Its all good man, no need to explode. You're right to an extent, but let's keep in mind that Sakurai delivered on an exceptional high-quality game. His roster choices aren't always the best, but ultimately, he made Smash Bros what it is, and we should be more thankful we got another game than we are. This game is his passion, so to say he doesn't deserve to be its director is an incredible insult. His decisions are not always the smartest, most sensible, most professional or controversy free. But he makes great games and Mewtwo as DLC is proof that he cares, along with Mega Man, Villager, Shulk, removed tripping, For Glory, Omega stages etc.
Sakurai gave us a great game. No game is going to have everything you may want or expect. His handling of Ridley is not as unprofessional as people believe. He hyped him up because he is so dynamic and his execution as a boss is unique and time-consuming to complete. He flat-out told us Ridley would be a boss on April 8th. Most people just didn't want to believe it. They waited til now to show him so that we could at least appreciate how good of a boss he ended up being. Sakurai isn't being mean-spirited or ignoring his fans. He's compromising; he let's us make some decisions, and him and his team make others. We don't deserve the entire say over the game because its not our work; its not our heart and souls being poured into its creation. Its Sakurai and the team. The man has a right to make some choices as he sees fit.
And the way he sees it, Ridley isn't possible. If a new director comes along and decides he is, great. But to push the series creator off his pedestal because we didn't get a character is selfish and exaggerated. If this game wasn't his passion and he didn't appreciate Nintendo's history, we wouldn't have Smash. And if we did, we would get a yearly rehash like CoD or Madden NFL instead of a time-consuming, climactic, well-polished game exploding with new content.
Rant over, I actually liked your post because we share mains in the game, except I put Yoshi slightly above Robin and Shulk.
don't get me wrong, this game is turning out to be amazing. 8 player smash, online modes, smash boards, music, stage builder. sakurai knows how to make amazing modes. but at the same time, he fails to give proper CHARACTER representation. he even contradicts himself in interviews where franchises with no futures aren't given a priority, yet he adds 3 KI characters, knowing full well that he stated he would not make a sequel.
on top of that, he MUST be aware of the demand for ridley. did he honestly think that fans of the character would be pleased if he was a stage hazard? of course not!!! these fans have been wanting him playable for 15 years. he's an iconic villain for the metroid series, and overall an iconic villain in the nintendo universe. we believe he deserves to fight alongside the nintendo all stars as a playable character. on top of that, sakurai is only feeding the detractors more and the ridley fans get ridiculed for wanted their favorite character in a playable fashion. what is so wrong with people wanting to see their desired character as playable?
most detractors, imo, are very immature and ignorant and just jump on the bandwagon of "he's too big" nonsense. they just believe that they are right, when clearly they are wrong to assume ridley or any character for that matter cannot be playable.
and yes he makes the choices, but at the same time we are his customers. we buy the games with our money. without our support sakurai wouldn't even have much to make smash bros to begin with. as consumers, we should very well be expected to be pleased since we are the ones spending our finances on his product. as a business man, you are selling yourself to people. you are giving up yourself to please them. yes not everything can be made, but if there is a high demand for something in your product, then you better well deliver that demand. otherwise your reputation can be shattered, and your consumers are less likely to trust you in future installments.
i have no faith in sakurai when it comes to the roster. he clearly handled ridley unprofessionally, believing we would be pleased with this abomination. he was wrong. on top of that, its not only ridley that bothered me, its also that he cut characters from franchises that didn't need cuts in the 1st place. star fox, mother; they lost characters that were important to their franchises. and on top of that other underrepresented series didn't get a newcomer who were highly demanded, such as DK and metroid, with king k rool/dixie being the most prominent, and ridley being the only highly demanded character from the metroid series. he even added clones that didn't need to be in, or could've given them unique movesets, but he didn't.
overall, i can't trust this man to make the right choices with characters. i only hope nintendo will step up and do whats right for their fans. its obvious they are listening to their fans, EVO and the E3 tourney show this. this is how you're supposed to please your fans and customers.
did sakurai make a great game? yes
did he make tons of options and customizations and modes for this game? yes.
did he properly give character representation? no. and thats where the problem lies.
that's all i'll say. i don't want to discuss this any further because i don't want this to ensue into an argument. if sakurai proves me wrong with DLC, then i'll happily admit i was wrong. but as of now, this is where i stand.
was the only female newcomer added.
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