try buddy.
Roy shouldn’t have came back. He’s a lazy excuse of a character.
Tough luck pal
I hate to say it but the same argument could be attributed to Wolf as well. I mean, even if Roy was a rush job of a clone at least he was ‘Complete’ where his model didn’t look mangled or glitched at times like it does with Wolf – not noticeable back then, but very much so now.
Wolf was rather last-minute in Brawl but he could have easily been fixed in Smash 4. I’m okay with Star Fox losing a rep since it’s a small series and three was pushing it in Brawl, not to mention all SF reps in Smash have been derivatives of Fox. I just think it’s a bad decision that they kept the one that was less unique (Falco) of the two.
I would think the reason they kept Falco was mostly because not only of his veteran status shining through already, but also because Falco seems to be more important to the Star Fox series as a whole.
“The Brawl character! annnd the other Brawl character….?”
this happened with melee characters. you know, mewtwo and roy.
“a fan-favorite from melee and two veterans from the last game!” sounds pretty good, and wolf adds a bit more to the roster than roy (if only in terms of series representation… moveset-wise, we’re there, both being not fully original but distinct enough).
that said, i like roy and i was horrible with wolf, so it doesn’t really change much to me. but the reasn for bringing him back is very arbitrary.
i’m realizing that lucas was always going to be picked, since you had to pick 2 from “the third fox”, “the third marth” and only “the second ness”.
It may sound good but the way it is just sounds better.
yeah, because they select characters on the basis of a little slogan they would use one time in a direct in which the focus was another character (ryu) anyways.
“wario is fine as he is”
Wrong. Besides his most iconic Wario Land attack being replaced by a punch, where’s his piledriver? Where’s his ground pound? Shaking enemies or picking them up with one hand and throwing them? Corkscrew Conk? Rolling attack?
Not everything has to be a 1:1 reference to their games. When you look at it from a different perspective, while those moves might be fine in the games they’re from, they tend to not translate into Smash very well.
Wario is a quirky corruption of Mario – that’s the character’s origin, it makes sense for Wario to try to be Mario but also be a bit more exaggerated so he could garter more attention and steal Mario’s spotlight.
Why are other characters allowed to have their trademark or most iconic moves, but when Wario doesn’t and even had his most iconic attack from his games removed it’s okay?
Wario’s moves from Warioland isn’t his most iconic thing. Him being this greedy version of Mario has been there and the literal cause of his creation was a job at Mario from what I remember. Wario in Smash was all for the sake of things flowing and programming well and for the sake of originality. Wario is still himself in Smash without being generic and plain. Mario and Luigi don’t have ground pounds either because that move is super generic and better off for just Bowser and Yoshi.
*jab
Show me the Wario game where Wario attacks like he does in Smash. Once again, Daddy Saks can do no wrong, right?
Wario’s ground pound works differently. It stuns nearby opponents on the ground if they are close by, and he can cancel it instead of going until he hits the ground. See Wario Land 4.
Never said he can do no wrong, dummy. You’re just trying to use minor flaws as an excuse to directly overhaul the man. He deserves to return to the next title. Face it he has more pros than cons.
Warioland Wario is incredibly generic.
“Warioland Wario is incredibly generic.”
Wrong. Nice damage control, if he had his shoulder barge and piledriver already you won’t say anything.
I saw Wario’s moveset with Warioland slapped over it and it doesn’t flow well and is incredibly generic. But that’s besides the point. With or without the moveset he’s still Wario. Which requires wackiness and him being an evil Mario. Which is represented in both movesets, that is why characters have their most notable stuff and Wario doesn’t. Sonic isn’t Sonic without his speed and spindash. Wario isn’t Wario without his strength and silliness. He’s at the point where he can go either way. Sakurai picked Warioware and an entire new way of doing him because he sticks out more. Wario’s overalls is just a rehash of Mario’s and Luigi’s. Better off as an alt. Him in an biker outfit and different moves really expresses how original he can be but still be himself. After all he has some similar attacks to Mario but more random. Like the down airs. They both spin but Wario’s with his head.
So you’re proof is a mod, which isn’t official. Great proof there.
“Which is represented in both movesets, that is why characters have their most notable stuff and Wario doesn’t.”
This is a new level of pathetic damage control. You truly do defend literally every decision Sakurai makes.
There was more of his Warioland moveset used than just a mod. -_- Doesn’t make it any less generic and they’re used exactly how it’s used in his games like the ground pound: Boring! What’s going to be the difference? Altered effects? Pfft, if we go by that Doc is a semi-clone. His shoulder bash is not a priority, you’re just being butthurt, looking too deep into this, over the top and over-reacting. But of course this is the guy that let 3 minor clones ruin an entire experience so not surprised one bit.
If that’s all you’re going to say: Baseless insults. Quit the shenanigans and stop replying to me you filthy pillock. This is the 50th time I heard this stupid crap from you. Getting real tired of you repeating the same old stuff like a broken record. I’ll appreciate it if I don’t have the misfortune of seeing you in my inbox. Thanks,
“There was more of his Warioland moveset used than just a mod.”
There is nothing Wario Land in his moveset. The only thing was, was replaced with a generic backhanded punch in Smash 4.
The only thing he has from a Wario platformer in his moveset is his forward throw being the Wild Swing-Ding from Wario World.
“His shoulder bash is not a priority, you’re just being butthurt”
Wrong, Sakurai Apologist, you are butthurt whenever your precious god figure is criticised. Wario not having his should bash is a priority, as it is his trademark attack. Wario not having the shoulder bash is like making Bowser not breathe fire or Yoshi not having an egg-related attack.
And no, the only reason your inbox is full is because you defend literally every decision done, no matter how stupid or poorly thought-out it was, so you feel the need to reply whenever somebody dares say criticise anything in Smash.
No you idiot, I see more stuff like fangames implementing aspects of Warioland and it’s generic. It was only replaced because the shoulder bash didn’t program well.
Whatever you say is pure subjective. I can choose to justify if I want. Petty insults from an even pettier whiner won’t affect me nor change what I’m thinking so don’t even bother.
Wow, fangames? Your proof is games not even made by an actual game dev company? Not how Flawless Sakurai would do it. In fact, knowing you, if he did change him to have more Wario Land moves, you would do a 180 since you support every decision he makes.
Bullcrap, it worked in Brawl. His excuse was stupid too. “it moves his hitbox”. Yeah, so does Bowser’s new Smash Attack. Funny that a moving hitbox on Wario’s smash attack is bad, but then adds a new smash attack with a moving hitbox for another character.
Sakurai took inspiration off a fangame before. No I wouldn’t, Wario’s moveset is fine the way it is.
No it didn’t work in Brawl. It was jank, he ran forward with a shoulder ram. That was not programming well. Little Mac barely takes a step forward and his hitbox was actually fixed to be as small as his glove. Wario’s can’t be fixed because his body and muscles are big and it would just be ridiculous to make one small hitbox on that. I’ll say it again, Little Mac is small and has a normal size fist for his forward smash hitbox. Wario getting his forward smash changed was all for the sake of balance and programming, like it or not.
Never said anything on the idea that the Shoulder Bash/Dash Attack should be gone. But you’re asking for a bit more with the Piledriver, Corkscrew Conk, “His” Ground Pound, and shaking enemies before throwing them.
Especially considering Piledriver and Corkscrew Conk are only in one game. But hey for compensation’s sake, the Wild Swing-Ding seems to be the inspiration for his back throw in Smash 4. While I might not be sure about the Piledriver not being in (It’d make a great Up Throw) I think the Corkscrew Conk didn’t make it in was due to his Side B doing a similar function.
Wow, I didn’t expect my comment to be featured! But you are right. Even I myself mentioned Roy being in Melee. I should have written second true (not clone) FE character. Yeah, that article did a very accurate analysis on Corrin’s inclusion. I think that Smash could have been perfectly fine with Marth, Ike, Lucina and Robin in the main game, and Corrin as DLC. Also, I believe Sakurai could have arranged individual picks differently when he realized that Roy was the only real option left for Melee and done it this way:
Mewtwo: Melee. He was even the first DLC character, so it makes sense.
Lucas: Brawl.
Ryu: Classical fighter.
Cloud: RPG character.
Bayonetta: Ballot character.
Corrin: Promotion character.
Popular Nintendo franchise newcomer. Extra points if it comes from an underrepresented franchise or one that has not received new characters lately.
I think it would have been a bit more balanced this way. I expected DLC to deliver some love to classical Nintendo franchises but, in the end, Corrin was the only Nintendo newcomer among 3 veterans, 2 3rd party characters and the ballot character, which also turned out to not be a 1st party character. Well, now lets see what the next Smash game brings to the table! Certain characters may not have made the cut this time, not even as DLC, but that does not mean there will not be another future possibility!
See that’s the problem, for sure Mewtwo would’ve been it if he wasn’t already planned with his entire model ready and recycled elements can already be done. His up smash looks awfully similar to one of Rosalina’s effects. Since Sakurai needed a scapegoat to see if this DLC thing would work out or blow up in his face. If it failed (which happened before with other devs) it was a ((temporary)) free character, would drop that idea and run. Since he was a test subject and wouldn’t line up with some things they made it easier and just brought back Roy with “Melee Returnee” slapped on him. Finding proper release times balancing between when developments finished and all that is harder than you think. Holding Mewtwo back unfairly wouldn’t be okay either.
But Smash Bros is a love to classical stuff from Nintendo.
“Holding Mewtwo back unfairly wouldn’t be okay either.”
Mewtwo being DLC instead of being in the vanilla roster isn’t okay.
Well that’s what it is. I’m happy for him to be here at all. Time limits cut out many characters like the forbidden seven.
Most of the Forbidden Seven were clones.
and some of them were original characters.
He would not have to hold Mewtwo back at all. He could have done everything as he did with Mewtwo, then when announcing Lucas he could have said “Well, now with Mewtwo as a character that has finally come back from Melee, we thought about bringing back a character from Brawl, so here you have Lucas”. I don’t see any problem with that. They both would have been released at the same times without any problem.
Mewtwo released before Lucas. As I said, a bad excuse to have Roy not be there.
That honestly is pretty unbalanced especially how the development times are different for the characters. I feel like it wouldn’t line up.
“We need a popular Melee vet”
“But Mewtwo is already coming, so we don’t need another Pokemon. Toon Link is too similar to Young Link. Ice Climbers are impossible. Shit, that leaves Roy”.
I really don’t get why Mewtwo doesn’t count as a Melee vet in terms of the quota. I mean, Lucas was even revealed after Mewtwo’s trailer instead of with Roy.
“Guess you don’t like any fighting game, as almost ALL of them have clones. Ken, Ryu, Evil Ryu, Akuma… King of Fighters has a ton of clones, Mortal Kombat…and correct me if I’m wrong, Tekken does too.”
Well to be honest I don’t play other fighting games (I would like to get into MKX though). I know other fighting games do it too but it’s always been a tacky trend. It should be pointed out that Mortal Kombat decloned all its clones, even making their appearances radically different from each other. Reptile was only a clone in MK1 (where he was an unplayable bonus fight), and was immediately given his own moveset in MK2. Same applies to Smoke, Noob Saibot and Jade, unplayable clones in MK2, unique fighters in MK3. Even characters who weren’t clones but were palette swaps were given redesigns to make them more unique in later games (Ermac). It should be noted the only clones in Mortal Kombat that haven’t been decloned haven’t been playable since Armageddon (the last game before the reboot). Also, while pretty minor in comparison, Street Fighter V tried to differentiate Ryu and Ken a bit more.
Honestly would some change be wrong? Wouldn’t it be fun and exciting to see some of these characters get a fresh new spin on the them? I mean, people were fine with Bowser and Pit getting new moves, so why can’t the clones?
“So it’s not a matter or getting newer content…it’s a matter of getting content at all.”
I’m well aware that unique characters wouldn’t be made in the time spent to make clones. As weird as this sounds, however, I honestly would prefer not to have that content at all. Clones have have always caused trouble, especially in Melee where most of the seeds were sown. Now the first part of this is speculation, but I feel the reason Jigglypuff made it over Mewtwo in Smash 64 (we know Mewtwo was planned) was because she took less dev time because she could use Kirby as a base. Granted, Smash 64 had a limited budget so it was probably too hard to make Mewtwo in the time they had, but this decision has led to Jiggs returning every game instead of Mewtwo (who in terms of the actual Pokemon franchise is way more important). But in Melee the clone binge at the end had a big impact on characters and the effects of linger to this day. Four of them were cut in Brawl (with good reason) basically proving how much of throw-away additions they were, and the two that weren’t were Ganondorf (who if never added in Melee, most definitely would have made it into Brawl with a unique moveset) and Falco (who got in over Wolf in Smash 4 despite being less unique than him compared to Fox). Brawl made a good effort to cut down on the clone stuff by cutting most of them and the new ones being more unique. But then Smash 4 went backwards and did what Melee did, and all three overrep their series (I mean, sure Mario is the biggest franchise so it should have the most characters, but Bowser Jr and Rosalina did a good job, bringing Doc back was unnecessary) and meant we got less alternate costumes for characters (more alts would have been great). Sakurai has single-handedly damaged Dark Pit and Lucina’s reputations as characters thanks to Smash 4, and I guarantee if they were alts like intended they wouldn’t have been hated. I mean, Koopaling fans love the Koopaling alts, even if they aren’t their own characters. And then Roy as DLC. Five dollars for a clone character? What a rip. And while were on this subject, Roy’s return was the fault of clones; he only made it into Melee due to the clone binge, and having some fans in Melee is the only reason he came back (in the Fire Emblem fandom, he is one of the least popular lords in the franchise). He never got in on his own merits; if Sakurai never added him in Melee he’d have never made it into Smash.
There is three reasons I am against clones. The first is that they tend to be tacky filler that only exist to pad out a game’s roster, going for quantity over quality, and making things more of a grind like challenges that require you to beat a mode with every character. The second is because they sometimes tend to be characters nobody had demand for or aren’t popular and wouldn’t have gotten in on their own merits (Dr. Mario, Roy, Pichu, Dark Pit). And the last, and probably the most important one: Wasted Potential. Even ignoring Ganondorf, as a fan of Wind Waker I am disappointed about Toon Link not utilising the Deku Leaf, Skull Hammer or Grappling Hook in his moveset. It just reeks of wasted possibilities, to have different Links spanning different games and eras only for them to use the same items. And Hyrule Warriors has all three Links that are playable in Smash and none of them are clones. And while Wolf has mostly unique normals, it’s pretty lame how his specials and Final Smash are cloned, instead of doing something more unique to match his personality and brutality (such as giving him weapons from Assault). And Lucas is so close to being a fully unique with his only clone moves being his Up Aerial, Down Tilt, Forward Smash, Specials and Final Smash, and his specials are available as customs for Ness, and yet they couldn’t even go all the way and complete him in Smash 4. He could had new moves like PK Earth and PK Beam or something.
Also, to prove how pointless some clones really are, they could have easily added a unique custom option for Marth that removes his tipper at the cost of losing the sweetspot. No need to make another character for just that.
eeh, melee clones are fine. they only have small changes from the originals, but they have a lot of them, so in the end they generally play nothing like the original. falco and fox felt very different from each other already back in melee.
and brawl style clones are more then fine, too. it makes sense for ness and lucas, or for fox and wolf to fight similarly. even roy in smash 4 is more than different enough from marth, despite some similarities they play nothing alike. i wouldn’t change anything about lucas.
dark pit and lucina are the only really useless ones. dark pit is literally pit with two costume moves, and, i hear, a small difference in the ftilt (lol). he really adds nothing. at least pichu had a unique mechanic. lucina too, is… well. marth without what makes marth, marth. it’s like if they did a clone of kirby without the copy ability and the multiple jumps. sure it’s not exactly the same thing, but… do we really need it?
doc is fine, i think. the last melee style clone. he deserves to exist, he is different enough from mario.
Melee clones are responsible for roster problems that have persisted all the way to Smash 4. Melee’s clone binge was a mistake.
Dr. Mario does not deserve to exist in Smash as anything other an alternate costume. So many important or highly-demanded Mario characters are missing, yet a second Mario who is just slightly stronger and throws pill sinstead of fireballs deserves to be in more than actual other characters. I know if he wasn’t playable there wouldn’t be a different Mario character playable, but the point is he’s playable in the first place while others aren’t.
Now the whole concept of “deserving/undeserving” is highly subjective, but if there is any character that’s close as can be to being objectively undeserving it’s Dr. Mario. Why would a Mario clone from a niche Mario spin-off be needed in an all-star game? If you’re gonna have a second Mario at least choose someone who’d be unique like Paper Mario.
i’d love to have playable paper mario (and toad, too… captain or not, i don’t care), but you know how clones work, being last-minute characters and all.
i know dr. mario isn’t the most iconic character ever, but moveset-wise he has a place. he’s not at all just a slower mario with pills, he has subtle differences on a lot of moves, like nair (mario’s one is stronger right when it comes out and then it gets weaker, dr. mario’s one starts weaker and then gets stronger), fair (doc’s one doesn’t spike), dair (completely different), fsmash (doc’s one has less range i think and a different effect), usmash (doc’s one sends the foe in a different direction), then the special moves too are all pretty different, except for the forward special (which diverges only slightly).
yeah i know these aren’t big changes, but they amount to enough that you have to play very different when using one character or the other. for me, this kind of clone is fine.
and no, in melee the clones were a great idea, i had tons of fun playing with falco, doc and pichu, and a lot of people preferred roy over marth. without them we would have just had a smaller roster. plus they all had this sort of subtle differences that in the end really made them very different.
then brawl introduced the semi-clones, and for me they might as well be original characters. ness and lucas don’t really share much aside from general movement speed.
lucina and dark pit don’t do enough to justify their inclusion, in my opinion. lucina is just marth without his gimmick, and dark pit is pretty much just pit, downright to the character model. they don’t really add much.
Altering clones you say. I would kindly direct you to Melee appearances compared to Sm4sh’s appearances now. Ganon, Dorf and Toon are semis and so are Lucas, and Roy. The only carbon copies there is are Doc, Lucina and Pitto which are last second and a similar case to the melee cones. If they got their fair chance they have a ridiculously high chance of being altered like everyone else.
Yeaaah I don’t think so, that would be a waste of precious development time to incorporate an complete alt moveset just for a weaker version no one would ever use. The only way I see Lucina ever getting the boot is her being demoted to an alt with Marth’s base sword style gone completely. Speaking of custom moves it’s more likely they’ll be altered than to expand to entire movesets.
“Ganon, Dorf and Toon are semis”
Nope.
“If they got their fair chance they have a ridiculously high chance of being altered like everyone else.”
If that was even remotely true Ganon wouldn’t still be a clone in Smash 4. And no, Sakurai will never declone Dr Mario, and if he gave Lucina unique moves then he’d be a hypocrite about Chrom because in Awakening it is pointed out that Lucina has the same fighting style as her father. And if on the day pigs fly and he does, Mario in doctors’ scrubs isn’t a deserving character over the likes of other popular and/or mainstream Mario characters.
Yep. Nowhere near full clones.
Ganon has much more altered moves and stats. He is a semi-clone. What even is your Lucina point, no way does that discourage her from getting moves changed.
“What even is your Lucina point”
That if he’s gonna give her a unique moveset then he’d be contradicting his reasoning for not having Chrom. They have the same fighting style. Sakurai said he wouldn’t add him due to not unique. Therefore Lucina would contradict this (well she already does by being a clone, but whatever).
Lucina getting different moves for some tilts isn’t contradicting anything.
So I’m genuinely curious. If Dr. Mario, Lucina, and Dark Pit had been implemented similar to Alph and the Kooplings in that they were selectable via alt costumes rather than having their own spots on the CSS, but retained the differences in their movesets, would that affect how you feel about these characters at all?
And since I’m replying to you anyway I guess I’ll reply to this:
“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.”
You’re absolutely right to question another’s line of logic if you consider it flawed. I myself took a crack at the article in question in that same comments section.
My issue is more with the idea that someone holds a position just to be different, as it seems inherently dismissive of any points they may actually have. Granted, there are certainly times when I feel like people can indeed be contrarian just for attention’s sake, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. Being dismissive was also clearly not your intent as you did address the article’s points in your response rather than just dismissing it outright as many who throw around accusations of being contrarian would do. It was more the connotation of your wording in that first paragraph that irked me than what you actually had to say. I was trying to respond to that particular criticism more in a general sense than single you out specifically, sorry if I wasn’t able to communicate as much.
If they retained the (small) differences in their movesets, they’d still be clones, just hidden away on the CSS like Zero Suit Samus was in Brawl, but they’d still exist how they did in Smash 4 regardless. Would they still be treated as characters in this scenario, being needed for 100% completion? I mean, was Dr. Mario really missed by many when he was cut in Brawl? And would too many care if Dark Pit got axed in the next game?
Don’t worry, I wasn’t getting angry at you or anything when I wrote that. I was just explaining that questionable decisions having reasons behind them does not mean they are good decisions.
In this scenario they wouldn’t be considered anything more than alternate costumes by the game, so you wouldn’t need to play through classic and whatnot with them for 100% completion. Think of them like an alternate costume that slightly tweaks the character’s moveset when selected.
Sorry for the late reply but my internet was really bad for about a week. If they have different moves, even slightly, then are they really alts anymore? You could easy just add some sort of custom option for Marth that removes the sweetspot mechanic in favour of a balanced blade.
They wouldn’t be alts in the sense that we’re used to them in Smash no. I guess I’m asking if you’d be okay with alts getting that bit of extra differentiation on alts.
“You could easy just add some sort of custom option for Marth that removes the sweetspot mechanic in favor of a balanced blade.”
No doubt, but if you’re giving a character a different playstyle why not slap a different character model on top of that? It would make it easier to identify what custom option an opponent is using at a glace, especially if you’re allowing something like this online.
Alts seem to be viewed more favorably than clones, not just by you, I’ve seen this trend elsewhere as well with some going so far as to complain that Smash doesn’t have enough alts. I guess what I’m trying to do here is see if there’s a compromise to be had, and if clones would be looked upon more favorably if they were repurposed as alts.
Under this scenario clone characters are effectively still in the game and play the same so there should be no real complains from clone supporters. On the other hand they aren’t really treated as unique characters because in reality they kinda aren’t. They wouldn’t muddle or pad the CSS and you wouldn’t need to beat side modes with them to get 100% completion. In essence they’d be like a defined set of custom moves with a unique model attached to it. Hopefully that would curb some of the issues clone detractors have with the characters.
Personally I’d actually prefer having 1-2 “sets” of custom moves per character to the current method of handling them. While the current method allows for more customization they’re kind of a hassle to set up and use even once they’re all unlocked and in some cases don’t feel like they actually change that much. Having minimal sets would allow you to easily select custom options from the CSS and these custom sets could probably change more aspects of a character beyond just their special moves. If customs were to be handled in this way then they kinda already overlap with clones so at that point it’d make more sense to me to have clones become custom set rather than keep them as their own characters.
That goes against what alt costumes are supposed to be: Skins, sometimes with unique voice clips. And it would inconsistent if some alts had different qualities while others did not.
“No doubt, but if you’re giving a character a different playstyle why not slap a different character model on top of that?”
Because there’s no need to dedicate a whole character to the piddliest of differences. Like how we never needed “Mario that throws pills instead of fireballs” or “Pit with Zelda’s Final Smash”, or perhaps the worst: “Pikachu that hurts himself”.
“I’ve seen this trend elsewhere as well with some going so far as to complain that Smash doesn’t have enough alts.”
Well alt costumes are cool. I’d love to have a Fusion Suit alt for Samus or Dry Bowser alt for Bowser. I mean even Playstation All-Stars had at least two alts for every character. Smash is one of the few fighting games today where not every character has an alternate costume.
“Under this scenario clone characters are effectively still in the game and play the same so there should be no real complains from clone supporters. On the other hand they aren’t really treated as unique characters because in reality they kinda aren’t. They wouldn’t muddle or pad the CSS and you wouldn’t need to beat side modes with them to get 100% completion. In essence they’d be like a defined set of custom moves with a unique model attached to it. Hopefully that would curb some of the issues clone detractors have with the characters.”
But why can’t I customise a character without being forced to use a skin? This only limits customisation by forcing me to pick the alt if I want to use a certain attack. Why can’t Dr Mario just be a costume and nothing more, but the Megavitamins and single-hit Super Jump Punch be available as custom specials?
“That goes against what alt costumes are supposed to be: Skins, sometimes with unique voice clips. And it would inconsistent if some alts had different qualities while others did not.”
Skins in Smash are already somewhat inconsistent with some characters having alt while others just have recolors and some having more skins than others. I would say any alt that is actually a different character should have at least some minor differences, which would give some amount of consistency. Even if it just an aesthetic change like Alph swapping out Purple Pikmin for Rock.
“Because there’s no need to dedicate a whole character to the piddliest of differences. Like how we never needed “Mario that throws pills instead of fireballs” or “Pit with Zelda’s Final Smash”, or perhaps the worst: “Pikachu that hurts himself”.”
I guess we view these scenarios differently. I don’t see it as them going “Oh we really need a Mario that throws pills and has his old down B, its absolutely pivotal that such a character exists” so much as “We’re including Dr. Mario as a skin for Mario but it wouldn’t really make sense for him to use fire balls or FLUDD so let’s change him up a bit.”
If we’re keeping alts and custom moves anyway there’s no additional work involved, and it helps the alts show their own character a bit by highlighting whatever unique traits they do have. I do agree they shouldn’t be treated as full characters but I don’t think giving their movesets minor changes needs to automatically makes them such.
“But why can’t I customise a character without being forced to use a skin? This only limits customisation by forcing me to pick the alt if I want to use a certain attack. Why can’t Dr Mario just be a costume and nothing more, but the Megavitamins and single-hit Super Jump Punch be available as custom specials?”
You’re absolutely correct that it limits customization but there are some benefits to doing that. Apart from less customization being more streamlined and less muddled it also helps for online as I stated earlier. If custom moves are integrated into online (as they should be if they’re going to be part of the smash experience) it would be nice to be able to tell if the Marth I’m fighting has a tipper or not just by looking at their character model.
You’re solution works fine too, I suppose its just a matter of preference. Personally I found I didn’t get much use out of Smash 4’s custom moves even after unlocking them all because it felt like too much of a hassle to setup and easily test them out in-game. On the other hand I used some of the clones pretty regularly.
Alternate costumes and palette swaps aren’t the same thing, and I do hate how not everybody has an alt and how some characters got more palettes than others (Wario in Brawl, Little Mac in Smash 4). If I had it my way every character with have eight palettes for their default outfit, and a alternate costume that also comes in eight different palettes.
Why does Mario putting on a lab coat somehow make him him weird to use one of his most trademark abiltities? This never made sense. Also I hate FLUDD, wish they’d just give Mario his old Down Special back.
If you make the alts their own characters, then they are no longer alts, but clones.
That’s just the risk you’ll have to put up with playing online. Don’t really know why it matters if the opponent has a tipper or not since you should avoid being hit in the first place. There’s no indication in Smash 4 which customs an opponent exactly has when fighting one.
I haven’t used them outside of Smash Run, where I test them out. I haven’t even tried Palutena’s other specials yet.
if they’re going to keep dark pit, i hope they declone him in a significant way, around marth/roy levels, or at the very least mario/dr. mario ones. really, there is absolutely no point in keeping him as he is now. he’s literally an alternate costume with his own separate spot on the character selection screen. he adds nothing to the game.
lucina is a bit more complicated. if you change her too much, she’s no more “tipless marth”. if you keep her as she is… eeeeh. she keeps on being very redundant. even more now that roy’s returned. i have no idea what they could do with her.
i missed dr. mario in brawl a bit, i liked him quite a lot in melee. not my main, not my favorite character or anything else. but he’s fun. he’s a nice extra. plus he can’t really be compared to lucina and dark pit. he’s a melee style clone.
There’s no point in keeping him at all. Kid Icarus does not deserve three characters. Pit and Palutena is enough until the series gets a larger amount of games.
Melee style clones are even worse. Smash 4 took a huge step back by returning to them.
I am aware of why the prices of the two games are different, which still doesn’t justify how the Wii-U version is fairly priced when it’s 20 dollars more.
Yes. He’s promoting games, but he always has been promoting the heck out of Fire Emblem even when it was still flopping in the United States. It wasn’t until Awakening came out & Nintendo decided to make free downloadable demoes for their games that people actually got to see how great it was.
Well believe it or not, it wasn’t a coincidence that Sakurai decided to make one of Pit’s colors in Brawl all black and dark.
The Wii Fit series is a casual utility for individuals to lose weight. You can’t really say that it’s got a great “story” and “characters” like the rest of Nintendo games. As I said previously, not just any character should be qualified.
I’m not going to repeat what i just said about Fire Emblem.
To reply what you said to Magcargo Man about clones: Games have evolved. Simple as that. Half of Tekken 1’s roster was clones, but now we are at the point in fighting games where data has greatly expanded & clones are no longer necessary. Tekken 7, Mortal Kombat X, Street Fighter V, Dead Or Alive 5, Blazblue: Chronophantasma, no clones to be found. Sakurai is the only developer that still cuts corners with them.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Ken still plays similarly to Ryu in Street Fighter V, right? And while you do have a point about clones in other fighting games, Smash is not like other fighting games. It’s a crossover game, and the main draw to it is typically the characters. If Street Fighter introduced a new Ryu clone and that character was a totally new character who’s never appeared in Street Fighter media before, there’d be little reason to care about that character over Ryu, apart from maybe a design perspective. On the other hand, there are people who’d want to play as Lucina, Dr. Mario, or Dark Pit (believe it or not on that last one), and introducing them as clones does cater to those people. Yes, it’d be more interesting to have unique playstyles for those characters instead of a moveset that borrows from another character, and maybe that can be rectified in the next Smash game. However, since Smash does provide that opportunity to play with one’s favorite characters, there is a reason why clones do make it in, as opposed to other fighting games which have to justify every new character’s spot on their rosters.
Not really. In Street Fighter 1, Ryu and Ken were default player 1 & player 2, so it made sense that they had the same moves. But games have come a long way, where Ken has branched out to have his own move-set and animations.
I don’t agree that any of those 3 are “fan favorites”, considering how new they are and how many copies their games sold. If anything, Sakurai alone is very high on two of them & then decided to throw Dr. Mario in there as well to soften the blow when fans chew him out on it. If Sakurai wasn’t partial to Fire Emblem & Kid Icarus, they probably would not have made the game.
I will concede that maybe I shouldn’t have used the word ‘favorite’ in my comment, I meant to say that there are people who would like to play as those characters. Also, last time I checked, both Kid Icarus: Uprising and Fire Emblem Awakening sold well. VGChartz says Uprising broke 1 million sales, and Awakening reached 2 million, though I do recall SmashChu mentioning that the site’s methods of getting those numbers were questionable. To say that Sakurai threw in Dr. Mario isn’t entirely accurate, since there is data of him that implied he was worked on for Brawl, but was eventually cut for whatever reason. When I mentioned Ken and Ryu playing similarly, I said that in the sense that they still have the same special moves; Hadouken, Shoryuken, and Tatsumaki, though I do know that even those moves have their variances and their standard and super attacks do differ.
Also, if I may piggy-back off this comment while replying to MagcargoMan…
To your first point, I was trying to explain why I don’t find that argument to be a good one. Smash is unique in the way that it handles characters, to the point where I don’t think holding it to the expectations of other fighting games is a fair standard. In the same sense, I wouldn’t hold Mario Kart to the expectations of standard racing games.
To the next one, they *were* alts. Sakurai mentioned this in the past. Lucina, Dr. Mario, and Dark Pit were alts of Marth, Mario, and Pit respectively, but since they had extra development time (and I guess since they already had the models ready), they upgraded them to separate characters. He mentions wanting to do the same with Alph, but there wasn’t enough that could separate him from Olimar. I’m honestly not sure why this is brought up so often as a point of contention, because from my perspective, you’re asking to downgrade the characters from where they are now. If they were alts, they’d essentially be even more clones than they are now, the only difference is you don’t see their icons on the character selection screen. You do bring up a good point with Bowser Jr. though, since that’s seven clones added to the game that no one complains about, yet there are three others that seem to draw all the attention.
And to your last point, Ganondorf isn’t quite in the same boat as other clones in my opinion. Even back in Melee, when only two or three of his moves were different from Captain Falcon’s, his playstyle was still radically different from Falcon’s. He has received a few animation changes since then to further separate him from Falcon, which puts him in semi-clone status right now rather than the full clone he was in Melee. Though I do get the argument, some people would rather have a completely different Ganondorf.
I don’t see it as a downgrade, but an improvement on the game’s overall quality. Three crummy copy-paste characters that overrep their series and only add bloat and more grinding for completion versus three neat alt costumes and would add to the disappointingly low amount of alternate costumes in the game.
“If they were alts, they’d essentially be even more clones than they are now, the only difference is you don’t see their icons on the character selection screen.”
The difference is more characters in the roster would have alt costumes and aren’t being sold to as “new playable characters”. They wouldn’t be clones; they’d be costumes. And the roster would be better for it.
“since that’s seven clones added to the game that no one complains about”
Skins aren’t clones. You might as well say Tracksuit Mac and Male Wii Fit Trainer are clones while you’re at it.
I’ve addressed how I feel about Ganondorf in-depth before, so I’ll just end it on the just the notion that he should have NEVER been a clone in the first place.
Donkey Kong Country Returns: Tropical Freeze sold 1.5 million, so considering that it was a $60 game, it made more than twice the money that Fire Emblem & Kid Icarus made. Where was all the promotion for that game? Oh that’s right, Donkey Kong doesn’t matter.
They should have stayed as “alts”. So they’re only characters in Smash Bros just because they’re clonable? Then where is Daisy? Why is she not as important as Copy-Paste Pit & Lucina?
Ganondorf, while they did right in re-animating his moves, Sakurai is still adamant on making him the character he was meant to have been all along? A charging punch? A sliding kick? Where is his weapons or magic?
Daisy? Oh please give the clone spot to someone who actually appeared in a main game.
“Smash is not like other fighting games”
Yet “Smash having clones is okay because other fighting games do it too” is what started this argument in the first place.
“and introducing them as clones does cater to those people”
Why can’t they just be alts? I mean, the Koopalings are alts and Koopaling fans love them even if they aren’t truly their own characters in Smash.
“and maybe that can be rectified in the next Smash game”
We’ve been saying that about Ganondorf for two games now…
So? That’s what justifies the fact Smash can have clones. Fighting Games are quick to rid of them too. There’s always been a compare and contrast situation between Smash and ordinary fighting games. The fact that clones are rid of quick and are used less often when they have their benefits done right which Smash notices is what makes the game stick out again. Smash keeps them but as an minority set for a specific audience that takes nothing away from no one and drifts into the background.
I know for a fact the majority would happily take the Koopalings as a clone with a slot too if not over the alt space. That’s what a lot of the Alph fans think, “it would’ve been awesome if Alph was a separate character instead with Rock Pikmin”. The wands for the Koopalings could be easily implemented like Doc’s down b and straight up different stats with his character in general, and Dark Pit’s electroshock arm for example.
Yeah and look at him now, he’s drastically different from his Melee counterpart.
“Fighting Games are quick to rid of them too.”
Really proves how “worthwhile” their additions are, right?
“I know for a fact the majority would happily take the Koopalings as a clone with a slot too if not over the alt space.”
Wrong. Nobody would be happy with a character having SEVEN clones. Not to mention a lot of people would complain about there being FOURTEEN Mario characters.
Still a Captain Falcon clone. Still an awful implementation of the King of Evil.
Wrong. They are worthwhile, a more for less combo. It just stopped being a trend and Smash once again separates from everything by keeping them there but as a minority and only for fans.
The fans of the Koopalings would lol. Mario is the mascot of Nintendo. He can get away with 14 characters as long as the roster gets bigger and you know it.
Still slow, destructive and uses magic. Exactly how he is in the majority of Zelda.
If they were worthwhile they wouldn’t be forgettable, throw-away cut bait.
Nope, not even Mario could get away with fourteen characters in Smash. You’re pretty delusional if you think anyone but the smallest minority would be okay with that.
Nope, I’ve never seen Ganondorf bumble around as a slow Captain Falcon wannabe in Zelda. Nice try.
Same can be applied in reverse, they are worthwhile because they have so little time to work with which means they don’t take away from anything aka a more for less combo. Extra that is fanservice =/= bad
So you’re telling me when the roster inevitably gets bigger and if Zelda expands to 8-10 characters, Mario, Nintendo’s main man wouldn’t be able to have 14 characters? You’re tripping if you believe that garbage. By the way the Koopalings can easily get crammed into one-slot somehow.
Ganondorf also was never a fast sword-only Marth in Zelda either. Ganons throughout the series are all over the place. All of that is too much to fit into one moveset, be balanced and not break any limitations,
First of all, you were saying people would be fine with fourteen Mario characters in Smash 4, where Zelda and Pokemon only have five and six in comparison. Secondly, Smash’s roster in a single game would never get so big that you could feasibly have fourteen Mario characters and yet proportionately rep all the other series in the game, unless you made half of the roster clones. You’d need at least ten characters for Zelda and Pokemon for that to be fair, and this would all take up 34 characters already. Not even feasible.
“Ganondorf also was never a fast sword-only Marth in Zelda either.”
And nobody’s asked for that.
“Ganons throughout the series are all over the place. All of that is too much to fit into one moveset, be balanced and not break any limitations”
Wrong. You can easily give him magic for specials, sword for smash attacks and some tilts/aerials, and brutal physical attacks for the rest of his normals.
We literally got from 30 something Brawl characters to 58 Sm4sh characters. Clearly the roster would get in it’s 70-80s.
Not going to happen buddy. I don’t mind changes but nowhere near that horrible PM mod ewwwwww. Less differences to Falcon, sure but I’m not putting up with similarities to that overkill mod.
That’s not how game development works. It takes time to make so many characters. If they wanted to have that many it would either extend dev time by a significant amount (like a whole extra year) or be at the expense of other content like stages and modes.
Project M Ganondorf is not how I want him to be. He should not have “modes”.
Sm4sh has been in development since 2012-2013
Good.
And yet they didn’t even have time to include Mewtwo in the base game.
Yep. 🙂 Things got cut all the same. Deal with it.
I wanted to take my time in responding to both Sakurai articles, and I missed the chance to be featured on either of them >.< Oh well, still gonna finish up and post those comments.
But, if I may elaborate on my comment that did get featured, since I don't think I worded it well or used the right examples…
Let's look at Bowser. He's often shown as being way bigger than Mario is, but if you look at most of the games where he has a significant size difference over Mario, he's usually using a Grand Star or some other power source to increase his size. In his normal form, he is still larger than Mario, but to a more reasonable scale. Ganondorf has had multiple different incarnations throughout the series as well, though as I haven't played many games with him in it, I couldn't tell you if he's had a significant size change between them. Even if different versions have had different sizes, it's important to note that Smash has been using his Twilight Princess version since Brawl, and while I never finished Twilight Princess, I'm fairly certain that Ganondorf retains a consistent size throughout the game, meaning that as far as that version of him goes, his other depictions aren't relevant.
Ridley, on the other hand, is consistently shown as "way bigger than Samus". The only time I can think of where that's not true is the NES Metroid game, though I'd personally chalk that up to limitations of the NES. Even in Super Metroid, Ridley is still a lot larger than Samus, and he's crouching in all the pictures I can find, meaning he's even bigger than he looks. There isn't really a precedent for a character as large as Ridley to appear in a Smash setting, especially when you have to consider how the game would function with four or even eight of him on a stage at a time.
When I word things like this, I don't want to give people the impression that I would be opposed to a playable Ridley. Sakurai has a track record for making the unfeasible feasible, and maybe he could figure out a way to make Ridley work without compromising his design or character in the future. I just want to give context as to why the "Ridley's too big" argument is actually a valid one that needs to be taken into consideration before you consider Ridley as a playable character.
twilight princess ganondorf is a lot taller than smash ganondorf. see: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/zelda/images/9/91/Ganondorf_(Twilight_Princess)/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/425?cb=20130618002620
ridley can be done, bagan’s mod proved it. you really only have to keep him even a bit bigger than samus, then it’s a matter of adjusting his proportions and his posture so that nothing weird happens. what you have to keep about him is his ferocious nature, have him move kinda fast and have a lot of grapples.
it’s just that sakurai interprets the character just as a fucking big lizard that’s always flying. the closest ridley can get to be playable while mantaining sakurai’s vision is the pyropshere thing. the thing is, he doesn’t -have- to be that way. sakurai doesn’t have to sacrifice ridley’s character to make him playable, just his vision of him. and for one reason or another, he’s just not interested in doing it.
there’s not much more to this whole debate.
Ganondorf has multiple of him in many sizes including small. Ganon always has the right body size and scale to be shrunken down.
I don’t think any individual mod is proof enough that a character works in Smash. If it was, I’d expect to see Ned Flanders as a Little Mac skin in the next Smash game (someone actually made that). And I think Sakurai sees Ridley as an ‘effing’ big lizard that’s always flying because… well, poor phrasing aside, he is. In the majority of fights against him, he primarily attacks from the air, unless he’s too injured to maintain flight. And as I’ve mentioned, he’s always had a significant size increase over Samus. so making him “just a bit bigger than Samus” isn’t the right scale to go for.
of course ridley should fight in the air, but remember sakurai’s quote:
“if he was playable, he wouldn’t be able to fly freely [among other stuff]”. now that didn’t stop kirby, pit, charizard or anyone else. just give him 3-4 jumps and make him good in the air. then make him not exactly powerless, but somewhat clunky on the ground. then you’ll be pretty much always flying when using ridley (kinda like jigglypuff already does). how would that be incorrect?
but i think sakurai intends for ridley to just be always in the air without being bound by jumps and stuff, like he is in pyrosphere. but he’s wrong. it’s not that he can’t be playable because he has to be in that way, it’s just that sak sees him that way because he already decided that ridley wouldn’t be playable. he needs to re-think seriously about the issue. ridley has nothing stopping him, except the director’s stubborness.
about his dimensions, he has to be around bower’s size. he’d compare to samus like he would in super metroid if his head wasn’t enormous. a bit smaller maybe, for the sake of being playable. that’s a compromise that can be made (and was already made with ganondorf – smash 4’s ganondorf is specifically the one from TP, see that scar? but in TP he is a lot taller, like twice the size he has in smash). resizing ridley is not like resizing, say, kraid. speaking of this, you’re right, ridley is a big F lizard, but not -just- a big F lizard. that’s where sakurai is wrong. being enormous isn’t really part of his character. actually in metroid he is almost always the smallest boss. that’s because fights against ridley are not about fighting a colossus (like kraid or draygoon or even mother brain are, to not speak of the prime trilogy’s enormous bosses), but about fighting your arch-nemesis in a more or less equal duel. you can focus on that side of him, instead of only the big F lizard part. he has to be bigger than samus for the sake of consistency, but not extremely bigger. it’s just about not interpreting his character superficially (in which i don’t trust sakurai, because he’s always extremely superficial about everything that comes from metroid. no doubt he sees ridley as just a big lizard monster you meet a couple of times).
the ned flanders mod is comparing apples to oranges and you know it.
…but i really have to take a look at it now.
Let me reiterate, as I said in my first comment; I am not against a playable Ridley. I do think that in some stretch of the imagination, it might be possible, and I would probably enjoy him in Smash. I just want people to really consider the size factor, because it is a real issue. You are correct that Ridley isn’t often the largest boss that Samus faces, but that doesn’t stop Ridley from being a large boss himself. I would argue that his size is important to his character, since it adds the intimidation factor that he’s had since forever (maybe not the NES version, but I find it hard to consider that comparable to any other Ridley for several reasons). If Ridley was the size of Bowser, he wouldn’t be as intimidating.
And yeah, my point on the mods was used poorly, but you really should check out that mod ;P
i don’t know, i think that if we take super metroid as a reference (that’s more or less the version of ridley that everyone wants playable) ridley scales to samus kind of how bowser does to mario in mario world.
but then in smash you have both mario and samus and that may be a problem. in my opinion it’s not necessary to conform so strictly to canon. for ridley to still feel like ridley, i think it’s enough to have him be slightly bigger than bowser, to feel ferocious and to be good in the air. that’s what that mod does and while it’s not perfect i think it conveys a good idea of how ridley could work. (ned flanders as a super boxer isn’t as convincing 😛 and it looks kind of disturbing. but it’s still genious)
what i meant to say is that “bigness” is just one part of ridley’s character (not even the most integral one, since his size changes all the time), he has a lot more to focus on. if you take kraid and make him bowser-sized, he has no point being kraid anymore. if you do that to ridley… well it may not be 100% correct, but as long as you keep his other characteristics he’s still pretty much himself.
in fact, there is a reason if ridley is very requested, while no one brings out kraid or mother brain (even if their importance to the series is/was comparable). it’s because it’s not -that- unreasonable. and yeah ok, because ridley looks a lot cooler, too.
In the pictures I see of Ridley in Super Metroid, he’s still at least twice the height of Samus, and he’s crouched over in his sprites, meaning he’d be even larger if he stands up. I don’t think that translates well to just being slightly bigger than Bowser. I think the difference between Kraid and Ridley in this sense is that, as you’ve mentioned, Ridley has more to his character than just his size. Kraid has practically no personality, he’s just a wall for the player to get past. Reduce his size, and he’s just another enemy. I can’t say anything for Mother Brain since my only experience with her is in Zero Mission, and she’s completely immobile there. I will concede that Ridley’s size is not the only important part of his character, but I still don’t think that significantly reducing his size is the way to go about it. I’m not sure what is, to be honest. I think that somehow, a playable Ridley that doesn’t compromise too much of his character could be done somehow, I just don’t know how.
i don’t know about the hunched over part. of course it makes him seem smaller, but ridley is always in that position, so it would be that way in smash too. a bit like DK, he’s quite bigger than he looks, but you never notice because he’s always crouched. maybe they could use it to work around ridley too. it would help to make him have a bit less range with the arms too.
i think that famous mod really does a good job of conceptualizing a playable ridley. his size is reduced enough to be playable, but he feels very much like ridley. i don’t think the size reduction is that great of a loss.
and i think, you kind of have to resize him if you want to have him playable. the giant meta-ridley that puts samus in his mouth in prime 3 of course can’t be a character.
luckily there’s his super metroid incarnation. it’s still too big, but you don’t have to alter it too much. like, remove around 1/4th of his original height? that’s comparable to what other characters have got and is not too drastic of a change. if you convey the other aspects of his character well, i think it’s fine.
about mother brain: she’s either a brain in a jar or a monster that fills the whole screen and that has a very creepy appearance. like, a lot. she can’t really work in smash. but i suggest you to play super metroid! (regardless of ridley), one of the best games nintendo ever made and really mindblowing if you consider that it came out in 1994, in my opinion.
“In the majority of fights against him, he primarily attacks from the air, unless he’s too injured to maintain flight.”
That’s blatantly untrue though. Ridley’s two most recent fights (the Other M battle and the second fight in Corruption) are primarily ground based battles with the Ridley only taking to the air for brief periods of time. The first Corruption fight does take place in the air, but Ridley certainly doesn’t do much flying for the length of it. The fight in the original Prime is roughly half and half and in the original Metroid Ridley just kinda hops up and down in place, not flying whatsoever. Only in 3 battles: Super, Zero Mission, and Fusion does Ridley have a noticeably greater focus on flight.
There’s really no reason to treat Ridley and differently than Charizard or the Kirby characters. Its not like we’re talking about the Koopa Clown Car here, a literal flying machine which is never shown not flying. Now having a Smash character ride around in one of those without the ability to fly freely, well that would be ridiculous… oh wait.
Playable Ridley has issues he has to work around to be sure, but the idea that reducing his flight in a comparable way to other flying characters for some reason wouldn’t work is complete nonsense. Especially when Bowser Jr. can get away with riding around in a goddamn flying machine.
Apparently, I can’t say this enough; I *do* think it’s possible for Ridley to be playable, and I *don’t* think that permanently flying is required. My argument was more focused on Ridley’s size. But if we are speaking of his flying, I really have to ask how I’m wrong. I can’t speak for Other M because I never played it, but I remember fighting him in Prime 1 and 3, Zero Mission, and technically Fusion too. In Prime 1, he starts the fight flying until you burn off his wings. In Prime 3, the first fight involves you falling down a shaft, and Ridley having the mobility advantage. The next fight, he does stay more grounded, but eventually takes flight when he gets weaker. In both Fusion and Zero Mission, he flies during his fights. I don’t know what’s “blatantly untrue” about me saying that he primarily (not always, and I was very careful to word it that way) fights from the air.
And just to say it again, I don’t think it’s necessary for Ridley to have permanent flight as a character in Smash. I’m only pointing out in this particular comment that he does use flight as an advantage in many of his fights.
i think in metroid games you see ridley flying about as much as you see him grounded.
of course if he ever gets playable he should be aerial based.
but still you have to wonder where sakurai pulled the “not being able to fly freely” thing from. of course he can stay in the air for a long period of time, but it’s not like that’s vital to his fighting style. maybe in the first prime… but like, in super metroid he could be jumping and hopping and that wouldn’t make a big difference. his attacks are all quick swings and grabs. and then, kirby, pit and charizard don’t fly freely in smash either.
meh.
I also have to wonder why people bring up Pit as an excuse for not having permanent flight when Pit doesn’t have permanent flight. Or flight at all, actually. Neither in the original nor in Uprising can Pit fly on his own, either he uses the Wings of Pegasus or Palutena gives him the power temporarily. The only game I can find him having constant flight in is Of Myths and Monsters, but I don’t know a thing about that game besides what I read on the wiki, so I can’t say much about it.
Also, feel free to look up the boss fights against him in any game and tell me how much time he spends on the ground versus the air. Aside from Metroid 1 and the second fight in Prime 3, he does spend more time in the air than on the ground (again, can’t say for Other M ’cause I never played it). That still leaves Super Metroid, Zero Mission, Fusion, Prime 1, and the first fight in Prime 3 where he has an aerial focus. To say it again, since this point seems to keep slipping through: I do *not* think Ridley needs to maintain permanent flight to be a character in Smash. He can still have an aerial focus just like the characters you’ve mentioned. All I’m pointing out is that he *does* spend a lot of time attacking from the air. That does *not* have to translate to permanent flight, but it *is* a part of Ridley’s fighting style.
yeah, but i totally agree. ridley should be an aerial fighter. that’s what he does best (and it would also provide more variety, since we already have quite a bit of large heavy characters who prefer the ground).
the thing is, metroid games have always portrayed him as a good fighter on the ground, too. in prime he “prefers the air”, but then gets down to earth and it’s not like he’s powerless. in prime 3 i don’t remember much (only prime i played only one time) but i think he speds a good chunk of the fight grounded. so yeah, like i think you’re saying, air should be the focus of his figthing style but not in the extreme way of flying freely around the screen.
i don’t know much about kid icarus, but doesn’t pit fly for entire levels in uprising? that may not be permanent flying, but it sure is more than having 4 jumps. and don’t all his powers come from palutena anyway?
by the way, i don’t think smash sticks this close to canon, otherwise mario wouldn’t be able to shoot fireballs without first eating a fire flower etc. etc.
“primarily attacks from the air” implies a reliance on air combat notably greater than ground combat, not just that Ridley flies at some point during the fight. I’ve already granted the fights in Super, Fusion, and Zero Mission fit this criteria. However Prime 3 certainly doesn’t. In the first fight Ridley only uses his wings in the least frequent of his three possible attack patterns, he spends most of the fight either clawing at the walls or holding onto Samus while simply continuing to fall. Ridley only demonstrates superior air mobility for roughly a third of the fight. Yes technically he’s in the air for the whole fight, but so is Samus, should I take this fight as proof Samus has a heavy emphasis on flying too? The second fight has an entirely ground based phase and a phase where Ridley switches between attacking from the ground and air, definitely not a “primarily” air based battle. Prime 1’s fight has an air and ground phase (though he still has a few brief ground based attacks in the air phase), sure Ridley only becomes permanently grounded when you wreak his wings, but that doesn’t really change that fact that half the battle is fought on the ground. Once again not a “primarily” air based battle.
3/8 battles is not a majority by any stretch of the imagination, even if you were to count Prime on the basis of Ridley being injured it wouldn’t be a majority. So yes I would consider the statement: “In the majority of fights against him, he primarily attacks from the air, unless he’s too injured to maintain flight.” false.
Obviously flight is important enough that it should factor into his moveset and playstyle, but its not so pivotal to his character that limiting it would take away from what makes Ridley, Ridley. You say you agree with that but in your previous post, the one I replied too, you stated that Sakurai’s interpretation of Ridley as a character who should always be flying was correct, so I’m kinda getting mixed messages here.
I agree size is an issue, an issue that can be worked around but still an issue nevertheless. The last paragraph of my previous post alluded to that though I didn’t mention size specifically. However, I don’t see any truth in Sakurai’s idea that Ridley wouldn’t be Ridley if he lost the ability to fly freely, something the post I replied too made it sound like you agreed with. My reply was not attempting to invalidate every concern about Ridley, just point out the fallacy of the one complaint that doesn’t have any real merit.
Replying to Ze, Pit flies with Palutena’s power in Kid Icarus: Uprising, a power that is explicitly stated to last only five minutes and something Pit can’t do on his own. After those sections, he’s grounded. The only level you fly through from start to finish is with Dark Pit because he stole the power of flight from a boss who’s name slips my mind, and even then he loses that power later. They joke about Pit’s inability to fly in his conversation on Palutena’s Temple. And I never said that Ridley couldn’t fight on the ground, I’m not sure where you got that assumption.
Replying to Mettaur, I have to disagree that Ridley’s flying isn’t used in his first fight in Prime 3. If Ridley couldn’t fly, then you’d both just be awkwardly falling down the shaft lobbing projectiles at each other because you wouldn’t be able to control your movement. Ridley moves around the shaft to attack from different areas, but Samus just falls with no other option but to shoot at him. Falling and flying are two very different concepts, but I’m sure I don’t have to explain that to you. And in Prime 1, the fact that he chooses to engage you from the air while he has his wings is the definition of fighting primarily from the air. He obviously can’t fly after his wings burn off, but in the first phase, he fights from the air because it gives him a large advantage over Samus. When his wings burn off, he doesn’t fight from the ground because he wants to, but because he literally cannot fly and regain that advantage. Lastly, if you’d look back at my comment, I was referring to what ze said and mentioned it as ‘poor phrasing’ when you claim that I said Ridley was always flying. I elaborated on what I meant in the sentence immediately following it too.
“If Ridley couldn’t fly, then you’d both just be awkwardly falling down the shaft lobbing projectiles at each other because you wouldn’t be able to control your movement.”
That’s exactly how 98% of the fight goes though. Ridley shifting his position in the air once every few minutes isn’t showing a heavy emphasis on flight. If this fight was really an indication of Ridley’s prowess at fighting in the air he ought to be moving around almost constantly, not just when Samus gets close to him. That or just up and fly away and leave Samus to fall to her death. Ridley spends most of the fight straight up falling, no buts about it.
“And in Prime 1, the fact that he chooses to engage you from the air while he has his wings is the definition of fighting primarily from the air.”
Its not though. Primarily fighting from the air would be a battle where Ridley spends most of his time in the air, there’s no other possible way to define it. In this battle Ridley does not spend most of the time in the air, therefor Ridley does not primarily attack from the air. There is an air phase, there is a ground phase, both encompassing roughly half the fight. Ridley is also just as dangerous on the ground as in the air, if not more so. Nothing about the battle indicates that Ridley was put at any sort of disadvantage when forced to the ground.
“Lastly, if you’d look back at my comment, I was referring to what ze said and mentioned it as ‘poor phrasing’ when you claim that I said Ridley was always flying. I elaborated on what I meant in the sentence immediately following it too.”
If you disagree with the point about always flying then it isn’t poor phrasing, its just wrong. Poor phasing implies the core ideas are correct but were worded poorly. Sakurai’s core idea about Ridley regarding flight is that he must have free flight in order to feel “complete”. This sentiment would be at odds with the belief that Ridley would be fine having flight equivalent to Smash’s other flying characters.
I’m not sure how you got the idea I didn’t read the following sentence consider that’s the statement I initially replied to and the one this whole debate revolves around.
In any case its clear we’re basically on the same page about Ridley’s flight in regards to Smash. Its boiled down to an argument about wording at this point.