Highlights from the
full interview with Sakurai from Game Informer:
Because this entry delivers so much history in one title, does it carry special significance for you and your team?
For myself, Smash is always special, and I always put my all into it. So the series is definitely special to me, but it’s not that this specific title is more special than the rest.
A lot of stupid arguments I heard from people saying that SSE 2 or "X" character is confirmed, or complaints about X thing being missing, boiled down to "But this is
Ultimate, so it should be there!" Can't fully blame them, since the marketing, even up to the recent video with Xander Mobus, used the subtitle to hype up the game. But the subtitle is "Special" in Japan, and way back in June, Sakurai said "Smash is special," referring to the whole franchise, so the subtitle has no bearing on how Sakurai or the team view the game. Ultimate isn't any more special than any other Smash game in their eyes.
While every character in Super Smash Bros. history is in this game, several new characters have also been added. What is the process of deciding new characters to add to the roster?
It is a project after all, so we take into consideration things like labor, man-hours, the time in which the title will be sold. We decide on the fighters from the very early planning stage, and from there, we calculate and begin production. We don’t add or remove any characters during the project.
We do things like base our consideration on the results of the Smash ballot, and also balance things out so that there’s a difference in the types of fighters.
By the way, as for Incineroar, during our planning stage we knew that a new Pokémon game was coming, so we intentionally kept one spot open for that, and we decided which character to create once we received more info on the title.
So there are no mid-development cuts or additions, like many people seemed to believe. That's part of why I didn't believe the Grinch hoax; the only corroborating "leak" was the "Chadindorf" leak, which claimed that there were cuts to the game, which didn't align with the smoothness of Smash 4 or Ultimate's development. Some people say that Chrom must have been a late addition, but this seems to be untrue as well.
The Smash ballot does matter, and is probably still being taken into account for DLC. Perhaps even moreso, since Ultimate's roster seems to be mostly ballot characters with some others added in, like Incineroar, Ken, and Piranha Plant.
And apparently Pokemon is the only series that gets a special reservation, because it's Pokemon, the most profitable franchise in the world. That at least makes sense.
The character reveal trailers have all been so creative, were you as involved in the storyboarding of these trailers as you were for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS?
I create all the plot, including that of “World of Light.” I make dense adjustment requests to the CG staff, and I also review things like the audio. I of course take a look at the gameplay portions as well.
Thinking in terms of game development, I should probably entrust this all to someone, but I haven’t really found that someone yet…
Interesting... So it sounds like Sakurai might be looking for a protege. The dude's almost 50, and works like the madman we all know he is, so he can't go on forever. It'll be interesting to see if that happens, who it will be, and how much of Sakurai's philosophy they'll carry forward.
Have you enjoyed the fan reception to each new piece of information released for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate?
I did plan to create something satisfying for fans, but actual user reactions were a lot more than what I initially expected. Smash Bros. itself is like a big crossover festival, but I’m speechless to see this game being accepted by the fans so much.
So Sakurai is very aware of the positive reactions to the game, which is great. No doubt the huge letter from the K. Rool fans made it his way, so I'm sure he must feel very happy and relieved that, in spite of some negative reactions, this game has also had unprecedented positive reactions.
The Super Smash Bros. series has always spawned much fan speculation for characters that will be included, but with Piranha Plant, you have given players one of the most unpredictable inclusions. How does it feel to be able to still surprise fans even so many years later? What that one of the intents of the inclusion of this character?
I’m actually not paying too much focus on the surprise element when we introduce a new fighter. The surprise element quickly fades once the announcement has been made.
Rather, I believe it’s important to have a good balance as a game. In the past titles in the series, Mr. Game & Watch, R.O.B. and Duck Hunt Dog were some of the examples we offered outside of people’s typical expectations. However, if we don’t have these types of fighters, and we only had typical “hero/heroine” type fighters in the lineup, there’s not much difference. It’s probably not very interesting. Correct?
This is the best part of the interview, to me.
We've all classified characters like Piranha Plant, Wii Fit, etc. as the "Wacky surprise" that Sakurai loves, but here he says that surprise isn't an element at all. It's more about creating an interesting and diverse cast of characters who are all fun and unique, rather than just having the same stereotypical characters fill up the roster, even if it's at the cost of some popular picks. This is why I've been excited about some of the characters in Smash that I'm not going to play, but I think it's at least cool they've been announced. Isabelle and Incineroar add new personalities to the game that didn't exist before, so even if they weren't hugely popular picks, they bring some more variety to a game that's all about variety.
As opposed to the "anime swordsmen" who are all variations of the same archetype, even if their personalities in their respective games are different. All the Fire Emblem characters in the game have unique stories and personalities in their games, but due to how Smash operates, they're not able to show very much of that personality in the game, where they're generally all stoic-faced and can only say some small lines that aren't always even in English.
What was the initial idea behind Spirits and why did you decide to implement them the way that you did?
We wanted to provide a solid single-player experience, but at the same time, we didn’t have enough development resources especially for creating character models. That’s where the idea came from. We needed to come up with a system that is fun and not a repetitive experience even when you battle against [computer players] repeatedly.
Cons for this system are:
- Because there are so many fighters, we can’t tell stories for each individual fighter in detail.
- We can’t support creating exclusive stages/terrains (i.e. side-scroll action game terrain, etc.) for it.
- We can’t add new rules, etc.
On the other hand, pros are:
- We can utilize a variety of characters (But not featuring figures anymore)
- We have a large pool of music, stages and fighters.
With all that in mind as a whole, we concluded that we should create something themed after this large library of characters outside of fighters, and let players enjoy simulating fights using them. Everything else expanded from that base idea.
This is the mark of an excellent project lead. Someone who is able to recognize the limitations at hand, yet work with them in order to still make something that's unique and interesting. Not everyone is able to do this, and that's how some games or other projects enter development hell, go over-schedule and over-budget, etc. But Sakurai's been doing this since he was younger than I am now, so he understands how to manage a game's development and recognize what's possible and what isn't, even when what's possible for him is far more than most other directors.
Also, it seems that he and the team definitely learned from Smash 4's lack of a solid single-player experience, and are aiming to make up for it, despite those limitations. Very good to hear.
You’ve been creating Super Smash Bros. titles for two decades now. As the release of Ultimate looms, how do you look back at your time with the series to this point? Do you have any highlights or favorite memories?
You may not sense that, but it is actually a miracle every time we’re able to create a Smash Bros. game. It’s a bit different from any other game series that regularly comes out with new installments. Unless we get approval from all of the I.P. holders who are involved in this game, we can’t make this game. And every time, we are walking a fine line.
Especially after I left HAL Laboratories, normally, games continued to be developed by the remaining company. But instead, Mr. Iwata created a development team centered on the director who became freelance. That was his call.
Without that decision, I can easily imagine that we could not release this Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in the best possible shape at this point.
This is really interesting. So it sounds like getting even all the Nintendo characters together is sometimes a hassle. Maybe he's just referring to the third parties, like Capcom and Konami, but those are only 3 or so characters each. It sounds like he's referring to the cast across the board, which is odd. Obviously Pokemon isn't difficult to deal with, given that they get a special reservation, but where is the difficulty?
Also interesting how Smash 3 and beyond could've been developed exclusively by HAL without Sakurai, but it was Iwata who chose to make Sakurai the head even if it meant using a new team/studio. Shows how strong their friendship was and how much faith Iwata had in Sakurai. Of course, they were coworkers at HAL, so that only makes sense.
Sakurai has his flaws--he's not some kind of demigod whose work is divine, and he has made mistakes--but his strengths are what makes him and Smash so special. Compared to if the game were developed more horizontally without his singular direction, where characters would be chosen and made more by committee, the different modes, features, and options would be basic and unimaginative, and the overall quality and polish would be lesser. E.g., the many derivatives of Smash, like PlayStation All-Stars or those Cartoon Network games.