Why do you think Sakurai has forsaken our bae?

[BlackCephie]

Of course its unlikely that anyone will know the actual reasons. It could be any number of things. That said, I often find myself wondering what was going on in the design meetings. How could they make such an iconic and unique Nintendo character so sub par in comparison to other characters for so long without addressing the problems? Did Sakurai just not play or enjoy Metroid? Is he sexist? Was it just a simple matter of overlooking? Seems like someone on the design team would have said something by now, right? No air charge? Power missiles dont kill plus have no reload speed to speak of for no reason? Awful jab, usmash, dsmash? No love to the quintessential morph ball, which has always been a strength in metroid games, but iterrated as a weakness in smash. No speedy morph ball crawl? Why not? Seems like such an obviously good idea considering crawling is a thing in the game. I could go on. I know we all could. She essentially has half the effective moves as other characters. It seems like many of her issues would be blairingly obvious to the creators of the game. What do you guys think? Is Sakurai simply trolling us? Id love to hear him vocalize his line of thinking with this character from Brawl to 4 publicly.

 

[FlAlex]

WOOOH! These are some d@mn bold, and honestly disrespectful questions. I mean "sexist." Seriously?! The fact that ZSS and Sheik are so good disproves that absurd claim. What evidence is there that Sakurai doesn't enjoy the Metroid series, and what evidence is there that he makes Samus who she is because of his lack of joy with Metroid?

As far I can tell, he either:
1 genuinely believes Samus is balanced with the rest of the cast
2 cannot find a way to fix her
3 leaves the balancing to another team
4 isn't that invested in balancing.

I will not assume Sakurai leaves Samus the way she is because he has a malignant or bigoted agenda. We have no basis for seriously suggesting that. Perhaps (as unlikely as it is) that Samus is perfectly balanced and that we just need to get better with her? Experiment more? Jigglypuff jumped up the melee tier list. I don't see why Samus can't be the same in Smash 4.

 

[The Slayer]

Maybe he did see her as a really powerful character pre-release when they were developing and updating her moveset. However, I do agree that having her undertuned even further than Brawl's Samus is not a good decision on his part. I understand his need for camp-style characters to be a little more approachable this game, but she better off without her suit at this rate. I'm realizing how I'm playing with her felt very difficult to kill anything and it just felt disheartening when I saw that video of her "top laughs" hitboxes. That's just ridiculous.

 

[BlackCephie]

WOOOH! These are some d@mn bold, and honestly disrespectful questions. I mean "sexist." Seriously?! The fact that ZSS and Sheik are so good disproves that absurd claim. What evidence is there that Sakurai doesn't enjoy the Metroid series, and what evidence is there that he makes Samus who she is because of his lack of joy with Metroid?

As far I can tell, he either:
1 genuinely believes Samus is balanced with the rest of the cast
2 cannot find a way to fix her
3 leaves the balancing to another team
4 isn't that invested in balancing.

I will not assume Sakurai leaves Samus the way she is because he has a malignant or bigoted agenda. We have no basis for seriously suggesting that. Perhaps (as unlikely as it is) that Samus is perfectly balanced and that we just need to get better with her? Experiment more? Jigglypuff jumped up the melee tier list. I don't see why Samus can't be the same in Smash 4.

Keep in mind that I am not suggesting any of these things are the case, and I certainly dont believe Sakurai is actually sexist or didnt enjoy Metroid. My point in posing such absurd questions is to emphasize just how ridiculous it is for Samus to be broken in so many blatant ways when Sakurai is obviously a competent designer. Im aware that it could be anything, I am just asking the community for the sake of discussion. This isnt a matter of just learning her and getting better. She is very much broken and needs some serious fixes to make her even work properly , let alone be balanced.

 

[Afro Smash]

It's either gotta be someone on the balance team is a hidden boss with Samus (I doubt it's this) he genuinely thinks shes fine (I doubt its this) or he thinks buffing her would make her too good in low level play, which wouldn't be true, but it's the only one that makes sense

 

[Lime Cultivist]

Light, fast characters are always going to be top tier in the metagame of any smash. I don't think slower characters like Samus can beat their spots on the list, no matter what buffs the slow chars get.
Unless they're buffed to completely ridiculous levels.

 

[FlAlex]

It's either gotta be someone on the balance team is a hidden boss with Samus (I doubt it's this) he genuinely thinks shes fine (I doubt its this) or he thinks buffing her would make her too good in low level play, which wouldn't be true, but it's the only one that makes sense

I beg to differ. I truly believe the first possibility is most likely. the second one is slightly less likely, but I won't rule it out. the third one I have a problem with. The majority of the fixes we demand are hitbox fixes. There's no way that improving Samus' nair will make her too good for low lvl play and Sakurai knows this (I hope).

 

[BlackCephie]

Light, fast characters are always going to be top tier in the metagame of any smash. I don't think slower characters like Samus can beat their spots on the list, no matter what buffs the slow chars get.
Unless they're buffed to completely ridiculous levels.

Light, fast characters are always going to be top tier in the metagame of any smash. I don't think slower characters like Samus can beat their spots on the list, no matter what buffs the slow chars get.
Unless they're buffed to completely ridiculous levels.

Im not talking about speed here, although it also doest even make sense for her to be slow either. She has moves that whiff for no reason like fsmash, a virtually useless usmash, and a broken jab just to name few core issues.

 

[FlAlex]

Keep in mind that I am not suggesting any of these things are the case, and I certainly dont believe Sakurai is actually sexist or didnt enjoy Metroid. My point in posing such absurd questions is to emphasize just how ridiculous it is for Samus to be broken in so many blatant ways when Sakurai is obviously a competent designer. Im aware that it could be anything, I am just asking the community for the sake of discussion. This isnt a matter of just learning her and getting better. She is very much broken and needs some serious fixes to make her even work properly , let alone be balanced.

Those questions sounded quite serious.You posted the questions with other serious questions. Plus, with all the moaning (rightfully so) that we've done over the past month, I got the feeling that Sakurai's design skills were in question by the majority of Samus mains. Finally, this is the internet where tone is easily miscalculated.

I do agree that she is broken and in need of tweaking for proper work.

 

[Grambles]

It's literally because she'd be too strong at lower levels of gameplay. CS is holding her back, because Sakurai doesn't respect his audience's ability to learn and get better. And it's probably the same reason CS doesn't have a normal B-reverse.

He likes Metroid enough to have a Samus cameo in a Kirby game, so it's not that he hates her. Samus would only need a few small changes (like hit boxes) that could put her up in the mid-tiers, and keep her appropriate for casual smashers. It happened for Wii Fit, it could happen for her. Don't hold your breath though (no wiifit pun intended)

 

[FlAlex]

It's literally because she'd be too strong at lower levels of gameplay. CS is holding her back, because Sakurai doesn't respect his audience's ability to learn and get better. And it's probably the same reason CS doesn't have a normal B-reverse.

He likes Metroid enough to have a Samus cameo in a Kirby game, so it's not that he hates her. Samus would only need a few small changes (like hit boxes) that could put her up in the mid-tiers, and keep her appropriate for casual smashers. It happened for Wii Fit, it could happen for her. Don't hold your breath though (no wiifit pun intended)

If that's true, why doesn't he just nerf CS (make it take as long as Robin's Thoron to charge)? Im willing to sacrifice CS for buffs to all her other moves.
Actually, this would be an opportune time to implement a change to the CS that I would like (though it will never happen). I personally would prefer CS to work more like UMVC3 Zeroe's Zero-buster. For those of you unaware, you hold an attack button down to charge a blast. While charging however, you can move around like you could normally. Only drawback is, if you get hit, even nicked, the entire charge is lost. Actually now that I think about it, how would that work? You cannot hold the special button down and still get missiles and Screwattack.

I still like the Zero-buster better....

 

[BlackCephie]

It's literally because she'd be too strong at lower levels of gameplay. CS is holding her back, because Sakurai doesn't respect his audience's ability to learn and get better. And it's probably the same reason CS doesn't have a normal B-reverse.

He likes Metroid enough to have a Samus cameo in a Kirby game, so it's not that he hates her. Samus would only need a few small changes (like hit boxes) that could put her up in the mid-tiers, and keep her appropriate for casual smashers. It happened for Wii Fit, it could happen for her. Don't hold your breath though (no wiifit pun intended)

It would be a shame if its just CS that is the reason shes held back, considering its not nearly as good as it should be in the first place. CS still clanks with other projectiles that is should absolutely beat out, plus you cant charge it in the air which also makes no sense.

 

[Gunla]

Character complaint threads like this aren't really allowed; this thread will be locked as a result.