lordvaati
Smash Master
This is just something that has kinda come in my head over the last several years. I am not a developer(yet) so my arguments may risk being naive or selfish sounding, but I may as well say it to you lot because I trust you that much:
to me, the best way to make a game that is a tribute to the legacy of Smash...is to not make Smash.
Odd as it sounds, that is how I feel the best chance of getting a success in the world will come to fruition. The reason why in a nutshell is pretty much this-of all the genres of videogames, the fighting genre is probably the one that thrives the most on competition to grow. The same can be said of Smash, as in my mind the only way the subgenre it made can fully expand is to go beyond Smash.
Of course one could argue that many times there have been many failures, but in some cases these can easily be deciphered-DreamMix's failure lies in that it only focused on the party aspect of the work and never had anything for the other niches that make Smash so engaging. The more recent Playstation All-Stars actually tried to be big, but the people who think it failed because "it wasn't Smash enough" are off the mark-low budget combined with middling support from Sony themselves on top of many other issues(I followed the rocky road that was that game from back when it leaked in late 2011 to it's essential end in 2013, so would know).
But that's the big issue-Smash s the king of it's own country with little to no residents, and as such the only one left to compete against....is itself. This may be a core as to why Smash debates are more seriously drawn out compared to other fighters, as while SF has rivals like KOF and Guilty Gear or whatever, Smash's only real worthy foes have been it's own installments. This is probably why some of the ardent fans don't regard other games as entries in the series but almost different games altogether. And for a scene with newcomers growing up with similar mentalities it is almost inevitabe that many try and gravitate with making games with that mindset, even moreso with the success of Project M.
No surprise either-Project M is a tournament favorite, was one of the biggest mods in years and created a psuedo legacy of it's own. But as we learned the hard way, there is only so far they could go-six years of devotion, but it was cut short when they reached a point where people's lives are in jeopardy.
And that's why I'm posting this now, because I'm starting to see similar traits with some of the other fan projects here, some aiming for more ambitious heights then Project M. I feel to create a legacy, you need to create something that is truly your own, because in the end here is the facts:
-Smash Bros is an IP, and not just any IP but a fusion of dozens of other IPs by just as many companies. And YOU DID NOT CREATE A SINGLE ONE.
-Smash Bros. is not some public domain IP that can be used at will like Tetris(kinda) is. that means you are limited in your funding options.
-Project M was not built form the ground up. It was built using the skeleton from Brawl as a base, and even then it took YEARS before it became as polished as it is now. In comparison almost everyone here IS building their works from the ground up, which is drastically harder from a standpoint.
This of course doe not mean you should not try to make mods like PM or fangames like SSBC-it does mean however that you need to know your limits. If you are working on something that is based with Smash Bros. characters there is only so far you can go with said projects-the last thing I wanna see is people who are immensely talented spending all their lives only devoted to making an emulation of someone else's work instead of building upon it to make their own.
I said something similar to this to Dan Fornace(creator of Rivals of Aether) at an event he was invited to a couple of weeks back and I applauded him for actually "getting it", that the true way for Smash Bros to grow is for other works that are not Smash but get what makes Smash click exist. That is why I lamented the failure of Air Dash Online, an attempt by others who actually "got it" as well.I mean fighting games would not have gotten far if everything was literally "Street Fighter II with X twist for the cast of 8 characters!", and that lack of true diversity is part of the reason why the Madden franchise has stagnated(another series that has a semi monopoly on it's genre, though that's more on EA's head.) I mean a good chunk of us here have been in the Smash scene long enough to know the workings of this game genre, and we have the knowhow to make something that fits our visions...but Is it not better to use that to make an original work that leaves it's own legacy rather then just an existing one with few tweaks to meet ideals?
to me, the best way to make a game that is a tribute to the legacy of Smash...is to not make Smash.
Odd as it sounds, that is how I feel the best chance of getting a success in the world will come to fruition. The reason why in a nutshell is pretty much this-of all the genres of videogames, the fighting genre is probably the one that thrives the most on competition to grow. The same can be said of Smash, as in my mind the only way the subgenre it made can fully expand is to go beyond Smash.
Of course one could argue that many times there have been many failures, but in some cases these can easily be deciphered-DreamMix's failure lies in that it only focused on the party aspect of the work and never had anything for the other niches that make Smash so engaging. The more recent Playstation All-Stars actually tried to be big, but the people who think it failed because "it wasn't Smash enough" are off the mark-low budget combined with middling support from Sony themselves on top of many other issues(I followed the rocky road that was that game from back when it leaked in late 2011 to it's essential end in 2013, so would know).
But that's the big issue-Smash s the king of it's own country with little to no residents, and as such the only one left to compete against....is itself. This may be a core as to why Smash debates are more seriously drawn out compared to other fighters, as while SF has rivals like KOF and Guilty Gear or whatever, Smash's only real worthy foes have been it's own installments. This is probably why some of the ardent fans don't regard other games as entries in the series but almost different games altogether. And for a scene with newcomers growing up with similar mentalities it is almost inevitabe that many try and gravitate with making games with that mindset, even moreso with the success of Project M.
No surprise either-Project M is a tournament favorite, was one of the biggest mods in years and created a psuedo legacy of it's own. But as we learned the hard way, there is only so far they could go-six years of devotion, but it was cut short when they reached a point where people's lives are in jeopardy.
And that's why I'm posting this now, because I'm starting to see similar traits with some of the other fan projects here, some aiming for more ambitious heights then Project M. I feel to create a legacy, you need to create something that is truly your own, because in the end here is the facts:
-Smash Bros is an IP, and not just any IP but a fusion of dozens of other IPs by just as many companies. And YOU DID NOT CREATE A SINGLE ONE.
-Smash Bros. is not some public domain IP that can be used at will like Tetris(kinda) is. that means you are limited in your funding options.
-Project M was not built form the ground up. It was built using the skeleton from Brawl as a base, and even then it took YEARS before it became as polished as it is now. In comparison almost everyone here IS building their works from the ground up, which is drastically harder from a standpoint.
This of course doe not mean you should not try to make mods like PM or fangames like SSBC-it does mean however that you need to know your limits. If you are working on something that is based with Smash Bros. characters there is only so far you can go with said projects-the last thing I wanna see is people who are immensely talented spending all their lives only devoted to making an emulation of someone else's work instead of building upon it to make their own.
I said something similar to this to Dan Fornace(creator of Rivals of Aether) at an event he was invited to a couple of weeks back and I applauded him for actually "getting it", that the true way for Smash Bros to grow is for other works that are not Smash but get what makes Smash click exist. That is why I lamented the failure of Air Dash Online, an attempt by others who actually "got it" as well.I mean fighting games would not have gotten far if everything was literally "Street Fighter II with X twist for the cast of 8 characters!", and that lack of true diversity is part of the reason why the Madden franchise has stagnated(another series that has a semi monopoly on it's genre, though that's more on EA's head.) I mean a good chunk of us here have been in the Smash scene long enough to know the workings of this game genre, and we have the knowhow to make something that fits our visions...but Is it not better to use that to make an original work that leaves it's own legacy rather then just an existing one with few tweaks to meet ideals?
Last edited: