The Super Smash Brothers series is all about the characters. The modes, items, stages, and options all come second to the characters. It seems like as long as Brawl has a roster of Nintendo characters the game will be successful. Generating this list shouldn’t be a problem because Sakurai has at his disposal over 20 years of rich Nintendo history to draw his inspiration from.
<p align="center"><a href="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/smashbrossdf.jpg" title="smashbrossdf.jpg"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/smashbrossdf.jpg" alt="smashbrossdf.jpg" /></a></p>
I find it interesting how few moves were invented for some characters in Melee. Kirby, Mario and Mr. Game&Watch all have move sets almost entierly inspired by ther previoius games. It’s almost as if Sakarai and his team didn’t have to do any creative work at all. Almost.<!--more-->
After reading another update about final smashes, I had to say something about the particular direction Sakruai is taking Brawl. Mario and Link’s final smash are made up, meaning the concept and or animations cannot be found in any previous game. I have to wonder if Sakurai simply decided to make up the moves because of a design issue or a personal one. Mario has plenty of other super moves he could have used from his many RPG adventures. I’m sure there’s quite a few people who would flock back to Mario if he had one of his super moves from Mario RPG.
Link has quite a few super moves from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Remember <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=tuN4anWHd8o" title="Quake" target="_blank">Quake</a>, <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=KOuYbqLhIzg" title="Ether" target="_blank">Ether</a>, or BombBomb (see very end of each video)? These seem to be perfect for the job, yet, now, Link shoots a triforce out of his hand. Though I’m not a zelda expert (I have only beaten Zelda 1, OOT, MM, WW, TP, 4swords, and Minish cap) I’ve never seen the triforce used in this way. If it has, please correct me.
<p align="center"><a href="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/pikachu_070619a-l.jpg" title="pikachu_070619a-l.jpg"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/pikachu_070619a-l.thumbnail.jpg" alt="pikachu_070619a-l.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/mario_070529b.jpg" title="mario_070529b.jpg"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/mario_070529b.thumbnail.jpg" alt="mario_070529b.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/link_070618a.jpg" title="link_070618a.jpg"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/link_070618a.thumbnail.jpg" alt="link_070618a.jpg" /></a></p>
I can only believe that Sakurai is focing his own style into the game. Perhaps with so much of the games content controled by the daunting Nintendo history, he felt the need to include something of his own. I guess making up Fox, Falco, Captain Falcon’s moves up entirely in Melee wasn’t enough. Not only is Sakurai’s style less Nintendo and more anime-like, but so far his creativity is pretty generic. Mario shoots fire like energy blasts out of his hands in a very DragonBallZ like fashion. The worst part is, these moves are still really cool.
Thinking back on the changes that were made to Melee from Smash 64, I’m starting to understand Sakurai’s development style. After a certain point in the games development, I believe Sakurai adds content just because he thinks it would be cool. Being able to tech off of walls and ceilings in Melee is one thing, but giving about half of the characters wall jumps is a strange decision. Clearly he didn’t think that being able to wall jump balanced the game because all the characters don’t have it including many low tiers. It seems like he just thought it would be cool and gave the characters the ability to wall jump that would look cool while doing it.
It’s obvious that Sakurai wanted people to randomly explode from spawned items in Melee. It must have occurred during play testing, and he kept it in the game anyway. In the Nintendo DS game Meteos, also made by Sakurai, items are designed the same way. They randomly fall down, and can often screw up your hard work without warning. He must be laughing at us somewhere in Japan.
We know he has a sense of humor just by allowing Fox to be as fast and deadly as he is. Fox is clearly too fast and too good nearly ignoring balancing altogether. It’s my belief that when it came down to an issue of balancing Fox, Sakurai decided against it because Fox is “cool” this way. Someone was probably laughing hysterically when they invented Peach’s downsmash too.
It may be a little rash to blame Sakurai for all of these issues. Clearly, the whole team is responsible, that is, unless Sakurai has a son working on the game that included such things because he felt like it and nobody was brave enough to challenge him. But that’s just a whimsical imagining.
They attempted to balance the game for the PAL release. I wonder what their attitude is for Brawl. It takes a lot of design to make the highest tier awesome, and the lowest tier terrible. Maybe we’ll see more characters in the middle this time. Who knows how Sakurai’s style will show up next.
It’s anybody’s guess.
<p align="center"><a href="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/smashbrossdf.jpg" title="smashbrossdf.jpg"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/smashbrossdf.jpg" alt="smashbrossdf.jpg" /></a></p>
I find it interesting how few moves were invented for some characters in Melee. Kirby, Mario and Mr. Game&Watch all have move sets almost entierly inspired by ther previoius games. It’s almost as if Sakarai and his team didn’t have to do any creative work at all. Almost.<!--more-->
After reading another update about final smashes, I had to say something about the particular direction Sakruai is taking Brawl. Mario and Link’s final smash are made up, meaning the concept and or animations cannot be found in any previous game. I have to wonder if Sakurai simply decided to make up the moves because of a design issue or a personal one. Mario has plenty of other super moves he could have used from his many RPG adventures. I’m sure there’s quite a few people who would flock back to Mario if he had one of his super moves from Mario RPG.
Link has quite a few super moves from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Remember <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=tuN4anWHd8o" title="Quake" target="_blank">Quake</a>, <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=KOuYbqLhIzg" title="Ether" target="_blank">Ether</a>, or BombBomb (see very end of each video)? These seem to be perfect for the job, yet, now, Link shoots a triforce out of his hand. Though I’m not a zelda expert (I have only beaten Zelda 1, OOT, MM, WW, TP, 4swords, and Minish cap) I’ve never seen the triforce used in this way. If it has, please correct me.
<p align="center"><a href="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/pikachu_070619a-l.jpg" title="pikachu_070619a-l.jpg"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/pikachu_070619a-l.thumbnail.jpg" alt="pikachu_070619a-l.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/mario_070529b.jpg" title="mario_070529b.jpg"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/mario_070529b.thumbnail.jpg" alt="mario_070529b.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/link_070618a.jpg" title="link_070618a.jpg"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/link_070618a.thumbnail.jpg" alt="link_070618a.jpg" /></a></p>
I can only believe that Sakurai is focing his own style into the game. Perhaps with so much of the games content controled by the daunting Nintendo history, he felt the need to include something of his own. I guess making up Fox, Falco, Captain Falcon’s moves up entirely in Melee wasn’t enough. Not only is Sakurai’s style less Nintendo and more anime-like, but so far his creativity is pretty generic. Mario shoots fire like energy blasts out of his hands in a very DragonBallZ like fashion. The worst part is, these moves are still really cool.
Thinking back on the changes that were made to Melee from Smash 64, I’m starting to understand Sakurai’s development style. After a certain point in the games development, I believe Sakurai adds content just because he thinks it would be cool. Being able to tech off of walls and ceilings in Melee is one thing, but giving about half of the characters wall jumps is a strange decision. Clearly he didn’t think that being able to wall jump balanced the game because all the characters don’t have it including many low tiers. It seems like he just thought it would be cool and gave the characters the ability to wall jump that would look cool while doing it.
It’s obvious that Sakurai wanted people to randomly explode from spawned items in Melee. It must have occurred during play testing, and he kept it in the game anyway. In the Nintendo DS game Meteos, also made by Sakurai, items are designed the same way. They randomly fall down, and can often screw up your hard work without warning. He must be laughing at us somewhere in Japan.
We know he has a sense of humor just by allowing Fox to be as fast and deadly as he is. Fox is clearly too fast and too good nearly ignoring balancing altogether. It’s my belief that when it came down to an issue of balancing Fox, Sakurai decided against it because Fox is “cool” this way. Someone was probably laughing hysterically when they invented Peach’s downsmash too.
It may be a little rash to blame Sakurai for all of these issues. Clearly, the whole team is responsible, that is, unless Sakurai has a son working on the game that included such things because he felt like it and nobody was brave enough to challenge him. But that’s just a whimsical imagining.
They attempted to balance the game for the PAL release. I wonder what their attitude is for Brawl. It takes a lot of design to make the highest tier awesome, and the lowest tier terrible. Maybe we’ll see more characters in the middle this time. Who knows how Sakurai’s style will show up next.
It’s anybody’s guess.
