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

[Mario the Jumpman]

What about Smash DS stages?

 

[Clownbot]

Battlefield
Distant Planet
Final Destination
Flat Zone
Halberd
Luigi's Mansion
Lylat Cruise
Norfair
Port Town Aero Dive
Skyworld
WarioWare, Inc.
Yoshi's Island
Green Greens
Jungle Japes
Onett
Pokemon Stadium
Hyrule Temple

Golden Sun Stage
Starfy stage
Punch-Out stage

This was made based on N88's roster.

 

[ShinoandtheBallonFighter]

@Kuma

Are you aware of the concept of a weighted average? Basically, the game should be more casual-focused because more casuals play. That's not to say it should be completely devoid of competitive influence, but we don't need 5,000 ATs, Wavedashing, and the like. I would be happy if we got larger hitstun, and maybe a few other slight physics modifications, tops.

Brawl has more AT's (or just as many) because A competetive community will always arise, and will always find a way to make a game better for themselves. Ironically, the simpler a game gets, the more precise and impossible the AT"s get, making the schism between the two skill levels greater, not lesser.

I don't see the problem with having a game like Melee. Not many casuals complained the game was too hard (unless they played against a player better than them, which newsflash, still happens in any game you play ever: The better player will win).

I'm not saying that causals shouldn't be catered to, that's all fine and good, but simply making a game superficially easier inversly makes the competetive players play the game outside the normal parameters further than game with mutually beneficial qualities, like melee.

 

[Big-Cat]

@DekuBoy
Chu has been hating on Kuma for being a SF player and that he couldn't understand Smash because he mostly plays SF (thats just by me glancing at their arguments, I could be wrong). My argument for games like street fighter is that they are more complicated games, but they are popular nontheless. I don't understand why people say that they can't get the hang of smash when they can get the hang of SF, which is a bit harder to play.

Name of the game: You must recover.

Let me explain all of this. This mostly started when I finally got into SF when SFIV came out and understood the mechanics of the game. Prior to this, I had been an avid Smash player since I was 9 and stopped playing Brawl in about Sept. '08 because the game got boring for me.

When I got SFIV, I felt like I had been missing out on fighting games all these years. I liked the game, despite its flaws (looking at you DPxxFADC->Ultra), enough that I'd love to see some features from the game put into the next game. The very day this happened, I was not so much concerned about the Smash series in terms of characters, I was afraid of its future without much of a competitive environment due to shallowed out gameplay.

Since that day, I get backlash for proposing mechanics from SF and other fighters and I constantly get tossed the casual player and sales cards.

As for some people who can't get the hang of one or the other, this is because Smash is a radical departure from the traditional genre and requires different skill sets than other fighters even though those fighters may have exclusive skills.

Ridley's only drawback is wheter Mr. Sakurai deems him worthy of the roster. That is pretty darn good.

To some extent, you can apply this to all characters. The only things really limiting characters are if Sakurai could see them working and if he knows the character.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Ridley's only drawback is wheter Mr. Sakurai deems him worthy of the roster. That is pretty darn good.

From what he said shortly after GDC last year, he finds Ridley worthy but he doesn't know how to make him practical as a playable character yet. From the way he talked, it sounded like he looked into it but it took longer than he expected and had to move on to other things. I'll admit, Ridley will be difficult to make practical while keeping him in character. If anything, he'll probably be the biggest character challenge of SSB4 if Sakurai decides to try again with him.

 

[Thirdkoopa]

This isn't directly related to this, but it somehow reminded me that the online waiting room should work just like training mode (IE practice against CPU instead of Sandbag).

I support this post.

Anyway, adding an auto-recovery isn't that big a deal. The game can tell the difference between when you've tried to recover and when you just fall like an idiot, all it has to do is fly you back to the stage if it recognizes you fell. It's not much different than being P2 in SSE, you can still die by being launched in any direction.

It´s not that It´s a big deal, It´s that there´s the possiblity that people just keep using that instead of actually ever learning which people see as annoying.

I kind of understand where this comes from, as If you´re new to smash and playing with some friends who are veterans, It won´t be fun to wait out for 2 minutes each match while two of your friends go on and on running all over the stage. I was thinking of having something above your character to help guide possible buttos to press, but that´s probably just me.

It's a matter of "why use Porky?" If he wanted a gigantic boss specifically, he could've used a King Dodongo or Heavy Lobster or whatever. If he wanted a Mother series boss specifically, he could've whipped up a giant Belch or the Magicant Dragon or something smaller like a Starman.

But he picked Porky, a character with roughly the same relevance to his series that Ridley has to Metroid. It just stands out too much to be considered something of a throwaway like Petey or Rayquaza.

Actually overall in the series, Giygas is the ridley. Pokey (Porky in his M3 form) And Claus just happen to be really lucky that Giygas can´t work.

Yeah, there´s tons of characters he may have wanted, but I don´t really know. The only thing I can come up with to justify It being evolving is the fact that despite him being thrown in there is the fact that he´s a villian to both characters, but even then, we have the freaking pig king statue to throw on that.

I think It´s more on that Sakurai was worried that If he threw pokey/claus that people would be awkwarded out by 3 characters while other franchises are left in the dust, and that Itoi can possibly change his mind (Like, 1% Chance?) And that pokey is generally as awkward as Ridley is (Well, his EB Mech would probably induce less problems) as he already gave the series Lucas this time around. Also the Claus Alt-Costume is pretty note-worthy on this theory, but that was already going to probably happen anyways.

So time seems to be the waiting factor here.

Touching on that 3 characters part as well, It really stinks that mother is such a small franchise, as If It wasn´t (And people wouldn´t have to pirate/Pay 80$/Learn japanese or whatever) I´m sure Claus and Pokey would be seeing a lot more in the request bin. Oh well. Can´t really blame people for wanting to see more of other series first.

No, the Dr. Mario thing was a suggestion from a fan that he liked. And he's the only one choosing for Pokemon and FE.

Oh. Still, Roy anyone? The apparent influence that the Pokemon Co has according to said magazine a few pages back?

Regardless, It doesn´t really matter considering that whether It´s mainly Sakurai, Sakurai and a few other dudes, or The entire develop department, they still have say and there isn´t really much we can do on it asides from suggestions. (SONIC FOR BRAWL)

Wario is still about Wario fighting Captain Syrup for money and exploiting his friends.

And partying having hangover´ with them. (WarioWare)

Also I lol´d at the descriptions. Anyways, Wario is still one I´ve been questioned about, but keeping this post on the mother suggestions and other stuff...

The bar for relevance with Mario is absurdly high, to the point that people aren't even sure whether Toad and Bowser Jr. are good enough for playability.

While I like both characters...

I think It´s more of the fact that they haven´t really made there staple much to the entire series as a whole. Toad in the past long years is getting...Uh...NSMBWii...Yay? And bowser jr´s only gigantic role was in sunshine.

Honestly, If you take sales out of being in the picture which we´ve been with our mother discussion (And only a part of who gets completed first) You do realize that It´s actually pretty fine the way it is (Unless one of the two starts appearing in more main roles)

If You won't find very many people here who understand the importance of making games for everyone. Probably just Chu and I.

I came.

But really my idea against it comes from people not ending up learning. Drifting is one thing especially with the wii wheel, however Recovery is more debateable.

I have to go to work soon, so I'll try to get to stuff later. Although, New Super Mario Bros Wii is coming out tomorrow :D. Who's getting it?

I am. Not tomorrow along with me still having some RPG´s in priority, but I still am.

Snake

Hey there, Konami´s still pretty important.

Also 3rd parties don´t truely have a priority chain, lest us not forget this quote;

People need to stop looking at 3rd parties the same way as others

Not the exact quote from you but w/e

Oh and something else;

Krystal´s support has gone down

If you mean generally, I think It´s because people want to see a bit more of a focus on some of the more ignored franchises (F-Zero, Metroid, etc) instead of the other smaller yet given focus to franchises (Mother, Starfox, etc) Or people just don´t see SF Being "Worthy" Of 4 characters.

Ridley's only drawback is wheter Mr. Sakurai deems him worthy of the roster. That is pretty darn good.

It´s not really that.
It´s that like Sukapon, he´s a character you would be spending quite a lot of time with to truly capture right (Well, Sukapon´s more comes from just being odd to work) And would take a lot of time to balance, and with already so many new movesets he had to balance (Some still turnining out...Well...Uh...) and so many movesets he had to re-balance. (Also this in a way works on mewtwo as well)

So it just depends on what Sakurai thinks.

 

[Fatmanonice]

You have to admit though, when it comes to third party characters that have relevance to Nintendo, Snake is probably pretty close to the bottom of the list.

 

[Thirdkoopa]

You have to admit though, when it comes to third party characters that have relevance to Nintendo, Snake is probably pretty close to the bottom of the list.

Yo Snake you did your thing man but Cloud is the most irrelevant character that has had a connection to nintendo of all time.

But yeah, I do agree, however third-parties are a different case. Even If one contacted the other, the hope of him is more dependent on If they really care enough to throw him on with a character that actually reps Square Enix better.

Considering that he still has quite an odd ammount of fan request, yeah, then again there´s quite a handful of characters that are requested around the same ammount and have more relevance to the series, along with not posing any legal situations.

But If square does partner up with Smash next time around, some music from SMRPG Is for sure a must. Especially the smithy battle and battle against an armored boss.

 

[SmashChu]

I should probably go back to some older post, but theis board moves fast.

@SmashChu

Sounds fine to me. (I spent most of my extra cash on my little brother's birthday. Looks like NSMBWii is gonna be on hold for me...)

Bummer. I'm getting tomorrow to play with some bros. so I'll let you know how it is.

Also, does ayone else really want to be able to modify the default settings? I'm really just confused as to why you can't already. It's incredibly annoying if you don't like two-minute time matches.

It'd be nice if they allowed it to be what you played last. Much like how Item Switch works.

.@Chu: I can't say I support your method since A) taking away control from the player is a huge no-no and B) I get the feeling the AI would be real crummy somehow. Consider something similar to the SSE method, probably with a predictable return to the stage rather than a free warp.

I didn't think about that. That is the best critism I've heard of it though.

It's usability may be based on how these players like it. It would not be worth it if the players say "forget this, why is the game playing for me." It's very important that it would feel intuitive and that players would accept it or not.

I would like to hear more your perspective on why certain characters were included in Smash.

I'd actually second that.

Let me explain all of this. This mostly started when I finally got into SF when SFIV came out and understood the mechanics of the game. Prior to this, I had been an avid Smash player since I was 9 and stopped playing Brawl in about Sept. '08 because the game got boring for me.

When I got SFIV, I felt like I had been missing out on fighting games all these years. I liked the game, despite its flaws (looking at you DPxxFADC->Ultra), enough that I'd love to see some features from the game put into the next game. The very day this happened, I was not so much concerned about the Smash series in terms of characters, I was afraid of its future without much of a competitive environment due to shallowed out gameplay.

Since that day, I get backlash for proposing mechanics from SF and other fighters and I constantly get tossed the casual player and sales cards.

This post kind of leads me into something.

The thing is, I know Street Fighter quite well as I know a lot of friends who play it. Though my own experience and analysis, I've concluded a lot about it.

The reason I shot down a lot of ideas from SF is because they are part of SF's decline. Street Fighter 2 worked when it was relitivly simple, but the series has been getting harder and harder. The reason for sales charts are just to show that Smash is growing and how SF has declined, showing that Smash should not copy a series that has been hurting.

Which leads me into this: a game does not need a competitive community to servile. Smash was fine before the competitive community came in. Mario Kart is very successful and has no competitive community. The same is true of many other multiplayer games. Like I've said before, multiplayer games are successful when they are easy to pick up and play. Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Halo, mario Kart, Smash Bros, Wii Sports, Street Fighter 2, old platformer games (like Donkey Kong Country) and so on. Street Fighter 4 does not work as it is very hard to get into.

 

[Big-Cat]

The reason I shot down a lot of ideas from SF is because they are part of SF's decline. Street Fighter 2 worked when it was relitivly simple, but the series has been getting harder and harder. The reason for sales charts are just to show that Smash is growing and how SF has declined, showing that Smash should not copy a series that has been hurting.

I don't think you're taking other factors into this. The biggest problem was that you had to pay full price for an update to the game . Yes, trying to up the competitive players is what caused a decrease in sales, but it's not the sole reason.

Let me ask you this: SFIV borrows a lot from SFII, how much more difficult would you say this is. Between my experiences with SFII HD Remix and IV, I'm not sensing something more complex than the other aside from EX Attacks, an Ultra move, Focus Attacks, and C.Viper. However, I will give it to you on the Alpha and III series.

Which leads me into this: a game does not need a competitive community to servile. Smash was fine before the competitive community came in. Mario Kart is very successful and has no competitive community. The same is true of many other multiplayer games. Like I've said before, multiplayer games are successful when they are easy to pick up and play. Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Halo, mario Kart, Smash Bros, Wii Sports, Street Fighter 2, old platformer games (like Donkey Kong Country) and so on. Street Fighter 4 does not work as it is very hard to get into.

But hasn't the competitive community pretty much existed since Melee came out and just took off in 2002? I don't get this belief of yours that the competitive crowd is the sign of a decline of a series. Like I said before, I personally want to see SSB4 as something for everyone on the skill spectrum. I don't want something incredibly complex, but I don't want something so easy that it doesn't feel rewarding when I win.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Actually, the original Smash Bros had a competitive scene too but it was consideribly smaller. The development of this site was when a Smash compeititive scene started to take off.

 

[ToiseOfChoice]

1. Fire Emblem and Pokemon are not the same. With Fire Emblem, Marth and Ike are the only characters that have starring roles in more than one game. Pikachu is a starring character in about 6 games at this present time with another one coming out sometime in 2010. Pokemon Trainer might as well represent the leading character of all the RPGs except the Mystery Dungeon Games. Lucario was the legendary hero in the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games and was one of Cynthia's pokemon. With Fire Emblem, you rarely have characters that are important in more than one game while Pokemon has a decent number of examples of it.

No, they ARE the same. Both have a face of the series (two in Pokemon's case) and new cast members each game. The only difference is Pokemon has much, much more content than Fire Emblem.

For the record, having a movie or being a big deal in a Pokemon spinoff isn't special if several Pokemon do this.

2. Shiek never did show up in TP so again, the point that she "was" planned is moot. Shiek is still a one hit wonder. She's not a permanent additon to Zelda. Despite being an alter ego, Shiek and Zelda could be counted as seperate characters due to their seperate personalities. With this being said, Shiek was still a one hit wonder. Of all the Zelda games, she still only appeared in one game. Saying Shiek has appeared in all the same games as Zelda is like saying Mr. L has been in all the games that Luigi has been in.

Adult Zelda appears in four games. Yes, Smash counts (being canon is irrelevant).

Sheik appears in three of those games and was planned for the fourth. This means both Sakurai and the Zelda team consider Sheik to be an important part of Adult Zelda's character. Turns out fans agree with that.

Mr. L appeared in one spinoff long after Luigi's character had been established and hasn't been seen since. Given how prolific Mario is, it's pretty clear that was a one-time deal.

3. How are Waluigi and Daisy more important? Have they ever been playable in a canon game? Have they ever had a major role in a game that wasn't a spinoff? Have they ever had a part in a game that actually had a true objective instead of playing the same games, races, etc over and over again? Rosalina, Birdo, and Wart have never been playable in canon games either. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Bowser have all been playable in canon games. None of the characters you listed have. In a sense, you're almost arguing that people are important simply if they appear often, even if they're essentially filler characters.

1. Mario has no continuity. I'll repeat this since you mention it a few times in some other posts: Mario has no continuity. There is no such thing as a canon Mario game. Miyamoto has said so himself. That aside, the platformers are far more important than the spinoffs (including the RPGs) since those are the major titles in the series (although Mario Kart gets a special mention for being so popular).

2. Geno only has major role in a single spinoff. Daisy and Waluigi have recurring appearances as part of an ensemble in some very prolific spinoffs (and in the case of Mario Kart, very popular, much more so than Mario RPGs could ever hope to be).

3. Being a "filler" character is irrelevant, only the fact that they're recurring. Are they on the same level as the core four? No, but they're way bigger than all the one-shot RPG characters.

4. Love from the internet despite being turned down twice and only being playable in one game 13 years ago. I mean, if an ear-**** video on youtube can generate over a million views simply by suggesting that Geno was hidden in the game, then you still have a captive audience for this character despite his obscurity. Characters like Krystal have dropped in popularity since being turned down for Brawl despite, technically, being more likely and being easier to obtain thanks to being first party. With this being said, you have more people losing faith in more likely characters that have more appearances and more relevance in their respective franchises.

Except Smash isn't made for the internet. And just because a character is still loved long after their moment in the sun doesn't mean they should become a playable character. AT, sure, but playable character status is reserved for the tippity-top of the Mario totem pole.

In a way, Geno reminds me of how Sonic was with Melee. People wanted to see Sonic but there was still the perception of "no third party characters allowed." When EGM printed the 2002 April Fool's prank about being able to unlock him and Tails by killing 20 or more wireframes in Cruel Melee, a lot of people ate it up to the point where EGM actually aplogized by giving out free copies of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle to the people with the best records. Sonic went against one of the biggest rules people believed was established for the Smash Bros franchise but a ton of people still wanted him. You could also look at Snake in how his only Nintendo exclusive is a crappy game on the Gameboy Color and yet he still got in despite there, obviously, other third party characters being much more relevant to Nintendo. (Megaman, anyone?)

I'll ignore the part where you think Geno is comparable to someone as big as Sonic.

Keep in mind that both Sonic, Snake, and Mega Man are the lead characters in their respective series. And while Snake was a pretty awkward choice over someone like Simon Belmont, it doesn't change the fact that both Nintendo and Konami are cool with him being there.


-------------------------------------

Wow, Gamers need the developers to be able to play the games, they have the demand, designers have the product, but I see where your thinking stems from.

If someone's playing a game and they get sick of it, they can do something else like watch TV or read a book. Developers need customers to keep in business, so they're dependent on getting more people to play. We don't need them, but they need us. It's basic business.

Seeing as smash itself is a one direction + one button (except for maybe marth's side + B) I don't think that it is too complicated for gamers to handle, I could be wrong, but thats why the tutorial only needs to be a minute long (plus its not the first thing you will see when you play the game anyways). Tutorials have been in smash games since the first one, I've never met anyone who said "Sweet loving, theres that tutorial again, I hate this game now"

No, Smash as it is (in Brawl) isn't hard to handle, though it could be easier still. The problem lies in certain people demanding the game be more complex because that's how they want it, then they justify it with "just do the tutorial!" Even though no one likes tutorials.

Now, tutorials on the side are fine, just like instruction manuals. The problem occurs when someone is REQUIRED to read the tutorial, either because the game is too complex to understand immediately and you'll be hopelessly lost without it (like most fighting games) or because the game assumes the player is ******** and can't figure things out on their own (like in Twilight Princess). Thus, they are a crutch of bad game design.

Super Metroid stuff

Easily the worst part of the game. I remember spending an hour there trying to get out. Most people get stuck there (same with the other part where you learn to Shinespark) and it's just awful. There's plenty of horror stories out there regarding that spot. No one likes it.

This is an example of bad game design: the game forces you to do something without telling you how to execute it. Even when you learn HOW it's executed, it's still very difficult to pull off reliably.

Reimagine that scene with a wall jumping system as basic as Mega Man X or a 3D Mario game. Imagine a little box at the bottom of the screen telling you how to do it in a single sentence. Suddenly the scene isn't such a pain.

me, myself, I

That's all I'm seeing here. n88 already pointed this out too, so I don't have to get in-depth with why it's wrong. Short version: that's great that you're cool with complex controls and gameplay mechanics, but you're in a very small minority.

Doesn't this contradict your whole notion that games should be easy for the gamer? Wouldn't the game designers make gameplay patterns that are easy to recognize?Even as you said before, the gamers don't need the designers, so wouldn't the game designers make games the way people want to play them? Perhaps I am not the only who occasionaly contradicts self.

No, it doesn't contradict anything. The majority of game designers today make games for themselves, then they complain when the games don't sell very well. They blame the customer rather than themselves, even though it's the customer's demands they need to meet. It's like buying a little girl a power drill for Christmas and telling her it's her own fault that she doesn't like it.

The few designers who make games with the customers' interests in mind are the ones selling big numbers and making people want to buy their own systems to play it on. Sakurai is one of those people.

Paper Mario

...is not getting in because he's a much less popular variation on an already existing character.

Compare him to Sheik, ZSS, and Young/Toon Link. All three of these are essentially the same character as their bases (Zelda, Samus, and Link respectively). All three are also popular variations off of these bases, possibly even rivaling their originals.

Paper Mario is far less popular than regular Mario. That should be obvious given the small number of Paper Mario games (and sales) in comparison to the main games or even Mario Kart.


You might be thinking "well, we got Dr. Mario before!" That was Melee. Sakurai wanted to add more characters there because the roster was looking pretty small and he had extra time. Doc fit the bill for a character that could be easily implemented (in other words, a clone).

With Brawl, he had to cut characters because the roster was too big for the amount of time he had (notice we don't have any "last-minute quality" clones in Brawl). SSB4 will not be any easier since there will be a demand for more content. There won't be time for quick clone characters like Doc ever again.

I would like to hear more your perspective on why certain characters were included in Smash.

You'll have to ask which ones, preferably in a post where I'm not already responding to a bunch of other things.


-----------------------------------------------

I don't see the problem with having a game like Melee. Not many casuals complained the game was too hard (unless they played against a player better than them, which newsflash, still happens in any game you play ever: The better player will win).

Just have to mention this, one of the biggest complaints with Melee was that it was too fast, too hectic. Probably didn't help that characters died quicker and grabbing ledges was more difficult.

[About Ridley] From the way he talked, it sounded like he looked into it but it took longer than he expected and had to move on to other things.

Considering Ridley was supposed to be an AT before becoming two bosses, I'm pretty sure he didn't even know he was that big of a deal until somewhere after the roster was finalized.


@Koops: Can you cut down on the quote jengas? I'm losing track of whatever I was going to say.

Oh yeah, think it was "don't worry about Mother" and "I agree that Mario is fine as it is." Although I suppose later today a lot of people might change their impressions on Toad and Junior.


@Chu: Think something like Tails in Sonic 3 or the Angel Feather from Kid Icarus in terms of speed. You move with the analog stick/d-pad/whatever, you can't attack, and you can fly as long as you want until you get hit out of it or until you're on land. Getting hit out of it lets you attack/jump/everything, you get your double jump back, blah blah. Bonus points if it puts you in a little bubble like in NSMBWii.

There, get to brainstorming off of that.

 

[Big-Cat]

Just have to mention this, one of the biggest complaints with Melee was that it was too fast, too hectic. Probably didn't help that characters died quicker and grabbing ledges was more difficult.

At the same time,there have been complaints that Brawl is too floaty and slow. Like I've been stressing with everything else regarding SSB4, there has to be some balance in between. In this case, the game should be fast where the gameplay is vivid and worth watching, but it must be slow where what you're doing is manageable.

 

[ToiseOfChoice]

@Kuma: No, the overwhelming majority found the physics in Brawl to be ideal. Speed isn't an issue for most people anymore.

If you really want faster gameplay, throw in a speed switcher just like in training mode. Something with various levels rather than just lightning fast, normal, and slow motion.

 

[Big-Cat]

@Kuma: No, the overwhelming majority found the physics in Brawl to be ideal.

Proof, please.

 

[ToiseOfChoice]

Try looking around for once instead of asking for me to pull up links and anecdotes. Reviews are all over the place, most game forums have at least one active Smash thread, and unless you're a shut-in you shouldn't have problem finding people who've at least tried both games in your own personal life.

 

[BEES]

There are no reviews praising the physics. There are none condemning them either, so I think the issue has mostly been ignored. It's not that people want a slower game, it's that they don't really notice if they get one.

Although, two things do contradict what you've said.

1) Reviews do mention that everything has gotten a little familiar in Brawl. There were not many major additions to the moves in the game, and some critics did express their desire for more than just a polishing of the graphics and an expanded roster.

2) Tripping was almost universally loathed, even by the most casual of casuals, and this does present itself in reviews. Final smashes are also criticized for being poorly balanced.

There is a large market in between the competitive players, of which there are are a mere tens of thousands, and the millions of casuals. People portray the two as if there's a dichotomy but there is some overlap. I like to call these the 'semi-serious' players. They play no items, balanced stages, 1v1 usually. They enjoy the game for the fighting engine, and want to get better than everyone they immediately know at it, although they have no interest in tournaments. This group is far, far larger than the competitive crowd, so it exerts some influence on the commercial success of the franchise.

The semi-serious players seem to either abandon Brawl for Melee or 64, quit smash bros altogether, or get into Brawl+. Some do like the game enough to continue to play Brawl, but would prefer to have it faster and more combo-based if it were their choice.

I think the next smash bros game is going to be hard to predict. It will depend heavily on the philosophy of the developing team and nintendo itself, which has been proven to change significantly over time.

 

[Big-Cat]

There is a large market in between the competitive players, of which there are are a mere tens of thousands, and the millions of casuals. People portray the two as if there's a dichotomy but there is some overlap. I like to call these the 'semi-serious' players. They play no items, balanced stages, 1v1 usually. They enjoy the game for the fighting engine, and want to get better than everyone they immediately know at it, although they have no interest in tournaments. This group is far, far larger than the competitive crowd, so it exerts some influence on the commercial success of the franchise.

Wow. I've been stressing for a middle ground, but I've only focused on the people on both ends of the spectrum. Thank you for reminding me about this. To be honest, I think I would place myself in this area to some degree with me really only wanting to go competitive in two games or so.

 

[ToiseOfChoice]

There are no reviews praising the physics. There are none condemning them either, so I think the issue has mostly been ignored. It's not that people want a slower game, it's that they don't really notice if they get one.

The Brawl reviews all praise the overall gameplay. A couple of them do notice the speed difference but there aren't any complaints. The fact that some don't even mention it is a testament to how natural Brawl's physics engine feels.

Now the Melee reviews generally praise its gameplay as well, but many of them complain about the speed. Obviously that seemed to be the prevalent thought since Sakurai decided that the pacing of the game would be toned down back in Brawl's early stages.

Although, two things do contradict what you've said.

1) Reviews do mention that everything has gotten a little familiar in Brawl. There were not many major additions to the moves in the game, and some critics did express their desire for more than just a polishing of the graphics and an expanded roster.

2) Tripping was almost universally loathed, even by the most casual of casuals, and this does present itself in reviews. Final smashes are also criticized for being poorly balanced.

Neither of these points contradict with what I said since they have nothing to do with the speed of the game.

There is a large market in between the competitive players, of which there are are a mere tens of thousands, and the millions of casuals. People portray the two as if there's a dichotomy but there is some overlap. I like to call these the 'semi-serious' players. They play no items, balanced stages, 1v1 usually. They enjoy the game for the fighting engine, and want to get better than everyone they immediately know at it, although they have no interest in tournaments. This group is far, far larger than the competitive crowd, so it exerts some influence on the commercial success of the franchise.

The semi-serious players seem to either abandon Brawl for Melee or 64, quit smash bros altogether, or get into Brawl+. Some do like the game enough to continue to play Brawl, but would prefer to have it faster and more combo-based if it were their choice.

Perhaps I should explain it through different terms: skilled players and beginners.

A skilled player is familiar with the game or has the dedication to spend time improving their ability. They have a much higher tolerance to frustration than a beginner. They're familiar with the game enough to react fast enough to most things (unless they have terrible reflexes).

A beginner hasn't played the game before, or perhaps they have but they don't play it with the regularity that you or I would. They usually don't have a favorite way to play the game, at least not much beyond initial impressions. These people need to be convinced that this game is fun rather quickly, lest they grow bored and do something else. If they really get into the game, they may eventually become a skilled player.

There are always, always way more beginners (or potential beginners) than there are skilled players. It's very important that the game tries to reach out to these people in order to grow, rather than excluding them in favor of a stagnant fanbase (which is always diminishing over time as existing fans move on/grow up/die/etc.). Turns out these people need games to be made very accessible to them or they won't bother. Slower speed and gravity is a part of that.


Now, assume the default speed of SSB4 was around the same as it is in Brawl. Assume there was also a speed switch that lets you modify speed by percentage (as low as 20% and as high as 500%). While we're at it, do the same with gravity or even hitstun. Throw in the option to save the default settings of the game on top of that.

Would you really, honest to god personally care what defines "regular" for most people if the game were capable of all that?

 

[Thirdkoopa]

@Koops: Can you cut down on the quote jengas? I'm losing track of whatever I was going to say.

Oh yeah, think it was "don't worry about Mother" and "I agree that Mario is fine as it is." Although I suppose later today a lot of people might change their impressions on Toad and Junior.

Mother - I'm not really worried about it but it does bring a truly interesting discussion. For now, Claus and Pokey are in a very good posistion asides from the fact that It's a smaller series of the main franchises repped, so It'll probably have to wait a while before we see a true answer.

But for now, things look good, and I still have the Claus color swap in brawl.

Mario - Possibly. I really am starting to think it's really fine as is despite Toad, Bowser Jr, and Geno being unique additions. Sakurai seems to agree with us as shown with brawl.

Speaking of Mario, what does everyone think on WarioWare If It got a second playable character? With Syrup's whole theme problem, and unknown priority of the ware series (I don't play these too much asides from parties. All I know is that according to everyone, Mona and Jimmy T Are the most plausible suggestions) I really don't know.

 

[ShinoandtheBallonFighter]

@Toise
Did Melee not sell extremely well, despite being "too fast and too hectic"?
As you have said the competetive community is very niche, but the game managed to sell almost 8 million copies , nearly as much as Brawl, despite your claim.

Your controlable physics idea is a very good idea, but most fo the people here will say you shouldn't toss skilled players a bone at all, ever. I personally really like this idea.

@Chu, Kuma
There has been a competetive community since the original smash bros. Smash lacked one, only during the first few months of the original game's release, and some still consider SSB64 a good competetive game (Isai)

 

[n88]

@Shino

Melee sold well, but Brawl sold better. I've read a lot of Melee reviews, and I can testify that the most common complaints were

a) Too fast
b) Too many clones

I don't remember hearing anyone outside of the competitive community complain about the speed of the game. I agree with Toise here. The default should be Brawl-like physics, with more customization (Gravity, Hitstun, etc.)

 

[ToiseOfChoice]

@Koops: All the Wario characters have the same issue of not having many (or any) "obvious" moves compared to people like Mario or Link. The flipside to this is that Wario himself DOES have obvious moves that mostly went ignored in Brawl. So apparently making stuff up for this series isn't a big deal.

Also I said Syrup DOESN'T have a theme problem (same as the entire WarioWare cast). Chances are a moveset from her would involve magical treasures, wacky inventions, bombs with skulls on them, and her FS would probably be based off of this. Maybe she'd get Wario's Coin Toss move too. Even if Sakurai didn't care to look at the source he can still think up something pirate-y (or something strange like Sheik using the Vampire Killer).


@Shino: Throwing competitive players a bone isn't that big a deal if it doesn't interfere with the accessibility of the game. This doesn't, so no reason not to include it. Especially the speed thing, which we've sorta had since 64 via Training but never for actual matches aside from lightning and slow-mo modes that no one likes.

 

[Paper Mario Master]

I'm Baack. I'm probably not gonna feel like arguing/big discussion though. I say that Syrup or Mona would be the first 2.... Syrup could do.... Well... What Toise said.... And Mona.... I don't really know much...

 

[ShinoandtheBallonFighter]

@Shino

Melee sold well, but Brawl sold better. I've read a lot of Melee reviews, and I can testify that the most common complaints were

a) Too fast
b) Too many clones

I don't remember hearing anyone outside of the competitive community complain about the speed of the game. I agree with Toise here. The default should be Brawl-like physics, with more customization (Gravity, Hitstun, etc.)

I can understand the complaints, but the sales (which we all love to use as reasons) aren't very different. Melee sold 7.9 million, Brawl has sold 8.4 million. Thats abput 500,000 more copies for Brawl (I'm willing to guess the 874,000 Brawl sold on launch day [this sales day would cover the difference n sales between the two games] were mostly the fans of the series, lovers of melee, or the random nintendo fanboys.

But Brawl has the huge success of an impressivly selling prequel, while Melee sold mostly on it's on merits. SSB sold 4.5, for the record.

So yes Brawl has sold more, and is indeed a popular game (I won't discredit it's success), but I was siply trying to point out that despite it's suppossed glarign flaws, melee was able to sell extrmely well, even compared to Brawl.

I think the next installment should be geared towards playing most similarly to SSB. Most of the critics praised it for it's simplicity and ease of getting into (seems ot be a general consencus of players on this board) while retaining a fairly concrete competetive value (The rest of us want)

 

[SmashChu]

I don't think you're taking other factors into this. The biggest problem was that you had to pay full price for an update to the game . Yes, trying to up the competitive players is what caused a decrease in sales, but it's not the sole reason.

Not sure I see the problem as you agree with me. But yes, multiple versions would hurt players, of course, a lot of them were just between the SNES and the Genesis. It still was not the main cause as other versions of the game still did well.

Let me ask you this: SFIV borrows a lot from SFII, how much more difficult would you say this is. Between my experiences with SFII HD Remix and IV, I'm not sensing something more complex than the other aside from EX Attacks, an Ultra move, Focus Attacks, and C.Viper. However, I will give it to you on the Alpha and III series.

What you missing is that SF4 doesn't borrow the gameplay from SF2. It borrows the content. The focus is put back onto older characters who were left behind. It's trying to infuse the game with nostalgia really.

The gameplay, however, isn't beginner friendly. First, we still have EX moves, supers, ultras (more on that in a minute), focus attacks, focus cancels, and probably more I'm forgetting. The problem with ultras is that it's a very important game mechanic, but is' so hard to pull one off. You have to do two unique motions and press three punches/kicks. Heck, a lot of my friends (who are really good and play tournaments) can't pull of Guile's Ultra. So, what hope is there for me trying to play the game when I'm so bad at it. You can see the problem SF has gotten into.

But hasn't the competitive community pretty much existed since Melee came out and just took off in 2002? I don't get this belief of yours that the competitive crowd is the sign of a decline of a series. Like I said before, I personally want to see SSB4 as something for everyone on the skill spectrum. I don't want something incredibly complex, but I don't want something so easy that it doesn't feel rewarding when I win.

The competitive community really didn't break out until 2003 or 2004, and even then they were met with plenty of controversy.

It's not bad to have a competitive community. It's bad when you try to give them what they want. These players, who are very proficient at the game, demand more things to make the game more challenging and "deeper." This will only leave players who are weaker behind as they can not adapt to the harder game. Also, the rate at which the difficulty develops is very fast, meaning weak players will start to lag behind quite early. So the game gets harder and harder and everyone who isn't a competitive player is left behind.

The reason I shoot down ideas is because they are not productive. They'll only start to hurt the lower players who aren't as invested in the game anyway. The only thing Sakurai should give competitive players is more balance for 1v1, no items, Final Destination. After that, anything else they could ask for would stunt Smash's growth.

 

[Big-Cat]

What you missing is that SF4 doesn't borrow the gameplay from SF2. It borrows the content. The focus is put back onto older characters who were left behind. It's trying to infuse the game with nostalgia really.

The gameplay, however, isn't beginner friendly. First, we still have EX moves, supers, ultras (more on that in a minute), focus attacks, focus cancels, and probably more I'm forgetting. The problem with ultras is that it's a very important game mechanic, but is' so hard to pull one off. You have to do two unique motions and press three punches/kicks. Heck, a lot of my friends (who are really good and play tournaments) can't pull of Guile's Ultra. So, what hope is there for me trying to play the game when I'm so bad at it. You can see the problem SF has gotten into.

Funny, I usually hear that SFIV borrowed primarily from 2 for gameplay. I myself can see the similarities as well.

How exactly are the bold all that hard? I just have to press an extra button or the PPP/KKK button to use an EX attack. Focus attacks are really easy to learn, you just got to know when it's best for your character to use it, just like any attack in Smash. Cancels are easy as well, just do a dash forward or backward to get out of it. I see scrubs pull this stuff out easily. The hard part, if anything, is knowing when to use them.

As for the Ultras, I will give it to you on Guile and Vega's Ultra as they have the most impractical motions out of all the characters in the cast, and that it's hard to pull it off unless you're on an arcade stick. Other than that, like everything in SF and Smash, you have to use Ultras wisely and find setups for them.

It's not bad to have a competitive community. It's bad when you try to give them what they want. These players, who are very proficient at the game, demand more things to make the game more challenging and "deeper." This will only leave players who are weaker behind as they can not adapt to the harder game. Also, the rate at which the difficulty develops is very fast, meaning weak players will start to lag behind quite early. So the game gets harder and harder and everyone who isn't a competitive player is left behind.

I don't know if my opinions reflect the rest of the competitive community, but I don't think everyone is looking for a game to become harder. What I think they, and every other gamer, don't want are sequels that have little to no changes. At the same time, they want a lot of replay value.

The reason I shoot down ideas is because they are not productive. They'll only start to hurt the lower players who aren't as invested in the game anyway. The only thing Sakurai should give competitive players is more balance for 1v1, no items, Final Destination. After that, anything else they could ask for would stunt Smash's growth.

What exactly is Smash's growth? To become as easy as possible where everyone can win? Like any sport, you have to spend time with playing the game in order to better at it. If I'm the type that wants to play the game with no pressure, I'll do so by minding my own business and not getting involved with the stronger players.

 

[Pieman0920]

Actually, the original Smash Bros had a competitive scene too but it was consideribly smaller. The development of this site was when a Smash compeititive scene started to take off.

Wait, this site was around before Melee came out. I remember coming here when I was getting anticipating Melee, and I also remember the this site's reaction towards a lot of the stuff that got revealed. Thus I was always under the impresion that the site was developed as sort of a hype site for Melee and took off from there. (Though looking back, this site is around 10 years old I think, so it was probably made before anyone really knew about Melee at all)

 

[Fatmanonice]

Wait, this site was around before Melee came out. I remember coming here was I was getting anticipating Melee, and I also remember the this site's reaction towards a lot of the stuff that got revealed. Thus I was always under the impresion that the site was developed as sort of a hype site for Melee and took off from there. (Though looking back, this site is around 10 years old I think, so it was probably made before anyone really knew about Melee at all)

Well, I know this site was created in 2001 but I wasn't sure how early in 2001.

Various add-ins:

Okay, people need to keep in mind several things:

1. The number of Wiis sold absolutely dwarfs the number of Gamecubes that were sold.
2. Brawl had a lot more hype. Brawl had the dojo which had daily updates five times a week in six different languages. Brawl was promoted by Nintendo from May 2006 to June 2008. Melee was sort of promoted from July 2001 to February 2002.
3. Brawl had online which greatly increased its appeal.

Yet another add in:

@ Toise:

I never said Geno was as important as Sonic, I said his post game situation when it comes to fans still wanting him in the game despite it being released sometime ago is extremelly similar. With Sonic, you had people believing there was actually a way to unlock him by doing something that was retardedly hard and you not only had that with Geno but you've had a decent number of people who have gone out of their way to put him in the game by hacking it.

Another add in? Say it ain't so:

I agree with KumaOso, trying to make the game as easy as possible just so that you can appeal to the worst of the worst of gamers is not a good idea. I don't Smash turning into Mario Kart where skill has become borderline irrelevant thanks to how much they "broke" the item system in Mario Kart Wii. Now THAT was something that was often complained about it in reviews: how easy it was to get royally screwed over just before finishing the race.

 

[Mowrt620]

One thing that I hate, people who say that brawl sucks. The real reason is that they can find room for improvement, it doesn't suck really. Same with melee, it improved a lot from SSB, Doesn't mean it's terrible...
I also dislike sonic haters. He, mario, and pacman are the real big gaming icons. He deserved a spot fully, nintendo and sega are friends too. He's really an icon of gaming. Next addition should be pacman indeed...

 

[Fatmanonice]

*puts a rocket launcher to his own head and pulls the trigger*

Pac-Man hasn't been in a good game since 1983. He's only still an "icon" because of all the nostalgia that people have towards Pac-Man and Ms. Pacman. Pac-Man is the prime example of video game characters that refuse to die despite being well past their prime and getting continous crappy sales to boot. I'm sorry but I can't simply ignore the steaming piles of crap that franchise has produced since about 1990 just so that Smash Bros can glorify the two games that came out before most of us here were born. (You know, as if Namco hasn't done that enough already with the dozens of re-releases of the games through out the years.)

 

[Neo Exdeath]

I also dislike sonic haters. He, mario, and pacman are the real big gaming icons. He deserved a spot fully, nintendo and sega are friends too. He's really an icon of gaming. Next addition should be pacman indeed...

Since when did anyone play Pac-Man games since the 80s?

 

[DekuBoy]

I haven't played Pac-Man since he grew arms. Like it or not, icons are characters which never lose their appeal. Mario, Sonic, Link, Samus, Megaman, even (flame-shield) Master Chief.

 

[Neo Exdeath]

I haven't played Pac-Man since he grew arms. Like it or not, icons are characters which never lose their appeal. Mario, Sonic, Link, Samus, Megaman, even (flame-shield) Master Chief.

Well, Pac-Man has lost appeal to gamers worldwide. Would that make him no longer an icon?

 

[Mario the Jumpman]

For the Sonic discussion: Sonic did earn his fanboys with his Genesis games.

 

[Neo Exdeath]

My nickname is "Naruto Basher"

Glad to know I'm not the only person who hates Naruto.

Anyways, Sonic earned his fanboys with the Genesis games because those were the best(arguably) and first of his games, amirite?

 

[Mario the Jumpman]

Glad to know I'm not the only person who hates Naruto.

Anyways, Sonic earned his fanboys with the Genesis games because those were the best(arguably) and first of his games, amirite?

Yes you are right.

Oh, and would you be able to accept a Naruto parody in Smash?

 

[Neo Exdeath]

Oh, and would you be able to accept a Naruto parody in Smash?

What do you mean by "accept"?

 

[Mario the Jumpman]

What do you mean by "accept"?

I mean to be fine with it, as a boss, PC or something.

Maybe someone could set up a "Naruto Haters" thread...

 

[smasher91613]

I haven't read anything up to this point (1000+ pages...wow) but is there any known dates for the new smash game? I'd imagine not for awhile. Any info on whether wave dashing and other AT's will be reintroduced?