Is Sakurai being biased on some franchises?

[topspin1617]

Dark Pit had lots of chances for a unique moveset. Remember how everyone was going crazy over the staff visible in his picture on the leak?

That's not the point. Sakurai doesn't care AT ALL about source material (KI doesn't count since it's own source material was pretty much ripped from Smash to begin with, and Kirby is Kirby) to begin with, e.g. 3 games of Falcondorf, so it's not like Dark Pit was the perfect candidate either.

You have GOT to be kidding. Yes, Falcondorf is irritating, but I assure you Sakurai didn't sit down and say "it makes the most sense to give Ganondorf Falcon's moveset".

 

[Naglfarii]

oops double post

 

[Naglfarii]

If there is one franchise he ****s on, it's Metroid.
Unless we get Ridley.
Then I'm just talking ****.

But the Mario Franchise, I mean, damn. It annoys me how many representatives it has. I mean, 9?! (Donkey Kong and Yoshi technically count. Not sure about Diddy.)

Dark Pit pissed me off, too, but then I kind of like the idea because I can't bring myself to play normal pit. He's just not cool enough. But then, what do I know? Never even played a Kid Icarus game.

metroid is hard to represent with a lot of characters, because its a series with very few regulars. only Samus herself and Ridley are what you could call smash worthy. I can't explain his decision to probably make ridley a boss, but I could see how it'd be technically difficult to translate him into a fighter I guess.

Overall its also the fact that recent series or series still going strong/ have seen recent success, are more likely to get characters. star fox hasn't had a game in ages and ages, its no surprise fire emblem has it beat.

 

[Deleted member]

metroid is hard to represent with a lot of characters, because its a series with very few regulars. only Samus herself and Ridley are what you could call smash worthy. I can't explain his decision to probably make ridley a boss, but I could see how it'd be technically difficult to translate him into a fighter I guess.

Overall its also the fact that recent series or series still going strong/ have seen recent success, are more likely to get characters. star fox hasn't had a game in ages and ages, its no surprise fire emblem has it beat.

Not true, Star Fox 64 3D was released in 2011, which was the remake of the game where Wolf debuted. More likely, Wolf was cut due to being a semi-clone and time constraints being an issue (which probably factored in Lucas's exclusion as well).

 

[Naglfarii]

Not true, Star Fox 64 3D was released in 2011, which was the remake of the game where Wolf debuted. More likely, Wolf was cut due to being a semi-clone and time constraints being an issue (which probably factored in Lucas's exclusion as well).

personally i'm not counting remakes but yeah im sure time factored into it too

 

[KingBroly]

Of course he is. This game has FOUR Fire Emblem characters. Fire Emblem doesn't deserve to have four playable characters. Especially not when Donkey Kong gets nothing new added. I'm sure if Sakurai really wanted to, he'd add in Bandana Dee just for kicks.

 

[ThatPersonGuy]

You have GOT to be kidding. Yes, Falcondorf is irritating, but I assure you Sakurai didn't sit down and say "it makes the most sense to give Ganondorf Falcon's moveset".

What I am saying is that it really didn't make much sense to KEEP the moveset. As many people have pointed out, Ganondorf's moveset could easily be copy-pasted to practically any character, namely the Black Shadow, with a chance to revise Ganon's moves. I suppose that isn't the best case of bias, but it still stands that Ganondorf's been low priority for far too long.

 

[LeeYawshee]

It's true, he's biased. Kid Icarus has a ton of stuff, and that's my favorite game on the 3DS.

But is that really a bad thing? He's the one busting his ass on making the game. Even if the game has a ****ton of Kid Icarus stuff, we're all still going to buy it, aren't we? As for Metroid and DK having nothing, well... DK has more than the other two subseries (Wario and Yoshi) despite Wario being more popular in recent times due to Warioware and his legacy made in Wario Land. Metroid is a dying series, it was popular in the NES era and it slowly died (Prime did not help it in the slightest, but it was still an awesome game). Samus also has two characters that play nothing alike.

All of the Kid Icarus items were made with Smash in mind so having more items that are cool and pretty original is awesome, I can't complain about that. Dark Pit is a character is an ugly choice but I can't complain either. Kid Icarus is very much present in Smash, but it's not the only series. I do want to know... What items from DK could be added in Smash? What items from Metroid could be added in Smash? Think wisely.

 

[ZeldaMaster]

Sakurai is biased towards two franchises in my opinion. Mario and Kid Icarus.

I KNOW Mario is the face of Nintendo, but 7 characters???!! Plus Yoshi! (That's 8 reps right there!) Not to mention how the Mario series got 4 NEW STAGES in the 3DS version, whereas Metroid and DK got FREAKING recycled Melee stages. I honestly think that if Mario gets this much representation, then Pokemon should as well, because I think that Pokemon is MORE important for Nintendo's handhelds than Mario is.

Kid Icarus.... it only has three games, and yet three characters?!! That's a character per game! But that's not it, its like Sakurai only cares about his OWN game, Uprising, and shuns the original and of Myths and Monsters to dust. That means that the 3 characters, the 20+ Smash Run Enemies, the 2 assist trophies, the 6 items, and tons of other content come from ONLY one game. Ludicrous.....

I also want to mention Fire Emblem. I think that 4 reps for that series is too much. 3 would have been the sweet spot in my opinion, but such a niche series does not deserve more characters than Kirby and StarFox. But I guess that Fire Emblem does have lots of lore and characters, so 4 isn't too bad, if only 2 didn't come from the same game. Plus, it has no items nor Smash Run enemies, so its acceptable.

Now, what is Sakurai seemingly biased against? Metroid and DK. After Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon, these two franchises mean the most in Nintendo's history. DK is an ICON in gaming, and yet is barely has NO NEW content in Smash 4. Metroid is also a huge series, and the fact that it has only 2 reps (who are the SAME person) is stupid. Where's our Pony-Tailed Monkey, our Fat Green King, and the Purple Space Dragon?

Sakurai is biased no doubt about it.

 

[Chzrm3]

I sometimes wonder if Sakurai sees DK and Diddy as Mario characters, not 'DK' characters, which is why the DK franchise has so few reps. Maybe Sakurai's seeing it a different way, and thinking "oh man, I've got so many Mario characters already, I don't think I can justifiably add any more at this point!"

They have a different symbol, sure, but so does Yoshi, and I think everyone considers Yoshi a Mario character. So maybe that's why the DK franchise feels so ignored.

I'm a pretty massive DK fan (DKC2 is one of my favorite games of all time), so it definitely makes me a little sad to see it potentially being ignored in Smash 4. I'm still crossing my fingers in the hopes that Dixie/Cranky/K. Rool are somewhere in the game, waiting for us. : >

 

[TopSecretZone]

I think it's hilarious kids these days think Donkey Kong is a very small series when it's worst selling game is still a higher selling game than the best selling Kid Icarus or Fire Emblem game. Kid Icarus and Fire Emblem are the very small, niche series in Smash Bros., just because hipsters and waifu/hasubando freaks think they are popular, they are not

Real Fact #1993: Star Fox is a more popular series than Kid Icarus

You raise a lot of good points, but being a passive agressive shmuck through the rest of your posts and writing off all fans of Kid Icarus or Fire Emblem fans as hipsters or waifu/husbando-****(which is why you got told to go back to 4chan) doesn't really do you any favors. I don't even care for those series at all but I know better than to say something silly like that.

As for the rest of the thread, yes, Sakurai's bias is still pretty clear. While it's not a good thing, I think we'd be pretty hardpressed to find someone who wasn't biased in any shape or form to take over for the next installment in the series. Everyone's human. If I had my way, way more people would be upset than there is now.

And as far as representation goes based on sales, I might not be a fan of FE or the fact that it's got four characters in the game, but I think arguing about this stuff in terms of what characters "deserve" to be in the game based on series popularity or sales is dumb. If we were going solely on that we wouldn't have gotten some of the cooler characters we do now. It's a fighting game, the biggest and only reason you would need for a character to be in is "how fun can we make this character?"

 

[Evello]

Of course he is. This game has FOUR Fire Emblem characters. Fire Emblem doesn't deserve to have four playable characters. Especially not when Donkey Kong gets nothing new added. I'm sure if Sakurai really wanted to, he'd add in Bandana Dee just for kicks.

I disagree. FE has had 14 games over the course of 24 years. It plenty deserves characters. Compared to things like Mother which has had 3 games, KI which has had 3 games, or even Star Fox which has had 7 main games, FE is a gigantic series. The series also has a HUGE number of playable characters, dwarfing virtually every other Nintendo franchise. Radiant Dawn alone has 72 player-controlled characters. DK deserves another rep, absolutely, but I wouldn't say FE doesn't deserve its reps. Also, 1 of the 4 FE characters is an upgraded costume, so it's more like 3-3.5 characters.

As for Sakurai's biases, I would say he's fairly biased toward Kid Icarus this time around, but he's generally decent at appreciating all Nintendo franchises. Kirby has never been particularly over-represented. Actually, it was fairly under-represented in Melee (which was busy with a bajillion Mario/Zelda characters). The Kirby characters were really important in SSE in Brawl, but I don't feel that's quite grounds for outrage. Kid Icarus getting a lot of characters, assists, items, and stages in SSB4 seems like pretty heavy favoritism, but I think another factor is just that Sakurai likes the ideas of those items/modes/etc. and figures he might as well use the ones he's already made rather than making, say, a Mario item that does the exact same thing. Not condoning it, but even now his bias doesn't feel that bad to me. KI is getting one highly-requested newcomer and one clone. Zelda got 4 newcomers in one game in Melee. Pokemon got 4 in Brawl.

 

[Tenchi Boom]

- Dark Pit is a separate character
- Fierce Diety Link is not
- Dark Samus is not
- Kid Icarus getting more reps than DK and Metroid

- Palutena having 12 special moves
- Ganondorf is still a clone

- Kirby appearing on almost all character artwork, and everywhere in general (don't think he's THAT famous)
- Smash games being heavily modelled after his previous games

- Pit and Kirby getting knew final smashes
- Half or more of the veterans are keeping the same as their Brawl ones

No, not one hint of bias. At all. Nope.

 

[TopSecretZone]

Alright, I can kinda understand Dark Pit having a personality or whatever - but why not just make some of Pit's customizeable moves some stuff that Dark Pit used?

I mean we might get those awesome Koopaling alts all on one character, he didn't waste time slightly altering their playstyles.

In the long run I'm gonna enjoy the game, I'm just a little confused on Sakurai's thought process.

 

[Goten21]

but why not just make some of Pit's customizeable moves some stuff that Dark Pit used?

That's actually a really good question / argument

 

[topspin1617]

Alright, I can kinda understand Dark Pit having a personality or whatever - but why not just make some of Pit's customizeable moves some stuff that Dark Pit used?

I mean we might get those awesome Koopaling alts all on one character, he didn't waste time slightly altering their playstyles.

In the long run I'm gonna enjoy the game, I'm just a little confused on Sakurai's thought process.

Why not the same for Dr. Mario? Why not the same for Lucina? You could ask the same of pretty much any clone. Dark Pit's inclusion was not an effort by Sakurai to say "hey, we need more KI stuff... better add a Dark Pit clone!" More likely the roster needed to be filled out or he was an alt promoted to a full character because of small differences from Pit.

The Koopaling alts certainly shouldn't change playstyle at all, as the focus of the character is the Clown Car gimmick.

 

[Chzrm3]

I don't mind Dark Pit as long as he's a clone in the same vein of Lucina - there's hardly any difference except their physical properties.

I'd be a little salty if he had some different attacks and custom options, and my salt would know no bounds if he was a significantly different character.

And I do think Dixie makes a fine clone of either DK or Diddy (her hair could act a lot like DK's arms as far as attacks, honestly. It's practically perfect for his nair and tilts, not to mention his Up-B). So I'm a little salty about Dark Pit potentially being in the game over her, even as a clone. Cause while clones don't take that much work compared to brand new characters, there are still more important characters who would've made fine clones over Dark Pit.

But it's seeming more and more likely that we don't know the full rooster just yet, so maybe I should hold my tears back a bit. : >

 

[SmashShadow]

Why not the same for Dr. Mario? Why not the same for Lucina? You could ask the same of pretty much any clone. Dark Pit's inclusion was not an effort by Sakurai to say "hey, we need more KI stuff... better add a Dark Pit clone!" More likely the roster needed to be filled out or he was an alt promoted to a full character because of small differences from Pit.

The Koopaling alts certainly shouldn't change playstyle at all, as the focus of the character is the Clown Car gimmick.

Yeah, cause he couldn't have filled out the roster with a dozen other clonish characters from series that weren't overly prevalent in the game like Kid Icarus and Mario. C'mon man!

 

[TopSecretZone]

I would honestly accept Doc Louis and Dark Samus as semi-clones, so I admit on being biased with franchises I like. I'd take them over Dark Pit and Dr. Mario in a heartbeat despite being a huge SMB fan.

 

[Deathcarter]

Of course he is. This game has FOUR Fire Emblem characters. Fire Emblem doesn't deserve to have four playable characters. Especially not when Donkey Kong gets nothing new added. I'm sure if Sakurai really wanted to, he'd add in Bandana Dee just for kicks.

Oh for Heaven's Sake....

-Two of those characters are popular veterans among the Smash fanbase
-EVERYONE assumed we were getting an Awakening newcomer
-The last is there mostly Sakurai wanted to add a bunch of clones and frankly, she was pretty much the most logical choice for a clone aside from Daisy (& Dr. Mario's more at fault for Daisy's exclusion).

Fire Emblem is over represented relative to Donkey Kong (and Animal Crossing but nobody wants to complain how that series is underrepresented relative to its sales) but its not this gigantic case of Sakurai bias that many posters try to make it out to be. Fire Emblem lucked out into a fourth rep and every other inclusion was completely warranted unless you think Ike should have been cut because of some arbitrary reasoning that FE should always be held at two reps just because its too niche regardless of him being decently popular among Smash players.

 

[TimeSmash]

Has Dark Pit gameplay been shown? I haven't seen any, but I haven't been really adamant in look either. If not, it's possible he could have a different moveset.

Since KI:U came out so recently, it's not a huge shocker he'd take a lot of content from that, or at least inspired by it. It's easier for one, and since it's so fresh in your memory (even if the game is a couple years old), you think about a lot of stuff that worked and could be carried over easily. While I'd like to see a new Metroid rep, Ridley probably won't get in for whatever reason. Just resize him to like Charizard height haha. But I wouldn't want a new forced Metroid rep like Adam or something. It's hard for a series that has been very character-oriented with the exception of a few recent games

On the other hand, I'm really surprised Shulk got in. That kind of helps skew some of the bias, no??

 

[Frostwraith]

At least, Sakurai added a lot of stuff from the Zelda series. There are quite a few Smash Run enemies, new items and well-known characters as Assist Trophies.

Some of the apparent bias might also be due to series popularity in Japan. Kirby and Fire Emblem are much more popular and well-known in Japan than in the West and vice versa with Metroid and Punch-Out!!. Have you seen the reactions of the Japanese towards Little Mac? They were strikingly similar to the Western players' reactions when characters like Shulk or Lucas were revealed.

Of course, he could also be doing whatever he wants with the game. lol

If you thing Sakurai's bias is trolling, relax, for there are there are far worse trolling creators out there. Have I mentioned he's friends with Hideo Kojima, of all people?

Kid Icarus.... it only has three games, and yet three characters?!! That's a character per game! But that's not it, its like Sakurai only cares about his OWN game, Uprising, and shuns the original and of Myths and Monsters to dust. That means that the 3 characters, the 20+ Smash Run Enemies, the 2 assist trophies, the 6 items, and tons of other content come from ONLY one game. Ludicrous.....

To be fair, most content from Uprising is from the NES game. Almost all of the NES game's enemies and all 4 bosses appear in Uprising. Of course, they take on their Uprising appearances and designs in Smash given it's the latest and only 3D game of the series.

Anyway, I agree there's a stunning lot of content from just one game. Then again, that game was huge and loaded with lots of content (just like any other Sakurai game) that also happened to work well in Smash. Most (if not all) Kid Icarus enemies in Smash Run appear to have their assets recycled from the original game (same models and same animations), so I guess it was relatively easy to put many enemies without taking much development time.

The fact he ignores the GB game is because it never released in Japan before the VC release close to Uprising's release.

I also want to mention Fire Emblem. I think that 4 reps for that series is too much. 3 would have been the sweet spot in my opinion, but such a niche series does not deserve more characters than Kirby and StarFox. But I guess that Fire Emblem does have lots of lore and characters, so 4 isn't too bad, if only 2 didn't come from the same game. Plus, it has no items nor Smash Run enemies, so its acceptable.

In Japan, Fire Emblem is far from a niche series, being one of the most popular Nintendo series. More than Metroid, actually.

Over there, Kirby is a lot more popular than it is in the West.

 

[Norm]

I would say he's very biased towards his own games. Three reps from Kirby and Kid Icarus. Game modes and menu layouts borrow heavily from his previous games. Subspace was basically a Kirby game featuring smash characters. So yeah I think he's pretty biased myself.

 

[Rouge]

It's honestly weird to me that Sakurai doesn't plan on making a KI sequel, because with all the KI content in this game, you'd think he's trying to mislead everyone into thinking that KI is one of Nintendo's biggest series when it's really just a recently revamped retro.

To be honest, the idea that clones should have their own spot on the roster instead of being alternate skins/costumes because they vary in minor ways is just dumb. We don't need them to be any different. I mean isn't Alph now confirmed to be referred as Pikmin and Alph? They could have done that with Lucina/Dark Pit/Dr. Mario and everyone would have been happier about it. I know this isn't a thread discussing clones, but my point is that choosing those three was completely arbitrary. At least they aren't being disguised as "Newcomers", so I'll give them that.

If you take Lucina out of consideration, then there really is no FE bias. Since Melee and counting these upcoming games, we have only had 3 FE stages. 3 out of 4 games. As far as we know there still isn't a Fire Emblem item out there and the games often gives you more items than you can spend so it's not like they couldn't think of one. Oh and, again from what we know, there isn't a single FE presence in Smash Run. It would be so easy to have a generic FE bandit, soldier or knight in there. The only aspect of Smash where FE gets significant representation is its number of playables. But it's a series which constantly changing casts of characters. If they were to stick to 2 characters, they'd have to choose between cutting well-liked veterans to replace them with newer characters or staying with the old crew and shutting off the newer games. In Brawl, Roy was expendable because he was a clone and was only playable in one game, but this time, they probably didn't want to cut Ike. And Awakening was always going to have a character representation since it's a very important game for the series. It's really the same kind of bias that has kept Jigglypuff in the cast while other Pokemons came and went. Sure, Donkey Kong is much bigger than FE and it's being undersold in SSB4, but those series are hardly comparable. Like I said, Lucina is a horrible misstep, but the mistake was choosing to make some alts separate characters, rather than having all of them stay alts, it has nothing to do with FE getting preferential treatment.

 

[SuperMii3D]

Holy **** get the barbecue and the grill, for this thread is on fire. Tons of salt too, great for the meat.

Biased? Sure why not, but I always assumed that his series were his favorite, not Mario, the guy who has a crap ton of content in the game. I mean, why bring back Dr. Mario when the latest game in the series didnt even star Dr. Mario himself? Sakurai isnt biased. Hes crazy

 

[Frostwraith]

All of Sakurai's games follow his own style. He recycles a lot of ideas from his previous games. Not necessarily a bad thing, though.

Disregarding Kirby and Kid Icarus stuff, take a look at game mechanics and modes:
- Smash Run = City Trial from Kirby Air Ride in Smash format.
- Fiend's Scale = Fiend's Cauldron from Kid Icarus: Uprisng.
- Challenge board = Recurring element in Sakurai games since Kirby Air Ride. Brawl, KIU had it and this game all have it too.
- Interface design = Present in every Sakurai game since Kirby Air Ride.
- In Kid Icarus: Uprising, a lot of the game mechanics are obviously inspired by Smash. There are also collectible Idols, which are pretty much the same thing as Smash Bros.'s Trophies.

The Kid Icarus: Uprising bias may due to the fact it was the only game he made after Brawl and before Smash 4. He started developing Smash 4 right after finishing KIU. (I've heard some development in SSB4 was already being made when Sakurai was just finishing KIU, but I don't know if it's true.)

To be honest, the idea that clones should have their own spot on the roster instead of being alternate skins/costumes because they vary in minor ways is just dumb. We don't need them to be any different. I mean isn't Alph now confirmed to be referred as Pikmin and Alph? They could have done that with Lucina/Dark Pit/Dr. Mario and everyone would have been happier about it. I know this isn't a thread discussing clones, but my point is that choosing those three was completely arbitrary. At least they aren't being disguised as "Newcomers", so I'll give them that.

If you take Lucina out of consideration, then there really is no FE bias. Since Melee and counting these upcoming games, we have only had 3 FE stages. 3 out of 4 games. As far as we know there still isn't a Fire Emblem item out there and the games often gives you more items than you can spend so it's not like they couldn't think of one. Oh and, again from what we know, there isn't a single FE presence in Smash Run. It would be so easy to have a generic FE bandit, soldier or knight in there. The only aspect of Smash where FE gets significant representation is its number of playables. But it's a series which constantly changing casts of characters. If they were to stick to 2 characters, they'd have to choose between cutting well-liked veterans to replace them with newer characters or staying with the old crew and shutting off the newer games. In Brawl, Roy was expendable because he was a clone and was only playable in one game, but this time, they probably didn't want to cut Ike. And Awakening was always going to have a character representation since it's a very important game for the series. It's really the same kind of bias that has kept Jigglypuff in the cast while other Pokemons came and went. Sure, Donkey Kong is much bigger than FE and it's being undersold in SSB4, but those series are hardly comparable. Like I said, Lucina is a horrible misstep, but the mistake was choosing to make some alts separate characters, rather than having all of them stay alts, it has nothing to do with FE getting preferential treatment.

Ah, the clones.

Well, what I think it happened is that the development team had met all the objectives in time, leaving some extra time. Instead of going to the next phase earlier, they decided to take out the alts and make them full fledged characters as extra unplanned content. Given they're heavily based on existing content, there was much less time spent on them. Time that otherwise would involve the employees doing absolutely nothing, as game development is scheduled. They could have gone on the next part of the plan, but decided to use the spare time to put some extra content that wouldn't require much work and wouldn't be costly.

Instead of having three characters that were just alts, you have the same three characters that bring something new, even if little. I don't see how bad this is. It only shows the development team's competence, dedication and swiftness in meeting the scheduled plan. It's basically the reverse of a delay.

Lucina could have been just a Marth alt and a mere aesthetic change that would be overshadowed by the other characters, but she's now her own character that adds something to the gameplay, even though she's a slightly tweaked Marth.

 

[StriCNYN3]

Yea, the Kirby shenanigans was questionable in Brawl, but the bias is at a whole new level for Smash 4.

I'll just never understand why a character like Wolf, one of the smarter and well requested character choices who was part of one of Nintendo's higher selling and memorable franchises, was so easily kicked out for a character like Dark Pit, a recolor that was practically just made 5 mins ago (my bad Dark Pit fans =P)? What makes Dark Pit, of all clones, more integral to the Smash series than Wolf to out prioritize him?

Also, I'll never understand the thought process behind Dark Samus being an AT, while Lucina and Dark Pit being their own character. Like, what constitutes one being one thing, and not the other?

A more reasonable approach, imo, would be that characters that are essentially established clones even by their own canon should be alt costumes with one of their iconic weapons being one of the custom movesets as a little easter egg or whatever....

 

[Rouge]

The 3DS game WAS delayed, though. Granted, I'm not sure if it's because they were late on their deadlines or another reason such as narrowing the gap between the two release dates, but I don't think we should assume that the developers found themselves spinning on their chair with no work to do.

I know nothing about how hard it is to make characters. I admit I'd be very curious to know how long it takes them to make a new clone such as Lucina vs. how long it takes them to bring back characters such as Lucas or even Wolf.

 

[TopSecretZone]

As far as Sakurai's bias goes, I don't think we can call him biased on Fire Emblem. I don't really give a damn about Fire Emblem at all, but I don't think he's really a fan of the series either. I'm sure it's a not as big a seller as other games, but in recent days it seems to have a growing fanbase in the US and if anything it's probably more popular in Japan. It's also probably got some more new characters since Smash for a while has liked to add modern characters in addition to some classic ones. Like Lucas was almost in Melee and got pushed back for Brawl, or Roy being new around Melee's release. I don't see why Metroid hasn't gotten Anthony Higgs or anything, even if they are stepping away from the Prime era of bounty hunters and toward Other M. DK just had Tropical Freeze and I don't know if any DK newcomers are likely but TF might be TOO soon to include anyone into the game (that's even if they were waiting for a new DK adventure game to get popular before adding anyone. I'd like more DK reps but I'm not sure how likely.)

As far as Kirby, we got two Kirby newcomers in Brawl, and yeah they did everything of merit in SSE, but that's just SSE. Meta Knight and tier jokes aside, Sakurai waited three games to put DeDeDe and Meta Knight into so I'll give him credit there.

Kid Icarus though, I feel as if he's totally biased there. Palutena would've been one thing since she just got a modernized version in Uprising, but spending development time on Dark Pit and giving him altered physics, colors, and possibly moves to some degree seems pretty biased.

Like I said I won't judge the guy because we've gotten some pretty fun games and I think we'd all be biased to some degree, but he's definitely a little biased.

 

[Frostwraith]

Yea, the Kirby shenanigans was questionable in Brawl, but the bias is at a whole new level for Smash 4.

I'll just never understand why a character like Wolf, one of the smarter and well requested character choices who was part of one of Nintendo's higher selling and memorable franchises, was so easily kicked out for a character like Dark Pit, a recolor that was practically just made 5 mins ago (my bad Dark Pit fans =P)? What makes Dark Pit, of all clones, more integral to the Smash series than Wolf to out prioritize him?

If Wolf is cut, he either wasn't initially planned or was scrapped mid-development, possibly even when Dark Pit was just a Pit costume.

Also, I'll never understand the thought process behind Dark Samus being an AT, while Lucina and Dark Pit being their own character. Like, what constitutes one being one thing, and not the other?

A more reasonable approach, imo, would be that characters that are essentially established clones even by their own canon should be alt costumes with one of their iconic weapons being one of the custom movesets as a little easter egg or whatever....

Lucina and Dark Pit were going to be alts for Marth and Pit, respectively. Dark Samus was possibly planned as an Assist Trophy from the beginning.

Also, Samus has a color swap identical to Dark Samus' color scheme.

As far as Sakurai's bias goes, I don't think we can call him biased on Fire Emblem. I don't really give a damn about Fire Emblem at all, but I don't think he's really a fan of the series either. I'm sure it's a not as big a seller as other games, but in recent days it seems to have a growing fanbase in the US and if anything it's probably more popular in Japan.

He actually is a FE fan, which contributed to the inclusion of Marth (and later, Roy) in Melee.

Also, Fire Emblem is among the most popular Nintendo series in Japan, as far as I know.

The 3DS game WAS delayed, though. Granted, I'm not sure if it's because they were late on their deadlines or another reason such as narrowing the gap between the two release dates, but I don't think we should assume that the developers found themselves spinning on their chair with no work to do.

I know nothing about how hard it is to make characters. I admit I'd be very curious to know how long it takes them to make a new clone such as Lucina vs. how long it takes them to bring back characters such as Lucas or even Wolf.

I never heard of a delay on the 3DS version. Sakurai stated the game would release in Summer. September 13th is still considered Summer. Same can't be said about the Western release, but Sakurai never mentioned any region back in April.

Wolf, Lucas, <insert whatever character(s) here> weren't cut for Dark Pit, Lucina and Dr. Mario. That's not how things work. (This assuming Wolf and Lucas are, in fact, gone.)

Sakurai stated they made the veterans from scratch. In other words, they were remade, instead of being ported over from previous games. Some demo players in Japan noted different details, even on model animations, even if the movesets are largely the same.

Making a new and original character or remaking them requires planning. Game design is done first, so that modelling and programming are done afterwards, according to the plans.

As extra content based on pre-existing content, the clones re-use previously done assets that are altered. No extensive planning is necessary. They already had Lucina, Dr. Mario and Dark Pit models to be used as alts. Said alt assets were used in the making of the clones.

Animations were already done, same for hitbox definition. After all, they were going to be alts. All they had to do was to assign different attack proprieties. Perhaps, they could have made a few more new animations for taunts, win poses or maybe one new attack or another, but even those aren't that time-consuming.

Thing is, a lot of the creation process that happens in the making of a new character doesn't happen with clones thanks to their nature as content based on pre-existing assets. To put this in perspective, in Melee, the time spent to make the 6 clones, they could have made only one totally new character. And this is the part they made new models for them, unlike the Smash 4 clones that already had models made for the alts.

Hope I've shed some light on this. Also, this thread is slightly derailed from the original topic. Mind that.

 

[LancerStaff]

I don't understand this comparison. My brother actually plays Skyward Sword on a particular version of Dolphin emulator with an Xbox 360 controller. He maps the sword controls to the right stick. It's literally the exact same as using the HF Blade in MGS2, and works just fine. He's played the game for a good few hours.

If you mean KI:U wouldn't work with analog control with the 3DS's layout, I would agree, but take any modern console controller and it could work just fine. You'd just have to make some adjustments, like adding a quick turn around button to replace spinning the camera 180 on the touch screen.

I don't think he'd do very well against the final boss. It's still not as fluid, which is what I'm getting at.

There is a quick turn button, R by default I believe. Still not good enough. Quick turn doesn't remotely help flying segments either.

- Dark Pit is a separate character
- Fierce Diety Link is not
- Dark Samus is not
- Kid Icarus getting more reps than DK and Metroid

- Palutena having 12 special moves
- Ganondorf is still a clone

- Kirby appearing on almost all character artwork, and everywhere in general (don't think he's THAT famous)
- Smash games being heavily modelled after his previous games

- Pit and Kirby getting knew final smashes
- Half or more of the veterans are keeping the same as their Brawl ones

No, not one hint of bias. At all. Nope.

When were clones at the same level as characters?
Lolthreelinks.
Lolthreesamuses.
Lolcountingclones.
That's her gimmick. What, is Sakurai biased to Punch-Out because of Mac's OHKO punch? Xenoblade because of the Monado modes? No.
Ganondorf is Sakurai's favorite character to play as. That's a different bias.
More famous then Metroid, for sure.
I'm sorry Sakurai wanted to improve on his old ideas instead of come up with completely new ones.
Which they needed? Everybody expected Kirby to get Ultra Sword, and Pit had outright retcons involving his moveset.
Because most of them are fitting the way they were.

Most of what you said is just whining and trying to pile on KI hate, and anybody can see that.

 

[TopSecretZone]

Why give Kirby a new final smash that is essentially another sword-slashy final smash, just bigger and better range while keeping the same final smash for Toon Link and Link instead of giving them a unique one when Kirby's already was unique?

Again, bias here, but I feel like if they're gonna have two Links that would at least have made more sense.

 

[KawaiiPiranha]

I'd say yes based on this alone:

-Dark Link is a costume for Link
-Dark Samus is a costume for Samus
-Blood Falcon is a costume for Captain Falcon
-Alph is a costume for Olimar
-Dark Pit is his own separate character

That being said, I don't really blame him for being a little biased. It's his game after all. But he definitely is going a bit overboard with the Uprising stuff.

 

[Naglfarii]

tbf its a lot easier to negotiate rights to your own game

 

[gamer8]

When did I source VG Chartz?

Please go back to 4chan

Fire Emblem is "bigger than its ever been"? It was on the verge of being discontinued, it took almost two years for Awakening to even get localized in America. If "bigger than its ever been" is supposed to mean "finally selling a decent amount of units", I guess its "bigger than its ever been"

Please go back to 4chan

Ranks as one of the highest 3DS games? No, sorry, wrong. Above 3 millions units would be one of the highest 3DS games

Please go back to 4chan

While VG Chartz isn't 100% accurate, it gives a ballpark estimate, it isn't like these people are pulling numbers out of their ***. Do the math, With only three games, Star Fox sold more than the entire Fire Emblem Series combined. Since you think Wikipedia is so reliable and the gospel of best selling video game franchises, why not take a look?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_game_franchises

Star Fox is listed with 11.5 million units sold, with most of the sales coming from just two games. Fire Emblem, not even worth a mention on this almighty list

Please go back to 4chan

Does the truth hurt? That your waifu/hasubando characters come from niche, much less popular series? From the looks of your avatar (a typical anime/waifu/cartoon image of some character), it appears like you are the person who came from 4chan just to tell me how popular Fire Emblem: Waifu Hasubando Edition is

Please go back to 4chan

How can any of these series be more popular than Donkey Kong when something such as the completely new Kid Icarus: Uprising didn't sell much more than the three year old port Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, as another poster already pointed out?

Please go back to 4chan

Of course, I will be the one to get scolded for being to mean to you, even though you cast the first stone with your snide remark to being with, but anyway

Please go back to 4chan

Reading this was honestly the highlight of my day today. Talk about roasted lol

 

[Ascended]

What people are saying about Kid Icarus being over-represented reminds me of when people complained about Star Fox's representation back in Brawl. As a Star Fox fan who wanted four characters from the series, I'm glad that people think there's a Kid Icarus bias as it takes the hate off of SF, and people will be more willing to accept Wolf back and Krystal in the next game.

Seriously though, I think that Mario deserves the massive representation due to how huge it is on its own. I would have picked Toad over Rosalina, but I think a lot of people will be pleased with Bowser Jr. due to him being a major villain from the series, he's using the Clown Car (which is iconic to me) and he has the Koopalings as alts (Which is throwing old-school Mario fans a bone in my eyes.) Dr. Mario coming back as his own character is a little odd, but since he was planned for Brawl, and people liked him in Melee I don't see a problem with it.

Donkey Kong I agree feels neglected for how big of a series it is. Although I'd like to point out that we still haven't seen all of the items, assists, or even all of the Wii U stages yet. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a third character, especially with the massive success of the Returns games, the fact that Dixie was planned for Brawl, and K. Rool's massive fanbase.

As a huge Zelda fan, I'm honestly fine with how it's being represented. So far, there's five characters, three stages, lots of items, three very popular characters as assists (Ghirahim, Midna, and Skull Kid. Correct me if there's more.) and really, the only other character I can see getting added is Impa, which I do think would be cool.

Metroid is getting some great assists this time around, but I do think there was a missed opportunity for a 3DS stage, and If Ridley turns out to not be playable then that is just a headscratcher to me.

Kirby I think is fine as is. Remember it hasn't had a Wii U stage revealed yet.

I do think it's weird that Wolf was cut, especially with the 64 remake and the new Wii U game on the horizon. The series is gearing up for a comeback so I would think that there would be more Star Fox characters to get people hyped up rather than taking one out.

Pokémon I think deserves a lot of characters as well, what with there being six generations and literally over 700 to choose from.

F-Zero will forever be the most neglected series in Smash, especially since it hasn't even had an official stage revealed.

Mother I think should have Lucas stay, but having just Ness I think is fine since Mother 2 is the most popular and well-known in the series.

Fire Emblem I don't see a problem with there being four characters. The franchise has been around since 1990 and has had 13 games, plus there are a lot of characters to choose from.

Kid Icarus I think it's just a case of a lot of the Uprising assets being easy to port over to Smash when it comes to the items and Smash Run enemies. It does seem odd that Dark Pit would get his own slot, and I can already see some of my friends complaining about it, but in the end it is Sakurai's game and I know if I was in charge of Smash and I had just created a game that had a crap-ton of characters in it, I'd be playing favorites as well.

 

[WrappedInBlack]

Well, he IS making the game... I think he can put in whatever he wants. If he shows favoritism, he has the right to do so.

 

[Cyberfire]

I hate to criticize the man, because he's given me some wonderful games and memories over the years, but this time round in terms of series balance, he's got a few things wrong.

- Kirby, Dedede and Pit get new final smashes whilst characters like Toon Link and Sheik keep theirs
- Kid Icarus getting more Smash Run than everything bar Mario
- Palutena being the only non-Mii character to have original custom moves
- Dark ****

Sakurai went from the man who didn't put Meta Knight in Melee to avoid favouritism, to this.

 

[LIQUID12A]

Only Kid Icarus, really, since Dark Pit.

 

[D-idara]

Yea, the Kirby shenanigans was questionable in Brawl, but the bias is at a whole new level for Smash 4.

I'll just never understand why a character like Wolf, one of the smarter and well requested character choices who was part of one of Nintendo's higher selling and memorable franchises, was so easily kicked out for a character like Dark Pit, a recolor that was practically just made 5 mins ago (my bad Dark Pit fans =P)? What makes Dark Pit, of all clones, more integral to the Smash series than Wolf to out prioritize him?

Also, I'll never understand the thought process behind Dark Samus being an AT, while Lucina and Dark Pit being their own character. Like, what constitutes one being one thing, and not the other?

A more reasonable approach, imo, would be that characters that are essentially established clones even by their own canon should be alt costumes with one of their iconic weapons being one of the custom movesets as a little easter egg or whatever....

Maybe because the development time on Dark Samus would've been higher because Dark Samus ISN'T a Samus clone.

I hate to criticize the man, because he's given me some wonderful games and memories over the years, but this time round in terms of series balance, he's got a few things wrong.

- Kirby, Dedede and Pit get new final smashes whilst characters like Toon Link and Sheik keep theirs
- Kid Icarus getting more Smash Run than everything bar Mario
- Palutena being the only non-Mii character to have original custom moves
- Dark ****

Sakurai went from the man who didn't put Meta Knight in Melee to avoid favouritism, to this.

Replacing any part of a character's name with a swear word IS SUPER MATURE! And Megaman also gets original custom moves, BTW. God, people, stop it with your salt againist great series like Kid Icarus and Fire Emblem, and especially Mario...good god, I'm a huge Metroid fan, but I'm salty at the possibility of Ridley not being in, not at some other character who 'got in' before Ridley, there's no such thing as 'taking up a roster spot', that's just something dumb that people do to blame their disgraces on other franchises' fans like morons.