Sakurai does not want Smash to be a competitive franchise

[Lumpy..]

nah...
linkplayer is what's wrong with smashboards...
LAWL master's is simply a madman...
a madman who i would love to play against in melee...

 

[RetroRhythm]

Right.

Sakurai does not want Smash to be a competitive franchise...

I guess we are lucky then, that we still have a perfect competitive heavy Smash game right here and still ripe for the picking at discovering new things.

Brawl is for the casuals, Melee is for the competitives. Mixing and matching these two things never settle well and is usually unstable at the most elementary of levels.

 

[LOL_Master]

You, sir, are the epitome of everything wrong with SmashBoards.

Congratulations.

oh oh oh you wanna suck my balls? eh? like i'll tolly even go to canada and tolly give youdeeznutz to suck on, yeah i'll be there like whenever you are scrubbin out, or what? you want me to 4 stock you and then you feel all boo boo bee boo inside? yeah? yeah??????YEAH????? OH IM SORRY, I DIDN'T KNOW THAT I KNEW EXACTLY HOW YOU FELT, OH OK, I'LL JUST OWN YOU REAL HARD BY HUMPING YOUR HEAD WITH MY NUTZ

 

[LOL_Master]

nah...
linkplayer is what's wrong with smashboards...
LAWL master's is simply a madman...
a madman who i would love to play against in melee...

let's playyyyyyyy dooooooooooood

 

[Chaosblade77]

Nintendo Power interviewed Sakurai again, and questions about "wavedashing" and higher levels of play actually came up. And for anyone who doesn't like Nintendo Power, all I can say is that they certainly asked the right questions.

Nintendo Power: This is one that a lot of hardcore Smash Bros. fans have long wondered about. Was the ability to "wavedash" in Melee intentional or a glitch?

Sakurai: Of course, we noticed that you could do that during the development period. With Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it wasn't a matter of, "Ok, do we leave it in or do we take it out?" We really just wanted this game, again, to appeal to and be played by gamers of all different levels. We felt that there was a growing gap between beginners and advanced players, and taking that out helps to level the playing field. It wasn't a real big priority or anything, but when were were building the game around the idea of making it fair for everyone, it just made sense to take it out. And it also goes back to wanting to make something different from Melee and giving players the opportunity to find new things to enjoy.

Take what you will from that, it just adds to the things Gimpyfish has given us.

Other questions that were asked dealt with Ridley being playable, how the roster was decided upon, and what character Sakurai would use if he really wanted to win a match. Good choice of questions, in my opinion...

 

[RetroRhythm]

OH my god....

They were aware. O.o

 

[Ichida]

oh oh oh you wanna suck my balls? eh? like i'll tolly even go to canada and tolly give youdeeznutz to suck on, yeah i'll be there like whenever you are scrubbin out, or what? you want me to 4 stock you and then you feel all boo boo bee boo inside? yeah? yeah??????YEAH????? OH IM SORRY, I DIDN'T KNOW THAT I KNEW EXACTLY HOW YOU FELT, OH OK, I'LL JUST OWN YOU REAL HARD BY HUMPING YOUR HEAD WITH MY NUTZ

Holy spam****ing banrequest. <.<;

 

[Jack Kieser]

That Sak quotation confirms exactly what I've always suspected... They didn't HATE our community, they just wanted to make Brawl as different from Melee as they could to give us *gasp* something new to experience.

Go figure.

 

[RetroRhythm]

The quotation deserves it's own topic. It will be overlooked here.

Also, they STILL DID NOT CONFIRM THAT WAVEDASH WAS NOT A GLITCH! XDDD

 

[Samochan]

XD

Now anyone who claims wavedash is a glitch is gonna get owned by Sakurai himself. Glitch is a development error, but it cannot be a glitch if they were aware of it and left it in.

But Sakurai still thinks getting better than someone else on a fightning game is a sin or something, so he decided to do something about it and left us new things like *gasp* tripping and the new shield mechanics to enjoy, while stripping all the goodies we used on competitive melee. >_>

 

[Radical Dreamer]

You, sir, are the epitome of everything wrong with SmashBoards.

Congratulations.

You're the epitome of everything wrong with the ignorant casual.

 

[Chaosblade77]

Also, they STILL DID NOT CONFIRM THAT WAVEDASH WAS NOT A GLITCH! XDDD

It may not have been completely intended from the start, but my take on that quote was that he was aware of it, and he didn't mind that it was there. If it had been a glitch or something Sakurai didn't want after it had been discovered, it would have been removed.

In any case, Sakurai DID know about the competitive community, but he apparently does not approve of how it works. Though, he implied there are more things on the same level as wavedashing in Brawl for people to find, the question is, what does he consider "on that level."

It's doubtful there will be anything gamebreaking since he wanted the game to be so balanced, in terms of lesser players beating better players occasionally. It seems that Sakurai has tabs on what is and is not possible, including Melee's advanced techniques. L-canceling was intended from the start and wavedashing as it's known today was found during development, but accepted. All things considered, they knew what was possible in Melee, and they know what's possible in Brawl, and it's still limiting.

It seems very unlikely we'll find ATs on the same level of those in Melee now.

 

[pyro363]

I think he sort of di but then again wasn't brawl toward the non smash bros gamers (noobs)

 

[Ogre_Deity_Link]

Well, I could rant and rave and get pissed off about how nobody is giving Brawl any chances and how everyone wants to have some super insane time consuming competitive game (Melee)

But I wont.

Instead, I'll just have fun with DeDeDe, Toon Link, R.O.B., Wolf, Pokemon Trainer....(continues to list off all the new comers)

Oh and I'll also have fun on all the new stages and such, enjoy playing with the Stage Editor...

So have fun with Melee.

 

[Nasty_Nate]

hmmm. Interesting find, but Im not the least bit surprised at this. I always got the feeling Sakurai wanted another dumbed down mario party fighter

 

[Prince of Pain]

This reminds me of the title of Slayer's eighth album...

God Hates Us All.

 

[-West Coast Wes-]

Thanks gimpy, i'm glad to see this pointed out in a thread. From everything I've read i've gathered the same thing. Im not saying its bad or good, its just the truth and its important.

 

[CStick]

When I heard that the exact same people who made SSB64 were making brawl instead of the melee people, my doubts set in right then and there.

You had two games from the get-go: smash 64, and melee. Both made by two different delevopers, even if you see certain names in both of the credits.

What we got was SSB64 2, not Melee 2.

Oh well...tough ****.

Accident or not, Melee is still a great game, and I don't see how a crappy entry (brawl) throws the competitive smash (melee) community to the curb. Granted, it probably marks the inevitable downward spiral that we all saw coming sooner or later, but I don't see how Brawl really affects melee lovers that much right now. Go play brawl and see how it goes, but I doubt Melee is going anywhere, despite the notion that alot of people seem to think so.

Also, the main mistake Sakurai made was that he seemingly did not know how you could still make a game that would satisfy both casual and competitive gamers. Melee did just that. If you were a casual player, then you could still be with your oblivious friends or not play against 'cheaters' and 'glitch abusers'. I honestly don't see how the competitive scene made the nature of the game be that of which required that everyone pay $5-50 to play against people. If you didnt want to be part of that, then by all means go turn on your items and just dont show up to tournaments hosted by competitive players. It's like he viewed the competitive scene of about ~20,000 or whatever people as a plague to the other ~20 million worldwide who bought the **** game just to have fun without competition involved.

Simply put, he could have just ported over melee's technical layout, engines, physics, etc. tweak them a bit, add the same new game modes, characters, stages, etc. Not only would this have saved money and got the game out when it was supposed to, but everyone would still be happy.

Oh well. See ya guys at melee tourneys.

 

[SlyNinja]

IMO if you hate Brawl so much stop complaining and go play SSBM.

 

[Lightmaster]

... April fool's? The word m@tter is replaced by 'penelopeer' and Sakuraoi automatically has (how could you?) next to his name... matter matter Sakurai Sakurai

 

[flyinfilipino]

W0lf is now Wolf and Brawl and Melee have been switched around. Oh, and $mash is Smash

 

[Demon Kirby]

What the hell is going on?

Wolf. Smash. Brawl. Melee.

Samus. Mario. Luigi. Bowser. Diddy Kong. Kirby.

Jigglypuff. Lucario. Youko. Gideon. KirbyKing. Mic_128. SamuraiPanda.

 

[flyinfilipino]

April Fools!

Pikachu! SAKURAI!!!

 

[LOL_Master]

Holy spam****ing banrequest. <.<;

suck my nutz, you spamingscrub, look at yourself before calling me who you are

 

[Johnknight1]

Seriously, WTF Sakurai? Why not say that smash can be competitve and casual!?!?!? Why not highlight BOTH, and say you made them both for both crowds to be happy. This is exactly why Nintendo fails. Super Mario Galaxy has minimal depth compared to the classic 2D Mario games. Brawl isn't meant to be competitive. Competitveness is gone with Nintendo. Well, I'm basically done with Nintendo anyways. It doesn't mean much to me anyways. Brawl was basically set to be my last Nintendo game I bought that wasn't made directly by Nintendo (the ever superior Retro Studios [aka the new Rare]). I'm going with the 360 I got, and running with it. That, and I'm still playing smash.

Seriously, it's one thing if you both have fun, but can't you have fun in competition? I enjoy playing in smash competitvely. Playing to win. I have fun, win or lose. Losing just means I have a lot to improve on. Winning just means I out performed and defeated my opponent. Seriously Sakurai, why not bring out the best in the competitve and casual community, instead of just both? Ergh, everyone is doing this now. Shigeru Miyamoto, and the rest of the gaming world. They're aiming at non-gamers, and not the gamers that made them-the dedicated gamers. It's one thing to aim at non-gamers and light gamers, but they only last you so long. Which is why aiming universally is better. Seriously. >_>

 

[Kirby M.D.]

Good for you, you've made the same bloody observation everyone else made since Brawl. Seriously Gimpy, being a pro doesn't mean you can make pointless topics everywhere.

 

[Time/SpaceMage]

Nintendo Power interviewed Sakurai again, and questions about "wavedashing" and higher levels of play actually came up. And for anyone who doesn't like Nintendo Power, all I can say is that they certainly asked the right questions.

To add to this, here's another part that bugged me:

NP: What were some of the specific tweaks that you made to the core gameplay, and what were your reasons for making them?

Sakurai: First of all, of course, is the inclusion of the Final Smash. If you look at the overall direction of Smash Bros., players can go in and change the setup to match whatever game style they want. You can turn all items off, etc. But really, my vision of Smash Bros. is that it's a party game, really. You've got four people battling it out and you're really not sure who's winning or losing. Or maybe that's not even the point. But I also wanted to have something that could really surprise everybody and shake things up. Even though you're winning the entire match, maybe in the final moment I'm going to win via this new mechanic.

As for other tweaks, the game speed is a little bit slower. That might not be quite so evident, but it affects ease of control, especially now that we're supporting three different controllers. We wanted to make the control intuitive no matter which controller you're using. With Melee, because you were using only the GameCube controller, it was a game based on speed and quick action. However, this time around, I thought I would make it easier to get into and also emphasize the mid-air battle aspect. I thought that the way things worked in Smash Bros. Melee with the speed of fighting being very quick was good in its own way, but with Brawl, I wanted to try emphasizing something a little bit different.

Also for the record, this interview was done before the NA release.

 

[I.T.P]

BTW, I just wanted to point out that sakurai does not hate the competetive scene, infact the opposite is true, he specifically goes as far as needed to make the game fit for both purposes, he is familiar and is writing to some of the Best players in Japan, and he even had "Advanced techniques" sections in the smashbros.com website.

now why would he do all that if he "hates" us? you people got it all wrong...

 

[Time/SpaceMage]

From what I understand, the advanced techniques aren't as much a problem as features like the lack of hitstun/shield stun.

 

[Pink Reaper]

BTW, I just wanted to point out that sakurai does not hate the competetive scene, infact the opposite is true, he specifically goes as far as needed to make the game fit for both purposes, he is familiar and is writing to some of the Best players in Japan, and he even had "Advanced techniques" sections in the smashbros.com website.

now why would he do all that if he "hates" us? you people got it all wrong...

Even if he doesn't hate the competitive scene its definitely true that he dumbed this game down. I don't blame him, I blame Nintendo and their new need to cater to the "non-gamers"

 

[I.T.P]

Even if he doesn't hate the competitive scene its definitely true that he dumbed this game down. I don't blame him, I blame Nintendo and their new need to cater to the "non-gamers"

I say the low hit stun isn't that bad, it just makes it so combos are harder and less powerfull, it doesn't mean suddenly good players will stop beating bad players, or that player A will have more chances of winning because of it, it's just a different game style.

Personally, I think that the whole direction of "less tech skill, more strategy" is a great direction, and it keeps the game fun while making the learning curve much more friendly, now you finally don't have to play the game for a year before you can begin to get close to veterans, it'll depend more on what you can do, and less on how much tech skill you've practiced

 

[Pink Reaper]

I say the low hit stun isn't that bad, it just makes it so combos are harder and less powerfull, it doesn't mean suddenly good players will stop beating bad players, or that player A will have more chances of winning because of it, it's just a different game style.

Personally, I think that the whole direction of "less tech skill, more strategy" is a great direction, and it keeps the game fun while making the learning curve much more friendly, now you finally don't have to play the game for a year before you can begin to get close to veterans, it'll depend more on what you can do, and less on how much tech skill you've practiced

"Less tech skill, more strategy" doesn't really make sense though. Thats like saying, more tech skill means less strategy, but this isn't true as greater tech skill only opened up MORE strategies in Melee. In Brawl, there's probably an equal amount of strategies, but they are all very low level strategies like turtling, hit and run, camping, etc. Lowering the tech skill requirement didn't actually make the game more strategic, it just lowered the amount of skill required to play.

 

[Wiseguy]

"Less tech skill, more strategy" doesn't really make sense though. Thats like saying, more tech skill means less strategy, but this isn't true as greater tech skill only opened up MORE strategies in Melee. In Brawl, there's probably an equal amount of strategies, but they are all very low level strategies like turtling, hit and run, camping, etc. Lowering the tech skill requirement didn't actually make the game more strategic, it just lowered the amount of skill required to play.

I would say "greater strategy" is present in Brawl. Not in the sense of more complex strategies, but in the sense of more strategies per match. Chosing which attack to use at a given time is even more important now, because you can't guarantee victory with just killer reflexes and one effective combo technique. Just my opinion.

 

[Pink Reaper]

I would say "greater strategy" is present in Brawl. Not in the sense of more complex strategies, but in the sense of more strategies per match. Chosing which attack to use at a given time is even more important now, because you can't guarantee victory with just killer reflexes and one effective combo technique. Just my opinion.

Well once again, this was present in Melee, it just yielded better results. There was no character save perhaps Falco who had one single attack that they could rely on(no, not even Fox's shine was that useful) in any given situation, and there were dozens of situations that could come up at any given time. However, in Melee, knowing how to deal with these situations yielded better results, you got a combo(or if your playing one of the only characters with no combos, one very powerful hit) rather than just a single attack that might not even be the best one for the situation as the best move might be stale.

 

[I.T.P]

"Less tech skill, more strategy" doesn't really make sense though. Thats like saying, more tech skill means less strategy, but this isn't true as greater tech skill only opened up MORE strategies in Melee. In Brawl, there's probably an equal amount of strategies, but they are all very low level strategies like turtling, hit and run, camping, etc. Lowering the tech skill requirement didn't actually make the game more strategic, it just lowered the amount of skill required to play.

It only lowered the amount of Tech skill needed to play, which smash needed gravely.

and yes, more tech skill needed = people with dominant tech skill need to think about their game much less, they can just abuse long combos and wavedaashing and whatever the enemy doesn't know, and once the enemy has the same or relatively the same amount of tech skill, then it's all about basic strategies, which is the core of competetive gameplay.

just because you need to run and press Z in order to grab, instead of jump, air dodge to the ground, jump, air dodge to the ground, jump and quickly press Z, it doesn't make grabbing a more\less skillfull technique, those things caused more problems then they were worth it IMO, if Wave dashing had a button in brawl, but retained all of it's previous traits, then no one would use regular dashing, and you'd still have the same amount of strategies...

Edit: I would like to disagree, without the new stale moves factor, abusing the same attacks over and over was done all the time in Melee, I.E Fox's Shine, or Drill, Peach's Dsmash or Fthrow, Marth's Fsmash or Fair or Utilt etc' now that you actually have to account for staleness and revise your strategy, it makes for smarter play.

 

[Wiseguy]

Well once again, this was present in Melee, it just yielded better results. There was no character save perhaps Falco who had one single attack that they could rely on(no, not even Fox's shine was that useful) in any given situation, and there were dozens of situations that could come up at any given time. However, in Melee, knowing how to deal with these situations yielded better results, you got a combo(or if your playing one of the only characters with no combos, one very powerful hit) rather than just a single attack that might not even be the best one for the situation as the best move might be stale.

Forgive my ignorance, but don't stale moves result from spamming said move? Sounds like a bad strategy to me...

And yeah, you're talking about the lack of punishment in making bad decisions in Brawl. In Melee, a minor mistake would get you destroyed. In Brawl, a minor mistake gets you damaged. Some Melee vets may hate it, but I find it requires that players think more often for longer periods.

 

[Pink Reaper]

It only lowered the amount of Tech skill needed to play, which smash needed gravely.

and yes, more tech skill needed = people with dominant tech skill need to think about their game much less, they can just abuse long combos and wavedaashing and whatever the enemy doesn't know, and once the enemy has the same or relatively the same amount of tech skill, then it's all about basic strategies, which is the core of competetive gameplay.

just because you need to run and press Z in order to grab, instead of jump, air dodge to the ground, jump, air dodge to the ground, jump and quickly press Z, it doesn't make grabbing a more\less skillfull technique, those things caused more problems then they were worth it IMO, if Wave dashing had a button in brawl, but retained all of it's previous traits, then no one would use regular dashing, and you'd still have the same amount of strategies...

Edit: I would like to disagree, without the new stale moves factor, abusing the same attacks over and over was done all the time in Melee, I.E Fox's Shine, or Drill, Peach's Dsmash or Fthrow, Marth's Fsmash or Fair or Utilt etc' now that you actually have to account for staleness and revise your strategy, it makes for smarter play.

Whoever told you that Wavedashing was the be all end all movement technique was lying to you. For some characters this is true, but for many others wavedashing was meaningless for anything more than the occasional mindgame and WD->Ledge. Peach, Zelda, Sheik, Jiggs, Bowser, Link all come to mind, and there are characters like Falco, CF, and Marth who have much better things than Wavedashing for movement.

As for stale moves, this doesn't make for better strategy in alot of cases. Take Kirby(I have to use my main, he's the only one Im familiar with) His Best approach would be his Bair as it has the most range, good power and good priority. His Fair is similar, but its difficult to space his third hit well. His Nair and Uair are bad for approach as Nair is low range/priority and Uair is a flip kick, its not made for approaching. His Dair is the worst to approach with as the land lag is horrible. As such, Im left to approach with Bair and Fair if I want an aerial approach. Now this will cause them to become stale, so should a situation arise where they would be good choices for a kill(air dodge punish) they would be useless. Now, you could say that I should just "change my strategy" but the problem is there really isn't a good, usable strategy to take its place. I can punish the air dodge, but I cant kill when I should be able to.

Edit: Its nearly 5 in the F*ing morning, im going to bed.

 

[Corigames]

and yes, more tech skill needed = people with dominant tech skill need to think about their game much less, they can just abuse long combos and wavedaashing and whatever the enemy doesn't know...

Well, now it's evident. You sucked at melee and like Brawl because it is simpler. Thanks, can your debate be over now?

 

[Sculelos]

I find that Brawl really is still very competitive. I enjoyed Melee a lot but I'm enjoying Brawl way more. What made me into a Smash fanatic was it's simpler game play compared to more traditional fighters and since it's simple to control the game revolves completely about strategy's instead of tech skill. If you enjoy a strategy based fighter then excellent Brawl was made with you in mind, but if you enjoy a tech heavy fighter with ways to punish your opponent unmercifully then you might want to stick with Melee or pick up a more traditional fighter.

 

[Tiny Toon]

Does it really matter to us if he WANTED it competitive or not? we still want to compete either way, don't we?