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[Fiktion]

I find this very thoughtful and interesting but people are going to read into it what they want to read into it.

I think the popularity of Melee rested fundamentally on the game’s speed. The dazzling exchange of skills was the game’s most exhilarating aspect and the rough edges in terms of the game’s balance went mostly unnoticed. Even though the dynamic range of the characters was limited, the game somehow made its mark, even with hardcore fans of the genre.

Melee’s controls were, however, quite complicated and very tiring if the player really got into it in a serious way. This made the game less accessible for novice players and it basically ended up becoming a Smash Bros. game for hardcore fighting fans. I personally regret that, because I originally intended the Smash Bros. series to be for players who couldn’t handle such highly skilled games.

If tournament popularity was the most important consideration, then I think we would create a Smash Bros. game that included a multitude of fast moves with complicated controls. However, I believe this is actually the greatest shortcoming of fighting games at present, and that is the reason why I don’t do it.

Games aimed at casual users, such as Wii Sports and Wii Fit, reinvigorated the market and their success lay behind Wii’s popularity, [so] we had to make sure that Brawl would also be fun for first-time players. We also had to make sure that everyone could use the controls, such as holding the Wii Remote sideways. As a result of these considerations, overall Brawl is rather tame game; this had its advantages, but it also took away some of the excitement.

While there’s a lot of enthusiasm for tournaments on the one hand, there are also users who just give up on these sorts of games because they can’t handle the complexity and speed. While other fighting games continue to work on honing this tournament aspect, I think that we need to move in a direction where there is more of a focus on inexperienced gamers. Companies that release products that target a very vocal, visible group of gamers tend to receive good reactions and they may feel good about it, but I think that we have to pay special attention to the less vocal, not so visible group of players, or else games will just fade away.

There are so many other games out there which are geared to tournaments. It is important for us, however, to maintain the game’s status as a kind of ‘rough’ party game in which anyone can play without feeling too much pressure over winning or losing. We therefore want to keep a nice balance in which a wide variety of events can occur in the game, some of them quite outrageous. With this, Smash Bros. isn’t just a fighting game, it is an opponent-based action game.

The most important thing is that the game have breadth and depth, since we would like them to be popular with both novices and hardcore gamers. We think that people who aren’t so good at turning the tables and coming back from behind can still get enjoyment out of the [new] game, even if they turn off items and Smash Balls.

Although the pace of the game had to be lowered compared to Melee in order to achieve this balance, we have managed to keep the dynamism because we didn’t have to gear towards novice players like we did with Brawl. In fact, we recreated all characters almost from scratch. Also, I feel on a personal level that this game is more interesting than the three previous games in the series.

 

[Zalman]

Seems like he's trying to strike a good balance between Melee and Brawl. Sounds good to me.

 

[Coffee Dog]

I dont have a problem with any of this. There are plenty of high learning curve tournament games out there, let Smash be the gateway drug to that.

 

[nckillthegrimace]

Like I said in the Smash thread, I don't understand how Melee's controls are "complicated."

 

[RockTurtle]

i dont like the sound of this.

its like he thinks casual players only played against FGC members on a day to day basis.

 

[Holy Order Sol]

If tournament popularity was the most important consideration, then I think we would create a Smash Bros. game that included a multitude of fast moves with complicated controls.

The rest makes sense, this particular part makes me think that he still doesn't fully grasp what people who play competitively actually like about it.

 

[Coffee Dog]

Like I said in the Smash thread, I don't understand how Melee's controls are "complicated."

Controls specifically, no. But controlling your characters is more difficult due to the speed of the game. There is more of a learning curve to it than 64 or Brawl.

 

[Mory Dunz]

Well, it is best for sales.

Wait, they almost had to make everyone from scratch? I guess because the basic physics and hit box effects were changed at the core? (talking out of my butt).

 

[Mik2121]

Not as fast as Melee, not as boring as Brawl.

 

[Fury Sense]

Wii U's bum sales finally pay off

 

[PensivePen]

I personally don't care at all about tournament play, but I do wish it was as fast as melee. The faster speed is more fun and I don't think it would have any effect at all on sales. I'm pretty sure casual players would enjoy the game regardless, as they did with melee.

I'm certain I will still buy and enjoy the game though, and I'm happy it won't be as slow as Brawl at least.

 

[Riposte]

Seems like he's trying to strike a good balance between Melee and Brawl. Sounds good to me.

You don't need to strike a balance between Melee and Brawl; Melee was one of the most successful examples of this in the history of videogames. But I digress, a balance between them is better than the realistic alternative.

 

[Vice]

Like I said in the Smash thread, I don't understand how Melee's controls are "complicated."

he's probably referring to the advanced stuff like wavedashing and such.

 

[Proven]

It's speed + execution barriers that up the technical difficulty of a game, no?

 

[Ysiadmihi]

I'm pretty sure casual players would enjoy the game regardless, as they did with melee.

Yup.

I cannot understand why he feels he needs to strike a balance here in the least. You didn't need to learn all of the ins and outs of Melee to have fun with it. I mean, has ANYONE ever said "I can't play Melee; it's too fast for me. I'd rather play Brawl"?

 

[botty]

In fact, we recreated all characters almost from scratch.

lies.

 

[Zeyphersan]

he's probably referring to the advanced stuff like wavedashing and such.

I don't think so, isn't wavedashing technically a glitch? Or an unexpected outcome of the physics?

I think he's referring to overall game speed.

 

[Fiktion]

I don't think so, isn't wavedashing technically a glitch? Or an unexpected outcome of the physics?

No he confirmed it was intentional in Nintendo Power.

Nintendo Power: This is one that a lot of hardcore Smash Bros. fans have long wondered about. Was the ablility to "Wavedash" in Melee intentional or a glitch?

Sakurai: Of course, we noticed that you could do that during the development period.

He's probably referring to L-Cancelling when he talks about high barrier of entry.

 

[solomon]

lies.

Ikr my man ganon already looks like doodoo tier.

 

[Crayolan]

I don't understand why Sakurai can't understand that making the game more competitive doesn't scare casuals away. If they really are casuals, they don't know the difference, and the odds of a casual ever seeing high-level competitive play are extremely low.

At the very least, Smash 4 looks like it will do a much better job of "striking a balance" than Brawl.

 

[watershed]

Sounds good to me. Sakurai knows what he's doing. I trust his judgement about how to make a great Smash game more than tournament players or gaffers or anyone else. From all the gameplay tournaments Nintendo has hosted so far, Smash 4 looks great in motion.

 

[Zeyphersan]

No he confirmed it was intentional in Nintendo Power.



He's probably referring to L-Cancelling when he talks about high barrier of entry.

Interesting, thanks for the info!

 

[JKBii]

Like I said in the Smash thread, I don't understand how Melee's controls are "complicated."

Advanced smash moves like wave-dashing and chain throwing require a lot of practice. I've played a couple thousand non-advanced memes matches and I would be completely outclassed in a match with anyone who put learned those techniques. The skill gap is even worse than in a traditional fighting game because those at least show you all the moves so you can slowly add new ones to your skillset. In Melee, advanced moves are not explicitly taught by the game at all.

 

[TDLink]

No he confirmed it was intentional in Nintendo Power.



He's probably referring to L-Cancelling when he talks about high barrier of entry.

The way he words it there it seems like it was a glitch but they noticed it and decided to intentionally leave it in.

 

[Coffee Dog]

No he confirmed it was intentional in Nintendo Power.

Noticed it during development =/= intentional. It's a manipulation of the physics systems alreasy present in the game, but it's not like the game was designed or balanced around it.

 

[Zixmar]

Balancing the speed between Melee and Brawl is perfect to me Because Melee was too fast and Brawl was kinda slow.

I just hope that the Smash 4 has good combos and it's not for "casuals" only.

 

[Pappasman]

This honestly breaks my heart.

Melee doesnt have hard controls. Everything is done the way sakurai intended, but the design of the game(fall speed, weight, hit stun, etc.) came together in a way that made it fast and fun for people who knew what they were doing, but it didn't harm a casual fans fun with the game.

Sakurai seems to think you can't have a fun game for everyone if the game is fast paced or"competetive" like Melee. Melee was both.

Its my favorite game of all time and it is a huge downer to hear him say that.

Edit: seeing some of the responses in this thread. Advanced tech in melee is incredibly simple compared to any other fighting game. Wavedashing is just air dodging into the ground and L canceling is just pressing L as you land from a jump. They require practice to know when and why to use them, but the physical execution is quite simple and often overestimated.

 

[sn00zer]

With Namco behind it the game might actually be balanced as well...woot

 

[Super Stardust]

 

[Beren the Empty-Handed]

I'll never understand his reasoning on this. Nobody I've ever played Melee with, no matter how inexperienced with games they were, has said that they thought that it was too fast or too hard. In fact, they all liked it.

In fact, we recreated all characters almost from scratch.

Tell that to Ganondorf.

 

[Griss]

Yeah I'll quote myself from the Smash thread (if that's alright)

I get Sakurai's desire to make an accessible game and I agree with it as an aim. I don't understand his reasoning regarding pace, though. What makes other fighters difficult is the complexity of controls and needing to be quicker with your reactions by frame than your opponent.

In Smash, even in melee, anyone can pick up the game, jump around and do some special moves. When you've got those basic controls down, you know the basics of every single character. Items and luck can then easily keep a casual player in the game, unless you're doing the classic No Items, Final Destination shit (that I personally hate).

Once the game is that accessible, I'm not sure what slowing it down so much does. The only time that a casual will really be disadvantaged by a much faster paced game is 1v1 against a pro player, and that's a hugely unlikely scenario for me and the vast majority of casuals who play the game.

I'm a casual, and Smash is for casuals, and it should always be as accessible as possible as a priority, but I simply think a slower paced smash is less fun for everyone.

 

[boiled goose]

Accessibility is not the opposite of depth.

Melee having a high skill ceiling did not necessarily make it less accessible for beginners. They are separate issues.

You can have both.

Removing L cancelling and hit stun makes it less interesting for advanced players but has no effect on beginners .

 

[Anth0ny]

Advanced smash moves like wave-dashing and chain throwing require a lot of practice. I've played a couple thousand non-advanced memes matches and I would be completely outclassed in a match with anyone who put learned those techniques. The skill gap is even worse than in a traditional fighting game because those at least show you all the moves so you can slowly add new ones to your skillset. In Melee, advanced moves are not explicitly taught by the game at all.

Same applies to Brawl and 64.

 

[Crayolan]

Advanced smash moves like wave-dashing and chain throwing require a lot of practice. I've played a couple thousand non-advanced memes matches and I would be completely outclassed in a match with anyone who put learned those techniques. The skill gap is even worse than in a traditional fighting game because those at least show you all the moves so you can slowly add new ones to your skillset. In Melee, advanced moves are not explicitly taught by the game at all.

The thing is, you don't need to use any advanced moves to play the game. In fact, most players will never even discover that these advanced moves exist, and that does nothing to hamper their enjoyment of the game. Also you realize Brawl has a similar skill gap as well, right? A serious Brawl player will outclass a standard Brawl player no different than a serious Melee player will to a standard Melee player.

 

[FloweryMarston]

Great interview, hoping that this balance pays off

 

[web01]

Just reads like the typical PR speak we get from all devs regarding making their current game appeal to both casual and hardcore audiences. Only the release will tell if this is true or not.

 

[Icelandic_Jazz]

Posted my thoughts in the smash thread but it suits this one better.

I wish I didn't disagree with Sakurai so much on competitive gameplay. I thought he struck an amazing balance between competitive play and casual play with Melee. The fact that he regrets Melee's gameplay is pretty heartbreaking.

I first played Melee when I was 13 and absolutely loved the gameplay. I didn't play competitively and still enjoyed myself. As I grew older, that game had so much depth along with the accessibility that I was able to hone my abilities and take it to tournament level. The game had both fun gameplay to newcomers and depth for the more hardcore.

Making the game slower for new players and ripping out a lot of the mechanics that made the game a great fighter really hurt Brawl. I still enjoyed the game but I put it down pretty quickly.

I think Sakurai really underestimates how accessible Melee was. It didn't need to be slower. Sakurai already had solid core gameplay with Melee. It's one of my favorite games ever, casually and competitively, and seeing him regret the nature of the game is just so frustrating.

I'm still looking forward to SSB4, but shit. I disagree with him so much. The balance better pay off and not feel like a handicap this time around.

And to add to this.. I did like how fluid Brawl felt. It did feel a lot more natural to move characters around. If they could add that aspect of Brawl with the techniques, speed, and spacing of Melee they'd have a huge hit for everyone imo.

 

[Pappasman]

Advanced smash moves like wave-dashing and chain throwing require a lot of practice. I've played a couple thousand non-advanced memes matches and I would be completely outclassed in a match with anyone who put learned those techniques. The skill gap is even worse than in a traditional fighting game because those at least show you all the moves so you can slowly add new ones to your skillset. In Melee, advanced moves are not explicitly taught by the game at all.

Good players beat bad players. Practice makes you better. This is the way the world works.

 

[Succinct Verbosity]

I can sort of see what he means. I personally think Melee is perfection, and I didn't even play it professionally. I think the lengthy amount of single player content in Melee was the perfect substitute for its supposed difficulty.

 

[watershed]

For everyone whose worried about how this game plays, there are hours of live gameplay video of Smash 4 on youtube. There's the Smash invitational tournament which showed pros playing against each other, there's the 3ds tournament, and tons of treehouse employees playing each other. You can see the speed of the game and even how a lot of the individual characters stack up against each other when skilled players are using them.

 

[Spinluck]

To think that there were users on here saying that the game was nothing but a Brawl HD job reusing its assets. Nice to hear they started from scratch, too bad they fucked up Link's face.

Just reads like the typical PR speak we get from all devs regarding making their current game appeal to both casual and hardcore audiences. Only the release will tell if this is true or not.

Sakurai is known for saying what he actually thinks though. Instead of coming off as a robot.

 

[Megalosaro]

The problem with Melee's speed is that it comes across as unnatural. Its like everyone is moving in fast forward.

 

[danmaku]

I dont have a problem with any of this. There are plenty of high learning curve tournament games out there, let Smash be the gateway drug to that.

Can it be a gateway drug, though? I'm not seeing people starting with Smash Bros and then moving on to "harder" fighting games like Street Fighter or Tekken, because those other games are nothing like Smash. Depends on your local community, probably, but to me Smash players seem concentrated on their game and not caring too much for the rest of the genre.

Also, trying to appeal to everyone is a terrible way of thinking, generally speaking.

 

[PensivePen]

Also, trying to appeal to everyone is a terrible way of thinking, generally speaking.

I would normally agree if they hadn't already made a game that appealed to both audiences just fine. Melee wasn't some niche, hardcore title that had a small following. It was the best selling game on its system and sold an amazing 7 million units on a console with a user base of only 20 million.

 

[JoeInky]

I'll never understand Sakurai's inability to understand what the competitive audience wants, you don't need to add in wave dashing and l-cancelling again, just reduce the landing lag automatically and only give people one air dodge but don't put them into special fall afterwards. We like that the game has low complexity too, you know.

We don't want a complicated game, we want an exciting game, Smash 4 hasn't really shown that that's what it can be yet if you ask me.

For everyone whose worried about how this game plays, there are hours of live gameplay video of Smash 4 on youtube. There's the Smash invitational tournament which showed pros playing against each other, there's the 3ds tournament, and tons of treehouse employees playing each other. You can see the speed of the game and even how a lot of the individual characters stack up against each other when skilled players are using them.

It was better than Brawl but it was still pretty boring compared to the all the different systems that were in play in melee. The combo game is lacking, the characters are stiff, the edgegame is practically gone, the characters moving faster doesn't remedy any of this.

The SDCC grand finals looked somewhat good but that's because they were playing offensively even though offensive is weaker than defense in the game, it's just that the one who wasn't a prop player didn't know this so he wasn't punishing all the unsafe stuff the other guy did. In a proper tournament with both players using the absolute best tactic to win, you won't get people doing offensive stuff like that because it's simply too risky against the superior defensive techniques, there's no balance between them.

The invitational grand finals on the other hand are more like what the eventual game will turn out like, a lot of poking to death mixed with a few small combos and grabs with a sprinkle of stalling.


It doesn't help that they've completely neutered the edge game, one of the most exciting aspects of smash, just because Sakurai doesn't want new players to feel bad when they get gimped or something.

 

[Easy_D]

he's probably referring to the advanced stuff like wavedashing and such.

Advanced glitches you mean ;P

 

[Clefargle]

Melee isn't too complicated, brawl wasn't tame. Ease off the hyperbole slider Sakurai.

 

[Griss]

Honestly though, as a casual player, the biggest issue was that the stages in Melee were fantastic and there was plenty of opportunity to get knocked off the edge and not be able to get back on. In Brawl, the stages were generally poor and most KOs came from either the top of the screen or from a direct smash off the side (where you never regain control of your character). One of the fun parts of smash is thinking 'oh man will I be able to get back from here' and I feel like that aspect of the game was limited due to the stage selection and amount of characters with flying abilities.

 

[daxgame]

It's a bit sad that he doesn't really seem to understand how his own game (Melee) developed. Too bad.
Melee controls were never complicated, otherwise my wife would've complained. Guess what, she never did.

Advanced glitches you mean ;P

I know you're possibly joking, but just in case you weren't. it's not a glitch. Sakurai even openly talked it about it on Nintendo Power.

 

[Stoze]

The only thing that worries me is responsiveness. If he takes the speed down a bit that's okay, but hearing from many people who played it at E3 that it felt sluggish during animations/ lag after moves really concerns me.