Others Working on Character Design. Why is No One Talking About This?

[Mr. Mumbles]

This is a somewhat poor translation but Sakurai has recently gone on record saying, "So far, I have always considered myself personally responsible for the specifics of each character, balance at all, so much so that I have come to create each attack separately for each character. But it is a task that I have to share with others this time, in order to ensure that the right balance is found for this game"

Yet for some reason no one is talking about this. Is it because with Namco on board we assumed this to be the case, or has he said something like this before?

If Sakurai designed every move in the past, what are the implications of this shift? It seems to me that it means that semiclones will likely cease to exist. Don't get me wrong, Sakurai is a very creative guy, but he only has so much time and any one person can only have so much creativity in them. Thus by sharing this task with other people it seems to me that the likelihood of original moves for even returning veterans seems likely.

Pit's and Bowser's changes seem to further suggest that this is the case. What do you guys think? Do you think we'll have more original moves, or lamer ones because Sakurai is less directly involved?

 

[iMichael]

Yes, I think we'll see more original moves for the cloned characters like Ganon or Falco. I also think this is the Namco team that are touching up on characters physique...like Bowser standing more upright and his speed being adjusted.

 

[Frostwraith]

Sakurai still has the final word. He is the director of the game, after all.

The big difference is that he's not doing the balancing by himself. As he said, he's sharing the task with others, meaning it's group work and, in my opinion, it's quite good as more ideas flourish when many people think on the same subject. Even better is when you consider that Namco is helping with the game and they have two well-known fighting game series (SoulCalibur and Tekken).

 

[mimgrim]

I just don't think many people are worried about seeing as the people he got to help are from NB and they are generally well known for making good fighting games. As long as it feels like Smash and has the simplicity of Smash, cause all those other fighting games are jsut way to complex for me xD, and from the gamplay trailers it definatly looks like it going to be the way Smash plays and not those other fighting games. xD

 

[CalumG]

If I had to take an (uneducated) guess at what this means for the game, I'd probably say it should put some of our roster concerns to rest. When you consider the sheer amount of work Sakurai put into characters in the previous games - I've read somewhere (I'll see if I can re-find the source) that he had some hand on nearly every minute detail, right down to frame-by-frame tweaking of hitboxes and character stats - it's no wonder the roster of Brawl wasn't as big as people were expecting (though that was also partly due to overestimation on the part of the fans). With Sakurai being able to focus on the bigger picture rather than the minute details of each character, I'd take that to mean the roster will be pretty sizable. And by sizable I mean at least 45 characters (not including transformations), compared to some of the pessimistic guesses of forumgoers suggesting the roster will be barely bigger than Brawls, and that near enough every new character will be replacing one that has been cut.

 

[Mr. Mumbles]

I just don't think many people are worried about seeing as the people he got to help are from NB and they are generally well known for making good fighting games. As long as it feels like Smash and has the simplicity of Smash, cause all those other fighting games are jsut way to complex for me xD, and from the gamplay trailers it definatly looks like it going to be the way Smash plays and not those other fighting games. xD

Worried? Why aren't any of them jumping for joy. Sakurai still has final word, but all of the work isn't on him now, thus we get the best of both worlds, and thus the characters are apt to have even more polish. I'm quite happy.

 

[mimgrim]

It's good news sure. But, for me at last, it's nothing earth shattering for me that will make m react mre then like, well that's rather nice. I guess I just don't really care. lol

 

[TheTuninator]

This interview hammered the final nail into the coffin of arguments that we will get a small roster based on Sakurai's previous comments that the Brawl roster was nearing Smash's maximum size. The fact that he was handling all of the balance himself is pretty incredible, but now that he has a team on board he can juggle a lot more characters. Only if he wants to, of course. There is still no guarantee of a significant increase in roster size.

 

[Curmudgeon]

Ganondorf will be top tier in this game

 

[Mr. Mumbles]

This interview hammered the final nail into the coffin of arguments that we will get a small roster based on Sakurai's previous comments that the Brawl roster was nearing Smash's maximum size. The fact that he was handling all of the balance himself is pretty incredible, but now that he has a team on board he can juggle a lot more characters. Only if he wants to, of course. There is still no guarantee of a significant increase in roster size.

I would so be right there with you.... if it weren't for the fact that Sakurai is worried about having enough time for certain veterans. He knows he has to add a certain number of new comers to build hype and all that, but I have a hard time believing he'd choose to add a ton of new characters but not make time for the old ones. I predict a 42-45 character roster not including transformations.

 

[Chauzu]

Ganondorf will be top tier in this game

You mean god tier?

 

[Maricalistaro]

The biggest reason why is because it's actually old news. It's been talked about and then talked about again. He made comments like this at the very beginning of development.

 

[Vintage Creep]

This is one of the good news.

 

[Chibi-Chan]

Sakurai is a great man and all, i really admire his work BUT! Smash Bros. Has never been a balanced game, always loaded with some super broken characters in equal amount to some utterly useless ones. If there is going to be a BIG change in balancing then really it can only improve, there shouldn't be another MetaKnight.

 

[smashbrolink]

If it results in move sets like the one Megaman uses, then I see little issue with it.
Well, okay, Megaman needs a better neutral aerial than just his mega buster in my opinion, but other than that....