Translated Sakurai Famitsu Interview

[RamOne]

(ps do believe another female and male versions due to male for popularity and female for promotion and female, and almost that the male and female mewtwos do have slightly different bodys.)

That wouldn't make sense, though, as Mewtwo is genderless.

 

[Kuragari]

So this proves in fact Lucina is a clone of Marth and has some of Roy's attributes too, making him very likely not returning again.
We have two clones now, I have no issue with that, as long as we keep the number to a minimum.

 

[Smashoperatingbuddy123]

That wouldn't make sense, though, as Mewtwo is genderless.

The shetwo and first movie mewtwo are different ones so there are 2 mewtwos in existence in ashes world


The mewtwo from the first movie has a male voice

The genesect movie one has a female voice

Thats what i mean.

(But yes mewtwo is genderless.)

 

[Pazzo.]

Like I said, and like I've always said...

Sakurai knows what he's doing.

 

[HugoBoss]

The Moral of the Story:
RobinVS Chrom, and Robin rightfully got in over him due to being more unique. I feel sorry for Chrom fans
Lucina was a given, but the very minor differences made Sakuarai given her a slot instead of becoming an alt.
Sakurai's a hypocrite
"If you got breasts, your better than the rest"Smash needs more females, but Lucina is example of female Smash fighters done wrong. Gender alone should never guarantee a slot.
Lucina is noob-Marth

 

[Smashoperatingbuddy123]

I forgot to mention so ething about mewtwo

The mewtwo support thread is saying it but i don't understand but.

They're are saying this interview almost practically confirms mewtwo as playable.

 

[ChikoLad]

So there is just one part I don't get:

Initially, I had considered including Lucina as one of Marth's alternate costumes. After all, she has a close relationship with him in FE:A. In such cases, even if two characters' names and voices differ, as long as they function the same way, I assign them as alternate costumes. The Wii Fit Trainers, Villagers, and Robin are examples of this setup.
However, even though Lucina shares her physical stats and techniques with Marth, the characteristics of their attacks differ. When two such similar characters function in an even slightly different manner, I give them a separate spot on the roster since that will affect battle records and whatnot. In that sense, you could say she was very lucky to join the fray!

The thing is, Sakurai made them different in that respect. It doesn't really justify the decision to give her a slot, since the removal of the tipper mechanic is an arbitrary, forced difference.

 

[PlateProp]

I forgot to mention so ething about mewtwo

The mewtwo support thread is saying it but i don't understand but.

They're are saying this interview almost practically confirms mewtwo as playable.

I doubt m2 will be in smash 4, but maybe i'll be wrong.

On a side note, I also doubt Shulk. Why include the guy from the last game when we have Xenoblade Chronicles X on the horizon? It would make more sense, and there's publicity for that game.

 

[Agualitos]

Lucina has breasts. She's not even sharing a slot with a guy option either. Smash needed more female playables. It's a clear goal this time. Not to mention listening to fan demand there's been two things people have commonly said about the FE reps:

1) A rep that's just not a swordsman.
2) And a female rep.

Lucina, even if she began life as a Marth alt. Has both of those things going for her. She's a swordswoman and a female rep. Same reasons Robin probably got some more attention from Sakurai too as he/she is both things as well.

It really is amazing to see how many more female players are being included in this installment of Super Smash Bros. I believe there are around on 5/6 females in Brawl, while in 3DS/Wii U there are already 12! Sakurai, imo, has been doing a great job at including fan requests and listening to what we have to say (relating to what fan demands you listed in regard to FE reps!)

Although I really wished Chrom was in tis game, reading more and more about the inclusion of Lucina makes me realize she isn't bad at all! Sure she may play like Marth, like almost identically, but she is bringing something new to smash. A female swordman. I understand Sakurai's reasoning for not including Chrom, but it doesn't mean he may include Chrom as another Fire Emblem character's alt costume :D

Eventually Lucina will be accepted by everyone, just like Wii Fit Trainer, and with this recent translation of Sakurai's interview I have even more respect for him. It might have been a little confusing, but really is trying to give us fans what we want, whether we see that or not!

Oh! I also love the inclusion of Robin!!! He/She will be awesome!! :D

 

[Hong]

So there is just one part I don't get:



The thing is, Sakurai made them different in that respect. It doesn't really justify the decision to give her a slot, since the removal of the tipper mechanic is an arbitrary, forced difference.

Maybe they wanted to change Marth, but at the same time they didn't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


One of the most popular fighting styles in the series history, I can't complain.

 

[Calibrate]

"I even went so far as to make their strength, speed, and special attacks almost identical."

Haha, what a bad excuse for being lazy!


"At the end of the day, Chrom would just end up being another plain-old sword-wielder like Marth and Ike. Compared with other characters, he lacks any unique characteristics."

Lucina isn't like Marth, right?

 

[smashbroskilla]

Lucina and Marth are both considered chicks to me. Captain falcon is gonna knee the **** out of their sissy faces and show ya'll what hitting the gym is all about.

 

[Calibrate]

Interesting interview.
Lucina was going to be a costume, but he decided to tweak a few things, so her having a roster slot doesn't mean someone else gets the cut, she truly is an extra character, and it's neat that he is sharing this with us.

Did you read the article? He had to make a decision between Chrom and.. not Chrom.

 

[ChikoLad]

Another thing:

Although Robin doesn't use dark magic in FE:A, I decided to assign it as his down special. It isn't the first time I've given moves to a character that they don't use in their respective game in order to capture certain aspects of the original title.

...So this couldn't have been done to diversify Chrom?

I always thought Chrom could have been implemented as an all-round weapon master, similar to Firion in Dissidia: Final Fantasy.

 

[DraginHikari]

So there is just one part I don't get:



The thing is, Sakurai made them different in that respect. It doesn't really justify the decision to give her a slot, since the removal of the tipper mechanic is an arbitrary, forced difference.

It's a forced difference that probably took very little time for them to change. They probably already had the models, and basic structure done prior to making that decision. It's similar to what was said in melee that they could make 6 clones in the amount of time it normally would take to make 1 brand new character. So adjusting minor attirbutes allowed them to simply throw her on the roster without devoting a large amount of time or resources to that development. There can be some debate on whether it was worth doing that or not, but it can't really be argue that it was a difficult task or time consuming task.

 

[Nstinct]

She's still just Marth without what makes Marth interesting. Now her sword functions just like any of the swordfighters that aren't Marth, but using Marth's moves.

Doesn't this make her a potential Roy? We don't know the specific differences between her clone attacks yet, what if her ftilt leads to an uair follow up? Lets hope she'll have sime of those kind of differences.

 

[ChikoLad]

It's a forced difference that probably took very little time for them to change. They probably already had the models, and basic structure done prior to making that decision. It's similar to what was said in melee that they could make 6 clones in the amount of time it normally would take to make 1 brand new character. So adjusting minor attirbutes allowed them to simply throw her on the roster without devoting a large amount of time or resources to that development. There can be some debate on whether it was worth doing that or not, but it can't really be argue that it was a difficult task or time consuming task.

I'm not saying it was time consuming, I'm just saying that making Lucina an clone character was a redundant move.

Making her an alt costume would have ironically added more to the series, as it would open up the possibility of having things like a Daisy alt for Peach (as in, a full on one, with voice change and all), a Protoman alt for Mega Man, a Metal Sonic alt for Sonic, etc. This concept would also make for some nice DLC, if it would be too time consuming to make an alt like that for everyone in time for release. An alt costume that is essentially a character change would be cool for DLC because:

-Roster doesn't get cluttered.
-A mere cosmetic change for an existing character would have to be cheaper than putting out a clone character as DLC (if not free).

Making Lucina an alt would have brought something unseen to the series that could have farther reaching effects. Making her a clone makes her feel stale, and took a bit more time than making her an alt. So giving her a slot was redundant.

Doesn't this make her a potential Roy? We don't know the specific differences between her clone attacks yet, what if her ftilt leads to an uair follow up? Lets hope she'll have sime of those kind of differences.

Roy didn't take away what made Marth interesting, the focus of his blade's power was simply in a different location, which was a contrasting version of Marth's mechanic. And he had the fire element to him. While Roy is not necessarily a character I would like or care for, he at least isn't a less interesting version of the source character, and instead uses the source character's mechanic in a different way. Lucina's sword just functions like Link's, Toon Link's, Ike's, etc. She's Marth's moveset without Marth's interesting tipper twist.

 

[TeenGirlSquad]

Jesus Christ, there is a lot of seriously poor reading comprehension up in here, LOL.

 

[Super Writer]

The only thing that bothers me with Lucina is that I'm fine with roster filler (the game already has a great roster so far), no matter how ridiculous, Dr. Mario main here, but with the customizable movesets and them not being allowed online, I do think her default special moves should at least have been some of Marth's customizable moves, just so that by default their moves have slight differences.

That way, no extra work has to be done, online mode has two technically different characters, and less people would have a problem with her. But hindsight is 20/20 I guess, but I'll cross my fingers that someone in the development team thinks about this.

In the end, to me it seems Robin was the true newcomer and Lucina was a matter of circumstance, they had the character model ready and she became an over glorified alternate costume. I'm not really a hardcore Fire Emblem fan, but I'm fine with this. Male Wii Fit trainer, female Robin and female Villager in the end are just alternate versions of an instructor/player avatar, while Lucina is her own actual character. It's a cheap move, but really Robin makes everything alright in my book.

I guess I'm just easy to appease, heh.

 

[jaytalks]

Sakurai loves Fire Emblem more than any other Nintendo franchise, methinks.

Sakurai has had the most influence in the series over the last 15 years, and he hasnt even worked on a single game. His decision to include Roy and Marth in Melee snowballed into the series becoming an international hit.

As for Chrom, Chrom really wouldnt work as Marth or Ike clone as well as Lucina works as a Marth clone. And the visual as well creative aspect in adding another female to roster was also considered I imagine. Chrom would be another blue haired male swordsman. And with the way they made Lucina, he wouldnt be very different. But Lucina is a blue haired femaleswo

Lucina seems to be really lucky. She's an alternate costume that was too awesome to remain an alternate costume. When he gave her the center of the blade like Roy, she sealed her fate as a separate character. I would hope their give her some original animations at least before the original game.

I will say that after learning the Art of the Sword from Lucina's school of fencing, I won't be graduating to Marth's school of hard knocks. Will play as Lucina until the very end.

So there is just one part I don't get:



The thing is, Sakurai made them different in that respect. It doesn't really justify the decision to give her a slot, since the removal of the tipper mechanic is an arbitrary, forced difference.

The actually giving of a slot is very easy in terms of programming, and it makes sense if the character's playing differently will result in different battle records. The question is did they spend a lot of time programming the character to the point where it would have not been worth it. Unfortunately, it seems like put very little time in the character. It's just a reskin that modders would have made anyway within one day of the game's release.

I'm not saying it was time consuming, I'm just saying that making Lucina an clone character was a redundant move.

Making her an alt costume would have ironically added more to the series, as it would open up the possibility of having things like a Daisy alt for Peach (as in, a full on one, with voice change and all), a Protoman alt for Mega Man, a Metal Sonic alt for Sonic, etc. This concept would also make for some nice DLC, if it would be too time consuming to make an alt like that for everyone in time for release. An alt costume that is essentially a character change would be cool for DLC because:

Making her an alt costume would open up a whole new can of worms. People would be request the alternates you requested, and the quest become where do you stop? People would never stop demanding every character costume change, and having all those would reduce the meaning of having separate characters.

 

[asia_catdog_blue]

"At the end of the day, Chrom would just end up being another plain-old sword-wielder like Marth and Ike. Compared with other characters, he lacks any unique characteristics."

Oh yeah. It's not not like Chrom, Lucina, & Ike can wield weapons other than swords and have extra abilities that separate them from plain, boring old Marth!


...seriously, I hate Sakurai.

 

[Hong]

Another thing:



...So this couldn't have been done to diversify Chrom?

It's not like handling one tome is any different from another, as opposed to an actual different weapon class.

 

[Deleted member]

Another thing:

That quote though...isn't it wrong? Ness doesn't use PK Fire in EarthBound and Sakurai made it one of his specials. Just kind of amusing to me.

 

[Devil G.]

I don't see the point of eliminating Chrom as he is "not unique" and cloning Marth... I respect you, Sakurai, but can't see why... I only hope characters like Ridley or K. Rool weren't cut to put Lucina in there. It would have been criminal...

Lucina stole nobody's slot buddy.

 

[RomanceDawn]

Great read! My biggest takeaway is that Sakurai is not opposed to completely different characters as alternate costumes. I've argued against that for the longest but it seems I was completely wrong. This is actually pretty exciting! Demise for Ganondorf! Dark Pit for Pit(not as cool) and who knows what else?

This last week really made me realize I don't know squat! And thats a good thing!

 

[jaytalks]

That quote though...isn't it wrong? Ness doesn't use PK Fire in EarthBound and Sakurai made it one of his specials. Just kind of amusing to me.

He admitted he did the same with Robin and nosferatu. What he's saying is that Robin, even without Nosferatu, offers a much more different moveset than Chrom, even if you factor in a promoted Chrom being able to use lance for example.

Lucina stole nobody's slot buddy.

She didn't even steal her own. She just sort of lucked into in. But I'll take luck over skill any day.

 

[Deleted member]

He admitted he did the same with Robin and nosferatu. What he's saying is that Robin, even without Nosferatu, offers a much more different moveset than Chrom, even if you factor in a promoted Chrom being able to use lance for example.

Sorry, misread the quote; he said it isn't the first time he's done that, and I thought he said it was. I'm bad at reading

 

[ChikoLad]

To be perfectly honest, I would probably be much more OK with Lucina if there wasn't so much damage controlling from her fans and Sakurai, to make her sound more unique than she actually is. She's a clone, that is evident and undeniable, but people are trying to make her sound more or less like one. It's comparable to Sakurai's reasoning for not making a story mode - his reasoning for that is full of holes, and as his reasoning for omitting Chrom and giving Lucina a slot. Personally, I don't give a **** about what Fire Emblem characters are in beyond Marth and Ike (and in their case, I just like them because of Smash), but there are a lot of contradictory or hasty claims bein made in regards to Chrom and Lucina.

When I ignore that though, my issue isn't that Lucina IS a clone, rather, she's terrible as far as clones go. To me, clones are supposed to take something another character does, and add a twist to it (e.g. Falco is a more air focused version of Fox and his moves have interesting properties, like kicking his reflector and that down-air spike). Lucina simply takes Marth's moveset, but gets rid of his interesting twist altogether. And as a result, she's just Femarth with training wheels.

Sakurai has had the most influence in the series over the last 15 years, and he hasnt even worked on a single game. His decision to include Roy and Marth in Melee snowballed into the series becoming an international hit.

As for Chrom, Chrom really wouldnt work as Marth or Ike clone as well as Lucina works as a Marth clone. And the visual as well creative aspect in adding another female to roster was also considered I imagine. Chrom would be another blue haired male swordsman. And with the way they made Lucina, he wouldnt be very different. But Lucina is a blue haired femaleswo

Lucina seems to be really lucky. She's an alternate costume that was too awesome to remain an alternate costume. When he gave her the center of the blade like Roy, she sealed her fate as a separate character. I would hope their give her some original animations at least before the original game.

I will say that after learning the Art of the Sword from Lucina's school of fencing, I won't be graduating to Marth's school of hard knocks. Will play as Lucina until the very end.


The actually giving of a slot is very easy in terms of programming, and it makes sense if the character's playing differently will result in different battle records. The question is did they spend a lot of time programming the character to the point where it would have not been worth it. Unfortunately, it seems like put very little time in the character. It's just a reskin that modders would have made anyway within one day of the game's release.


Making her an alt costume would open up a whole new can of worms. People would be request the alternates you requested, and the quest become where do you stop? People would never stop demanding every character costume change, and having all those would reduce the meaning of having separate characters.

The consideration for alt character skins would just be a matter of whether or not it's fitting and if the anatomy is right. Basically the same logic as Lucina - Lucina poses as Marth and looks like him, so she makes sense as a Marth alt.

Dark Pit for Pit.
Daisy for Peach.
Metal Sonic for Sonic (Metal Sonic has even been a skin swap for Sonic in actual Sonic games).
Proto Man for Mega Man.
Ms. Pac-Man for Pac-Man.

Just do it for characters who have an obvious look-alike.

 

[AfricanManBeast]

To clarify, Lucina will be like Marth just how Falco was like Fox in Melee?

 

[ChikoLad]

To clarify, Lucina will be like Marth just how Falco was like Fox in Melee?

She's Marth without the tipper mechanic, and possibly with a slightly smaller hit box

 

[Johnknight1]

Nowhere does it say they used development resources to work on Chrom, just that he briefly thought about, but decided no.

I highly doubt Chrom wasn't work on at some point. I think "working on characters" at a beta stage is how they narrow down the roster to the final or near final roster.

In 64 Mewtwo, Peach, Bowser, King Dedede and possibly Wolf, Meowth, and Pit were worked on in beta stages. Also, according to a source I have (who leaked me things in Brawl, namely that the last unleaked stage was 75M), Lucas was originally going to be in, but was changed to Ness.

HAL Laboratories in Melee worked on Bubbles from Clu-Clu Land, Mach Rider, The Excite Biker, The Balloon Fighter, and The Urban Champion in beta builds of Melee looking for a good retro character, but they ultimately decided upon The Ice Climbers. Also, Ness' model was added somewhat late after the development team found out EarthBound 64 wouldn't be completed in time for the game's release.

There's also the Forbidden Seven situation, in which Mewtwo and Roy were planned for the final roster, but constraints pilled up (thanks SSE for shortening our roster a good 15 characters!) lead to cuts, specifically of those 2. Roy was cut due to a lack of interest, while Mewtwo was cut due to his build being glitchy and the team not being motivated to fix his hitbox issues and criticisms given that Sakurai demanded the SSE be the first and foremost focus.

From what I've heard from accurate sources, there were A LOT more characters tested in Melee and Brawl than these, and possibly even for Smash 64 as well.

I feel as if something similar happened to Chrom. I mean, Sakurai sounds CONVINCED Chrom is boring. To me, if you're really convinced of something, you probably tried to make it a reality.

I imagine Chrom was tested early and had some crafted early only to be shafted for "being boring" like Roy in Brawl. However, that is without the time restraints reasons. This may have led to Robin and Lucina both being in; it almost led to Lucina being added, as well as Marth's extreme changes.

 

[wafflini]

I'm not saying it was time consuming, I'm just saying that making Lucina an clone character was a redundant move.

Making her an alt costume would have ironically added more to the series, as it would open up the possibility of having things like a Daisy alt for Peach (as in, a full on one, with voice change and all), a Protoman alt for Mega Man, a Metal Sonic alt for Sonic, etc. This concept would also make for some nice DLC, if it would be too time consuming to make an alt like that for everyone in time for release. An alt costume that is essentially a character change would be cool for DLC because:

-Roster doesn't get cluttered.
-A mere cosmetic change for an existing character would have to be cheaper than putting out a clone character as DLC (if not free).

Making Lucina an alt would have brought something unseen to the series that could have farther reaching effects. Making her a clone makes her feel stale, and took a bit more time than making her an alt. So giving her a slot was redundant.



Roy didn't take away what made Marth interesting, the focus of his blade's power was simply in a different location, which was a contrasting version of Marth's mechanic. And he had the fire element to him. While Roy is not necessarily a character I would like or care for, he at least isn't a less interesting version of the source character, and instead uses the source character's mechanic in a different way. Lucina's sword just functions like Link's, Toon Link's, Ike's, etc. She's Marth's moveset without Marth's interesting tipper twist.

Uh, ikes blade is more powerful near the hilt.

 

[BADGRAPHICS]

Initially, I had considered including Lucina as one of Marth's alternate costumes.
After all, she has a close relationship with him in FE:A. In such cases, even if two characters' names and voices differ, as long as they function the same way, I assign them as alternate costumes.

Daisy confirmed.

I wouldn't be surprised if Robin's sword attacks were repurposed from an original Chrom build; he does still use a 1-handed sword, after all.

I wonder if Lucina will have different custom specials to Marth...

 

[Shorts]

Very enlightening, and pretty funny to find that he thought the exact same thing about Chrom that so many others here did.

 

[Fatmanonice]

To clarify, Lucina will be like Marth just how Falco was like Fox in Melee?

More like Mario to Dr. Mario. As things currently stand, she's the most similar to her counterpart than any other clone in the history of Smash Bros.

 

[Dr. Corndog]

I enjoyed the reveal Monday morning, and was glad to see two characters I wasn't expecting. Now that Sakurai's explained his reasoning, their inclusion makes even more sense.

 

[Johnknight1]

She's Marth without the tipper mechanic, and possibly with a slightly smaller hit box

She also appears to be more aerial based.

Mike Haze (the top Brawl Marth in the world for the longest time), PewPewU (the top West coast Melee Marth), M2K (all-time Melee Marth who was the best Marth from about 2007/8-2013), PPMD (best Melee Marth in the world right now), and Ken (the highest profile Melee Marth ever who was the best Melee Marth from 2002-2006/7) all hated Marth in Smash 4 (with the exception of M2K, who preferred Melee Marth to current Marth, and wanted both), and they aren't alone.

Thus, if Lucina is like a simplified Marth without a hitbox and more focus on speed and landing attacks rather than precision landing with the tipper, it will make sense.

It also helps that all of those players I just mentioned expressed a lot of interest in Lucina, with a few of them even supporting the lack of a tipper.

The tipper, quite frankly, fits the Smash 4 Marth's design better than Melee or Brawl Marth. This is because Smash 4 Marth is more defensive, is stronger, doesn't have as many combos, focuses more on countering, and is especially more ground based. With less attacks and less aerial reads from Smash 4 Marth, having a tipper to reward careful aiming is a smart mechanic to have, and finally, truly, 100% fits Marth.

When Marth didn't land the tipper in Melee, especially with the forward smash, it had what we call the "wet noodle effect", which is generally a term for Roy's weak sword in Melee.

To clarify, Lucina will be like Marth just how Falco was like Fox in Melee?

Yes but modified. Falco was a lot more advanced than 64 Fox, while Lucina will be a lot simpler (but probably more technical) than Marth in Melee and Brawl.

 

[ChikoLad]

She also appears to be more aerial based.

Mike Haze (the top Brawl Marth in the world for the longest time), PewPewU (the top West coast Melee Marth), M2K (all-time Melee Marth who was the best Marth from about 2007/8-2013), PPMD (best Melee Marth in the world right now), and Ken (the highest profile Melee Marth ever who was the best Melee Marth from 2002-2006/7) all hated Marth in Smash 4 (with the exception of M2K, who preferred Melee Marth to current Marth, and wanted both), and they aren't alone.

Thus, if Lucina is like a simplified Marth without a hitbox and more focus on speed and landing attacks rather than precision landing with the tipper, it will make sense.

It also helps that all of those players I just mentioned expressed a lot of interest in Lucina, with a few of them even supporting the lack of a tipper.

The tipper, quite frankly, fits the Smash 4 Marth's design better than Melee or Brawl Marth. This is because Smash 4 Marth is more defensive, is stronger, doesn't have as many combos, focuses more on countering, and is especially more ground based. With less attacks and less aerial reads from Smash 4 Marth, having a tipper to reward careful aiming is a smart mechanic to have, and finally, truly, 100% fits Marth.

When Marth didn't land the tipper in Melee, especially with the forward smash, it had what we call the "wet noodle effect", which is generally a term for Roy's weak sword in Melee.

Yes but modified. Falco was a lot more advanced than 64 Fox, while Lucina will be a lot simpler (but probably more technical) than Marth in Melee and Brawl.

All of this is speculation though. Right now, Lucina is still just Marth without a tipper. Marth himself may not be slow in the final game either, as we know the E3 build was an early enough build.

 

[chronomantic]

Even Sakurai himself called Chrom a boring sword user LOL

 

[viewtifulduck82]

I just wanna say that none of you have any clue how much effort was put into Chrom. A lot of you seem to think it was just a passing thought in Sakurai's mind. If no work at all had been put into Chrom, (this includes concept art, models, animations, move set ideas) he probably wouldn't have mentioned considering Chrom.
Not to mention Chrom actually has a model in the game. Call me a skeptic, but I seriously doubt they put in all that effort just for it be used in a FS. I feel like after Chrom got scrapped, and it was decided Robin would make it, they thought it'd be cool to get to use that Chrom model they had laying around.
But this is all irrevelant now. I think it would be really cool if we got an alternate outfit of Chrom for Lucina, since now we know there's nothing wrong with alternate outfits being a different character now, provided the move set fits.