I agree with Masahiro Sakurai's point of keeping the animal noises - in the specific cases of Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Diddy Kong, their realistic sounds seem to suit them in
Super Smash Bros. series much better. As for King Dedede,
Kirby: Right Back At Ya!/Kirby of the Stars is ingrained within me
much more so than the
Donkey Kong Country TV series, so I'm all for King Dedede being voiced by Ted Lewis in English for
Super Smash Bros. (although it's not like he talks much anyway). Can somebody please link to good voice acting of those 3 characters (preferably non-spoilerish/from trivial gameplay segments)? I keep seeing people mentioning that they
have voices, but I've never encountered their voices aside from
Super Smash Bros. All I've found so far is:
Bowser:
http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/voice-compare/Super-Mario-Bros/Bowser/
- The introductory "Showtime!" clip from Bowser's battle theme in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. I'll admit that I only listened to the first 20-25 seconds or so because I usually dislike spoiling battle themes for games that I haven't played yet, but the "Showtime!" clip sounds as menacing as Bowser's Super Smash Bros. clips, so I don't really see an issue with it. *Upon hearing Kenny Jame's extended voice clips on Behind The Voice Actors, his voice could work great for 1 or 2 victory poses, but I don't think it's a necessity for gameplay, particularly when Bowser doesn't talk much in the first place.
- "Corona Mountain - Ending" from Super Mario Sunshine. I'm kind of annoyed that I spoiled that ending bit just for Bowser's voice, but moving on... If that's the "Bowser voice" that people want in Super Smash Bros.....yeah, no; I'm fine with his "realistic grunts" as it is. I'm surprised that Bowser actually had a speaking role in that game - he seems like the type of foe that shouldn't speak in full dialogue, being limited only to grunts, roars, and menacing laughs. At least, that's what Super Mario 64 suggested to me with Bowser's various cries (with Bowser's laugh terrifying a younger me so much that I sold that masterpiece of a game, a decision I really regret to date >.<).
- Bowser's voice clips from Mario Kart Wii. They seem slightly too comical for me.. Even though Bowser is apparently perceived as a mix between comical and menacing these days, I feel like his Super Smash Bros. audio should be menacing, with his visuals striking some sort of balance between comical and menacing.
Donkey Kong:
http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/voice-compare/Super-Mario-Bros/Donkey-Kong/
- Someone linked to this trailer as an example - "Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze Breaking the Ice Trailer". Even though Donkey Kong is kind of an exaggerated character, that particular "voice" seems too exaggerated for me; the gorilla sounds seem more sensible in Super Smash Bros.
- There's Donkey Kong's Donkey Kong Country TV voice (normal and singing), although I don't think it's representative of his "current" voice..? I personally perceived Donkey Kong as being older/more adult than he sounds in that series (teenage?), so the voice doesn't quite fit Super Smash Bros. in my opinion. At least he can boldly profess his love/use of coconut cream pies..?
- Donkey Kong's Mario Kart Wii voice - no, just no - realistic gorilla sounds all the way! >_> (Can people actually stand hearing all of those 'grunts'..? Not to mention that a lot of them sound suggestive..)
Diddy Kong:
http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/voice-compare/Super-Mario-Bros/Diddy-Kong/
- Diddy Kong's Donkey Kong Country TV voice might be okay for victory poses, but I think the monkey sounds are much more fitting while he's fighting in Super Smash Bros.
- I haven't heard much else from Diddy other than his exclamation of "Diddy Kong Racing!" (which I liked) and his "Hi! I'm Diddy!" character selection quote (which I strangely found unfitting), both from Diddy Kong Racing.
- Diddy Kong's voice from Mario Kart Wii - ...uh, I mean, really? The "realistic" monkey sounds will suffice for Super Smash Bros. >_>
**Sigh..in retrospect, I probably should have gone to
Behind The Voice Actors to begin with; it would have helped a lot in avoiding audio spoilers... While there were some good samples there, I don't see much regarding current work. As of now, Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Diddy don't seem to "talk" nearly as much as I thought they did (compared to people like Mario and Sonic), typically being reduced mostly to monkey-like/reptilian-like grunts and such, so I really have no problem with their current
Super Smash Bros. "realistic" voices.
Had to avatar quote you.
And I agree with you. The Project M team recreated Mewtwo and Roy completely with no budget, yet with Smash 4's big budget they didn't / "couldn't" port from Melee.
I remember that Nintendo made a program to make it easy to port GameCube assets to the Wii U. It's something they developed when making The WindWaker HD. Could Sakurai not have gotten access to that, or even better, porting Project M's Mewtwo (and Roy) to 4 (with differences obviously). They have the right I'm sure since they own Brawl and it's assets. Plus I doubt anyone would be upset over that.
What I'm disliking the most so far is that Melee stages that didn't appear in Brawl most likely won't ever return.
I don't have a timetable or anything about how long each aspect of
Super Smash Bros. character design takes (which would really be handy), but if Project M could achieve the completion of a playable Mewtwo in approximately 700 hours, despite the extra work needed for custom moves and Final Smashes, it just baffles me how a professional team with access to much better tools and a budget couldn't achieve the same thing in less time.. >_>
Wow; I haven't heard of that "Nintendo GameCube assets ported to Wii U" program, but it sounds quite interesting..
Yeegh; you bring up a good point about the
Super Smash Bros. Melee (and by extension, ones from
Super Smash Bros. 64)..
I'm so confused, though; what's the "difficulty" of porting over
Melee stages forward due to age? The development team (clearly) did it once during the development of
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, so why can't they do it again with the "Past Stages" that weren't in
Brawl? Did they just throw away the resources used or what?
About the game being quite old? I'm sure he is referring to it as old technologically/format-wise. Anything that they could reuse (responsibly) saves development time and allows them to pack more into the game. Melee is just to the point where they can no longer port over assets from that game.
Is this just due to the graphics of the
Melee stages/textures being perceived as "old" or just system incompatibilities between the resources used for porting GameCube assets to the Nintendo 3DS/Wii U? I don't really understand the intricacies of "porting" things, but if they're able to get things from
Melee (primarily, the stages of Corneria and Jungle Japes) to
Brawl at one point and
then subsequently to the 3DS version, I don't see what's stopping the development team aside from time constraints and/or unavailability of whatever they used to do the porting in the first place (the latter of which I'd be surprised at)..
---
I'm not sure how long Project M took to port(?)/recreate the Saffron City stage from
Super Smash Bros. 64, but if they can do that much with something from the Nintendo 64, I don't see how
Melee assets (be they characters or stages) are difficult to retrieve.. >_>
Sakurai's thought process translated from Famitsu.
So, I don't see this discussed on here. I also don't see the Ice Climber (We were right) and Snake article either being talked about either.
Before you say BUT DR. MARIO, hes pretty much Mario and thus easier to manipulate and add in.
Personally I'm more curious about the Smash Run enemy thing.
Here's
the thread regarding the Famitsu article for Solid Snake.. I've seen 2 discussion threads about the Ice Climbers get inexplicably closed and I have no idea why (especially since they seem to have quite the story regarding the development of
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS)
...
