Sakurai doesn't deserve the bashing he gets for brawl.

[Cleo555]

All i have to say is, whether Sakurai deserves to be blamed or not, he will be now and in the future because ppl dont have the time to figure out which producer did what and who developed or took out the ideas in melee/brawl.
Tripping is an unexcusable sin
But personally i think melee and brawl arent comparable at all. When my wii broke and i was forced to play melee instead it was like learning a new game all over again. I used to play it casually with my brother and sister and now that i looked online and learned all the AT's i feel like i cant play it normally without feeling like im a noob

 

[Kewkky]

Think of it this way...

If a guy saves a family from a burning building, restores the world's economy and improves USA's economic standing, fixes the world's pollution problems, finds an eco-friendly alternate source of energy that is also easily accessible, finds out how to implement artificial intelligence into robots, and teaches mute kids how to talk... Then builds a hospital for dying children and says it's completely safe, and when it gets full, the hospital collapses into itself and kills all the children inside, he'll still be blamed for the bad thing, and the good things will not have much weight when determining if he should be let off easy or not. Hell, if we try and 'Sakurai' it up, the guy will probably end up saying "dying kids are using up too much money, them dying faster will keep the money flowing in and out of the government like it should".


... lol, yeah, pretty intense example, but I got nothing else.

 

[Frogles]

So, you put two options down.

1) Keep making the game as is, which has been very successful.
2)Cater to the competitive community (which is less then 1% of all Smash Players)

Since the two can not be mixed, why even bother with 2. Just go with one, which has had increasing sales so far.

"But....but Smashchu. Sakurai can cater to both." No he can't. In order to make the competitive community happy, Sakurai will have to add features and elements that will drive the 99% away. Inversely, if he adds things that make the game easier for the low tier players, it will drive the 1% away, but it may be possible to make up the growth. Oh, and the 1% are very dedicated fans who will probably buy SSB4 anyway, so Sakurai may lose nothing making 1. Thus, the opprotunity cost of 2 is way to high, but there is very little cost to 1.

Don't believe me? Compare Smash to ALL other competitive fighting games.
Street Fighter-SF2 is the only game that beats out any of the Smash Bothers games sales. All the others are below 5 million. Obviously, Street Fighter did something wrong long ago where Smash is doing something right.
Marvel vs Capcom-Despite Marvel and Capcom having very recognizable series, it didn't sell that well. This would defeat your idea of star power. Tatsunoko vs Capcom will probably follow suit.
BlazBlue-Total sales of both games (on the 360 and PS3) are 400K. That is worldwide sales. Obviously, people don't want to pick up a competitive fighting game. Guilty Gear is probably the same.
King of Fighter-It may have done well in the arcades, but no version of the game broke 1 million.
Tekken-It has done very well in the past, however, it is starting to hit hard time. The PS3 version is having weak sales overall. This may show that Tekken messed up somewhere down the line.

Smash Bros out preforms all of these series. So for Smash to be more competitive would be bad as it would be doing what other fighting game do (something you've advocated Kuma). Smash should focus more on trying to get new players to enjoy the game rather then appease a niche community.

you're really stupid if you think the characters aren't the biggest selling point. the game could have been a traditional fighter like street fighter and still be highly successful. it's even more mind boggling that you think the majority of the players would be driven away if the game had some hidden depth considering melee was the most successful gamecube game. the game didn't sell because it was easier for little kids to play. barely anybody played the demos to know that the game would be easier. the only thing we knew is what was on the dojo and the dojo said NOTHING about the game being watered down for the less talented players. for all we knew the game could have been completely catered to the competitive community yet it was still VERY successful. what does that tell you?

the game would have been successful no matter how it turned out as i stated in one of my previous posts. the majority of players do NOT notice the differences between melee and brawl. they play the game for the characters and the 4p madness. nobody bought the game for the change in mechanics. NOBODY. everybody bought it because its smash bros. because they want to play as their favorite character. because they want to go head to head against their friends in 4p matches. NOT because the game was made easier for them.

 

[shadyf0o]

Even if you don't like brawl, that's a grand total of one game he made that you don't like. One friggin game.

Does anybody bash Miyamoto for Adventure of Link, Sunshine, or any other games he made with a split in the fanbase due to subjective entertainment? No.

It's not that he made a mistake, it's where he made a mistake. Smash is my favorite game of all time (and many others as well). The competitve community are the people who play smash for years and years, not the casual crowd he made the game for. If Bungie messed up Halo, would they be forgiven? If Blizzard messed up starcraft II, would they be forgiven?

Smash is Nintendo's greatest franchise and he dropped the ball. That is why he is bashed.

Tripping, Metaknight, horrible online play, time limited replays, blackballing his diehard fans = unforgivable.

btw: I'd expect more constructive threads from a "smash lord." No offense intended or anything. Boredom gets the best of us sometimes

 

[SmashChu]

I'll be straight forward with all of you, this is 99% common sense, and some how you guys don't understand it.

you're really stupid if you think the characters aren't the biggest selling point. the game could have been a traditional fighter like street fighter and still be highly successful. it's even more mind boggling that you think the majority of the players would be driven away if the game had some hidden depth considering melee was the most successful gamecube game. the game didn't sell because it was easier for little kids to play. barely anybody played the demos to know that the game would be easier. the only thing we knew is what was on the dojo and the dojo said NOTHING about the game being watered down for the less talented players. for all we knew the game could have been completely catered to the competitive community yet it was still VERY successful. what does that tell you?

Marvel vs Capcom was not very successful despite having Marvel and Capcom properties. By that logic, Marvel vs Capcom, as well as Tatsunoko vs Capcom, would have at least brokje 1million sold. Neither did. At the same time, Street Fighter was successful without recognizable characters. Many games that have recognizable characters flop. The vs series of games should be one of Capcom's biggest series, much like Smash Bros, yes? It's not, telling you your assumption is wrong.

Also (it saddens me that I have to say this), but more assessable games sell better. Guitar Hero was defiantly more assessable compared to Japanese rhythm games. Mario Kart Wii is the most assessable game of the series, and is the best selling. All arcade games had tyo be assessable to succeed.

the game would have been successful no matter how it turned out as i stated in one of my previous posts. the majority of players do NOT notice the differences between melee and brawl. they play the game for the characters and the 4p madness. nobody bought the game for the change in mechanics. NOBODY. everybody bought it because its smash bros. because they want to play as their favorite character. because they want to go head to head against their friends in 4p matches. NOT because the game was made easier for them.

You missed the point. More assessable games allow new users to enter. They don't see new mechanics. They will see how much easier the game is too pick up. (aside: the fact you mentioned this means you see games differently then how most other people, the larger consumer base, see and consequently, purchase games. Thus, you will likely not get this and be wrong every time). Here it is.

Gamer A is a female who plays games occasionally. She is 19, has a boyfriend, a part time job, and goes to school full time. He also like to go to the movies and go out dancing with her friends on Friday night. (NOTE:Before anyone mentions the fact the player is female, not that it wasn't uncommon to see girl play videogames. Games have also become harder. See a pattern).
Game A plays Megaman 1. Megaman 1 was a very hard game, especially as the D-Pad was a new controller.
Gamer A says "Ugg, this game is too hard. I keep dieing. Why do the blocks disappear. I'm not having fun anymore."
Gamer A does not like Megaman as it is too hard. Thus, she is disinterest and will sell the game if she bought it. Instead of telling her friends how she liked the game, she will tell them not to buy it. Her boyfriend may then tell his friends not to buy it.
Gamer A then picks up Megaman 2. She is playing it because a friend told her to try it. She borrows the game instead of buying it as she was burned with the last purchase.
Gamer AL "Hmm, is this easier or am I doing better? Either way, I'm liking this. OH YEAH! I beat a boss. I couldn't do that in the first game!" (aside: yeah, there were probably disappearing block in MM2, just roll with it).
The game was easier and, thus, the player had fun. She made it to Wily's Castle. She never beat it, but because she could get jump started, she enjoyed the game more. She buys a copy of the game, and tells all her friends to get it. Her boyfriend likes it too and he tells his friends about it. He's a bigger game though, she he did beat it, and still comes back to play it.

This is why Smash had to be good and assessable to sell.
Study finds that word of mouth influences the most purchases
Compared to all video gamers, Influence Multipliers are a hyper influential subset of friends who are also far more connected to other gamers. As a result, Influence Multipliers have an outsized network influence effect on their gaming colleagues. By targeting the media channels that Influence Multipliers rely on, marketers can optimize their marketing spending

This is why we can tell that best selling games ere good. People would have to recommend it to others. Nintendo does less advertising then their competitiors, yet they almost always sell more copies. "But Smashchu, that is because Mario is famous." Japan doesn't care.

If that was true, why did the 3D Marios under preform. Yet, at the same time, people are picking up New Super Mario Bros Wii like no tomorrow. Heck, some places are even out of the game. There is a shortage? When has there been a shortage of a game in the last 10 or 20 years? This should tell you that Nintendo characters are not the reason people pick up games.

Like with Megaman, multiplayer games sell due to their ease of use. In a single player game, you have to do two things

1. Make the controls simple
2. Make the game start out easy and get harder as you go

This was the strategy with old arcade games. To use Street Fighter as an example, the first stage was piss easy, but it got hard on the second stage, and so on. In Mario, the early levels are fairly easy, but they get pretty rough towards the end.

In multiplayer games, there is no environment you are fighting. You are playing against someone else. So, typically, you do two things

1. Make the controls simple
2. Make the skill gap small. In other words, don't let one person dominate

Obviously, our competitive friends will hate #2, but it is the true. In Mario Kart Wii, the items are designed to stop 1st place. Items like Lighting and Pow blocks make players drop their items, removing 1st place's defenses. Blue Shells take out the 1st place racer so he can be defeated. Naturally, there is a correlation.

Smash Bros was made buy a guy who's career was started because he felt games were too hard at the time. The philosophy has moved into Smash as each game is easier then the last (e.g. There has been less hit stun with each game).

Smash can not bank on it's all star cast. It is not working for the VS series. It didn't work for previous Mario Karts (Double Dash was a far cry from Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart DS). It didn't work for the standard Mario games. It's defiantly not working for Street Fighter (4 comes no where close to 2, a game that came out with less globalization of games and a smaller buying population). It won't work for Smash Bros.

 

[ScoobyCafe]

I'm honestly starting to think you enjoy harassing Kuma with your bull****, Chu. You made your point, yet you won't stop jocking the dude for whatever reason.

Just like you said, Melee was a fluke. To make Smash competitive would mean adding in features to make the game harder, but would add more depth. Like Wavedashing, this only increases the skill gap, and makes it easier for lower tier players to give up. With onlne, it because easier for players to give up as they will feel inferior, loss their interest, and find a product that will fill their needs and be easy to jump into. Videogames are very steep in competition, from other games, other entertainment mediums and even disinterest. So, you always have to keep the low tier guys from getting out.

Funny how you're using "Melee was a fluke" to discredit the fact that it catered to both the casual and competitive crowd.

And you seriously need to shake off this notion that adding more invariably makes a game harder, thus not being as accessible. NSMB Wii added tons more over it's DS counterpart, and, as you said, it looks as if it may surpass the original. Funny how adding more, easily understandable things can do that. So why are you against this for SSB4, especially seeing how you--hurr hurr--love bringing sales in arguments. Oh, right, because *****ing about competitive play is your forte, no?

Also, Alpha had a lot of old characters. Why aren't any of those successful? Why is SF4 so far behind Street Fighter 2? Should Smash Bros have increased interest in fighting games?

The games after SFII and prior SFIV specifically sought out to increase complexity and skill requirements as a means to increase depth, therefore not being quite accessible in comparison to SFII and SFIV. This hurt those games.

An a possible explanation for SFIV being behind SFII currently could be due to 1) The Street Fighter name was marred by said games, and 2) Smash Brothers. That's not to diminish SFIV, because it is doing very well for a traditional fighter. Saying otherwise would be silly on your part.

The problem with arguing is even basic logic doesn't work with you. Look at this.
Smash outsells all other fighting games
You want Smash to be like other fighting games
How does that make sense when the focus is on growth?
I quote sales in part because it shows that Smash is successful while all other fighting games are not. Yet, you still insist then Smash start taking pages from them. This is like the Winning coach stealing strategies from the losing team. This is like the winning country in a war having a spy steal the losing armie's strategies and then adopting them.

This is also like you COMPLETELY not understanding where he is coming from, and should put a lid on the empty air you're spouting.

How many times has Kuma said he doesn't want Smash to be like Street Fighter? You have this predisposition that whenever he brings up something that he thinks would add depth, you go, "Hurr, nope, stop trying to make Smash this game. Derp derp derp."

And Smash could definitely learn a few things from other fighters. Despite their sales, those other fighters do have good things to offer, things Smash could perhaps benefit from. That doesn't mean Smash should emulate what they're doing, but to be mindful. Smash has a thing where it takes existing concepts, deviates from them, and creates something new. Brawl did this to an extent, we just want to see more of that.

So hey, Chu, keep this in mind whenever you urge to hug Kuma's jewels when he talks mechanics and so forth.

 

[shadyf0o]

edit. I retract my previous statements. No more fuel need be added to this fire.

 

[shadyf0o]

Just like you said, Melee was a fluke. To make Smash competitive would mean adding in features to make the game harder, but would add more depth. Like Wavedashing, this only increases the skill gap, and makes it easier for lower tier players to give up. With onlne, it because easier for players to give up as they will feel inferior, loss their interest, and find a product that will fill their needs and be easy to jump into. Videogames are very steep in competition, from other games, other entertainment mediums and even disinterest. So, you always have to keep the low tier guys from getting out.

Malstrom wrote a good article on a similar notion. You are an undershot player. You want the game to keep advancing. Others may become overshot and may just stop playing. Nintendo is successful for going for the overshot, not the under. It's a good article, so defiantly check it out.
Here

If you "always have to keep the low tier guys from getting out", how do you explain the enormous success of highly competitive games like halo? Halo's community is very, very competitive. So much so that if a new player were to start playing today he would probably not be able to compete until he played for about a month, and even then the good players would stomp him. This doesn't stop over a 100,000 people from playing online every day. The game that you referenced yourself: street fighter, is also enormously copetitive, and yet very successful.

I can't believe i'm contributing to this nonsense. lol

 

[payasofobia]

As expected, this thread devolved into a ****storm.

Jesus.

 

[Frogles]

I'll be straight forward with all of you, this is 99% common sense, and some how you guys don't understand it.

Marvel vs Capcom was not very successful despite having Marvel and Capcom properties. By that logic, Marvel vs Capcom, as well as Tatsunoko vs Capcom, would have at least brokje 1million sold. Neither did. At the same time, Street Fighter was successful without recognizable characters. Many games that have recognizable characters flop. The vs series of games should be one of Capcom's biggest series, much like Smash Bros, yes? It's not, telling you your assumption is wrong.

marvel vs capcom didnt have mario, link, donkey kong, pokemon, and various other nintendo characters to sell on. sorry but nintendo is more popular to the majority of gamers(which include little kids) than marvel or capcom.

Also (it saddens me that I have to say this), but more assessable games sell better. Guitar Hero was defiantly more assessable compared to Japanese rhythm games. Mario Kart Wii is the most assessable game of the series, and is the best selling. All arcade games had tyo be assessable to succeed.

its true that mario kart wii is very accessible and has sold extremely well. however, mario kart has always been very accessible and isnt the first mario kart to achieve great success. mario kart ds did well DESPITE having a downright broken technique that many people used online. it was easy to get into, but it also had that "appeal" for people who enjoy competition. did it sell because it appealed to two different groups of people? no. it sold because its ****ing mario kart.

You missed the point. More assessable games allow new users to enter. They don't see new mechanics. They will see how much easier the game is too pick up. (aside: the fact you mentioned this means you see games differently then how most other people, the larger consumer base, see and consequently, purchase games. Thus, you will likely not get this and be wrong every time). Here it is.

i do see games differently than many other people but i understood what you were saying before. apparently you didn't understand my point or just chose to ignore it. the fact is the smash series has ALWAYS been easy to get into. many people still don't know of melees hidden depth. yes the game had a harder to get into competitive side but did people enjoy it any less? no they didnt. did this hold the game back? no it did not. the game sold over 7 million copies on a system that only managed 22 million. thats almost a ****ing THIRD of the userbase. did melee have hidden depth? yes it did. was it easy to pick up and have fun with? again yes. just because a game has a side that's harder to get into for the average gamer does NOT mean it won't be successful.

This is why we can tell that best selling games ere good. People would have to recommend it to others. Nintendo does less advertising then their competitiors, yet they almost always sell more copies. "But Smashchu, that is because Mario is famous." Japan doesn't care.

If that was true, why did the 3D Marios under preform. Yet, at the same time, people are picking up New Super Mario Bros Wii like no tomorrow. Heck, some places are even out of the game. There is a shortage? When has there been a shortage of a game in the last 10 or 20 years? This should tell you that Nintendo characters are not the reason people pick up games.

mario games still sell better than most games do in japan but you can't compare it to smash bros. smash bros whole selling point is 4p madness with established nintendo characters. replace the nintendo characters with a bunch of generic fighters and what do you have? a much less successful set of games. don't even try to tell me that smash bros would have achieved even a quarter of its success without the nintendo characters. people picked up the game because of the commercial of 4 nintendo characters beating the **** out of each other in an open field.

Smash can not bank on it's all star cast. It is not working for the VS series. It didn't work for previous Mario Karts (Double Dash was a far cry from Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart DS). It didn't work for the standard Mario games. It's defiantly not working for Street Fighter (4 comes no where close to 2, a game that came out with less globalization of games and a smaller buying population). It won't work for Smash Bros.

except that it works for all of those. it just happens to be a much bigger factor in smash and other nintendo games because of how recognizable nintendo characters are. you just cant compare characters like ryu and chun li to donkey kong and pikachu when it comes to recognition.

mario kart double dash was on the ****ing gamecube and sold about 7 million copies anyway. stop with the stupid comparisons. the wii has over twice the userbase while the ds has 4-5x.

btw what do you suppose people were thinking to themselves when they went on the smash bros dojo everyday? were they thinking " i cant wait to play smash bros i bet its really accessible."? or were they thinking "i can't wait to get brawl and play as even more of my favorite nintendo characters."?

 

[SmashChu]

And Smash could definitely learn a few things from other fighters. Despite their sales, those other fighters do have good things to offer, things Smash could perhaps benefit from. That doesn't mean Smash should emulate what they're doing, but to be mindful. Smash has a thing where it takes existing concepts, deviates from them, and creates something new. Brawl did this to an extent, we just want to see more of that.

I'd reply to you, but a lot of what you said is too easy. But this....

if Smash could learn from these games, then why are they failing while Smash is succeeding? Street Fighter, along with other fighting games, have gone down the crapper. Street Fighter games can't break 1 million anymore save for SF4, and even it's a far cry from 2.

There is no reason to take feature from other fighting games when it has obviously not worked for them.

And on the bold, that's how it works. Kuma has mentioned stuff that straight up rips off of other fighting games (Neo Wavedashing). Smash would fail if it did what the other games did because, no surprise, they are failing. That comment supports my claim because you admit that Smash is marching to the beat of a different drum. That is the point. It does things differently, and it successful. Being mindful is about being nice, with happy flowers and sunshine, but consumers don't care. They want entertainment, and the fighting games aren't providing it, save for Smash. In other words Smash needs to stay Smash and not be mindful because it won't net them more customers.

If you "always have to keep the low tier guys from getting out", how do you explain the enormous success of highly competitive games like halo? Halo's community is very, very competitive. So much so that if a new player were to start playing today he would probably not be able to compete until he played for about a month, and even then the good players would stomp him. This doesn't stop over a 100,000 people from playing online every day. The game that you referenced yourself: street fighter, is also enormously copetitive, and yet very successful.

I can't believe i'm contributing to this nonsense. lol

Halo, as far as FPSes go, is relatively easy to get into this. Smash is an easy game too and still has a competitive community. Street Fighter 2 is easy to get into and had a competitive community (all arcade games had to be easy to get into as players could just walk to another machine). The problem only arises when the developers make the game for the competitive community. Halo 3 wasn't designed to be more competitive. From what I could tell, they focused on adding more to the game, like the special items (shields, radar jammers) rather then making the game "deeper." When games get "deeper," they do bad. A lot of the time, depth comes from the game just being fun and having verity.

marvel vs capcom didnt have mario, link, donkey kong, pokemon, and various other nintendo characters to sell on. sorry but nintendo is more popular to the majority of gamers(which include little kids) than marvel or capcom.

First, there is no proof to your claim. I could easily say that Smash Bros doesn't have Spiderman, X-Men and the Hulk. That argument is no more wrong then what you said.

However, the data points against you again. While most Marvel games did bad, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance did pretty well selling 2.46 million. How come that game beat out all the others. And Capcom has some high profile series no doubt. Why did MvC lose to a game with just Marvel characters? In order for your assumption to be right, it would have to apply to other games, as you are saying that people are buying these games for their characters, yet their is inconsistency. Tatsunoko vs Capcom should have done well for having popular tatsunoko characters in it, but it flopped too. Heck, movie and TV show based games tend to do poorly as opposed to new series. Assassin's creed has done better then Spongebob games, yet Spongebob sells a lot of other merchandise. It sells way more stuff then Assassin's Creed, just not video games. Your assumption is wrong as the data is not consistent woth your claim.

its true that mario kart wii is very accessible and has sold extremely well. however, mario kart has always been very accessible and isnt the first mario kart to achieve great success. mario kart ds did well DESPITE having a downright broken technique that many people used online. it was easy to get into, but it also had that "appeal" for people who enjoy competition. did it sell because it appealed to two different groups of people? no. it sold because its ****ing mario kart.

Mario kart Double Dash and Super Circuit did poorly compared to other games in the series. You assumption can not explain why. Mario Kart Wii has also outsold the DS one and it took Snaking out. Again, your assumption can not explain the data.

Also, Snaking drove people away from Mario Kart. People were happy to see it gone in Wii.

i do see games differently than many other people but i understood what you were saying before. apparently you didn't understand my point or just chose to ignore it. the fact is the smash series has ALWAYS been easy to get into. many people still don't know of melees hidden depth. yes the game had a harder to get into competitive side but did people enjoy it any less? no they didnt. did this hold the game back? no it did not. the game sold over 7 million copies on a system that only managed 22 million. thats almost a ****ing THIRD of the userbase. did melee have hidden depth? yes it did. was it easy to pick up and have fun with? again yes. just because a game has a side that's harder to get into for the average gamer does NOT mean it won't be successful.

No, idiot. People knew of the crap in Melee. Why do you think there was such a fiasco? Your stupid if you think they didn't know. If in Brawl, it would have drove them away just as Snaking was doing in Mario Kart DS.

Also understand that Melee was still designed as an easy to get into game, and most people consider Melee's depth a fluke, showing the direction of ease of use.

mario games still sell better than most games do in japan but you can't compare it to smash bros. smash bros whole selling point is 4p madness with established nintendo characters. replace the nintendo characters with a bunch of generic fighters and what do you have? a much less successful set of games. don't even try to tell me that smash bros would have achieved even a quarter of its success without the nintendo characters. people picked up the game because of the commercial of 4 nintendo characters beating the **** out of each other in an open field.

There is no data to support you claim. There is to support mine that assessable games sell as I can list hundreds of assessable games that sold really well.
Mario Kart
Smash Bros
Street Fighter 2
Guitar Hero
Rock Band
Halo (as far as FPSes go)
Wii Sports
Wii Play
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Starcraft
World of Warcraft
Pong

All these games were successful despite having reconisable characters. Starcraft was all new. Halo was new when it first came out. Most people though Super Mario Kart was stupid when it first came out despite it having Mario. Guitar Hero, Rock Band Wii Play and Wii Sports have no real characters. Pong is just two paddles. Street Fighter was all new characters. So, no, Smash could be successful with other characters because other games were too.

except that it works for all of those. it just happens to be a much bigger factor in smash and other nintendo games because of how recognizable nintendo characters are. you just cant compare characters like ryu and chun li to donkey kong and pikachu when it comes to recognition.

Why can't you? No reason why? Street Fighter was huge and it had Ryu and Chun-Li.
Me 1
You.....well, let's not go there.

mario kart double dash was on the ****ing gamecube and sold about 7 million copies anyway. stop with the stupid comparisons. the wii has over twice the userbase while the ds has 4-5x.

Data doesn't match up. Mario Kart Super Circuit did worse then Double Dash despite being on a better selling system. Mario Kart Wii did better then Mario Kart DS despite the DS having much higher sales.

The number of units sold can hold games back, but only for so long. It probably didn't hold Mario Kart or Smash Bros back.

btw what do you suppose people were thinking to themselves when they went on the smash bros dojo everyday? were they thinking " i cant wait to play smash bros i bet its really accessible."? or were they thinking "i can't wait to get brawl and play as even more of my favorite nintendo characters."?

Wait, didn't I just explain this.

Gamer A is a female who plays games occasionally. She is 19, has a boyfriend, a part time job, and goes to school full time. He also like to go to the movies and go out dancing with her friends on Friday night. (NOTE:Before anyone mentions the fact the player is female, not that it wasn't uncommon to see girl play videogames. Games have also become harder. See a pattern).
Game A plays Megaman 1. Megaman 1 was a very hard game, especially as the D-Pad was a new controller.
Gamer A says "Ugg, this game is too hard. I keep dieing. Why do the blocks disappear. I'm not having fun anymore."
Gamer A does not like Megaman as it is too hard. Thus, she is disinterest and will sell the game if she bought it. Instead of telling her friends how she liked the game, she will tell them not to buy it. Her boyfriend may then tell his friends not to buy it.
Gamer A then picks up Megaman 2. She is playing it because a friend told her to try it. She borrows the game instead of buying it as she was burned with the last purchase.
Gamer AL "Hmm, is this easier or am I doing better? Either way, I'm liking this. OH YEAH! I beat a boss. I couldn't do that in the first game!" (aside: yeah, there were probably disappearing block in MM2, just roll with it).
The game was easier and, thus, the player had fun. She made it to Wily's Castle. She never beat it, but because she could get jump started, she enjoyed the game more. She buys a copy of the game, and tells all her friends to get it. Her boyfriend likes it too and he tells his friends about it. He's a bigger game though, she he did beat it, and still comes back to play it.

That's right, I did. And you ignored it, and will do so again because you can't make an over compassing generalization about it.

Seriously, I'll go back and forth with you, but you'll lose every time. You are not good at arguing, despite you think you are, you make generalizations, have no evidence backing you up, and heck, you don't even have a grasp on basic grammar. The evidence points towards me, and it has since the first post, but that really because you have none, and yes, their is evidence to support your claim.

So quit while you're ahead. Let someone else argue this for you because you can't.

Oh, and sales numbers come from here.

 

[ScoobyCafe]

I'd reply to you, but a lot of what you said is too easy.

Sure. You would've said otherwise if I was Kuma.

if Smash could learn from these games, then why are they failing while Smash is succeeding? Street Fighter, along with other fighting games, have gone down the crapper. Street Fighter games can't break 1 million anymore save for SF4, and even it's a far cry from 2.

The games after SFII and prior SFIV specifically sought out to increase complexity and skill requirements as a means to increase depth, therefore not being quite accessible in comparison to SFII and SFIV. This hurt those games.

Yeah, maybe you missed this. However, amongst the things that hinder these games, there are some redeeming aspects in said games. You see, I don't see things as black and white as you do. That's your problem.

There is no reason to take feature from other fighting games when it has obviously not worked for them.

Are you purposely not seeing what I'm saying, or are you stupid? I'm not saying Smash should straight up take features from other games and apply it to Smash. No, I specifically said Smash should be mindful of what worked in those games.

Say I drew something, and I told Sakurai to put his own spin on what I drew. My drawing was quite moody and dark, his very bright, pleasing, and easier to grasp. People like his drawing much more than my own. And he... you know what... you probably aren't going to attempt to understand this anyway, so I should stop here.

And on the bold, that's how it works. Kuma has mentioned stuff that straight up rips off of other fighting games (Neo Wavedashing). Smash would fail if it did what the other games did because, no surprise, they are failing. That comment supports my claim because you admit that Smash is marching to the beat of a different drum. That is the point. It does things differently, and it successful. Being mindful is about being nice, with happy flowers and sunshine, but consumers don't care. They want entertainment, and the fighting games aren't providing it, save for Smash. In other words Smash needs to stay Smash and not be mindful because it won't net them more customers.

And you magically know this, how? Oh, right, you don't--pulling stuff out of your arse again; you're very proficient at that. *Claps*

Dude, you need to come back in touch with reality. Seriously. I agree with you on the accessibility front to a degree, but when you start talking down on the competitive community as if you're some prophet for casuals, d*mning anything used as a contest of skill, you need to fall back.

 

[.Marik]

This thread started out with a lot of potential, and now it's a fucking eyesore.

Good job guys.

 

[ScoobyCafe]

Thank SmashChu for that.

Really not sure why I even responded to him.

 

[SmashChu]

Sure. You would've said otherwise if I was Kuma.

No. I said that because they were too easy as they are stuff I touched on before. Again, this is 101 stuff. I shouldn't have to explain this.

Yeah, maybe you missed this. However, amongst the things that hinder these games, there are some redeeming aspects in said games. You see, I don't see things as black and white as you do. That's your problem.

Basically, you're taking the happy flower approce. Logic dictates otherwise.
Smash is successful
Other fighting games are not successful.

Thus, why should the company bother producing or looking at other fighting games when they are not working.

Basically, this is the same as saying Nintendo needs to make a Wii HD. They are extremely successful. Yet, analyst say Nintendo needs a Wii HD. Guess what happens. Microsoft and Sony made motion controllers and there is no Wii HD. This is the same scenario. Nintendo is winning with Smash Bros while companies like Capcom is losing with Street Fighter. Smart people copy the winning. Idiots copy the lose. It is black and white.

Are you purposely not seeing what I'm saying, or are you stupid? I'm not saying Smash should straight up take features from other games and apply it to Smash. No, I specifically said Smash should be mindful of what worked in those games.

No, you said just that......

And Smash could definitely learn a few things from other fighters. Despite their sales, those other fighters do have good things to offer, things Smash could perhaps benefit from.

You said that Smash could learn from other games. In otherwords, Smash can learn something from the loser.

You are a C student in the class, but you're not fool, you just don't get it. Do you take the strategy (or help I guess in this case) from the A student or the F student. You go for the A student, the winner (in this case, Smash Bros). The A student won't say "I could learn something from the F student." No, they just keep doing what they are doing. In this case, it's "if it aint broke, don't fix it." Typically, you don't take a page from the losing team. There is no instance in real life where this can work, so why does Smash need to do it.

Say I drew something, and I told Sakurai to put his own spin on what I drew. My drawing was quite moody and dark, his very bright, pleasing, and easier to grasp. People like his drawing much more than my own. And he... you know what... you probably aren't going to attempt to understand this anyway, so I should stop here.

Look, if your going to make a point, make it. Don't dance around it like a fool. You are trying to make me look a fool, but you'll look the fool simply because it shows you have no argument. In other words, stay focused. You aren't going to convince me or anyone else by doing that.

And you magically know this, how? Oh, right, you don't--pulling stuff out of your arse again; you're very proficient at that. *Claps*

Didn't pull anything out of my arse.
My Comment
They want entertainment, and the fighting games aren't providing it, save for Smash. In other words Smash needs to stay Smash and not be mindful because it won't net them more customers.

Well, by golly, let's look at what customers are buying
http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=&publisher=&genre=Fighter&minSales=0&results=50&sort=Total

No surprise Smash Bros dominates that list. In the top 10, you have
Earlier Tekken Games
Street Fighter 2
WWE games

So what are consumers buying? Smash Bros. What are they not buying. Later versions of Street Fighters, which are defiantly more competitive. So no, my claim is based on evidence as people are obviously picking up Smash Brothers over other fighting games.

Dude, you need to come back in touch with reality. Seriously. I agree with you on the accessibility front to a degree, but when you start talking down on the competitive community as if you're some prophet for casuals, d*mning anything used as a contest of skill, you need to fall back.

First, I'm in touch with reality as I used real evidence. You did not have a single bit in any post you made, meaning you don't understand what is going on.

The thing I have advocated is less focus to the competitive community and more focus on getting new customers. It has worked wonders for other games, and if Smash is too survive, it needs to follow suit. The reason I call for developers to not focus on their competitive community is that it will only cause demise. Street Fighter 2 was successful, but it got harder with Turbo and Tournament addition. People are not buying newer versions of Street Fighter. Yet, Street Fighter developers take note on the competitive aspect of the game. Heck, it made competitive fighting games. But because of that, it has driven out other players.

To add depth adds difficulty, and there is no doubt about it. It creates a bigger skill gap and makes it easier for newer players to say they don't want to play anymore. Once you go forward, you can never go back. To make SF5 a success, one would have to remove a lot of the elements that give the game depth. This would anger the fanbase, which are only made up of the few players left, will denounce it, and it would not be able to take off. Smash must avoid this at all cost.

The only game I advocate that Smash should look at is Street Fighter 2 as it is the only other fighting game that can match it's success. heck, I advise anyone making a new fighting game to do this. Only look at that and Smash Bros because those are the only games that are reaching out beyond a small fanbase.

 

[superyoshi888]

Er SmashChu, Capcom keeps producing what it does because it cares for its customers more than Nintendo does. This might not make it as much money, but Capcom does come across as the better company.

 

[ScoobyCafe]

No, you said just that......

And Smash could definitely learn a few things from other fighters. Despite their sales, those other fighters do have good things to offer, things Smash could perhaps benefit from.

That doesn't mean Smash should emulate what they're doing, but to be mindful.

Way to take my post out of context, good sir.

You said that Smash could learn from other games. In otherwords, Smash can learn something from the loser.

"Other fighters hasn't sold as much as Smash, therefore they all fail and are losers, totally and completely," yeah, that's definitely a reasonable stance to take. Your analogy further illustrates how irrational you are on this issue--I guess that can't be helped, now can it? You see everything in black and white; there's no middle ground with you, thus no real reason to argue with you.

Look, if your going to make a point, make it. Don't dance around it like a fool. You are trying to make me look a fool, but you'll look the fool simply because it shows you have no argument. In other words, stay focused. You aren't going to convince me or anyone else by doing that.

Yes, I'm a fool for trying to convice a fool, hence why I stopped. I don't have to make it seem as if you are one since you're perfectly capable of doing so yourself. What are the chances of me changing your mind when you won't put down your zebra stripped goggles?--exactly, it's pointless that I'm even having this discussion right now.

Didn't pull anything out of my arse.
My Comment
They want entertainment, and the fighting games aren't providing it, save for Smash. In other words Smash needs to stay Smash and not be mindful because it won't net them more customers.

Well, by golly, let's look at what customers are buying
http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=&publisher=&genre=Fighter&minSales=0&results=50&sort=Total

No surprise Smash Bros dominates that list. In the top 10, you have
Earlier Tekken Games
Street Fighter 2
WWE games

So what are consumers buying? Smash Bros. What are they not buying. Later versions of Street Fighters, which are defiantly more competitive. So no, my claim is based on evidence as people are obviously picking up Smash Brothers over other fighting games.

You did in fact pull a hand full out of your arse. I'm specifically talking about the part where you said "Smash should not be mindful because it won't net them more customers." You're using sales to arrive at fallacious conclusions. Congrats.

Another thing, you might want to familiarize yourself with this, since you tend to do it a lot.

First, I'm in touch with reality as I used real evidence. You did not have a single bit in any post you made, meaning you don't understand what is going on.

I understand perfectly, and from what I gather, you definitely aren't in touch with reality the way this discussion is going. You're pretty far right in a political sense, I'd say.

What you are suggesting, and have suggested plenty times before, is that trying to please all gamers--casual and competitive alike--is wrong. You view competitive play as bad in the finest sense, that it can do no good. You see adding more invariably makes things harder, regardless if what is added is easily understandable to the masses.

Simply put, this is someone not fit to be having this type of discussion. Yes, you understand the importance of accessibility, and I agree with what you are saying there for the most part, but you just don't know what you're talking about when competitivity is brought up--I say add easy, approachable, fun stuff for everyone, [I assume] you think I'm saying add wavedashing and the like. I say Smash should be mindful when creating more Smash stuff (like Final Smashes), you say no. Huh?

But yeah, I stop here because I don't want to further **** up this thread with replying to your stupidness. You're more than welcomed to, though.

 

[Fatmanonice]

In a nutshell, Brawl got run over by its own hype train. The Dojo gave us all really big expectations for the game and, in the end, I think of us had at least one major expectation that wasn't met. Because it was probably the game that Nintendo hyped the most in their entire history, I think that's why there are STILL people who are genuinely bitter about how Brawl turned out.

There were some things that we deliberately overlooked though because we got lost in our own hype:

1. Sakurai said that adding online features to a game like Smash Bros would be obnoxiously hard and, at E3 06, sounded extremelly doubtful about even being able to pull it off.

2. Sakurai said that he wanted to give every Smash game its own feel so that it would be distinct from the others in the series. Why people were expecting it to be like Melee is beyond me especially when the original Smash Bros and Melee weren't exactly alike.

3. Sakurai said that adding the 26 characters in Melee was hard. Granted, the game was rushed even more than Brawl but even then it kind of kicks in the nuts the idea that Brawl would have 50 individual characters when you put it all in perspective.

I might as well say this now but those that are hoping and praying that SSB4 will end up being like Melee will be sorely disappointed. As I said in point 2, Sakurai wants each game to have its own feel. If you think Smash Bros will ever intentionally be competitive, you are sadly deluded and even if Sakurai got the boot (which is even more unlikely thanks to Brawl's fantastic sales, Sakurai's continued interest in the franchise, and the many connections that he has not only in Nintendo but the video game industry in Japan), the chances of the new director making the series competitive is even smaller. Regardless of how SSB4 turns out, people will still try to make it competitive and there will probably be people who will insist that Brawl was better thus continuing the circle of life.

 

[GunmasterLombardi]

"Stupidity" would be a better word.

Good idea Scoob, GET.OUT. Basically you can hate Sakurai all you want but he doesn't have to believe you even exist. Why do we still discuss this topic?

Edit: Nice job Fatty, you summed up this thing a bit better then I did.

 

[Frogles]

First, there is no proof to your claim. I could easily say that Smash Bros doesn't have Spiderman, X-Men and the Hulk. That argument is no more wrong then what you said.

However, the data points against you again. While most Marvel games did bad, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance did pretty well selling 2.46 million. How come that game beat out all the others. And Capcom has some high profile series no doubt. Why did MvC lose to a game with just Marvel characters? In order for your assumption to be right, it would have to apply to other games, as you are saying that people are buying these games for their characters, yet their is inconsistency. Tatsunoko vs Capcom should have done well for having popular tatsunoko characters in it, but it flopped too. Heck, movie and TV show based games tend to do poorly as opposed to new series. Assassin's creed has done better then Spongebob games, yet Spongebob sells a lot of other merchandise. It sells way more stuff then Assassin's Creed, just not video games. Your assumption is wrong as the data is not consistent woth your claim.

your sales figures dont tell you that marvel ultimate alliance was bundled with forza motorsport 2 and the actual xbox 360 console. take a look at the ****ing chart and you'll notice that the game had a huge increase RIGHT AFTER the bundle was released. why the hell do you think the 360 version sold so much more than the other versions? did people suddenly remember that they love marvel characters a year later?

assassin's creed was successful because it catered to the masses. it has a visual style that appeals to the gamers of today, the main character looked cool, and it was easy to pick up and play. about a week or two ago i had invited a couple of friends over to hang out and a commercial for assassin's creed 2 came up on the tv. most of them thought it looked ****** despite the commercial barely showing any gameplay. one of em actually picked it up that same night.

characters are NOT the main factor when it comes to success but as i said earlier most games aren't smash bros. that ninja turtles smash up game flopped despite having the same type of gameplay as smash brothers. it even had the same developers behind it. why did it flop while smash didnt? its because nobody cares about ninja turtles anymore. you can try to spin this anyway you want but theres absolutely NO REASON that ninja turtles should have sold as bad as it did according to your logic. its accessible and features 4p multiplayer similar to that of smash bros.

Mario kart Double Dash and Super Circuit did poorly compared to other games in the series. You assumption can not explain why. Mario Kart Wii has also outsold the DS one and it took Snaking out. Again, your assumption can not explain the data.

Also, Snaking drove people away from Mario Kart. People were happy to see it gone in Wii.

you can't ignore the fact that the gc had a very low userbase. gba games never made crazy numbers aside from the pokemon games. i can't really say why mario kart super circuit wasn't as successful as later titles because i dont know why. i never played the game but lets take a look at pokemon for a second. pokemon is one of the top selling video games in the world. each iteration adds a new element to the competitive side yet sells over 10 million copies. with gold/silver it was the split in special stats. ruby/sapphire introduced natures, the ev cap, and increased the range of ivs from 1-16 to 1-31. this made it considerably harder to get a GOOD pokemon yet this had no negative effect on the sales. d/p did a complete overhaul of physical/special attacks and again had no negative effect on sales. the average pokemon player would get destroyed by the average competitive player so please tell me why pokemon continues to be very successful.

snaking did not drive people away from mario kart ds. take a look at the sales chart on that site of yours and you'll see that the game had received steady sales for a very long time. the game would have seen a drop in sales if people really cared about snaking. mario kart wii was more successful because it appealed to a greater amount of people. it brought in new mario kart players because it had a better push. people bought the game excited to use the driving wheel. i can't really provide a source for this other than a few people i know personally so i'll give you this one.

No, idiot. People knew of the crap in Melee. Why do you think there was such a fiasco? Your stupid if you think they didn't know. If in Brawl, it would have drove them away just as Snaking was doing in Mario Kart DS.

Also understand that Melee was still designed as an easy to get into game, and most people consider Melee's depth a fluke, showing the direction of ease of use.

no the people who post on gaming forums know of melee's competitive side. the people who post on smashboards and allisbrawl represent a small amount of the people who bought the game else we'd have at least a million users. again if people were turned off by this melee wouldn't have seen steady sales throughout its life even though it never went under $30.

There is no data to support you claim. There is to support mine that assessable games sell as I can list hundreds of assessable games that sold really well.
Mario Kart
Smash Bros
Street Fighter 2
Guitar Hero
Rock Band
Halo (as far as FPSes go)
Wii Sports
Wii Play
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Starcraft
World of Warcraft
Pong

All these games were successful despite having reconisable characters. Starcraft was all new. Halo was new when it first came out. Most people though Super Mario Kart was stupid when it first came out despite it having Mario. Guitar Hero, Rock Band Wii Play and Wii Sports have no real characters. Pong is just two paddles. Street Fighter was all new characters. So, no, Smash could be successful with other characters because other games were too.

you are so ****ing stupid. not ONCE did i say characters were the main factor in purchasing a game. i said characters are the main reason people are interested in SMASH BROTHERS. all those games have their own reasons for being successful. halo was an amazing launch title. street fighter 2 was the first polished fighting game. guitar hero let you play good songs with an actual guitar. smash brothers let you fight as nintendo characters.

Why can't you? No reason why? Street Fighter was huge and it had Ryu and Chun-Li.
Me 1
You.....well, let's not go there.

i dont understand how you can say that. people all around the world know who mario, pikachu, and donkey kong are. go ask your grandparents and younger cousins if they know who pikachu is and then ask them if they know who chun li is. street fighter was huge and its characters are recognizable to older gamers who grew up playing the game. its very unlikely that kids under 12 and adults over 30 will know who e. honda is and that's a ****ing fact.

Data doesn't match up. Mario Kart Super Circuit did worse then Double Dash despite being on a better selling system. Mario Kart Wii did better then Mario Kart DS despite the DS having much higher sales.

The number of units sold can hold games back, but only for so long. It probably didn't hold Mario Kart or Smash Bros back.

gba games never sold great numbers but mario kart super circuit was the 6th or 7th best selling game anyway. both mario kart double dash and melee would have sold higher numbers if the gamecube had a bigger userbase. double the userbase and its likely that both of them would have sold more copies. go ahead and cry about lack of data but this is common sense. when people buy a console they go for the popular games that they hear about. this included mario kart double dash and melee which is why they continued to sell for YEARS.

Wait, didn't I just explain this.



That's right, I did. And you ignored it, and will do so again because you can't make an over compassing generalization about it.

your little story has nothing to do with my question. i ignored it because i said i understood your point of view. yeah people like easy games that are fun but smash brothers has ALWAYS been easy to get into and fun to play. people look at smash bros and they see a bunch of nintendo characters fighting each other. thats WHY people got into it. they continued to play it because its a fun game but that doesn't mean that the nintendo characters aren't the main draw of the game. please answer my previous question.

Seriously, I'll go back and forth with you, but you'll lose every time. You are not good at arguing, despite you think you are, you make generalizations, have no evidence backing you up, and heck, you don't even have a grasp on basic grammar. The evidence points towards me, and it has since the first post, but that really because you have none, and yes, their is evidence to support your claim.

So quit while you're ahead. Let someone else argue this for you because you can't.

lol @ whole section of post devoted to trolling me. btw i never said i was a good debater. i never even hinted at thinking i was. your claims don't seem to match up with my data.

 

[Holty]

I completely agree with Frogles. I also love how SmashChu still thinks he's correct in everyone of his debates he starts in every GBD thread he posts in eventhough 90% of the thread's posters disagree with him . Practically most of his debates are offtopic too lol.

 

[ScoobyCafe]

"Stupidity" would be a better word.

Good idea Scoob, GET.OUT. Basically you can hate Sakurai all you want but he doesn't have to believe you even exist. Why do we still discuss this topic?

Whoa there, I don't recall making a post bashing Sakurai here if all of that is for me. lol

But yeah, this thread has become pretty stupid; the last 2-3 pages weren't even about the topic. I'm not going down with this thread, so...

 

[Fatmanonice]

Also, people need to stop comparing Capcom with Nintendo and should be comparing Street Fighter and Smash Bros. All in all, Capcom caters to the fans about the same amount as Nintendo and has about just as many incidences where it has royally missed the mark with the fans especially when you look the Megaman and Resident Evil franchises. Even then, to say that Brawl completely went against what the fans wanted is a complete insult. Megaman X6 is a true example of this. Sonic Heros is a true example of this. Brawl is not. Brawl actually followed a decent amount when you think about it. Granted, they didn't do the best with it like with online play, being able to record matches, and the stage builders but they at least tried and it gives plenty of room for improvement for the next installment kind of like Melee's crappy stage designs.

Here's something that people don't think about when it comes to Street Fighter: it's a franchise that's built from the ground up for competitive players. The same could be said about Tekken too. Smash Bros goal is to aim for a large demographic. If anything, they try to make the game appealing to most of the people who play Nintendo's various franchises. When you look at Nintendo's franchises, what do you see? If you ask me, the main "hard core" franchise that Nintendo has is Fire Emblem because it's one of the few Nintendo franchises that can still kick the crap out of you and doesn't really care if "everyone has fun with it". Just about every other major Nintendo franchise is either casual or "main stream" meaning that it hits a middle ground because they don't really cater to the casual or the "hard core". Now look at Nintendo's most popular franchises: Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, and Kirby. Mario dances between main stream and casual quite a bit and so do Kirby and Pokemon. Zelda's by far the most popular of the genuinely main stream franchises leaving franchises like Metroid and Star Fox in the dust. Under this, it makes sense why Smash Bros is the way that it is.

 

[Big-Cat]

1. Sakurai said that adding online features to a game like Smash Bros would be obnoxiously hard and, at E3 06, sounded extremelly doubtful about even being able to pull it off.

Mind you that the same man said that DLC wouldn't be possible or something like that yet we have DLC now in other games. Of course, he may have just been talking about Nintendo's online service, but we only know so much.

2. Sakurai said that he wanted to give every Smash game its own feel so that it would be distinct from the others in the series. Why people were expecting it to be like Melee is beyond me especially when the original Smash Bros and Melee weren't exactly alike.

I think people were just looking for an improvement. They just wanted a full fledged sequel just like Melee was to SSB. I'm curious, though, as to how you give each one a different feel. One thing to do would be to have an exclusive mechanic or something, but I don't think that'll be received well.

3. Sakurai said that adding the 26 characters in Melee was hard. Granted, the game was rushed even more than Brawl but even then it kind of kicks in the nuts the idea that Brawl would have 50 individual characters when you put it all in perspective.

In retrospect, yes. When we found out that most of the development time went into the SSE (I need to find the article that said that.), it made sense as to why the roster was its size.

Back then, we didn't know about this and figured that with the two+ years of work added would allow more characters.

I might as well say this now but those that are hoping and praying that SSB4 will end up being like Melee will be sorely disappointed. As I said in point 2, Sakurai wants each game to have its own feel. If you think Smash Bros will ever intentionally be competitive, you are sadly deluded and even if Sakurai got the boot (which is even more unlikely thanks to Brawl's fantastic sales, Sakurai's continued interest in the franchise, and the many connections that he has not only in Nintendo but the video game industry in Japan), the chances of the new director making the series competitive is even smaller. Regardless of how SSB4 turns out, people will still try to make it competitive and there will probably be people who will insist that Brawl was better thus continuing the circle of life.

Personally, I don't want Smash to be completely competitive, I just want to see the balance Melee apparently got by chance. It'll never be like Guilty Gear in the sense where it's pure competitive, but I'm fine with that. Better to appeal to everyone than just an extreme minority. The only reason why I'm against Sakurai returning to direct is that his views of where essentially "everyone's a winner" contradict the point of the genre: determine the winner.

Besides, Nintendo could make a lot of money off of sponsoring tournaments throughout the world and they sell extra copies from the advertising the tournaments create. To top it off, there's always the merchandise they can cater to the competitive crowd like exclusive prizes or, dare I say it, arcade sticks (with an analog stick and maybe C-Stick but that's for another place, another time).

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

I think people were just looking for an improvement. They just wanted a full fledged sequel just like Melee was to SSB. I'm curious, though, as to how you give each one a different feel. One thing to do would be to have an exclusive mechanic or something, but I don't think that'll be received well.

Again, this improvement you're referring is based on the competitive part of Brawl. The casual aspects of Brawl are greatly improved on those of Melee. More characters, stages, better graphics, etc.

For the 4093457th time, competitive smashers are the minority. The competitive Smash community does not in any way influence Sakurai's decision when making a Smash title.

 

[Big-Cat]

Again, this improvement you're referring is based on the competitive part of Brawl. The casual aspects of Brawl are greatly improved on those of Melee. More characters, stages, better graphics, etc.

For the 4093457th time, competitive smashers are the minority. The competitive Smash community does not in any way influence Sakurai's decision when making a Smash title.

No, I was referring to gameplay as that, to me, is what differentiates a sequel from its predecessor. I was not referring to the competitive aspects unless that equals gameplay all of a sudden. What you just mentioned was "more of the same stuff from before."

 

[Fatmanonice]

Mind you that the same man said that DLC wouldn't be possible or something like that yet we have DLC now in other games. Of course, he may have just been talking about Nintendo's online service, but we only know so much.


I think people were just looking for an improvement. They just wanted a full fledged sequel just like Melee was to SSB. I'm curious, though, as to how you give each one a different feel. One thing to do would be to have an exclusive mechanic or something, but I don't think that'll be received well.


In retrospect, yes. When we found out that most of the development time went into the SSE (I need to find the article that said that.), it made sense as to why the roster was its size.

Back then, we didn't know about this and figured that with the two+ years of work added would allow more characters.


Personally, I don't want Smash to be completely competitive, I just want to see the balance Melee apparently got by chance. It'll never be like Guilty Gear in the sense where it's pure competitive, but I'm fine with that. Better to appeal to everyone than just an extreme minority. The only reason why I'm against Sakurai returning to direct is that his views of where essentially "everyone's a winner" contradict the point of the genre: determine the winner.

Besides, Nintendo could make a lot of money off of sponsoring tournaments throughout the world and they sell extra copies from the advertising the tournaments create. To top it off, there's always the merchandise they can cater to the competitive crowd like exclusive prizes or, dare I say it, arcade sticks (with an analog stick and maybe C-Stick but that's for another place, another time).

I think he was talking about Nintendo's online capabilities. Nintendo always seems to be a generation behind. With the N64 era, they were stubborn and stuck to catridges instead of putting more effort into using CDs. With the Gamecube era, they publically said (I think in 2003) that gamers weren't interested in online play. With the Wii era, they said that HD graphics weren't a big selling point for consumers or developers. This aside, I think that SSB4 will have the online that we expected for Brawl because Sakurai did what he did with Brawl's online figure despite knowing full well that the Wii's online capabilities weren't that great especially for what the fans wanted.

Well, when you think about each Smash Bros, they each are different. For the original, grabs were king, recovering was hard for most of the cast (in comparison to Melee and Brawl), and each stage easily fits 4 players. For Melee, combos were easier because of more hitstun and most characters having faster fall speeds and most of the stages were better suited for one on one. For Brawl, it was easier to recover, stages were made more dynamic, and aerial/off stage combat was emphasized.

For Melee's expansion over the first Smash Bros, you have to remember just how little the first Smash Bros had in it. It was possible to unlock everything in one sitting, the graphics were worse than Super Mario 64, there was only 9 stages, and 12 characters. It was a low budget game and was more of a experiment if anything. As other people have said in the past, it was originally planned for just Japan and was sold in limited amounts until Nintendo was thrown off by how popular it was despite of what I already mentioned. With that being said, it wasn't hard for Melee to top the original in pretty much every factor from graphics to unlockables to music. Brawl, on the other hand, had a much harder challenge. I do believe that Brawl did things better than Melee but, obviously, Brawl didn't completely blow Melee out of the water. Brawl to Melee was like a rock thrown in a pond. Melee to Super Smash Bros was like a nuke.

Regarding balance, Sakurai did somewhat balance things... to Melee's standards which is why he shot himself in the foot. Think about Melee; you had Fox, Falco, Marth, Sheik, Captain Falcon, and Peach. All of them got nerfed in Brawl. Now think about Melee again; you had Young Link, Pikachu, Kirby, Ness, and Mr. Game and Watch. All of them got buffed in Brawl. If Brawl was the same as Melee, these buffs and nerfs would have been more balanced but instead we ended up with things like Captain Falcon becoming bottom tier thanks to the lack of hitstun.

Things became even more complicated with the new characters. Under Melee's mechanics, characters like Metaknight and Olimar are retardedly good and hacking has proved this. Of course, Metaknight's still obnoxiously good in the way Brawl is now but it could have been far worse. Truth be told, the amount of balance in all the Smash games is atrocious (although not as bad as, say, most of the DBZ games) and its easy to understand because, since the focus isn't competitive, balance between the characters probably isn't a priority. For the Smash developers, as long as the character isn't impossible to beat or completely useless, they're A-Okay in their eyes. Do I agree with this? Of course not but it's understandable when you put all of the Smash games content into perspective.

I agree with how Nintendo should be more supportive of tournaments and that they could probably make a killing expanding upon online tournaments and offically sponsored ones.

 

[Big-Cat]

Well, when you think about each Smash Bros, they each are different. For the original, grabs were king, recovering was hard for most of the cast (in comparison to Melee and Brawl), and each stage easily fits 4 players. For Melee, combos were easier because of more hitstun and most characters having faster fall speeds and most of the stages were better suited for one on one. For Brawl, it was easier to recover, stages were made more dynamic, and aerial/off stage combat was emphasized.

I see what you're getting at. Maybe the next one will focus more on ground/on stage combat.

Regarding balance, Sakurai did somewhat balance things... to Melee's standards which is why he shot himself in the foot. Think about Melee; you had Fox, Falco, Marth, Sheik, Captain Falcon, and Peach. All of them got nerfed in Brawl. Now think about Melee again; you had Young Link, Pikachu, Kirby, Ness, and Mr. Game and Watch. All of them got buffed in Brawl. If Brawl was the same as Melee, these buffs and nerfs would have been more balanced but instead we ended up with things like Captain Falcon becoming bottom tier thanks to the lack of hitstun.

It makes you wonder what he was thinking when he did this. Considering that the game was rushed out the window near the end, maybe the balance was a victim of this. It's hard to tell. It'd be nice if we could ask him some of this stuff or some rep ourselves. It'd be a good method of R&D.

I agree with how Nintendo should be more supportive of tournaments and that they could probably make a killing expanding upon online tournaments and offically sponsored ones.

Glad to see I got support on this. Might the sales go down a little, maybe, but there exists an alternative method for acquiring money thanks to this.

I got to say, you and I seem to be essentially the same page, but you tend to analyze things better (I tend to over analyze).

 

[ETWIST51294]

Melee did not have more hitstun, actually it had considerably LESS hitstun, since your opponent can now DI out of your combos you have to read his DI, and melee takes faster execution to do combos. And you forgot about some good melee characters. Jiggs, Ganon, Samus, and ICs.

And BTW since when does Olimar wreck B+?

 

[superyoshi888]

ETWIST, you just lost ANY respect I had for you. Sure, he maybe wrong, but to explode on him like that?

And to put things into perspective with Brawl +, think of it this way: Brawl's mechanics were originally more like Melee's. Seeing how much better the AI does with Melee-style gameplay proves this. Add onto the fact that Meta Knight already has extremely fast and strong attacks, and you have a broken character. Olimar, I cannot speak for since I rarely ever play him anymore.

The reason why they don't do well now in B+ is because *GASP* they were balanced.

 

[ETWIST51294]

Sorry man. Some bad stuff happened to me last night and I was mad before I even saw his post. My apologies to Fatmanonice too. Didn't mean to blow up on you like that. Thinking about it now I could've wrote the same post with more respect. And I know MK is broken in melee type physics, but only offensively. If MK was in melee he would have physics like Sheik, he wouldn't have much horizontal air speed and he would get comboed/chaingrabbed a lot. Plus he has bad grabs. I don't think he would be better than Fox but he would definitely be top tier. But Olimar is definitely not broken in B+. I would know, I main him in B+.

edit: yeah, I edited out all of the bad stuff.

 

[Big-Cat]

ETWIST, you just lost ANY respect I had for you. Sure, he maybe wrong, but to explode on him like that?

And to put things into perspective with Brawl +, think of it this way: Brawl's mechanics were originally more like Melee's. Seeing how much better the AI does with Melee-style gameplay proves this. Add onto the fact that Meta Knight already has extremely fast and strong attacks, and you have a broken character. Olimar, I cannot speak for since I rarely ever play him anymore.

The reason why they don't do well now in B+ is because *GASP* they were balanced.

I remember this happening when I got to play a little Brawl+(Wii crashes when I select a stage for some reason now). Now I know I'm not the only one who noticed this and that this game might have been Melee esque.

If this is true, I'm curious as to what caused the change to what we have now.

 

[ETWIST51294]

The AI is WAYYY better in B+ and I have no idea why.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Melee did not have more hitstun, actually it had considerably LESS hitstun, since your opponent can now DI out of your combos you have to read his DI, and melee takes faster execution to do combos. And you forgot about some good melee characters. Jiggs, Ganon, Samus, and ICs.

And BTW since when does Olimar wreck B+?

Well, I didn't see your original post so I'll just go off of this.

Are you sure we have the same definition of hitstun? From how I see it, Brawl doesn't have very much which is why very few "true combos" exist in the game.

Regarding the good and bad Melee characters, I know I didn't list them all. Before I saw your post, I was actually going to respond to KumaOso again listing how the whole cast was changed from Melee to Brawl. Well, I guess I'll do that now:

Heavily nerfed: Fox, Shiek, Captain Falcon, Peach, Samus, Jigglypuff
nerfed: Ganondorf, Marth, Falco
buffed: Bowser, Zelda, Mario, Ness, Ice Climbers, Donkey Kong, Link, Yoshi
Heavily buffed: Mr. Game and Watch, Toon (Young) Link, Pikachu, Kirby, Luigi

In a weird sense, the characters that were buffed and nerfed followed closely to Melee's tierlist but, like I said before, the addition of Brawl's mechanics as well as new characters royally screwed up the balance that could have existed. As I said to KumaOso, this is where Sakurai shot himself in the foot.

Regarding Olimar and Metaknight, in the early days of hacking when people were simply giving Brawl Melee mechanics, it was shown that, under Melee's mechanics, Olimar and Metaknight were retardedly good. It also showed that characters like Captain Falcon, Sheik, Ganondorf, and Luigi were given a significant boost and, again, strongly suggested that Brawl's intended balance was designed from a "Melee perspective." As superyoshi said, this was not the same as Brawl+ and, if anything, probably inspired Brawl+ seeing how giving Brawl Melee's mechanics didn't "fix everything" like people had hoped.

 

[Uffe]

He's one name out of the whole group that created the game. So unless we take names, Sakurai is the only one who is going to be blamed. I don't hate him, though.

 

[Big-Cat]

@Fatman
You didn't have to show me who got buffed and who got nerfed. I played Brawl after all and noticed the same nerfs (especially with Peach) and buffs you mentioned.

@Uffe
He may be one of many, but he made himself the target of hate when he said that everything put into the game was done so by his orders. Thus, the bashing is somewhat justified.

 

[ETWIST51294]

@fatmanonice
believe me dude, there is WAYYYYYYYY more hitstun in 64. I seriously don't know how you could not know this. Hitstun is literally what its name states, it's the stun after you get hit and one of the main problems in 64(it was a good thing to some people) was the fact that it had TO much hitstun. That why you see 0-death combos FREQUENTLY in 64, but you barely ever see them in melee. And in melee normally 0-death combos are usually not even true combos. Most of the time they're a combo reset into another combo.

edit: The ICs didn't get buffed in brawl and Ganon got massively nerfed. ICs lost stuff(smash attacks, amazing Wavedash, wobbling, easy spotdodge desynce) and gained stuff(a bunch of infinites, actually, thats about all they got in brawl). Same goes for DK. And the same thing also goes to luigi(mid tier in both games). Luigi lost stuff(amazing WD, amazing combo game, his great approach, his dair and fair power, platform cancelled air moves) and gained stuff(fsmash, up b power, recovery).

 

[superyoshi888]

Yah, I kinda came across as angry myself after reading that post. Sorry man.

 

[_lemons]

I have to say, some of the analogies made in this thread are absolutely horrible, haha.

Also, LOL@ Street Fighter characters, or to a lesser extent Marvel characters, having better name recognition than Nintendo characters (for a video game buying audience, at least.)

Also, LOL@ SmashChu's amazing logic. "If a game doesn't sell well, it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever." It's rather fitting with his other numerous examples of iffy logic.

To the matter at hand though, I think Sakurai does deserve a good portion of the bashing he gets. People will get carried away and blame him for stupid things (Trophy Write-ups is an example someone used earlier), but he apparently was in full creative control of Brawl. If Brawl had been a magnificent game, he would deserve the praise, no? So why is the opposite not true?

 

[StarshipGroove]

I use sale figures from VgChartz

Let's just sum up vgchartz:

* Started by a kid who was permabanned form the neogaf forums for posting fake sales figures and pretending he had access to sales figures no one else in the industry had

* NPD is a giant company that employs a large workforce to do retail sales tracking for the US. Companies have been paying them for their services for many, many years.

* The kid who was banned from neogaf claims to do what a giant company like NPD has a large staff working 40 hours a week does. For free.

* Not only does a kid running a website claim to do retail tracking like a large company like NPD does, he claims he does it 4 times a often. Every week vs every month.

It gets worse.

Vgchartz's game is simple:

* Use Microsoft's public 'ship to retailer' numbers instead of actual sales to customer numbers for installed base

* Use Sony's public 'sold to customer' numbers. And always delay updating PS3 numbers with the latest public sales data

* Use the 'mysterious Other Region' to inflate 360 sales as much as possible since that is the region that has the least amount of public sales data available

* Go back and update the old fake sales numbers to avoid getting caught when legitimate sales data becomes public

* Make up pre-order sales number figures that are as big as possible for the 360 but still sound believable

* Make up pre-order sales number figurers that are as low as possible for the PS3 but still sound believable

Obviously the Xbox fan who runs vgchartz can't stop real sales data from coming out. But he can play the 'preview' and 'pre-order' game where there are no actual legitimate sales data to show he is lying and he can try to get 'wow, great 360 numbers' and 'wow, the PS3 numbers aren't as good as everyone thought' responses.

In a nutshell, VGChartz claimed Nintendo sold 750,000 - 800,000 Wii consoles this past week. Nintendo then made an official press release saying they only sold aprox 550,000 Wii consoles this past week. http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=6020&mp=1

"According to our preliminary data, Nintendo sold nearly 800,000 Wii units and 850,000 DS units in the Americas during the week ending 28th November - pretty much exactly the same as last year."

"with more data coming in, Wii looks a little lower than last year - more like 750,000 units"

Official Press Release from Nintendo themselves....

http://www.gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=106083

"Nintendo estimates that during the week more than 550,000 Wii home consoles sold, demonstrating that consumers nationwide have responded to the new suggested retail price of $199.99."

"* more than 1 million Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi portable systems sold. "

VGChartz credibility...ZERO. There is your proof. It's nothing but a blatant PREDICTION and GUESSTIMATION website that is not to be taken seriously at all. There is a HUGE difference between 550k and 800k. If there "reporters" at VGC had any credibility or REAL SOURCES, they would not be so far off with their reports. I believe they also made a huge error about PS3 Slim sales for the first week too. So there you have it. If you ever wondered how credible vgchartzzzz izzzz, now you know. That site is a complete joke.

You should be banned for using VGChartz.

You sure are in touch. Btw, having an account on VGChartz is the reason they won't allow you on Neogaf.

As for Sakurai?
Who cares? We have hacking now. We can change anything.