[Official SSB4 Discussion] --- Nintendo announces 2 new Smash games!

[ihavecoolhats]

I don't mind any new characters that are added, I do hope that some fighters that were taken out return though. Such as Mewtwo.

I Also hope that some old stages are brought back. Stages like Saffron City, Dreamland 64, and poke floats. I think poke floats had to be one of the best stages in melee. Although i know a lot of people will disagree.

 

[i8pie]

So what? Video Games like this sould NEVER, EVER be played alone?

And I heard that the multiplayer aspect New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii worked terribly.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is chaotic but it works.
And no one said video games should never be played alone. But considering that Brawl is built with multiplayer in mind (you know, 4 players), it would be nice to see more emphasis on it. More Multiplayer options would do (special brawl is too vague and only fun occassionally).

 

[HauntedLithium]

I don't mind any new characters that are added, I do hope that some fighters that were taken out return though. Such as Mewtwo.

I Also hope that some old stages are brought back. Stages like Saffron City, Dreamland 64, and poke floats. I think poke floats had to be one of the best stages in melee. Although i know a lot of people will disagree.

I agree, Poke floats was great, and stored many of my childhood memories *teardrop*

 

[UberMario]

^ the fact Nintendo had to use Sonic The Fighters as a reference only showed what little imagination they had for his moveset..

I think this was actually a brilliant move, why wouldn't you reference Sonic's first fighter in his SSB moveset? I interpret it as being creative because plenty of characters (including ones like Mario) just have random physical moves added onto their moveset without being related to the games. Sonic, on the other hand, usees moves ENTIRELY from his series in some way, shape, or form, and mostly from the two fighters in the series, Sonic the Fighters and Sonic Battle.

While they could have done more to make his side B, down B, neutral aerial, and dash different, the latter three are perfectly accepable. Side B really should have been something else, but like you said, Sonic didn't have much going for him in a 2D plane of gameplay.

For those that don't know, his jab (punch rush until he connects with something, and then the "punch kick" move), dash (super spin dash, technically from Sonic 1, but it only goes a fixed distance like in StF), forward smash (windup punch), up tilt (skip kick), down tilt (leg throw), down smash (spiral spin), neutral aerial (air spin), back aerial (leg throw [in air]), forward aerial (emerald dive), pummel (Kick), down throw (head spin), and wall jump (wall jump) all come from Sonic the Fighters.

The few that didn't were the Homing Attack (which is from Sonic 3D Blast), Spring Jump (from the original), down aerial (which is based off his falling animation in the Sonic Advance series), Spin Dash (>B, Which is based off of how his super spin dash behaves in Sonic Battle, complete with the ability to bounce in place), Spin Charge (Sonic 2), Up Aerial (which is based on the flipping Sonic does in Sonic 3 when he's launched off a spring), forward throw (Sonic Battle), back throw (also from Sonic Battle), and down throw (which is him just ducking under his foe, with an exaggerated body shape [kind of like how Mario's fist grows when he does an F-air])


Here are Sonic's moves in that game, for proof.

His running animation was another great nod to the older games. The "figure eight" he creates by running in place was actually how his spin dash looked in Sonic CD when you charged in place (like in his taunt) or if you were running. His crouch, jump, skid, idle (foot tapping), and edge animation all come from Sonic 1 aswell. The effects used on his side B and down B moves are based off of the ones you see in Sonic Advance, you can tell by the "spikes" in the glowing effect.

The developers did their homework with Sonic.

Also, I believe that Wolf was made after Sonic, he's the only character in the game that doesn't have a beta/final victory theme directory.

 

[Shorts]

Hey guys, got back from a like, three day Speech and Debate Tournament. Glad to see a lot of fimliar faces back here.

Anyways I suppose I should start off with what I really want to talk about. With most franchises, i see really TWO possible character selections, and most of you just brought up one. Either the one you like more, or believe is going to be in SSB4. So I guess I could start here.
[Toad vs. Bowser Jr.] Really, I get it. You guys like toad, he has been around for ages. He is one of the "Big 8" or whatever that is. He has been playable a few times. I understand his importance. But you can't forget the growing popularity of Bowser Jr. You don't even see a Mario game be made without him as a semi-boss. You see plenty of toads in these games too, but does frequency really trump importance? That's what it all comes down to for me.

[Mewtwo vs. Lucario] Weird, I know but really we all know a fifth gen is getting in, what we don't see is if Lucario is getting "Chopped" hahaha...Foodnetwork refrence. You can't forget that Mewtwo was PLANNED for brawl, and I'm certain that without the late addition of Sonic he would be there. This planned inclusion may strike you as a miniscule thing. But it really isn't in the designers/creators eyes. I mean they planned this character, probably had everything planned. And even began work, but dropped him. Between Lucario and Mewtwo, this is definitely a lot closer than you think.

[Skyward Sword vs. Past characters] Really, I can't tell where the LOZ universe i going. I don't even know If Toon Link will stick around. We have Toon Link, Toon Zelda, Tetra, Midna, Vaati, Majora, ect. as well as skywars sword characters. I have no idea where this one is going. I can guess that the roster will end of being Link, Zelda/Sheik, Ganondorf, Old character, new character. That's all i can give you.

Anyone know anything about Mother or Fire emblem? Someone please enlighten me on the likelyhood of these characters.

Black Knight vs. Lyn vs. Roy vs Caeda.

and

Paula vs. Claus vs. Ninten

And of course.... you know I like to get in on the third party action.... ;P

My picks include Bomberman, Megaman, Geno, and.......Sora.. I do not mind Sonic staying, so long as he gets some sort of change, but what I do mind is snake. OUT! Goodbye. We don't need him. I would prefer to see this Megaman and either Bomberman, Geno or a fixed Sonic.

Let's just hope Sakurai follows Miyamoto's advice this time and just focus on the multiplayer.

Amen.

 

[i8pie]

They could have one series have more than four characters. For Mario, they could add Bowser Jr. and Toad, which would bring the Mario series up to a 6.

That seems but large considering that Melee had a 5-character franchise (Mario, including Dr. Mario) and Brawl (sort of) had a 6-character franchise (Pokemon series, counting Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard), it doesn't seem unreasonable to have one of Nintendo's most important franchises have more than four.

 

[Shorts]

They could have one series have more than four characters. For Mario, they could add Bowser Jr. and Toad, which would bring the Mario series up to a 6.

That seems but large considering that Melee had a 5-character franchise (Mario, including Dr. Mario) and Brawl (sort of) had a 6-character franchise (Pokemon series, counting Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard), it doesn't seem unreasonable to have one of Nintendo's most important franchises have more than four.

I whole heartedly agree, but really I would love to see maybe five slots for the big three. One more for some of the medium sized franchises, and then a more new franchises, third parties, and retros.

 

[flyinfilipino]

Just to let you know, this is not the first time a game has done this. Soul Caliber is all about adding characters from other properties. Tekken has done it too. And naturally, those characters get removed because they are guest, not staples of the series. Silly as it seems, people don't think about other games that do this. They assume they'll be kept because "people like them." People liked Link too in Soul Caliber 2.

The difference between Soul Calibur and Smash, though, is that in Smash, the characters all come from different franchises anyway, whereas the one or two guest characters in a Soul Calibur game are obviously out of place compared to the rest of the cast.

 

[asia_catdog_blue]

They could have one series have more than four characters. For Mario, they could add Bowser Jr. and Toad, which would bring the Mario series up to a 6.

That seems but large considering that Melee had a 5-character franchise (Mario, including Dr. Mario) and Brawl (sort of) had a 6-character franchise (Pokemon series, counting Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard), it doesn't seem unreasonable to have one of Nintendo's most important franchises have more than four.

The way I see, they probablyu add 9 Mario & Pokemon characters just because of the series' popularity. I mean, who gives Nintendo the most money?

And Shortiecanbrawl, who asked for Paula? Most of the bigger suggestions from the MOTHER Trilogy were Ninten(Because the first MOTHER Title in a bit neglected), the Masked Man(alter ego of Lucas' Brother), and Porky Minch(Big Bad).

Are fan freaks still asking for the generic, nameless Balloon Fighter to be in the next title?

 

[SmashChu]

The difference between Soul Calibur and Smash, though, is that in Smash, the characters all come from different franchises anyway, whereas the one or two guest characters in a Soul Calibur game are obviously out of place compared to the rest of the cast.

Won't say too much on this....

Smash brothers is still deemed "Nintendo All Stars" so anyone not from Nintendo is outside of that. Those characters are still out. Also, Sakurai calls them guest characters.

I suppose it only makes sense that Assist Trophies associated with guest characters appear concurrently with those guest characters, doesn’t it.

He may make mention of it in other spots, but I'm not sure where those are.

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/items/assist/assist16.html

 

[flyinfilipino]

That is true; however, we'll only see for sure how Sakurai wants it to work when the next game comes out.

 

[Fatmanonice]

So what? Video Games like this sould NEVER, EVER be played alone?

That's not what he means. A couple of months after Brawl was released in the US, Sakurai said that about 3/4's of Brawl's development focused on the SSE. Brawl's development was roughly 2 years long so 1 1/2 years of that time. To put this further into perspective, Sakurai also mentioned that nearly all the stages, characters, and items were finished by E3 2006 (with more than half being completed by the beginning of 2006) and he estimated the online play features took up probably about 20% of the development time. That left a mere 5% of the development for everything else. If he were absolutely correct in his estimates (which are probably off), that left a little more than a month's worth of development for characters, stages, trophies, stickers, items, multiplayer, and all the other one player modes except the SSE. The issue here wasn't the fact that there were 1-Player Modes, it's the issue that such a huge percentage of the development was focused on Modes that most people just play to quickly get all the characters and stages for multiplayer. The appeal of Smash Bros overwhelmingly comes from its multiplayer so that's where most of the focus should be during its development.

 

[ryuu seika]

And of course.... you know I like to get in on the third party action.... ;P
My picks include Bomberman, Megaman, Geno, and.......Sora.. I do not mind Sonic staying, so long as he gets some sort of change, but what I do mind is snake. OUT! Goodbye. We don't need him. I would prefer to see this Megaman and either Bomberman, Geno or a fixed Sonic.

I don't really know Sora or Geno but I think I can agree with the rest. They should keep Sonic only if they fix him up majorly, with Sonic Battle and Black knight stuff. Ditch Snake entirely. Sure, it's nice that Sakurai takes requests from friends but he just doesn't fit. Megaman should be a definite and then I agree that we shouldn't have more than three.

I'm curious as to how people see Bomberman working. If they could make him work, I think he could be a great character but I don't see where his movelist would come from.

I would have loved to have Lloyd as character three but I honestly think they missed their chance with him. Brawl was the last possible opportunity as he's not going to get another game outside of the tales of the world stuff.

 

[DarkShadow20]

Here's a moveset for Bomberman. It's not great, but it's pretty easy to come up with one for him.

B: Bomb Lay- Pulls out a bomb, and lays it right next to him. Can hold B to pump up the bomb and make it bigger(from Bomberman 64).

B>- Bomb Throw- Throw's a bomb forward. If it hits someone it stuns them briefly.

Bv- Bomb Kick- Sets a bomb on the ground then kicks it forward. You can press Bv again to stop the bomb.

B^- Bomber Copter(From Bomberman Hero)- Copter blades come out of Bomberman's antennae, and propels him upwards. He then gradually falls.

Final Smash- Revenge Bomber- Lots of Bombermen appear in little pods and start throwing bombs all over the place.

 

[Big-Cat]

You know what I find funny, with all this moveset lists, I hardly, if ever, see anyone describe a character's ideal playstyle.

 

[DekuBoy]

Are fan freaks still asking for the generic, nameless Balloon Fighter to be in the next title?

Yes. And his name is Balloon Fighter. He's hardly nameless.

 

[DarkShadow20]

You know what I find funny, with all this moveset lists, I hardly, if ever, see anyone describe a character's ideal playstyle.

And what would Bomberman's, a character who almost exclusively uses bombs hence his name, ideal playstyle be?

 

[Life]

^In a nutshell, like a lighter version of Snake.

 

[DarkShadow20]

That's pretty much how I made him in my moveset. He's used different kinds of bombs, so I suppose that could work in place of him kicking or throwing the bombs. Maybe one of his B moves could change the type of bomb he uses. There's really not much else he does.

 

[Big-Cat]

And what would Bomberman's, a character who almost exclusively uses bombs hence his name, ideal playstyle be?

You tell me. Take a look at characters in other fighters to get an idea.

Or, think of it like this:

What is my character's main strategy? What are his offensive and defensive options? Is he better suited for long, mid, or close range combat? There's more to it than this, but it's a start.

 

[UberMario]

That's not what he means. A couple of months after Brawl was released in the US, Sakurai said that about 3/4's of Brawl's development focused on the SSE. Brawl's development was roughly 2 years long so 1 1/2 years of that time. To put this further into perspective, Sakurai also mentioned that nearly all the stages, characters, and items were finished by E3 2006 (with more than half being completed by the beginning of 2006)

If this is true, then I'm kind of disappointed. They could have made a lot of money just selling the Subspace Emissary as a second (maybe $20) game that was a spinoff of SSB and have released Brawl in late 2006/early 2007 (giving an extra half-of-a-year for wifi development).

 

[Big-Cat]

Hey, I think I might've found the inspiration for Peach's Up B.

 

[Arcadenik]

@ Kuma

That's possible if that game came out before Melee... or maybe Sakurai actually played Super Mario RPG? Check out between 6:00 and 6:15 in this video.

 

[Big-Cat]

Gem Fighter came out in 1997 so it's totally possible. And if Sakurai got it from Super Mario RPG (that's be some hardcore research), it doesn't explain the attack property. Sakura's Shouken is a multihit uppercut attack just like Peach's Parasol. Of course, it might just be a coincidence, but the inspiration wouldn't surprise me.

The GIF above shows a silly super version of her Shouken. Why there's an umbrella is beyond me.

 

[Thunder_slash]

If this is true, then I'm kind of disappointed. They could have made a lot of money just selling the Subspace Emissary as a second (maybe $20) game that was a spinoff of SSB and have released Brawl in late 2006/early 2007 (giving an extra half-of-a-year for wifi development).

If that´s the case, I think they can do this:
1.- Keep storyline and 90% of stages, and add a few ones, but with same mechanic.(This would take a year, I think)
2.- Then, Sakurai MUST focus on gameplay and online features(I would like to see melee´s gamespeed).They should work in this for a year and half, maybe two.
3.- Check everything before the game is launched for ensuring a great gaming expprience.

Sakurai must improve the game in some aspects (speed is the most important, i think), and for that, he must focus on gameplay.

 

[SmashChu]

That's not what he means. A couple of months after Brawl was released in the US, Sakurai said that about 3/4's of Brawl's development focused on the SSE. Brawl's development was roughly 2 years long so 1 1/2 years of that time. To put this further into perspective, Sakurai also mentioned that nearly all the stages, characters, and items were finished by E3 2006 (with more than half being completed by the beginning of 2006) and he estimated the online play features took up probably about 20% of the development time. That left a mere 5% of the development for everything else. If he were absolutely correct in his estimates (which are probably off), that left a little more than a month's worth of development for characters, stages, trophies, stickers, items, multiplayer, and all the other one player modes except the SSE. The issue here wasn't the fact that there were 1-Player Modes, it's the issue that such a huge percentage of the development was focused on Modes that most people just play to quickly get all the characters and stages for multiplayer. The appeal of Smash Bros overwhelmingly comes from its multiplayer so that's where most of the focus should be during its development.

Got a quote?

Also, Sakurai said the roster was done in 2006, meaning he had chosen the characters.

 

[Arcadenik]

@ Kuma

Well, one of Peach's random side smash moves is the frying pan, which is one of Peach's weapons in Super Mario RPG. It is the only game where Peach ever uses a frying pan as a weapon. Peach also slaps in Super Mario RPG and it is the only game where Peach ever slaps enemies. So, if that is hardcore research on Sakurai's part, then perhaps Sakurai got the umbrella floating from Super Mario RPG, too.

 

[Thunder_slash]

That´s true, and there is another information. Super Mario RPG is not a 3rd party game, because the publisher is Nintendo and the characters are of Mario´s universe. Since is a 2nd party game, we must check if the rights of characters like Geno are of SquareEnix.

 

[Big-Cat]

When I was saying he did some hardcore research, I mean that he put something in her moveset that has only appeared for 15 seconds in her history. He was really looking for material.

Anyway, about that possible SF inspriation.

@SmashChu
He may have decided it in 2006, but evidence in the scrapped files suggest that the characters weren't finished at the time. By finish, I mean that they could've been completely playable at the time with the only changes later on being balance changes with maybe some different attacks added in. Based on Wolf's data, the roster was NOT finished in 2006 considering that only he and Sonic (which we know came in 2007) were the only ones without a unique victory sound file.

 

[Arcadenik]

That´s true, and there is another information. Super Mario RPG is not a 3rd party game, because the publisher is Nintendo and the characters are of Mario´s universe. Since is a 2nd party game, we must check if the rights of characters like Geno are of SquareEnix.

Umm.... no, there is no need to. We all know Geno belongs to Square Enix, not Nintendo. The end credits in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga say Geno is owned by Square Enix, not Nintendo.

Why do you think there are many fan rosters with Geno placed on the third party column instead of the Mario series column? I find it ridiculous and insane that there are some people who would want Geno to represent SquareEnix! Geno, out of all people! And he was in only one game and he was not even the main character, Mario is! What about someone from Final Fantasy and/or Dragon Quest? It makes more sense to add a Square Enix character from one of Square Enix's two biggest franchises than it is to add a Square Enix character from a 15-year-old Nintendo/SquareEnix game. But alas, that's blind fanboyism for you.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Got a quote?

Also, Sakurai said the roster was done in 2006, meaning he had chosen the characters.

I'm sure it was more than that given how nearly half of the characters had their basic data transferred from Melee. As KumaOso said, Sonic and Wolf were probably the only exceptions of those not completely or mostly completed by the end of 2006.

As for the quote, I'm looking for it. Given it's nearly 3 years old, it may take awhile.

 

[Big-Cat]

What do you mean by transfer? You mean to say that the frame data and such existed for a lot of characters so there wasn't a need for brainstorming for them?

I distinctly remember the quote you're referring to, Fatman. I remember seeing it on Destructoid and/or Kotaku, but I've tried searching for it. I think he mentioned the time percentages around the time of or during GDC 2008.

 

[Fatmanonice]

What do you mean by transfer? You mean to say that the frame data and such existed for a lot of characters so there wasn't a need for brainstorming for them?

I distinctly remember the quote you're referring to, Fatman. I remember seeing it on Destructoid and/or Kotaku, but I've tried searching for it. I think he mentioned the time percentages around the time of or during GDC 2008.

I mean they didn't have to build them from the ground up.

I'm going through several articles right now and I didn't notice this one from last month:

http://www.1up.com/news/masahiro-sakurai-reflects-super-smash

I knew Melee was a rush job and was finished in a little more than a year but no vacations/weekends and an average of 4 hours of sleep a night for 13 months? God, no wonder Sakurai had to pretty much be pulled by the hair to develop Brawl.

 

[Big-Cat]

I'd love to see him put that much effort in the next one, just make the learning curve consistent instead of making some things overly simple and others overly complex like in Melee.

Let's just hope the higher ups learned to NOT do that kind of stunt that they did with Melee again.

 

[asia_catdog_blue]

Would it be a dumb suggestion if I ask for the 3 titles to be remade in any variation?

Something like, "Super Smash Bros: Champion Edition?"

 

[Thunder_slash]

Umm.... no, there is no need to. We all know Geno belongs to Square Enix, not Nintendo. The end credits in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga say Geno is owned by Square Enix, not Nintendo.

Why do you think there are many fan rosters with Geno placed on the third party column instead of the Mario series column? I find it ridiculous and insane that there are some people who would want Geno to represent SquareEnix! Geno, out of all people! And he was in only one game and he was not even the main character, Mario is! What about someone from Final Fantasy and/or Dragon Quest? It makes more sense to add a Square Enix character from one of Square Enix's two biggest franchises than it is to add a Square Enix character from a 15-year-old Nintendo/SquareEnix game. But alas, that's blind fanboyism for you.

Thanks for the info. I haven´t completed m&l superstar saga, yet, so i didnt has idea of that.

By the other hand, and for a SquareEnix representant, we will have to check most of the company games in the nintendo console.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I'm having no luck finding the article which is annoying me spectacularly because I don't want it to seem like I made it up. I couldn't find it on IGN, Destructoid, or Kotaku so I'm starting to think it was from a foreign site someone translated. What's the name of that one French Nintendo magazine? I may check there next.

@ Kuma: There's a side of me that thinks that experience with developing Melee might have jaded him a little bit which is why he doesn't want to make another game like it. In terms of balance in Brawl, things have become better as time has marched on. Metaknight and Snake are still the dominating characters but camping, chain grabs, and spamming aren't nearly as bad as when the game first came out. For example, I think the drop of effectiveness of Game and Watch, ROB, and King Dedede in tournaments overtime has shown this. In the end, Brawl's bettered itself aside from the borderline brokeness of Metaknight and Snake and tripping (which people have hacked around anyways).

@ asia catdog blue: That's what hacks are for. As noted in the article I posted, Sakurai doesn't see the series as that competitive and has historically noted that he doesn't like to make sequels/remakes simply for the sake of making sequels/remakes. He has also said that he likes to have each of his games have many distinct characteristics that seperate them from each other.

 

[DarkShadow20]

Umm.... no, there is no need to. We all know Geno belongs to Square Enix, not Nintendo. The end credits in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga say Geno is owned by Square Enix, not Nintendo.

Why do you think there are many fan rosters with Geno placed on the third party column instead of the Mario series column? I find it ridiculous and insane that there are some people who would want Geno to represent SquareEnix! Geno, out of all people! And he was in only one game and he was not even the main character, Mario is! What about someone from Final Fantasy and/or Dragon Quest? It makes more sense to add a Square Enix character from one of Square Enix's two biggest franchises than it is to add a Square Enix character from a 15-year-old Nintendo/SquareEnix game. But alas, that's blind fanboyism for you.

I have Geno as a 3rd party character in my roster so I could add Bowser Jr. for the Mario group. And also the only other real possibilities for a Square rep are Crono or a generic FF character like Black Mage or Moogle. Cloud's only been in one game on a Nintendo console and it was just a cameo. Geno is by far the most popular choice.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Geno's not going to happen. Geno's last game was 15 years ago and despite Nintendo and Square Enix now being back on good terms, there has been no attempts at another Super Mario RPG despite fan demand. Unless Geno's popularity skyrockets or a new SMRPG is made in the next couple of years, his chances are close to non-existant. On the upside with how far hacking Brawl has come in only about two years, it really doesn't matter anymore who does and doesn't make it anymore and by the time SSB4 comes out, hackers will be even better so hacking SSB4 will be figured out that much faster.

 

[i8pie]

They should have a Slime from Dragon Quest as representative for Square Enix. He can work as a mascot but they would still have enough to work from as there is a game on DS with a slime as main character (and you get to use a hunking big tank) called Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime.