The game's been in development for 16 months, and has at least another 6 to go before release, putting it at 22 months at minimum.
All things considered, especially the tendonitis (#youcandoitsakurai), they will still have all they can do to make this game a hit. They know that people buy this for the characters, not because Birdo is a trophy or whatever. I'm actually expecting something like a more liberal melee (balanced roster of ~45 characters and around that many stages as well, which are accompanied by a strong music library (~150 songs total for the stages), Wi-Fi and some one player modes), and I'm confident that a liberal melee is a great approach for this game to take. Focus on the priorities and foundations, and then add in stuff no one touches like Chronicle or Masterpieces or Stickers.
It seems that the single player mode will not be as expansive this time around. That will significantly cut down development time right there.
I still hope they have something cool in mind for an "adventure mode" of some sort. I didn't hate the Subspace Emissary, but as a platforming game experience it did fall short compared to games designed to be platformers. The best parts were the boss fights, basically.
But I'd rather that they prioritize every other core aspect before that. Make sure the multiplayer modes will be all that they can be before allotting too much time to an adventure mode.
I think Sakurai knows where his priorities should be for the most part, based on the fact that he's going for somewhere between Melee and Brawl and is aware of what the fans want. He knows we want more characters. He knows that the previous games weren't balanced - that's why he won't be handling it on his own anymore. He knows that everyone values the core gameplay and the things associated with that (stages, music) more than collectible trophies and stickers and so forth. Although things like the Chronicle, while very, very low priority, are also extremely easy to add (like, I would be very surprised if it took more than a day, considering they'd already created the menu system).
It seems unlikely to happen, but it would be really cool if he could bring in some high-level players to test the game and help with balancing. I wouldn't want him to listen to everything they say, but it would help prevent broken strategies like inescapable chain grabs, the Meta Knight fiasco and so forth.
The priority, IMO, should be:
1. Technical issues/core gameplay mechanics - basic options like Time vs. Stock match are included (this seems to be pretty much done, except possibly there are technical issues on the 3DS)
2. New characters + any new moves for veterans
3. Character balance
4. Stages (including options like random stage selection)
5. Online play modes - in a game all about multiplayer, this is so important to get right.
6. Music (I really hope they don't skimp on the music, the music in Brawl was one of the best things. I hope they make it a bit less random to collect, as well)
7. Items (including item switch options)
8. Basic single-player modes (Classic mode, All-Star mode - basically, easy to implement single player modes. They shouldn't be that much work, but they should definitely be there.)
9. Basic stage builder (i.e. Brawl-level of complication, but not necessarily identical to it)
10. More elaborate single-player modes (i.e. Adventure mode, corresponding boss rush or whatever)
11. Stadium modes (targets, board the platforms, etc.)
12. Character customization/Wii U-3DS connectivity
13. Additional multiplayer modes (including "wacky" things like tiny or giant mode, etc.) - these seem pretty easy to implement
14. Other challenges like Event Matches - easy to implement for the most part, maybe not so easy to come up with
15. Elaborating stage builder relative to Brawl
16. Trophies
17. Any other Vault things
The evidence so far is that Sakurai has the same top 3 as I do. I have to assume that stages and items are higher priority than most other aspects as well. My main hope is that he's put online play and music as high as they should be, and he won't allow some of the single-player aspects to delay the game, or prevent the multiplayer modes from being as good as they can be.
time flew for me then, now it won't f*****g speed up. That is almost 9 months more :I estimates are my buddies
