Sakurai explains why Wario’s Shoulder Ram move was taken out

[GreenKirby]

In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS, some changes were made to Wario. One of these includes the removal of the Shoulder Ram move. Masahiro Sakurai, director of Smash Bros., spoke about this in his latest Famitsu column.

Sakurai took on one reader question regarding the Shoulder Ram move in his piece, after a fan pointed out that he now uses a backhand punch instead. When asked about the change, Sakurai responded that they wanted to make Wario stronger. Shoulder Ram was a move that made him use his own body which is his hitbox to attack, making him easier to get hit. It had no range, and it was also difficult to push opponents off the cliff with it. Since Smash Attacks, especially the horizontal ones are moves that will decide the game, it was changed to make him stronger.

Sakurai added that if the team were to cling too much to reenacting the original moves, sometimes it wouldn’t be too interesting. He indicates that, ultimately, they prioritize the fun factor over adhering to the original series’ accuracy.

http://nintendoeverything.com/sakur...am-move-was-taken-out-of-smash-bros-wii-u3ds/

Of course his reasoning.... completely falls apart:

Why not just improve the move where his body isn't a hitbox, it has more range, and is stronger?

Why do several other veterans still have their vanilla movesets then? Zelda in particular since she's always been trash. And for crying about not wanting to be tied down to canon, he had no problem implementing Robin's spellbook usage

How is this new forward smash "more fun." Ooh it's a... punch? 'Kay.

Why not make it so that the shoulder barge is "more fun"?

 

[Twewy]

At least we finally get an explanation. I think it would've been more fun if, the longer you charge the Smash attack, the further he goes. Plus, "made it easier to get hit". I don't play Brawl much, but didn't that move have super armor?

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Wario's Brawl f-smash lacked range for a move that executes quickly; it was more effective for Wario-Man. The Smash 4 f-smash may be slower, but at least its range is better.

 

[Iota]

As someone with 3k+ hours of playing brawl....Wario's f-smash in smash 4 doesn't actually have much more range at all...it's just a bit disjointed. That doesn't make up for the fact that they removed the super armor, made it twice as slow on start up, and 1.5xslower on the end lag.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

It's such a staple Wario Land move, that I was sad to see it taken out at first. Though if you wanted the move to be canon, it would have to be a side special that functions much like Wario's bike. A mobile tackle with the ability to jump. Maybe give it the same bike armor so it's not the worst move in his arsenal offensively. But even then, the bike is more interesting and dynamic. It's representation in Brawl was clumsy. Wario tackling and going nowhere was in complete defiance of how it worked in Wario Land - something you would use so often that normal walking and jumping felt slow and ineffectual.

Surprised that Sakurai responded to this sort of question. I'd love to hear all about intricate changes to veteran characters and why.

 

[Dar4]

I'm a Wario main and I don't buy his explanation.

The reason shoulder was taken out in my opinion was because of balance but Sakarai obviously isn't going to say that. They clearly wanted to give Wario a subpar, slow, laggy set of smashes to make up for fart being so amazing in smash 4 as a kill option. If Wario had say, Mario's smashes he'd be kinda broken honestly, too many good kill options. And I don't think it would have made sense if shoulder was slow and laggy, it wouldn't be shoulder anymore. That's why they really did it.

Wario's current Fsmash sucks in 1v1. Yeah it has good knockback but it's way too laggy to use for anything but hard reads. I guess you can make the FFA argument but in 1v1 atleast the shoulder would be way better than his current Fsmash so his "we wanted to make wario more powerful" argument makes no sense. Even in casual FFAs, quick smashes are better IMO.

 

[Ffamran]

... Couldn't they have made his shoulder tackle his dash attack instead? Yes, there would be 4 of them: Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, Samus, and Wario's, but it's a Wario move. It's something Wario does in his games which also begs the question why Mario doesn't have a ground pound... At least Luigi has it for his D-throw, but still. Back to Wario, it would kill what his dash attack does, but for some, having an iconic move means much more. I mean, could you imagine what would happen if Link lost his Spin Attack? Also, his dash attack could work as a Side Smash. Basically, a flying headbutt that has him skid the floor which would be wicked and funny which is what it is now.

 

[Spinosaurus]

His current dash attack is really good and I wouldn't change it just to have a move that references his games. Would possibly end up doing more harm than good.

I'm bummed that they gave him a way worse fsmash more than removing the shoulder bash itself. But I understand the decision, the brawl FSmash was stupid. Could've just nerfed it though.

 

[ZeGlasses!]

He might have initially removed the super armor and transcendent priority while balancing. Since without those things it probably would have just been throwing your hurtbox forward.

 

[Steeler]

Something to note is that it may have been possible to combo dtilt fsmash if it retained its frame 9 hitbox...

 

[MOI-ARI]

Why do several other veterans still have their vanilla movesets then? Zelda in particular since she's always been trash. And....

Ouch.


--
But yeah Sakurai logic wins again. Really strange they couldn't just reuse the animation as another move. Seems like a pretty signature attack he used in his games. (warioland 3 at least since its the only game i owned)

 

[Kai_64]

I'm still bummed about them chaning wario's f-smash... There's so many times, when I'm playing, that I knew it would have worked perfectly there.

 

[Sneaky boy Nick]

I see the silver lining in this. If they wanna make wario more powerful than that's quite a good thing, I'm sure with our voice we can tell them that warios new forward smash is kind of ass and they'd act accordingly. Currently by their own logic they wanted to make him stronger and they made him weaker by mistake. Lets use that as an opertunity to get some kind of buff. We just have to tell the balance team formally that warios current f-smash is mediocre and blamo buffs for us (maybe lmao).

 

[ElDood]

>We wanted to make his F-Smash better
>Longer Startup
>Longer recovery
>No armor frames
>Barely more range.

The only real advantage the punch has over the tackle is the power, which Wario doesn't really need (at least not to that extent) since Wario can easily build up damage, but landing a real solid hit is tough for him. This new forward smash doesn't really help.

It's funny, in Brawl you would see Warios throw out the shoulder charge all the time, especially if they could catch something with the armor frames resulting in a free smash. But unless your opponents are stupid and land after dodging right in front of you, you're almost never going to connect with Wario's F-Smash, and you NEVER see it in high level play, let alone top.

 

[WwwWario]

“Because I wanted to make Wario better”? Then just make the friggin’ attack better. It’s his most iconic move! It would be like saying: “Link’s Bow and Bomb and Boomerangs are too bad, so instead of buffing them, I’ll just remove his most iconic tools”.

And he says “If I only included things true to the source material, then there would be times when things wouldn’t mesh well”. How the heck is that? Wario’s Shoulder Bash, Ground Pound, Ground Slam, Pile Driver – everything is PERFECT for Smash – they’re friggin’ fighting moves for god’s sake! And “only from the source material”? Well, it’s not like there’s anything iconc from Wario Land there to begin with…

“…but I think it’s most important to prioritize the game’s enjoability!” Well, I thought the point with Smash Bros was to have fighters from Nintendo fight each other, like they play in their respective games. In Smash, Wario doesn’t play like he does in his platformers. If you want the game to be enjoyable, maybe actually try to make Wario play like he does in his games, having him use at least SOME of his fighting movies that belongs to him, like you’ve done with the rest of the cast… sorry, but this excuse from Sakurai doesn’t make ANY sense. And it hurts me as a Wario main and long-time favorite video game character.