LiteralGrill
Smokin' Hot~
Nintendo Dream is a Japanese video game magazine published monthly by Tokuma Shoten that provide industry coverage and developer interviews about Nintendo. The most recent release was a 250th issue special, including a two page interview with Masahiro Sakurai regarding Super Smash Bros that talks a bit about Greninja, how Bowser Jr. was almost cut, and mentions other characters were proposed that did not make it into the game. The interview was done shortly before the release of the Wii U version in Japan.
Nintendo Dream: 250th Anniversary Interview!
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Nintendo Dream: When not you are not developing and there is a new title or character released, you are not thinking about "How about that one in the next Smash Bros?", right?
Sakurai: Absolutely not! I'm always thinking that doing Smash Bros. again will be impossible. Impossible, impossible...is what I always think, but I ended up making it again (laughs). But once I decide to do it, I'm very fast about creating moves and such. For example Greninja, even before his name was decided I received several illustrations. I took them home in the evening and around midnight I had already done all his actions, normal moves, special moves and pose-pictures and sent them around asking "What do you think?".
Nintendo Dream: That's incredible speed! By the way, when deciding on which characters to use, are you looking into unreleased new games?
Sakurai: At the very beginning I did that. This time our project-proposal is dated May 2012, at that time all characters were decided already. Then as production moves on we will say "We won't put that character in" and cut out low-priority-characters.
Nintendo Dream: That means in your project-proposal there are more characters than ended up in the game?
Sakurai: Yes, but I won't tell which of course.
Nintendo Dream: (laughs). We were wondering all the time "Which characters will be in", and then the "long-time heroes" are announced just like that. We were wondering if that was the right way to announce them.
Sakurai: After all we were planning on including so many characters, in the end this pace of announcing them was enough. Each and every character has fans, we wanted to drop as few as possible. About the order of which character has priority, the characters that don't have a new title coming up have an overwhelming disadvantage...even characters that we ended up including could have been left out if development had progressed differently. But even if 1 former character is left out, for the fans this is a huge thing. On our side, we are re-creating characters from the previous title, and keep on adding more, so the word "reduce" is not appropriate. There are cases where we simply couldn't make it in the end, but on the whole we did a good job I think and the people at Bandai Namco Games did a great job. We had discussions on giving up on something many many times, Bowser Jr. was on the brink of being cut but the staff said "We'll do our best!" and we made it.
Bowser Jr. mains can thank their lucky stars that their main just barely made the cut! This does, however, lead to some interesting speculation: did Mewtwo make the list and not make the cut, causing his inclusion as DLC? With Isaac from Golden Sun not returning as an assist trophy, was he considered for a character? What about our old friends Lucas and Wolf? What other characters may have been on that list that didn't make it to the final game? There is a lot to think about here, so let the discussion begin!
SmashCapps is a weirdo who wishes Harry from Teleroboxer could have been added to rep the Virtual Boy, but realizes he probably was never on that list. He would have loved to see Lolo and Lala as well. If you're a fan of his writing or quirky taste in character choices, you should follow him on twitter and start a conversation!
Source: Neogaf
Nintendo Dream: 250th Anniversary Interview!
- - - - -
Nintendo Dream: When not you are not developing and there is a new title or character released, you are not thinking about "How about that one in the next Smash Bros?", right?
Sakurai: Absolutely not! I'm always thinking that doing Smash Bros. again will be impossible. Impossible, impossible...is what I always think, but I ended up making it again (laughs). But once I decide to do it, I'm very fast about creating moves and such. For example Greninja, even before his name was decided I received several illustrations. I took them home in the evening and around midnight I had already done all his actions, normal moves, special moves and pose-pictures and sent them around asking "What do you think?".
Nintendo Dream: That's incredible speed! By the way, when deciding on which characters to use, are you looking into unreleased new games?
Sakurai: At the very beginning I did that. This time our project-proposal is dated May 2012, at that time all characters were decided already. Then as production moves on we will say "We won't put that character in" and cut out low-priority-characters.
Nintendo Dream: That means in your project-proposal there are more characters than ended up in the game?
Sakurai: Yes, but I won't tell which of course.
Nintendo Dream: (laughs). We were wondering all the time "Which characters will be in", and then the "long-time heroes" are announced just like that. We were wondering if that was the right way to announce them.
Sakurai: After all we were planning on including so many characters, in the end this pace of announcing them was enough. Each and every character has fans, we wanted to drop as few as possible. About the order of which character has priority, the characters that don't have a new title coming up have an overwhelming disadvantage...even characters that we ended up including could have been left out if development had progressed differently. But even if 1 former character is left out, for the fans this is a huge thing. On our side, we are re-creating characters from the previous title, and keep on adding more, so the word "reduce" is not appropriate. There are cases where we simply couldn't make it in the end, but on the whole we did a good job I think and the people at Bandai Namco Games did a great job. We had discussions on giving up on something many many times, Bowser Jr. was on the brink of being cut but the staff said "We'll do our best!" and we made it.
- - -
Bowser Jr. mains can thank their lucky stars that their main just barely made the cut! This does, however, lead to some interesting speculation: did Mewtwo make the list and not make the cut, causing his inclusion as DLC? With Isaac from Golden Sun not returning as an assist trophy, was he considered for a character? What about our old friends Lucas and Wolf? What other characters may have been on that list that didn't make it to the final game? There is a lot to think about here, so let the discussion begin!
SmashCapps is a weirdo who wishes Harry from Teleroboxer could have been added to rep the Virtual Boy, but realizes he probably was never on that list. He would have loved to see Lolo and Lala as well. If you're a fan of his writing or quirky taste in character choices, you should follow him on twitter and start a conversation!
Source: Neogaf
got to fight that 
