NefariousShyGuy
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2013
- Messages
- 145
- Location
- Chapel Hill, NC
- NNID
- NefariousShyGuy
- 3DS FC
- 3609-1047-1128
I understand that from the beginning, Sakurai stated that Smash will solely focus on celebrating the history of Japanese gaming. This has been made very clear throughout the games, since a lot of trophies/characters were Japanese exclusive until they debuted in the west through Smash Bros. So yeah, it's not like I didn't know that Smash mainly panders to the Japanese side of gaming...
But the thing that sorta frustrates me is that Sakurai has almost no desire to represent the west. The most we got so far is the Rayman trophies, but I'm pretty sure that's because Ubisoft already made the 3D models for the dev team anyway. Beyond that, there really is nothing that panders directly to the west. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Sakurai completely ignored ballot votes for characters that originated from the west.
I think the issue that's causing this is Japan's overall xenophobia. It's not that they hate foreigners, it's just that they're too afraid to work with them because of the language barrier and cultural differences. But anyway it's understandable why Sakurai does this since it's simpler and cheaper to contact a company residing in Tokyo and get cool art like this as a bonus.
But still, wouldn't it be cool if Smash wasn't so focused on Japan and tried representing gaming icons from around the world? They don't have to put someone like Master Chief in, but they still have the ability to approach a western company with a lot of Nintendo history if they really wanted to (coughRarecough).
I'm still very grateful for what I have in Smash, and no western icon can replace the likes of Mario, Sonic, Megaman, etc. I just wanted to express my slight frustration that Smash doesn't try to do more for us western fans.
But the thing that sorta frustrates me is that Sakurai has almost no desire to represent the west. The most we got so far is the Rayman trophies, but I'm pretty sure that's because Ubisoft already made the 3D models for the dev team anyway. Beyond that, there really is nothing that panders directly to the west. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Sakurai completely ignored ballot votes for characters that originated from the west.
I think the issue that's causing this is Japan's overall xenophobia. It's not that they hate foreigners, it's just that they're too afraid to work with them because of the language barrier and cultural differences. But anyway it's understandable why Sakurai does this since it's simpler and cheaper to contact a company residing in Tokyo and get cool art like this as a bonus.
But still, wouldn't it be cool if Smash wasn't so focused on Japan and tried representing gaming icons from around the world? They don't have to put someone like Master Chief in, but they still have the ability to approach a western company with a lot of Nintendo history if they really wanted to (coughRarecough).
I'm still very grateful for what I have in Smash, and no western icon can replace the likes of Mario, Sonic, Megaman, etc. I just wanted to express my slight frustration that Smash doesn't try to do more for us western fans.
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