[Source Gaming] Sakurai Discusses DLC Development

In a recently published interview with Nintendo Dream (Issue 264), Masahiro Sakurai discusses the development of Smash DLC in fine detail. This 17-page interview was translated in full by the folks over at Source Gaming.

Part 1 - DLC Development in General
Part 2 - Details all 7 DLC Characters in Smash
Part 3 - Goes over all the DLC Stages and some costumes.

The interview was divided into three parts. There's a lot of new information in this interview. For those who prefer to listen to the information, Source Gaming recorded a discussion video going over most of the new tidbits that were revealed.

The first part is a general discussion of Sakurai. In it, he discusses the dangers of adding too many characters into Smash.

Sakurai: At the same time, if we were to keep adding popular characters to Smash as DLC, we’d eat up IPs in no time flat. Moreover, people’s “shock and awe” would gradually start to fade. If at some point in the future we had 100 characters in Smash, adding the 101st character wouldn’t have the same impact as new fighters have had up until now. In that sense, I feel now is the perfect time to close the curtains on development.

One detail that will resonant with many Smashers is Sakurai's approach to balancing.

Sakurai: Yes, because ultimately I need to look out for the novice and intermediate players. I made it my priority to create an environment in which they could relax and enjoy themselves. I have nowhere near the same dexterity as the advanced players (laughs), so I relied on the monitoring team’s data and advice. I honestly think we could make the game more balanced if we only focused on adjusting to For Glory 1v1. If we were to do that, however,Smash would lose its sense of being a party game people can get together and play.

He continues:

I think it’s hard for a lot of people to understand. For the people who only play For Glory 1v1, that’s the extent of their world; they might not understand the reason why other communities exist. At the same time, ifSmash were to develop into a pure one-on-one fighting game in which only the strong survive, the people who playSmash just to have a good time would all disappear before you know it.

The first part can be read here.

The second part of the interview discusses all seven of the DLC characters in fine detail.

Sakurai reveals why Mega Mewtwo Y was chosen over Mega Mewtwo X:

Sakurai: X wasn’t even an option (laughs). I mean, Mega Mewtwo X is about physical offense, which completely clashes with the concept I had for Mewtwo. From a gameplay perspective, I guess it could work to have him summon all his strength and deliver a powerful punch to his opponents, but that’s not the type of character Mewtwo is in Smash.

Sakurai also discusses console wars and Cloud's inclusion in Smash:

Sakurai: Exactly. And within the FF franchise, Cloud is without question the most popular choice. A number of people fixate on the fact his original game was never released on a Nintendo console, but if we were to limit our choices to characters who appeared on a Nintendo console, we’d end up with Bartz from FFV or the Onion Knight from FFIII—how would that work? Maybe they could change jobs or something… Actually, that would be kind of interesting (laughs).

The full second part can be read here.

In the last part, Sakurai discusses all the stages and some of the costumes.

—Why were Dream Land, Peach’s Castle, and Hyrule Castle chosen to return from the Nintendo 64 version?

Sakurai: There were a lot of reasons, but it was something like a process of elimination. For example, Kongo Jungle was already in the game, and Sector Z was basically already in the game as Corneria (although I know that the size of the two stages are totally different). Smash 64 only has nine stages in the first place, so in the end we chose the stages that we thought were appropriate out of those nine.

Sakurai did confirm that Pirate Stage couldn't work on the 3DS, and that the Mario Maker stage was picked for the 30th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros.

Most interestingly, Sakurai reveals that Geno was considered for Brawl and Smash for Wii U/3DS.

Sakurai: To tell the truth, it’s because I wanted Geno to be a playable character. He has a gun for a hand, and I think he fits in really well with Smash. During Brawl, I thought it would be great if I could add him, but in the end it didn’t become a reality.

The last part can be read in full here.

This was a huge translation effort by Source Gaming. If you have enjoyed Source Gaming's translations throughout this past year, please consider donating to their Patreon. They have spent some money acquiring these articles so they can be read and enjoyed by the community!

Lastly, Masahiro Sakurai will be live-streaming on March 10th 9:30 PM (Japan Time). Source Gaming will be live-tweeting translations from that event, so please follow them on Twitter to stay updated!

PushDustIn would like to give a special thanks to everyone that has supported Source Gaming. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Please follow him on Twitter to stay updated!

 

A must read.

 

Im still on my toes, waiting for news of any future balance patches. The J tiers need help Sakurai!

 

. I honestly think we could make the game more balanced if we only focused on adjusting to For Glory 1v1.

RIP Link, Samus, and Mac.

 

Can't read the Source Gaming page in full atm (although, this is most of it), but I still have pretty much the same stance on Sakurai's decisions. There's more he could do to help the longevity of competitive AND casual Smash, but I greatly appreciate his effort to balance the game across skill levels. I hope to see some clever changes to especially bad characters in competitive Smash, as I hardly see any of my casual Smash-playing friends having trouble with a character like Zelda or Mii Swordsman/Gunner, but, as it stands now, I think Smash 4 will hold my attention for at least a little longer.

If you want more on my thoughts related to lastability, I might reply to this when I have more time...

 

Can't read the Source Gaming page in full atm (although, this is most of it), but I still have pretty much the same stance on Sakurai's decisions. There's more he could do to help the longevity of competitive AND casual Smash, but I greatly appreciate his effort to balance the game across skill levels. I hope to see some clever changes to especially bad characters in competitive Smash, as I hardly see any of my casual Smash-playing friends having trouble with a character like Zelda or Mii Swordsman/Gunner, but, as it stands now, I think Smash 4 will hold my attention for at least a little longer.

If you want more on my thoughts related to lastability, I might reply to this when I have more time...

The full interview is 17 pages long! This isn't most of it. Wanted to quote more but I felt the SmashBoards article was starting to get too long. If you are interested in Smash's DLC development I'd strongly suggest reading them!

 

This comment is for all the rejected characters. sorta. Be hopeful for next time!

 

The full interview is 17 pages long! This isn't most of it. Wanted to quote more but I felt the SmashBoards article was starting to get too long. If you are interested in Smash's DLC development I'd strongly suggest reading them!

My bad entirely! I'm used to SG page highlights being limited to the 2 paragraphs and I assumed that, since this went over, I wasn't missing that much.

I'll be sure to read the whole thing when I get home. Thanks for reading through the replies and letting me know!

 

I think we should forget about console wars and focus on what’s really important: enjoying the games themselves.

^
This right here. Thank you Sakurai.

Spoiler

 

Sakurai is God

 

Im still on my toes, waiting for news of any future balance patches. The J tiers need help Sakurai!

Let's be real here, even if there's another patch, why would Sakurai bother to change characters like Samus or Jigglypuff? It's been over a year since Smash 4 came out and they have done diddly squat with them. Sakurai and his team clearly don't think they need changes.

 

^
This right here. Thank you Sakurai.

Spoiler

We can do better than that!!

 

The decision to include Corrin was admittedly strategic.

Marketing genius right there, folks.

 

Great translations.

I like how Sakurai thought "Dhalsim" when he saw Corrin. I was thinking the same.

 

I find it interesting that the voice actors and Sakurai (Masahiro anyway) actually spoke to another about how their voice lines would work.
As an person who wants to be a voice actor I would wish to meet creators of the video games I manage to get in.

 

His talk on how, with every added character, every character becomes less significant, rings really true to me. Im sort of crossing my fingers that in the next smash game they cut the roster down to 12 or so, and just focus on making those twelve really fun and balanced and unique. Then they can add more in dlc packs I suppose, but anything over 35 is just too many. This is the first fighting game ive ever played where I didn't immediately recognized which 1-2 characters I wanted to play as. Not only is there such a variety that it's impossible to get a grasp on them all even within the first few months, so you always are unsure about your choice ("hmmm maybe duck hunt really would suit me well but I just didn't give him enough time"), but it also results in a lot of characters just not getting the attention they deserve, and that they would've gotten had the development team been able to focus more on each character (ahem, jiggs RIP). Sigh, it's probably just a pipe dream, tho.

 

Marketing genius right there, folks.

Well, he's not wrong. He is an advertisement.

 

I hear about geno and it makes me want to cry.....we almost had him....we ALMOST HAD HIM ;_;

well....maybe with any luck he might make it into smash5.

I do feel like this was partly square's doing, sakurai probably only wanted to add one square character, possibly Geno, but square "nope, you're adding our poster boy who we ***** out at every opportunity."

 

Its great to hear that Geno was at least considered.

 

I'm honestly surprised that nobody's talking about the fact that he brought up Mewtwo's weight as a weakness considering how much people hate that he's light.

 

I'm honestly surprised that nobody's talking about the fact that he brought up Mewtwo's weight as a weakness considering how much people hate that he's light.

Mewtwo's Lightness can be good or bad for him. We have a good Mewtwo player at my school, and he beats me all the time with it, but I break out the Little Mac and Mewtwo dies superfast. Plus, if I have KO punch, it kills Mewtwo insane early, like Kill confirm off D-tilt at zero percent IIRC

 

Mewtwo's Lightness can be good or bad for him. We have a good Mewtwo player at my school, and he beats me all the time with it, but I break out the Little Mac and Mewtwo dies superfast. Plus, if I have KO punch, it kills Mewtwo insane early, like Kill confirm off D-tilt at zero percent IIRC

Down tilt to KO punch doesn't kill Mewtwo at 0% unless you have rage or are on a platform. That's not really a Mewtwo exclusive thing either. You could easily repeat that with Rosalina, Fox, or Kirby and get similar results. It's a designed weakness just like it is for them.

 

Well, he's not wrong. He is an advertisement.

And it's working, been seeing a lot of people lately who got into Fates cause of Corn. Kinda worked for me as well.

 

I honestly don't think casual players would notice a thing if Sakurai and the team were to buff the low-tier characters and nerf Sheik's f-air and ZSS's n-air a little bit.

They don't care about frame data, they just care about having fun launching each other across the screen and changing a few values here and there wouldn't change anything a casual smasher would pay attention to.
Before I played Smash Bros competitively, back in Brawl times, I wouldn't have cared whether Ike's f-tilt came out on frame 6 or 8. (dunno the exact values lel)

I didn't even know Meta Knight was top-tier until someone told me and I had played the game for years. I thought it was Pit and Marth who were the best characters in the game.

 

Let's be real here, even if there's another patch, why would Sakurai bother to change characters like Samus or Jigglypuff? It's been over a year since Smash 4 came out and they have done diddly squat with them. Sakurai and his team clearly don't think they need changes.

Welll they base their ideas of viability on for glory and characters like Samus and Link kinda dominate there as the for glory scrubs can't deal with their projectiles especially with lag. Same can be said for other chracters you often see on for glory like Ganondorf with easy win options. You're right, (At that level of play) I'm pretty sure the dev team don't think they need buffs.

 

And it's working, been seeing a lot of people lately who got into Fates cause of Corn. Kinda worked for me as well.

Their loss, if anything. Corrin is quite the uninspired character you'd see in a Fire Emblem fanfic.

 

Since the Livestream fan interview is coming on the 10th of march and it is happening at 4:30 AM US pacific time (17 hours ahead in japan time is 9:30pm), how many of us would wake up early just for the livestream chat with many japanese text taking over (well source gaming will do the translations). Plus, how would sakurai handle english text that would occasionally pop up?

 

Their loss, if anything. Corrin is quite the uninspired character you'd see in a Fire Emblem fanfic.

Is actually the other way around. And Corrin's moveset is far from uninspired but I understand that you are too emotionally resented to see it any other way.

 

I agree with what Sakurai says about having alot of characters added to the roster. The more and more you add, puts a workload on the developers, and makes the smash roster feel less "unique". Like having a 50 limit is fine for fighting and party games. However when you add in more and more, you get the Budokai Tenkaichi series that had 200+ characters that all played remotely the same. Some even had the exact same specials just named differently.
He is right that Cloud is the popular choice for FF, but I would have died a happy man to see Bartz in smash. He'd be freaking awesome. I can see his job system being Mime and he remixes attacks from the other smashers like he could have Link's Up smash, but he ends it with Little Mac's Uppercut. Let me chill before I go off again lol.

 

Is actually the other way around. And Corrin's moveset is far from uninspired but I understand that you are too emotionally resented to see it any other way.

I was talking about him from his source game, not the fighter. Bad character writing aside...

 

I was talking about him from his source game, not the fighter. Bad character writing aside...

Ah, I see. But that's pretty much every FE protagonist, with Ike and Lucina and perhaps Ephraim being major exceptions, and most jrpgs protagonists ever. It still doesn't the devalue Fates as a whole.

 

Sakurai even considered Geno for brawl? That is surprising, I don't even think there was a trophy or even a sticker of Geno in SSBB. That Mii costume in SSB4 isn't a character but at least its something even close to Geno in sm4sh or to even consider his existence in the game.

 

Since the Livestream fan interview is coming on the 10th of march and it is happening at 4:30 AM US pacific time (17 hours ahead in japan time is 9:30pm), how many of us would wake up early just for the livestream chat with many japanese text taking over (well source gaming will do the translations). Plus, how would sakurai handle english text that would occasionally pop up?

oops. got a word from source gaming about that.

"Unfortunately, the deadline to submit questions has passed. In order to submit questions, it needed to be done before Sunday [Feb. 21, 2016]. This weekend was insanely busy with the Nintendo Dream feature + "An Appeal to the Community". In order to submit a question, participants needed a Japanese address as it's actually a contest. Therefore, it's too late to submit a question now. I'm not sure if he will be interacting with the chat or not. I have a feeling the livestream will be more about Sakurai's approach to writing his column/ talking about video games in general...but we'll be there in case news breaks . Of course, we'll be live-tweeting translations and have a summary available on SG after the event."

 

I still have a lot of respect to Sakurai after this interview.
I love how he doesn't like the idea of combo'ing being a giant thing in Smash Bros, to not be too much formulaic.
Here we are, Brawl boys.

BUT...I disagree with a lot of stuff too.
I don't think the DLC choices were all that smart, and people who buys it are majority the exactly people Sakurai don't see as the main public.
I also disliked the interview don't talk about K.Rool.
That's some disrespect. He thinks Geno would be a good character, nice... But K.Rool not, because he is not japanese made, right Sakurai ?
I just can't believe he likes DK Country at all.

 

So basically he is saying f*** you competitive smash scene? Is that what I basically just read???

 

Sakurai: Yes, because ultimately I need to look out for the novice and intermediate players. I made it my priority to create an environment in which they could relax and enjoy themselves. I have nowhere near the same dexterity as the advanced players (laughs), so I relied on the monitoring team’s data and advice. I honestly think we could make the game more balanced if we only focused on adjusting to For Glory 1v1. If we were to do that, however,Smash would lose its sense of being a party game people can get together and play.

No it wouldn't. This guy is so delusional.

I am not a competitive player, and I am not someone who only plays 1v1 For Glory.

Most interestingly, Sakurai reveals that Geno was considered for Brawl and Smash for Wii U/3DS.

Sakurai: To tell the truth, it’s because I wanted Geno to be a playable character. He has a gun for a hand, and I think he fits in really well with Smash. During Brawl, I thought it would be great if I could add him, but in the end it didn’t become a reality.

OMG; EAT IT lol.


I still have the question why they even bothered to put For Glory in the game, since it has nothing to do with what Smash is about in the first place. So they gave in and jumped in on the trend, but someone please ask this next time there is the ability to submit questions.

His talk on how, with every added character, every character becomes less significant, rings really true to me. Im sort of crossing my fingers that in the next smash game they cut the roster down to 12 or so, and just focus on making those twelve really fun and balanced and unique. Then they can add more in dlc packs I suppose, but anything over 35 is just too many. This is the first fighting game ive ever played where I didn't immediately recognized which 1-2 characters I wanted to play as. Not only is there such a variety that it's impossible to get a grasp on them all even within the first few months, so you always are unsure about your choice ("hmmm maybe duck hunt really would suit me well but I just didn't give him enough time"), but it also results in a lot of characters just not getting the attention they deserve, and that they would've gotten had the development team been able to focus more on each character (ahem, jiggs RIP). Sigh, it's probably just a pipe dream, tho.

I agree. One day I was just mulling over my dream roster, and I had an epiphany that we don't even need half of these characters in the game, so just focus on the necessary ones and release a game you can call finished for once.

Sakurai: At the same time, I think it’s only natural to prioritize the character who enjoys worldwide popularity. I might have had misgivings if Cloud had never appeared on a Nintendo console in any form, though.

Yeah, thank God he made that small cameo in Kingdom Hearts or else Sakurai would have been sweating bullets.

Sakurai: That’s right. He’s very popular. When talking about older characters, Geno always gets a lot of requests. He didn’t appear as a fighter, but I was able to achieve something kind of close to that as a Mii Costume.

**** OFF everyone who told me and @Geno Boost that no one gave a **** about this dinosaur of a character. Come on everyone: hop back on the "Geno is OK" train just because Sakurai said it.

But now that guy in the Source Gaming video is labeling him as a "high possibility" for the next game? Just because Sakurai considered him for Brawl doesn't mean he has a big chance for the next game (if it ever happens). I think his greatest chance was in Brawl, and the door will get smaller and smaller with each subsequent entry. Bottom line: I don't think it'll ever happen. The guys in the video mentioned it: I don't think it matters he was a one-off; Sakurai admits he is very popular, which the bulk of users on this site used to refute. At the end of the day it has nothing to do with anything except who Sakurai likes or what he and the team feel like at the moment; there is no ruleset or template. X got in to promote a game, Y for this reason and so on.


I'm really shocked how Sakurai so openly says "this character was considered for this game" just if you ask him, so next time someone needs to ask him to list all of the scrapped, considered and planned characters for each game.

I also disliked the interview don't talk about K.Rool.
That's some disrespect. He thinks Geno would be a good character, nice... But K.Rool not, because he is not japanese made, right Sakurai ?
I just can't believe he likes DK Country at all.

To be fair he's never commented on K. Rool or the DKC franchise, though I do feel there is some personal bias in there on his end.

So basically he is saying f*** you competitive smash scene? Is that what I basically just read???

I always get that impression, but with each interview he seemingly grows more and more accepting of them. It's just that he never intended the game to be played that way, but what I have to say to him is: make the game you want, and if people play it a certain way you didn't intend, then so be it. Who cares. Don't put For Glory in the game if you don't want to just because it's popular. Melee was a beautiful accident, but I understand Sakurai's point of view of not catering toward theses players, but don't add stupid stuff like tripping for no reason. Brawl was a blatant and clear overreaction to Melee's competitive popularity.

 

Sakurai even considered Geno for brawl? That is surprising, I don't even think there was a trophy or even a sticker of Geno in SSBB. That Mii costume in SSB4 isn't a character but at least its something even close to Geno in sm4sh or to even consider his existence in the game.

They would likely have needed permission from Square to have any mention of Geno in the game, and doing so wouldn't have been worth the trouble for only a trophy or a sticker. Or they did try to ask Square for the permission but were denied at the time.

I also disliked the interview don't talk about K.Rool.
That's some disrespect. He thinks Geno would be a good character, nice... But K.Rool not, because he is not japanese made, right Sakurai ?
I just can't believe he likes DK Country at all.

...wat?
Sakurai was being interviewed. He talked about Geno because the interviewer asked about it, he didn't talk about K. Rool because the the interviewer didn't ask about it. He didn't go out of his way to talk about any of the costumes he wasn't specifically asked about, not just K. Rool. How on earth do you take that as Sakurai disrespecting the character? Maybe the interviewer, but even that's a stretch as he clearly didn't have time to ask about every Mii costume.

 

I was talking about him from his source game, not the fighter. Bad character writing aside...

You might want to play the game before you say that. And i'm talking about the official English version (or whatever language your region has). Why the English version? Because the fan-translation is actually pretty bad.

 

Hmm, VERY interesting and in-depth article.

Just as I figured, creating even a single character from scratch requires much work. That said, I'm surprised we got seven downloadable fighters. In the beginning, when the 50-fact video aired, I honestly wasn't expecting more than two or three, past Mewtwo's release.

Thinking back, it IS understandable that Suzaku Castle (Ryu' stage) had only two tracks, remixes aside. I would have loved for Bison, Vega, or Chun-Li's stage themes to be in the game, but I fancy it would be a pain creating fast-forwarded versions of every different song.

The fact that Sakurai considered Geno is pretty amazing. I've never played Super Mario RPG, but for some reason I've always thought Geno would be interesting to see in Smash. [Shrugs] Perhaps that's due to his popularity.

Overall a good read. I am thoroughly impressed they managed to squeeze in so much content, especially given the 3DS's limitations. I fancy that if Smash 4 was Wii U-only, we'd have even more. Hope to see more Sakurai interviews. Personally, I'd love to hear his opinion on Isaac and Golden Sun.

 

You might want to play the game before you say that. And i'm talking about the official English version (or whatever language your region has). Why the English version? Because the fan-translation is actually pretty bad.

No, he was pretty boring(as much as Marth and Roy were)before the Naruto Shippuden level localization. He is a mary sue no less. Worse, the predictable, cheesy plot doesn't help his character either. But who cares? You're making babies with your favorite Japanese archetypes with your half-dragon OC!

Overall a good read. I am thoroughly impressed they managed to squeeze in so much content, especially given the 3DS's limitations. I fancy that if Smash 4 was Wii U-only, we'd have even more. Hope to see more Sakurai interviews. Personally, I'd love to hear his opinion on Isaac and Golden Sun.

Hard to imagine if the game were Wii U-only, but it makes sense. Ditto, Isaac was a sought-after character since Brawl. The AT was enough of a sign that Sakurai was aware of the demand for him. Why did thy cut him from even AT status anyway?