Sakurai says there's no favoritism

[Tino]

Aren't y'all too old to be whining and complaining like a bunch of kids crying over dropping their ice cream to the ground?

 

[XStarWarriorX]

Aren't y'all too old to be whining and complaining like a bunch of kids crying over dropping their ice cream to the ground?

Arent you too old to bait out people on a video game site? Dude all ive seen you do is bait, and hate the competitive scene because you arent good at it. Like seriously get a life and a well paying job. I swear the amount of annoying posters has been piling up since they made their accounts in 2012+

Anyway i had to post and stop prepping for my last final, cause this was really interesting.

As a competitive i dont really care so no salt, just do a melee HD sakurai. Though his points were soild, tho yknow if you just made shields a tad worse and made it harder to shake out of tumble, this game wouldnt be so defensive.

Oh and lol, if someone like diddy gets nerfed you best believe rosa is gonna get hers, (Intermediate or not) but not her. It'll be the luma specifically.

 

[DrROBschiz]

IN SPITE of Sakurais attitude

Smash 4 is quickly becoming the best smash game both competitively and casually. At least in my mind

SO much meat on the bone too. I am STILL learning new stuff everyday and my matches just keep getting more intense and exciting

If you need proof just look at the massive amount of discovery and displays all over youtube. Its a damn treasure trove of playstyles, ideas, and discovery.

Just when you think you know a character someone flips your perception on its head.

 

[Tino]

Arent you too old to bait out people on a video game site? Dude all ive seen you do is bait, and hate the competitive scene because you arent good at it. Like seriously get a life and a well paying job. I swear the amount of annoying posters has been piling up since they made their accounts in 2012+

Anyway i had to post and stop prepping for my last final, cause this was really interesting.

As a competitive i dont really care so no salt, just do a melee HD sakurai. Though his points were soild, tho yknow if you just made shields a tad worse and made it harder to shake out of tumble, this game wouldnt be so defensive.

Oh and lol, if someone like diddy gets nerfed you best believe rosa is gonna get hers, (Intermediate or not) but not her. It'll be the luma specifically.

People like you whining and complaining over the smallest little things is the main reason why I'm very critical of the "competitive" scene. I only play this just for fun, regardless of whether I'm good or bad.

And I already have a life, thank you very much. Making $500 a week at a distribution center may not be much but hey, at least I'm still making a living, right?

 

[XStarWarriorX]

People like you whining and complaining over the smallest little things is the main reason why I'm very critical of the "competitive" scene. I only play this just for fun, regardless of whether I'm good or bad.

And I already have a life, thank you very much. Making $500 a week at a distribution center may not be much but hey, at least I'm still making a living, right?

People like me? Lol reading comprehension much? Just said i dont really care, sakurai can do what he likes, hes my fave dev after all. Just proves what I said.... you need to just relax man, we arent here to bite you. Oh and for the record people who complain are in the minority and are everywhere ya look, most compitives are busy talking about meta stuff, or actually playing the game. The people who complain are mostly the same people that hate Dark pit and think they're good at the game online, aka keyboard warriors.

Thats bites bro, best of luck if you have people ya support.

 

[Tino]

People like me? Lol reading comprehension much? Just said i dont really care, sakurai can do what he likes, hes my fave dev after all. Just proves what I said.... you need to just relax man, we arent here to bite you. Oh and for the record people who complain are in the minority and are everywhere ya look, most compitives are busy talking about meta stuff, or actually playing the game. The people who complain are mostly the same people that hate Dark pit and think they're good at the game online, aka keyboard warriors.

Thats bites bro, best of luck if you have people ya support.

Then what was the point to even responding to me in the first place if you aren't here to "bite" me, then?

 

[XStarWarriorX]

Then what was the point to even responding to me in the first place if you aren't here to "bite" me, then?

Because ive noticed what youve been doing lately and called you out on it, I may be a lurker but i remember all.

 

[Tino]

Because ive noticed what youve been doing lately and called you out on it, I may be a lurker but i remember all.

Playing dirty, aren't ya? Touche.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

@ Tino & @ XStarWarriorX : Okay, break it up. Please drop the pointless discussions, as they're just off-topic spam here.

 

[Tino]

Alright, alright...I was just about to go to sleep anyways.

 

[XStarWarriorX]

@ Tino & @ XStarWarriorX : Okay, break it up. Please drop the pointless discussions, as they're just off-topic spam here.

Eh not pointless but off topic yes, should haved PM'd. Will do

Oh and tino i did not report, the mod that got owned by a super mod randomly got in here, so no hard feelings. (Yes M&S that is my perm name for thee)

On topic: I hope this means sakurai will be more appreciated from now on. (I tried)

 

[DrROBschiz]

He wont be but thats ok

Its clear that the team under him understand, appreciate and cater to the competitive scene. I cant imagine For Glory being Sakurai's idea but just something he said OK on from the insistence of his team.

Actually I am tired of hearing from Sakurai... a guy thats been tired of making these games already. I want to see the behind the scenes enthusiast talent highlighted.

There are clearly lots of talented and passionate people that made Smash 4 the amazing game it is DESPITE Sakurai only wanting this to be a casual party game. It can CLEARLY be both and I would argue the bulk of the team understands this

 

[Deleted member]

Here's a full translation of the latest Sakurai's Famitsu column on the subject by the Source Gaming team, with courtesy of @PushDustIn :

When it comes to Smash, every once in a while people will wrongly direct their anger towards me. They accuse me of things such as giving preference or strength to the characters that I’ve worked on in the past—in other words, the Kirby and Kid Icarus series characters. Oh my.

However, if I had worked on the Mario series, people would say, “You’re favoring Mario too much,” wouldn’t they? The same would hold true for Fire Emblem, Pokémon or Starfox. The truth is, though, I put a lot of work into all the characters. It’s a mix of labor, love, and fine tuning.

I mean, what could I possibly get out of only buffing the characters I’ve worked on? A sense of self-satisfaction? That’s simply not the case; after all, I’ve worked on all of these characters through Smash.

For example, there are two characters I can’t seem to get the hang of: Pit and Palutena. I personally feel those two are below average in terms of strength. If I further adjusted the game’s balance for myself, I would make them stronger, but that’s not what I’ve done.

And, given that I am still making adjustments little by little, I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss the act of balancing.

Generally speaking, the most important resource for balancing is the report we receive from the playtesting team. While the playtesters don’t ever appear in the spotlight, I’m confident they’re skilled enough to perform quite well in a tournament.

In addition to the playtesters’ daily impressions, the team also considers results from online battles, as well as opinions they find about characters on the Internet. Then, using all of this data, they propose balance adjustments.

Of course, I don’t approve all of their proposals right away. There’s no point in making the game more balanced if it decreases the fun factor. To give an extreme example, I could make all the characters perform similarly to Mario and achieve perfect balance. However, that probably wouldn’t be very fun at all. We work together by making adjustments while trying to preserve the characters’ individuality, then testing out the characters again. I consider all the data the playtesters collect on all the characters and eventually finalize the changes.

In other words, although I am the one making the final decisions, we are all trying to remain objective as possible. If I don’t agree with the playtesters’ opinion, then no adjustments will be made.

The playtesting team is only composed of several people. After all, truly skilled players are hard to come by. Moreover, playtesters have individual playstyles—as well as personal strengths and weaknesses—that will come out during the testing process.

Another problem we have to consider is that battles can take on many formats in Smash. There are moves that are completely useless in a 1v1 battle, but in a four-player free-for-all those moves might prove quite useful. Therefore, if I played only one kind of battle, the game would feel very slanted towards a particular style of play.

Furthermore, if I went with what is fair according to advanced players, the beginners wouldn’t be able to keep up. For example, Kirby’s Stone attack probably won’t hit a player above intermediate skill level, but if I made it more powerful, it would destroy beginners.

At the end of the day, I’m aiming for intermediately-skilled players to be able to properly enjoy the game. Fundamentally, my goal with Smash has been to create an “enjoyable party game”. If you want to enjoy thrilling tactical gameplay, you might be better suited for other 2D fighting games.

Recently, there was a tournament featuring the top Japanese and American players. In 1v1s, the natural tendency is to use low risk moves to gradually deal damage to the opponent. Smash attacks rarely came out, and the matches were prone to becoming long, drawn out affairs. When considering the variety of ways Smash can be played I think this is a waste, but the winner was certainly decided by skill.

Just as surely, people who play the game this way enjoy it from the bottom of their hearts, and make many friends playing this way. Because the game accommodates a wide variety of playstyles, it’s only natural that it captivates so many people in a variety of ways.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Conscious or not, there is favouritism and bad design decisions.
You can't reasonably justify some of the things done in smash4 to say, Samus.
Regular homing missiles are candidate for worst move in the game and it's an iconic, character specific move.
Yes she has an insane combo tree, no that does not justify having zero setups out of an iconic move. Accidentally firing a missile offstage in smash4 can be suicide - and she's a floaty character- that's how bad the end-lag on this move is.
Likewise, a 16 frame startup 96 frame end grab is insane in a game where it's basic rock-paper-scissors attack-shield-grab. Then you add in a jab1 that doesn't combo until late % into jab2 and insult to injury up-B (your out of shield option) can *clank*,
You then fold in postage stamp size hitboxes and hurtboxes immediately beside them and give the character almost no priority.

Those sort of decisions really make me wonder, I would definitely have a few choice words with him.

Also, to end my rant: Let's stop saying this is balanced around party game. Sheik's b-air was not adjusted because it was killing too many characters in for-fun. 1v1 is a very important aspect of the balance changes.

 

[DrROBschiz]

I really do feel for Samus players. She has potential but having half of her moveset be mostly useles hurts a lot

 

[Putuk]

I really do feel for Samus players. She has potential but having half of her moveset be mostly useles hurts a lot

Well I don't feel for 'em, 'cuz all they do is spam projectiles! Haw!

 

[DungeonMaster]

Well I don't feel for 'em, 'cuz all they do is spam projectiles! Haw!

A Samus spamming projectiles has literally, not figuratively, no idea what they are doing. Against anyone even reasonably competent that is a recipe for failure.

 

[Purin a.k.a. José]

That's my point though, he kept true to the aspects of the characters in their traditional games, so long as they were his characters. Yes, Pit and Dark Pit can fly in their games, and naturally they should be able to in Smash. So why doesn't Charizard get the same treatment? Afterall, in Pokemon games he can use Fly, he can remain airborne, but in Smash, he gets it so much worse than everyone else. Literally every character that I mentioned in my original post has a better recovery than he does, which really doesn't make much sense to me. (Hope this doesn't sound aggressive or anything)

Hm, I understand. You're not being aggressive, don't worry! Charizard is a very good character, but he could be way better.

 

[BKupa666]

Next time on GoNintendo..."Moon is made of cheese" says Sakurai, fans agree

It's bizarre that he avoids the subject of Classic Kirby and Uprising favoritism in favor of a much rarer complaint about biased balancing. Diddy Kong has been dominant for months, and yet dissatisfaction with DK's representation is at an all-time high. That's no coincidence.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

Alph never flies the Hocotate ship in his game and the Koopalings never use Shadow Mario. That was obvious bias.

Exactly. I couldn't think of more examples off the top of my head at the time I wrote the post, but this is exactly what I'm referring to. There is an obvious amount of bias, and it makes me mad that he refuses to admit it, but it's even worse that so many fans go back him up in the debates like he's some sort of god. Look, I respect him for what he initially did for the series, but I don't think he's really the right guy to run the series anymore. Naturally he's going to have bias in favor of his own works (as this thread has proven) which is a strike towards him, and he shows very little respect for the competitive scene which is another strike. Whether you want to agree or not, the competitive scene was probably the main reason the series got as big as it did (but that's a different topic), but he has shown obvious feelings of negativity towards the competitive group up until Sm4sh was on the way. Don't get me wrong, I still respect the guy, but only as much as I think he deserves.

 

[Zeth444]

Sakurai lost this Fighting by putting Dark pit in The game.

 

[FieryRebirth]

A number of directors in any form of media have favoritism, and some are really good at hiding it in their work. Japanese developers are not exactly subtle at this(Motomu Toriyama, I'm looking at you -- I see that Lightning dakimakura!). If I put any of my characters in Smash, hell yeah I would make them viable in everything, because I'm a pathetic nerd that has attention issues.

My point being, Sakurai won't admit this. True or not, he knows it would be a massive scandal if he went to E3 and openly said that he purposely made his characters mid-high tier in high competitive play.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

A number of directors in any form of media have favoritism, and some are really good at hiding it in their work. Japanese developers are not exactly subtle at this(Motomu Toriyama, I'm looking at you -- I see that Lightning dakimakura!). If I put any of my characters in Smash, hell yeah I would make them viable in everything, because I'm a pathetic nerd that has attention issues.

My point being, Sakurai won't admit this. True or not, he knows it would be a massive scandal if he went to E3 and openly said that he purposely made his characters mid-high tier in high competitive play.

Even if he is, it's okay to spoil your children. Nickelodeon does it with SpongeBob and TMNT all the time, and Nintendo does it with Mario all the time. Pit and Kirby can have some love from Sakurai.

 

[FieryRebirth]

It is, but I understand the frustrations by those who expect balance. Balance in this case and game would make a pretty dull character roster in the end, sadly.

 

[Acadian Flycatcher]

TBH I've never really had the impression that Sakurai showed favouritism.
Ever since the 64 days Kirby has been seen as a "cheap character" simply because of his stone move. But honestly that move is so incredibly easy to predict and counter it's ridiculous.
In Melee Kirby got nerfed hard, but the stone move was still "cheap". And Kirby also remained the only character of Sakurai's. I believe Young Link, Dr. Mario, Pichu, Ganondorf, Roy and Falco were added to the roster because it was easy to pad the roster with the clone characters instead of focusing on a new character (I believe King Dedede was planned)
So we move onto Brawl where Sakurai adds two more iconic characters to the roster, which happen to be from the Kirby series. Now these characters have insane jumps because they do in their respective games. So there wasn't a time when he said "the Kirby series has to be OP in the double jump department".
Meta Knight is a whole different story. I don't think Sakurai planned that the most broken and OP character in Smash history needed to be one of his. I legitimately think they had too much on their plates with Subspace Emissary and the last minute Sonic inclusion that some of his exploits went undiscovered.
And they did within the competitive scene as well. It took a while for Meta Knight's brokeness to be discovered and optimized.
And Pit wasn't even a character of Sakurai's for Brawl so it makes no sense to build any arguments there.

So let's fast forward to Smash 4. The Kirby series still has their great double jumps (not the best recoveries in the game, but still decent). Meta Knight has been nerfed INSANELY compared to his Brawl counterpart. Kirby still has his "cheap" stone move, and Dedede has seen some tweaks. In no way are these characters OP, or even top tier for the most part. So no bias here.

Let's move onto the Kid Icarus series. Pit returns with his great double jumps, a different special recovery, and some tweaks to give him more personality. All the characters in Smash 4 got personality boosts so there's no bias there. So now we add a new Kid Icarus character with Palutena. Now she has been around from the beginning and definitely the next deserving in the Kid Icarus series. With Uprising Kid Icarus has seen its rebirth, and from what I hear it's a fantastic game so why not show it some love by adding a new character. Now the unique thing about Palutena in terms of custom moves is that she was created from the ground up with custom moves in mind. So the team was able to experiment and create completely unique moves for her because she was a brand new character. With the existing characters they have a following that are used to their move style, so their customs remained variants of them (and it would add an INSANE amount of extra development to give each character completely unique moves.) So is it favouritism that Palutena was the only character (besides Miis) to get completely unique custom moves? I wouldn't say so. This was a chance for the team to experiment with a brand new character that was still relatively unknown to the Smash Bros. world. So giving her crazy customs added some interest to her outside of the Uprising fans. So she was chosen more to be the guinea pig for custom moves just to demonstrate how they change the characters style of play.

And now we move onto Dark Pit. Even with Dark Pit as a character I still don't see favouritism in play. The same argument could be said for the Mario and Fire Emblem franchise for favouritism by including clones. Dark Pit was already in the game as a palette swap for Pit. Now maybe a little bias came in for his reasoning that "Dark Pit cannot use the 3 Sacred Treasures", but to be honest I see it more as what happened with Melee. They had a chance to pad out the roster with a few clones so they did. Dr. Mario, Lucina and Dark Pit have different personalties to stand out completely on their own. Wii Fit Trainer isn't gender specific, so it doesn't matter if they are male or female, they remain the same character. Olimar and Alph may be completely different characters that don't even use the same Pikmin, but their specific character is focused more on the Pikmin, so the astronaut could be any of the ones from the Pikmin series and that character would still make sense. With Bowser Jr. his character is more focused on the Junior Clown Car. Very little about that character is canon. The Koopalings are different enough to be their own unique character, but when they are just a pilot of the vehicle their difference are no longer important. Wario was just shown love for his classic outfit. If anyone here is shown favouritism its Little Mac. The guy has 16 palette swaps, and half of them are completely unnecessary wire framed variants.

So what I'm getting at is without Dark Pit's inclusion as a separate character the talk of favouritism would never exist. And it's weird how there isn't a cry against Lucina and the Fire Emblem series... and even if the one leak is true and Roy is added that will make 3 Marth characters and I doubt we will hear any talk of favouritism. There was a moment in development when they decided Dr. Mario, Lucina and Dark Pit could stand as their own characters. Dr. Mario probably came first with his different down b, and Dark Pit probably came next with his final smash, and then Lucina was last to pad out the roster.

I think Sakurai is just struggling to come up with a pleasing reason as to why Dark Pit was added as a character. And you know what, who gives a **** if it was really because of favouritism. The guy has slaved to create one of the best Nintendo series and fighting series of all time, does it really matter if he adds a clone character to the roster? It's not like Dark Pit took the place of Snake, King K. Rool, Ridley, Geno, Banjo Kazooie, etc.

 

[FieryRebirth]

There was a lot of flak for Lucina and her being a Marth clone, actually. I'm not sure as their reasoning escapes me, I guess because she had a lot of potential of having her own kit? Not sure why people wanted Chrom in for that matter, Robin is such a more favorable, logical choice for newer FE reps and originality and I'm more than glad he got in.

Sakurai has stated that his reasoning for clones was a desire for a bigger roster but time-constraints limited his creativity, so logically they are "filler" character fighters. Btw, love the avatar.

 

[Acadian Flycatcher]

There was a lot of flak for Lucina and her being a Marth clone, actually. I'm not sure as their reasoning escapes me, I guess because she had a lot of potential of having her own kit? Not sure why people wanted Chrom in for that matter, Robin is such a more favorable, logical choice for newer FE reps and originality and I'm more than glad he got in.

Sakurai has stated that his reasoning for clones was a desire for a bigger roster but time-constraints limited his creativity, so logically they are "filler" character fighters. Btw, love the avatar.

I remember the outcry for Lucina being an exact clone. People assumed she would be a Luigi-fied Marth and were upset when it wasn't the case. But there wasn't any witch hunt against Sakurai for showing favourtism to the Fire Emblem series.

It's better that Lucina and Dark Pit are clones. If they were completely unique then that would mean they spent a lot of development time on them. With being clones it really is about padding the roster, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. Think how dull the Melee roster would have been without the 6 clone characters. With Brawl they heard the outcry and "Luigi-fied" their clones. The same was happening with Smash 4 until they decided last minute to pad out the roster, and honestly I am 100% okay with it.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

And Pit wasn't even a character of Sakurai's for Brawl so it makes no sense to build any arguments there

Even though Pit wasn't a Sakurai character completely, he still wanted him in Smash since the beginning(limitations sadly wouldn't let him use his current favorite son).

Let's move onto the Kid Icarus series. Pit returns with his great double jumps, a different special recovery, and some tweaks to give him more personality. All the characters in Smash 4 got personality boosts so there's no bias there. So now we add a new Kid Icarus character with Palutena. Now she has been around from the beginning and definitely the next deserving in the Kid Icarus series. With Uprising Kid Icarus has seen its rebirth, and from what I hear it's a fantastic game so why not show it some love by adding a new character. Now the unique thing about Palutena in terms of custom moves is that she was created from the ground up with custom moves in mind. So the team was able to experiment and create completely unique moves for her because she was a brand new character. With the existing characters they have a following that are used to their move style, so their customs remained variants of them (and it would add an INSANE amount of extra development to give each character completely unique moves.) So is it favouritism that Palutena was the only character (besides Miis) to get completely unique custom moves? I wouldn't say so. This was a chance for the team to experiment with a brand new character that was still relatively unknown to the Smash Bros. world. So giving her crazy customs added some interest to her outside of the Uprising fans. So she was chosen more to be the guinea pig for custom moves just to demonstrate how they change the characters style of play.

Palutena is the best guinea pig, and Uprising is one of the best games in Nintendo history. I do agree that Pit improved significantly(hopefully he can get a sequel or tv show).

 

[FieryRebirth]

I can see the possible favoritism with the FE reps if it weren't for Ike and Marth. If it was just Robin and Lucina, I likely believe she'd be a more Luigi-ified Marth. Chrom would have been in as well for all we know if it were just the newer FE characters, not like Chrom's an interesting enough character anyway.

Sadly, Sakurai wasn't done with Ike and he probably sees Marth as a staple FE rep.

 

[Opossum]

There was a lot of flak for Lucina and her being a Marth clone, actually. I'm not sure as their reasoning escapes me, I guess because she had a lot of potential of having her own kit? Not sure why people wanted Chrom in for that matter, Robin is such a more favorable, logical choice for newer FE reps and originality and I'm more than glad he got in.

I could go on for a LONG while about this, but it'd be off topic.

 

[ZombieBran]

Zelda and Samus can't be this bad without some form of neglect on Sakurai's part.

 

[Depressed Gengar]

Sakurai has been (or rather, tried to be) bias since day one. He tried putting in Dedede in 64 before the likes of Peach, Zelda, Ganondorf, and Diddy, characters who are far higher up the iconic ladder than he is. And when he mentions what would have happened if the six clones in Melee? He specifically mentions Dedede would have possibly been added. Why Dedede have all people? Maybe it wasn't bias, but it's still suspicious regardless. Brawl didn't have anything out of place outside of how the Kirby cast got a special amount of spotlight, but Smash 4? I refuse to start on that.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Sakurai has been (or rather, tried to be) bias since day one. He tried putting in Dedede in 64 before the likes of Peach, Zelda, Ganondorf, and Diddy, characters who are far higher up the iconic ladder than he is. And when he mentions what would have happened if the six clones in Melee? He specifically mentions Dedede would have possibly been added. Why Dedede have all people? Maybe it wasn't bias, but it's still suspicious regardless. Brawl didn't have anything out of place outside of how the Kirby cast got a special amount of spotlight, but Smash 4? I refuse to start on that.

Smash 4 is way more about Kid Icarus than Kirby by a longshot. Brawl on the other hand, is pretty much a Kirby game, staring Pit, Snake, Sonic, Mario, and others. Also, Sakurai had been trying to put Pit in alongside Dedede, but unlike him, Pit had limitations keeping him out of 64 and Melee. Dedede could've been put in anytime with no excuse whatsoever. It is wierd how both series have 3 great stages(Heat Cave Offensive sucks)with some of the best remixes in the game, and theyre all based on a recent game/old game.

 

[Khao]

Sakurai will never admit his bias. He'll take it to the grave with him. But look at the facts, he gives all of HIS characters (except for Palutena) multiple jumps with great recoveries. Pit (4), Dark Pit (4), Kirby (6), DeDeDe (5), and Meta Knight (6) all get X hops (the number next to their name) + a recovery. The only other character who gets multiple jumps (Jigglypuff) gets 6 jumps, and no recovery. But that's not as bad as what he did to Charizard...Gave him only three jumps (rather small at that) and a pathetic recovery. So he makes DeDeDe heavier (DeDeDe @ 119, Charizard @ 115), get more jumps (DeDeDe @ 5, Charizard @ 3), and a better recovery? Because logic. He made it practically impossible to gimp five out of the six of his characters, due to their flying properties, but screwed over Charizard, another flier.

Kay, I really feel like I have to say something about this.

Why do the Kirby characters get so many jumps? Because that's exactly how they actually move in their own games. There's not much to say beyond that, in most Kirby games, you get infinite freaking jumps, it's just a part of the series and correctly representing that feature was obviously important to keep the characters accurate. Charizard? He's kind of never been on a game where you have direct control over him. I do agree that giving such a terrible air mobility to a flying-type Pokémon is kind of weird, but that's kind of just one character. Also, Jigglypuff may "not" get a recovery in the conventional sense, but her horizontal movement is so freaking ridiculous that she's recover pretty much 100% of the times you don't leave her way below the stage. At that point, she barely even needs a movement-based up+B. Jigglypuff does not have a bad recovery under any standards.

And now let's talk about Pit.

You know what's funny about Pit?

He's not Sakurai's character.

Sakurai had literally nothing to do with Pit's creation, so accussing him of bias when it comes to giving him a good recovery is laughable at best. Yes, he revived the franchise when he worked on Kid Icarus Uprising. But he did so years after Pit was added into Smash Bros. When Pit was given four jumps in Smash, Sakurai had never touched the character before, so where exactly would the bias come from? Other than the new moves given to him in Smash 4, anything that Pit does in Smash has nothing to do with Sakurai working with the character because that actually happened after Pit's inclusion. What makes this even worse is that Pit actually had a better recovery in Brawl, where he could fly through the air completely freely, but had the ability taken off in Smash 4. He nerfed Pit's recovery after he actually worked with the character himself.

Besides... Dude, it's just recovery. Recovery is a single part of Smash's gameplay, if you have a good recovery you're not automatically a good character. Let me remind you that Kirby is pretty much universally considered one of the worst characters in Melee.

EDIT: Wow, I thought I was gonna write a quick short post, lol. Sorry if I ended up sounding a bit angry about this or anything.

 

[Soup's On!]

Is it possible that Sakurai has some favoritism? Yes.
A lot of favoritism? Maybe not, but who knows.
Can anyone point to this or that trait vs what other characters can do as evidence of favoritism? Sure.

Does that actually mean it was an act of favoritism? Not necessarily - and saying it was without any real backing, or saying he did it subconsciously, is just bad faith. I'm willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt when he says that he doesn't have anything really to gain from treating a fraction of the fighter roster as his baby, and that a lot of thought from multiple people goes into balancing. As for some people being clones and others not - unless you can show specifically that, say, Alph as a separate character was cut in favor of Dark Pit or something, I'm not sure there's much to go on besides bad faith assumptions about how decisions got made.

In this case, I'm not really sure what would please people, or what Sakurai could do about it. Magic objective evidence that Sakurai is/is not biased? Not really possible. Would him stepping down and somebody else picking up Smash solve anything, or just give a new head to hunt? Him to do this or that to these or those characters? As players, we have horses in this race, too, so I question our own ability to be objective, especially when it comes to characters we like... or even when we talk about Sakurai himself.

 

[Babycowland]

Alph never flies the Hocotate ship in his game and the Koopalings never use Shadow Mario. That was obvious bias.

I agree that Alph's final smash is pretty odd, since, as you pointed out, he only ever uses the S.S. Drake in game. Louie might have been a more fitting alt based on that and the inclusion of purple and white Pikmin in Olimar's moveset. I think a luigified Alph with Rock Pikmin (and maybe pluckable winged Pikmin specializing in aerials) would be pretty cool and do the character more justice, but I'm not too disappointed with the Alph freebie we ended up getting in Smash 4.

Bowser Jr.'s final smash is a bit more puzzling to me, as it doesn't make a ton of sense for 7 of the character's 8 alts/costumes. I wonder if the original plan was for Bowser Jr. to have 16 costumes like Little Mac with half of them being Bowser Jr. and half being Koopalings or if the Koopalings were added last minute or something, since it seems like they could have had a more generic final smash that made sense for all of them.

I guess that's a long way of saying I wish Alph and Bowser Jr. got the treatment that Dark Pit got. That said, I feel like some of the most persuasive arguments I've heard about certain series getting a disproportionate amount of representation in Smash have focused on stuff like the number of smash run enemies, assist trophies, stages, and the like for each franchise as well as the number of their characters that got in the game.

I think the rest of the stuff that Sakurai said in that column is pretty interesting, at least to somebody like me who doesn't know a whole lot about balancing or playtesting. I'm not that good at Smash, so I'm perfectly fine with Sakurai and co. focusing on the intermediate level player in developing Smash games, so long as there are some things for more competitive players too. I don't know how likely it would be for Nintendo to make a Melee HD (I feel like they'd sooner put those resources into Smash 4 DLC or Smash 5), but I think it'd be nice to get a Melee rerelease on virtual console or something like that given how popular that game still is with competitive players.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

Kay, I really feel like I have to say something about this.

Why do the Kirby characters get so many jumps? Because that's exactly how they actually move in their own games. There's not much to say beyond that, in most Kirby games, you get infinite freaking jumps, it's just a part of the series and correctly representing that feature was obviously important to keep the characters accurate. Charizard? He's kind of never been on a game where you have direct control over him. I do agree that giving such a terrible air mobility to a flying-type Pokémon is kind of weird, but that's kind of just one character. Also, Jigglypuff may "not" get a recovery in the conventional sense, but her horizontal movement is so freaking ridiculous that she's recover pretty much 100% of the times you don't leave her way below the stage. At that point, she barely even needs a movement-based up+B. Jigglypuff does not have a bad recovery under any standards.

And now let's talk about Pit.

You know what's funny about Pit?

He's not Sakurai's character.

Sakurai had literally nothing to do with Pit's creation, so accussing him of bias when it comes to giving him a good recovery is laughable at best. Yes, he revived the franchise when he worked on Kid Icarus Uprising. But he did so years after Pit was added into Smash Bros. When Pit was given four jumps in Smash, Sakurai had never touched the character before, so where exactly would the bias come from? Other than the new moves given to him in Smash 4, anything that Pit does in Smash has nothing to do with Sakurai working with the character because that actually happened after Pit's inclusion. What makes this even worse is that Pit actually had a better recovery in Brawl, where he could fly through the air completely freely, but had the ability taken off in Smash 4. He nerfed Pit's recovery after he actually worked with the character himself.

Besides... Dude, it's just recovery. Recovery is a single part of Smash's gameplay, if you have a good recovery you're not automatically a good character. Let me remind you that Kirby is pretty much universally considered one of the worst characters in Melee.

EDIT: Wow, I thought I was gonna write a quick short post, lol. Sorry if I ended up sounding a bit angry about this or anything.

You bring up many good points, and I'm not saying that you're wrong, I just find it very strange - the treatment of characters that Sakurai has worked with. You're 100% correct in saying that Jigglypuff doesn't have a bad recovery. But then Kirby, also getting 6 jumps also gets an Up B? To me it just seems like if someone else gets something special, one of Sakurai's characters has to 1-up them in some form or fashion. Hell, Charizard can FLY in his original games, that sounds just as good as infinite floating, doesn't it? Well apparently it's not, according to Sakurai.

Now back to the Pit argument. Again, you're right, Pit was in Smash Bros before Sakurai worked on him. But after Sakurai started working with the Kid-Icarus franchise, not just one, but two more characters from that IP are put into Smash Bros. Call me crazy for saying this, but I don't think that's a coincidence. No one cared who Palutena or Dark Pit were even after Uprising was released. Yet Sakurai just HAD to put them in because they were a bigger part of HIS world. You know how many copies of KI:U were sold world wide? 1.18 million. Lets compare that to a few other Smash reps game sales:

• Pokemon X/Y - 13.85 million sales
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf - 8.84 million sales
  
• Super Mario 3D World - 4.10 million sales
• Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask 3D - 2.03 million sales
• Xenoblade Chronicles - 0.90 million sales (But don't forget by the end of 2011, there were roughly 950,000 pirated copies of the game) ~ roughly 1.85 million
• Fire Emblem Awakening - 1.79 million sales
• Metroid: Other M - 1.31 million sales
  
• Kid Icarus Uprising - 1.19 million sales
  
• Pikmin 3 - 0.91 million sales
  
• Star Fox 64 3D - 0.85 million sales

I mean come on, of all the games that had recent releases, the only ones that did worse than KI:U was a remake of a Star Fox game and Pikmin (the one franchise arguably less known than Kid Icarus). Why didn't Xenoblade get more representatives, or Pokemon? Why did it have to be the title that Sakurai worked on? There is no explanation other than that: he worked on it. Also note that I used whichever source cited the most recent date of sales for all of these titles.

And you're once again right...recovery is only a very small part of the game. Good thing that characters with bad recoveries aren't thrown into lower tiers because of it (*cough* Doctor Mario *cough* Lil Mac *cough*). Recoveries are only one of many aspects in a game, but they are important. That's why the villager is able to be so powerful, and why people are always laughing at Little Mac or Doctor Mario. You aren't an idiot, and you know how vital it is to return to the ledge. Don't even act like it's forgivable to privilege your own characters and completely disrespect others who are similar in many ways. (And as far as the Melee Kirby thing goes, Smash was a much smaller thing back then. That game is famous for it's exploits, not what it was initially designed to be).

Also I hope this doesn't come off too malicious or anything, just trying to prove my points the best I can.

 

[Paxadin]

Something that Sakurai seems to be forgetting, is that to competitive players and to some casual players as well, the balance in a game IS the fun factor.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

You bring up many good points, and I'm not saying that you're wrong, I just find it very strange - the treatment of characters that Sakurai has worked with. You're 100% correct in saying that Jigglypuff doesn't have a bad recovery. But then Kirby, also getting 6 jumps also gets an Up B? To me it just seems like if someone else gets something special, one of Sakurai's characters has to 1-up them in some form or fashion. Hell, Charizard can FLY in his original games, that sounds just as good as infinite floating, doesn't it? Well apparently it's not, according to Sakurai.

Now back to the Pit argument. Again, you're right, Pit was in Smash Bros before Sakurai worked on him. But after Sakurai started working with the Kid-Icarus franchise, not just one, but two more characters from that IP are put into Smash Bros. Call me crazy for saying this, but I don't think that's a coincidence. No one cared who Palutena or Dark Pit were even after Uprising was released. Yet Sakurai just HAD to put them in because they were a bigger part of HIS world. You know how many copies of KI:U were sold world wide? 1.18 million. Lets compare that to a few other Smash reps game sales:

• Pokemon X/Y - 13.85 million sales
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf - 8.84 million sales
  
• Super Mario 3D World - 4.10 million sales
• Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask 3D - 2.03 million sales
• Xenoblade Chronicles - 0.90 million sales (But don't forget by the end of 2011, there were roughly 950,000 pirated copies of the game) ~ roughly 1.85 million
• Fire Emblem Awakening - 1.79 million sales
• Metroid: Other M - 1.31 million sales
  
• Kid Icarus Uprising - 1.19 million sales
  
• Pikmin 3 - 0.91 million sales
  
• Star Fox 64 3D - 0.85 million sales

I mean come on, of all the games that had recent releases, the only ones that did worse than KI:U was a remake of a Star Fox game and Pikmin (the one franchise arguably less known than Kid Icarus). Why didn't Xenoblade get more representatives, or Pokemon? Why did it have to be the title that Sakurai worked on? There is no explanation other than that: he worked on it. Also note that I used whichever source cited the most recent date of sales for all of these titles.

And you're once again right...recovery is only a very small part of the game. Good thing that characters with bad recoveries aren't thrown into lower tiers because of it (*cough* Doctor Mario *cough* Lil Mac *cough*). Recoveries are only one of many aspects in a game, but they are important. That's why the villager is able to be so powerful, and why people are always laughing at Little Mac or Doctor Mario. You aren't an idiot, and you know how vital it is to return to the ledge. Don't even act like it's forgivable to privilege your own characters and completely disrespect others who are similar in many ways. (And as far as the Melee Kirby thing goes, Smash was a much smaller thing back then. That game is famous for it's exploits, not what it was initially designed to be).

Also I hope this doesn't come off too malicious or anything, just trying to prove my points the best I can.

1. Like you said, those franchises are more known than Kid Icarus(if people made more games for it, KI would be making it rain), so that's not really helpful at all. Plus the fact that Kid Icarus is still more known than other games like Ice Climbers.
2. Xenoblade only had one new game that released before Smash, plus the fact that Sakurai doesn't like adding 2 or more characters for a new franchise.
3. I highly doubt he's trying to purposely disrespect the other characters, or else the Pokémon Company would've had Charizard(maybe even playable Pokémon characters in general) gone already.

 

[~Neutral~]

Aside from what was already mentioned, I'm surprised nobody mentioned how almost all of the subspace emissary in Brawl was modeled after the format Kirby games typically use, think about it, that can't be a coincidence on top of Meta Knight being the strongest character in that game.