[Source Gaming] Sakurai Talks About Fan Criticism

In his 495th installment of the Thoughts About the Video Games column, Sakurai discusses fan criticism following the reveal of Cloud in the last Nintendo Direct. After Cloud's reveal, some fans complained that Cloud was 'not Nintendo enough' to be in Smash.

Source Gaming has the full column translated for fans to read.

In the column, he begins with how George Lucas has stepped away from the newest Star Wars:

Separate from that, in an interview in the American edition of Vanity Fair, Lucas himself apparently said “you go to make a movie and all you do is get criticized. And it’s not much fun. You can’t experiment.”

He continues,

A truly serious problem….! He’s such a big name, and to hear him leave this franchise that has impassioned so many fans, a person who worked on the originals with his own hands, is incredibly sad and frustrating. Personally, George Lucas’s work is the work I would really like to see.

Sakurai is no stranger to this himself.

However, I truly understand his feelings. You could say my body is filled with these feelings. Making something, and completing it is a huge undertaking, and there are a lot of places where fans can’t see. It’s like building a house, but people focus on a single painting that’s hung up on a wall in one room, and fixate on it, and keep listing off their complaints of that painting. These situations are very common.

He then goes on to connect that feeling with the Smash Bros. series. You can read the rest of the column here.

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Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments what you think of Sakurai's comments.

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Does he not know that people for the most part are more frustrated with Corrin than Cloud?

I love Fire Emblem but holy ****.

 

There is difference between Blind Hate and Criticism.
Blind Hate: LUCINA IS DUMB
Criticism: I don't think Lucina is a good choice. Unlike the other clones she brings the least amount of unquie traits to the series.

 

Honestly adding new characters and new content should be the way to go for the most part. I understand that adding older characters keeps the games charm and nostalgia up, but that can only hold up for so long. I'd rather have a fresh new game with more new characters than an HD update of a previous game.

I think that all of us love new characters regardless of the game but you have to understand that Melee has been played for 14 + years BECAUSE of the fast gameplay.

 

Sakurai : "Thank you so much for waiting. As promised, here's the game, with new features and-"
Fans : "Where's Wolf ?"
Sakurai : "Well, we decided to work on other characters that aren't clones-"
Fans : "Geez Sakurai, why did you change Wario's F-Smash. This game sucks !"
Sakurai : "Hum, hello, we added custom moves, just for you-"
Fans : "Sakurai, 3 clones, really ? You really are treating us like idiots !"
Sakurai :
View attachment 89846

Nitpicking is what the Smash community considers as "criticism".

i would have preferede no costums at all, and less clones, wolf was a verry popular pick, it would have been very easy to add him, but no, let make dark pit and just change his arrows? Sakurais thinking is very stupid sometimes in my opinion, he could have just added D. pit as a skin for Pit! i mean he did more complicaded stuff with bowser jr and olimar, adding other characters as skins, he could have even added Shadow as a sonic skin....But no, lets focus on making custom moves cuz thas what ppl are asking for lets focus on making clones and **** balance cuz casual play dosent notice balance....sakurais thinking is amazingly bad sometiems.

 

I think that all of us love new characters regardless of the game but you have to understand that Melee has been played for 14 + years BECAUSE of the fast gameplay.

Which is perfectly fine, and i'm glad Melee has been able to last this long, but I don't think there's too much of a problem mixing things up a little bit..

 

It's hard for people to understand what it's like from a developer's point of view.

When you work really hard at something though, sometimes there come's a moment, where you want to do something that doesn't fit, simply because you want to do it. You know that fans will complain, you know you're not following the pattern, but you do it anyways because it's your creation, and your right to do so.

On the other hand, ever developer had best keep their fans in mind when making anything. It's their fans who keep them monetarily afloat, and if they know that there's gonna be backlash, then be ready for it.

I do not support Cloud being in Smash 4, unless his FF game does get a remake on the Wii U. Also, I found his move set to be somewhat interesting but. . . somewhat reminiscent of Marth and Roy. With differences to be certain, but still. Nothing really interesting stood out to me and he just feels so basic.

If it where up to me, there's no way I would have done a character as far displaced from Nintendo as Cloud. I would have introduced a Mega Man character, or probably Knuckles, since Knuckles would at least provide variety in move sets, and many Nintendo fans would remember him from Sonic's games on Nintendo consoles. (Sonic Heroes, SA2, SADX ect.)

Even a Castlevania character would have made a lot more sense to me, but, if it's Sakurai's game, then it's his choice. And he can do what he wants. It's your choice to buy it or not.

My question though is. . . does he really get a say in what character they put in next? I'm not certain, he might just be the cover guy.

I would have liked Shovel Knight more than Cloud. At least he's on his own game for Wii U, right?

Trust me, Sakurai does not have complete say in what characters are in the game. He still has to listen to the execs up at Nintendo, Corrin wasn't even his idea, even though he likes the franchise that was not completely his input. Corrin looks interesting though, he adds something different to the table compared to the other FE characters in Smash.

Its the same with Capcom, Ono does not have full say in the roster. His superiors can get him to change something at any moment if they feel they can squeeze more out of consumers. The whole Street Fighter X Tekken DLC catastrophe was not Ono idea, I can bet my money that it was his superiors who wanted to implement that scheme into the game.

 

Good god some of you are just bent on hating gthe guy that has directed the creation of some of the best games ever made. Over **** like Wolf not making it in...wow. Just give credit where credit is do an move on to Warriors of Either or whatever that game is called....

 

Good god some of you are just bent on hating gthe guy that has directed the creation of some of the best games ever made. Over **** like Wolf not making it in...wow. Just give credit where credit is do an move on to Warriors of Either or whatever that game is called....

I agree, like Smash Brothers in my opinion one of the only franchises that stayed consistent as far as fun factor and quality than most game series out there today. Nothing wrong with having an opinion or constructive criticism, but to say that this guy is hurting this franchise and should be replaced with someone else is ridiculous.

I can say games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs Series, had become stale throughout the progression of each installment, but some of them are now finally turning around. Then you have Smash Brothers on the other hand, we aren't talking about competitive, I am talking about the overall game itself it always progressed in each installment. Yea, brawl wasn't a success competitively but from a non competitive experience it still was a step up from the last entries.

 

Funny, both Sakurai and George Lucas have been critisized for ruining their franchises halfway through. Both of them also have defenders of the later pieces of media and people who have a deep seeded hatred for them. If fate takes its course then just like Star Wars smash will be given to someone that creates something exceptional again.

What's more funny is that both franchises have light sabers.

 

I'm not kidding anyone, 200,000 people paying premium prices for limited development is solid. Of course there will be more, but to any type of significant amount? Doubtful.

Saying Smash isn't like most games is... dumb. We all know it has replayability, doesn't stop many people from dropping games like MK8 and Splatoon after a few months and it's not going to stop those same people from doing the same thing to Smash. The only ones that won't are the dedicated fans who have to stop being pushed to the side for people who don't factor in that much to the games long term success.

So you're trying to tell me that 10,800,000 people just randomly said "well this game was fun, I'm done with it now" after 3 months? And what about the fact that the game is still being purchased? Did those people just stop playing the game after 2 days so they don't matter? Multiplayer games do not suffer the same turnover as single-player games do, and yes a lot of people are still playing MK8 and Splatoon. And then there are games like Call of Duty which subside basically solely on casual players, but they still play the game often until the next one comes out. The simple fact of the matter is that the Smash community makes up 2%, again 2% of the player base. The idea that 98% of players, over ten million people, just never play the game after a few months is frankly ridiculous. There's a reason For Glory is still jam-packed with people who aren't exactly good at the game.

 

I'm glad Wolf didn't make it in. He was a clone and a boring one. Yes I said it, come at me.

 

I'm glad Wolf didn't make it in. He was a clone and a boring one. Yes I said it, come at me.

You're not alone. I don't miss Wolf at all, and having him revealed in the Final Direct instead of a newcomer would have been even more disappointing. No one can seriously say that they would rather have Wolf over Bayonetta, right?

 

Does he not know that people for the most part are more frustrated with Corrin than Cloud?

I love Fire Emblem but holy ****.

This was before the Final Video Presentation. Do you not know that he for the whole part was referring to the Cloud reveal?
pls reading comprehension
This is the first sentence of the article holy ****
"In his 495th installment of the Thoughts About the Video Games column, Sakurai discusses fan criticism following the reveal of Cloud in the last Nintendo Direct. After Cloud's reveal, some fans complained that Cloud was 'not Nintendo enough' to be in Smash."

 

You're not alone. I don't miss Wolf at all, and having him revealed in the Final Direct instead of a newcomer would have been even more disappointing. No one can seriously say that they would rather have Wolf over Bayonetta, right?

Wolf fans, and petty much anyone that loved playing Wolf in Brawl and PM. Other than that I'm so glad that we got Bayonetta over Wolf, Krystall, K.Rool and every other hive minded fan ballot character the smash community claimed were guaranteed to win.

Except for Banjo-Kazooie, Shantae and Shovel Knight. I would love to see one them make it in a future Smash game.

 

I think its time for Sakuraui to let someone else make the game. he has done wonderful things but is time for a switch in directions.

FOR SMASH 5:

-Someone who takes smash in a new direction and makes it a global E-sport ala LOL. Flashy gameplay like Melee is a must.

-Scratch gimmicky features like Sub space emissary and focus solely on the "vs aspect" and the "party mayhem aspect" of the franchise which are its strong points and what the people plays the most.

-Focus heavily on characters, DLC and balance.

Win.

 

It's gonna be a challenge for developers to make future Smash games as phenomenal as Sm4sh is.

I disagree. There is still plenty that can be done next game to improve upon the next game. The online is still lackluster compared to other online games, tournament mode was not that good, special smash could be more open, etc.

 

I don't care what anyone says wolf is a clone. He's a frankstein monster that takes moves from a bunch if characters. Fox,sonic,link, Diddy Kong.Not to mention he was probably the last character added in brawl that's how low property he was.And people need to remember all the hate wolf got in brawl.Why keep a character that was hated for so long

Sakurai isn't going anyway.He's still pretty young and recently stated he loves to work on smash despite the stress.He'll be back next game.And Sakurai for the most part always picks the roster.He pick the base game roster, all the 3rd parties,and most of the DLC.The only character I heard he didn't have much of a say was corrin.Which I personally don't mind because I'm a big fire emblem fan but I see why people are mad at his inclusion

But people being that k room or isacc didn't get in.When the highest fan poll we ever had 20 thousand votes less than 2% of the 1.9 million people are literally ridiculous

 

I agree with Sakurai 100%

 

You're not alone. I don't miss Wolf at all, and having him revealed in the Final Direct instead of a newcomer would have been even more disappointing. No one can seriously say that they would rather have Wolf over Bayonetta, right?

Yeah. Just imagine someone actually being a Star Fox fan while not particularly caring for Bayonetta or her games. Crazy, right?

 

I think its time for Sakuraui to let someone else make the game. he has done wonderful things but is time for a switch in directions.

FOR SMASH 5:

-Someone who takes smash in a new direction and makes it a global E-sport ala LOL. Flashy gameplay like Melee is a must.

-Scratch gimmicky features like Sub space emissary and focus solely on the "vs aspect" and the "party mayhem aspect" of the franchise which are its strong points and what the people plays the most.

-Focus heavily on characters, DLC and balance.

Win.

I'd love to see Platinum Games make the next Smash.

 

I'd love to see Platinum Games make the next Smash.

But then we'd obviously get Bayonetta series bias.

 

But then we'd obviously get Bayonetta series bias.

I'm totally okay with that.

 

I'd love to see Platinum Games make the next Smash.

You do realize that Platinum is owned by SEGA, right?

Then again, SEGA's gonna get owned by Nintendo soon.

I think its time for Sakuraui to let someone else make the game. he has done wonderful things but is time for a switch in directions.

FOR SMASH 5:

-Someone who takes smash in a new direction and makes it a global E-sport ala LOL. Flashy gameplay like Melee is a must.

-Scratch gimmicky features like Sub space emissary and focus solely on the "vs aspect" and the "party mayhem aspect" of the franchise which are its strong points and what the people plays the most.

-Focus heavily on characters, DLC and balance.

Win.

I agree with everything except the "focus in VS mode" part. The solo gameplay in Sm4sh was terrible. It's not that big of an issue for completionists, but those who WERE had to sit through that ****. It wasn't so bad on the 3DS version, just that Classic Mode was a little short. On the Wii U version, all we had was an All-Star Mode that didn't make since, a terrible change for Events, and a really ****ty Classic Mode. You really can't get that much out of Stadium and Special Orders, and Training is nonexistant.

Good god some of you are just bent on hating gthe guy that has directed the creation of some of the best games ever made. Over **** like Wolf not making it in...wow. Just give credit where credit is do an move on to Warriors of Either or whatever that game is called....

Jesus, and WE'RE supposed to be that bad guys?

Wolf fans, and petty much anyone that loved playing Wolf in Brawl and PM. Other than that I'm so glad that we got Bayonetta over Wolf, Krystall, K.Rool and every other hive minded fan ballot character the smash community claimed were guaranteed to win.

Except for Banjo-Kazooie, Shantae and Shovel Knight. I would love to see one them make it in a future Smash game.

Why would you prefer Bayonetta over King K. Rool, Issac, or pretty much anyone else?

I agree with Sakurai 100%

With what?

I'm glad Wolf didn't make it in. He was a clone and a boring one. Yes I said it, come at me.

I could care less for Wolf - his removal didn't really effect me.

Does he not know that people for the most part are more frustrated with Corrin than Cloud?

I love Fire Emblem but holy ****.

I'm pretty sure he does now, but this was before Corrin was announced.

 

Sakurai : "Thank you so much for waiting. As promised, here's the game, with new features and-"
Fans : "Where's Wolf ?"
Sakurai : "Well, we decided to work on other characters that aren't clones-"
Fans : "Geez Sakurai, why did you change Wario's F-Smash. This game sucks !"
Sakurai : "Hum, hello, we added custom moves, just for you-"
Fans : "Sakurai, 3 clones, really ? You really are treating us like idiots !"
Sakurai :

Keep up those sweeping generalizations!

 

Nice to see Sakurai isn't one to think the prequels are $%@! I am one of the few people that think the later 2 films are better than most in the OT

 

There's that word again, "ungrateful". Being grateful for character you don't like after you've been explicitly asked which one you want is like someone asking you what kind of pizza you want, you answering with "pepperoni", and getting one with broccoli and pickles instead. Yeah, it's still a pizza, but come on it's obviously not what you wanted. So, what, we can't complain about that? We can't say "you asked us what we wanted to eat, we said pepperoni, and instead you put on broccoli. WTF?". You guys act as though we don't pay for this game, and Sakurai didn't ask us for what WE wanted while ****-talking other DLC providers talking about "it's about the fans" and stuff like that. There's no reason for us to be grateful for this DLC, it's as simple as that. Bringing the rest of the game into this, is just him throwing himself a pity-party, because no one else brought it up.

smash isn't a pizza. It's a game. But i see your point. What I should have said is that we couldve just not gotten any DLC and people would likely complain less cuz at least if their fighter cant be in, at least someone elses' can't. And sakurai never said during development that there'd be DLC. Only long after the game was released did the DLC start rolling out

 

Well if someone didn't get their fav character in and don't like the line up at all, of course they don't have to be grateful, but respecting the work Sakurai puts into the game is another thing, whenever I see petitions trying to remove This character, I find it a slap in the face to all the hard work Sakurai and dev team puts into the game, also the largest base of any game is the casual base which is how I see those were the 3 characters that got in because the casual consumers want those characters

 

Fans : "Where's Wolf ?"
Sakurai : "Well, we decided to work on other characters that aren't clones-"

Please tell me...please tell me you're a casual...