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Should Sakurai Direct Future Super Smash Bros. Games
- Thread starter Neoxon
- Start date
A Link to the Past
Banned
Could you elaborate on your use of "so-called"?
JediLink
Member
There are plenty of things in Melee that will kill your hands and controllers, but wavedashing is nowhere near being one of them. All you have to do is press Y then R in succession (basically just a pinching motion with your right hand) while holding a down direction with the thumb on your left. The only hard thing about it is getting used to the timing between the two button presses. I have no idea how this is something that hurts your hands unless you're trying to do it by pressing up to jump.
metalslimer
Member
I actually like Pokefloats. It repeats exactly the same way and you know what is coming and nothing actively kills you. I don't particularly mind moving stages, I just hate shit that actually hurts you
A Link to the Past
Banned
Agreed. It's among my favourite scrolling stages. It's a shame that heavier characters are so incredibly gimped by it at times, though.
Bill Rizer
Member
What bummers me the most is that including a proper Classic Mode (more akin to Melee or to any arcade fighter if you want) would have required zero effort. Zero.
What's with this 8 players s**t?
Would have multiplied x1000 my play time easily.
What's with this 8 players s**t?
Would have multiplied x1000 my play time easily.
Can we stop making this stupid suggestion! Modding a game is a compete other beast, then developing a game from the ground. Most of the job of PM was already made in advance from the original developers like the game mechanics, game code, game engine, the assets and a lot more. Developing and directing a game is more, then choosing hit-boxes, frames and features.
poke floats is one of my favorite stages ever. There should have been a poke floats 2 in brawl and poke floats 3 in smash 4.
such a simple concept. YOU FIGHT ON DIFFERENT POKEMON.
instead we have to have a bunch of moving stages with bullshit flying everywhere and stage hazards and all this crap
A Link to the Past
Banned
Okay?
1. They said "mode." This would imply that they would not be in charge of the entire game.
2. They clearly understand how to make a competitive game. Just give them an engine made for casuals and fix it to be for competitive players, and done.
JediLink
Member
I agreed to PokeFloats in a real tournament doubles match recently. It was fun as fuck, and we won too. I completely wouldn't mind if it was a legal counterpick in doubles.
Advice to competitive players: Don't be afraid of asking to go to a nonlegal stage every now and then. Occasionally you'll get people that will agree, and it usually leads to fun times.
Advice to competitive players: Don't be afraid of asking to go to a nonlegal stage every now and then. Occasionally you'll get people that will agree, and it usually leads to fun times.
I said in another thread that I'm almost close to calling him Nintendo's George Lucas. A man who created a beloved series that he appeared to be proud of, but for some reason views it as an embarrassment that he sought to "correct' with newer versions.
The only reason I don't call him that is because unlike Lucas, Sakurai thankfully took some criticism to heart and fixed in later versions. But even while SSB4 removed dumb stupid shit like tripping, and made the game faster - all good things - the game is still very slow, sluggish and floaty. People complain about how fans just want SSBM2, but hell, forget that! SSB4, with the speed upgrade, still doesn't even match the speed of SSB64!
The man may have nostalgia for SSBM, but he clearly doesn't like the game and has explicitly stated that any future games will not be any faster than SSB4 if he has anything to say about it. Furthermore, it appears that SSB4 has been received far better than SSBB did, and wasn't the victim of an immense backlash, therefore there's very little reason for Sakurai to change anything. Hell, he might attribute SSB4's lower sales to the fact that he removed tripping. And that's quite a shame.
Also, he seems to have taken the wrong impressions from Subspace Emissary. He saw the negative reaction to the game and assumed people don't want an adventure mode, period. He has an annoying habit of throwing out the baby with the bath water.
The only reason I don't call him that is because unlike Lucas, Sakurai thankfully took some criticism to heart and fixed in later versions. But even while SSB4 removed dumb stupid shit like tripping, and made the game faster - all good things - the game is still very slow, sluggish and floaty. People complain about how fans just want SSBM2, but hell, forget that! SSB4, with the speed upgrade, still doesn't even match the speed of SSB64!
The man may have nostalgia for SSBM, but he clearly doesn't like the game and has explicitly stated that any future games will not be any faster than SSB4 if he has anything to say about it. Furthermore, it appears that SSB4 has been received far better than SSBB did, and wasn't the victim of an immense backlash, therefore there's very little reason for Sakurai to change anything. Hell, he might attribute SSB4's lower sales to the fact that he removed tripping. And that's quite a shame.
Also, he seems to have taken the wrong impressions from Subspace Emissary. He saw the negative reaction to the game and assumed people don't want an adventure mode, period. He has an annoying habit of throwing out the baby with the bath water.
JediLink
Member
Jar Jar only had minimal screen time and no dialogue in Revenge of the Sith. Your reason is invalid, Sakurai is George Lucas confirmed.
Interesting point, Jedi Link.
They quite clearly said that they wanted them to add in a competitive MODE
Besides, the PMBR have added game mechanics and assets and they have to do everything in fucking Assembly. You don't give them enough credit.
Babymario26
Member
really dont think anyone would be ready for the task, besides sakurai.
kinda off topic but honestly i wouldnt be suprised if melee got made into HD this year with an updated roster.
kinda off topic but honestly i wouldnt be suprised if melee got made into HD this year with an updated roster.
I would accept this. But with new remixes.
I don't know about an updated roster, but I do think Nintendo is well aware of Melee's popularity, and while they may not see a new Smash Bros that plays like Melee as viable, I can see them releasing a Melee HD for Wii U at some point, perhaps with online play and some balance tweaks.
/dream
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
As someone who played the game casually with other casual friends on launch day, I don't see how Melee is not inviting to new players. It's got one of the simplest fighting mechanics of any game. How much simpler can you get than directions + buttons?
Err, I'd presume that "hiring" them would also entail that they have access to the whole development team at Nintendo. It's not like they'd be doing the whole thing by themselves.
Besides, who says that they can't just be in charge of "choosing hit-boxes, frames, and features"? They've proven themselves to be pretty good at it, so why not let them take charge of that aspect of the game.
Yeah. We only found about how competitive it was years after release. And even then most of us didn't bother really learning any tech.
nephilimdj
Member
Its time for him to make the original smash brothers
Trigonometrize.
Member
I think putting to rest dreams of a Melee 2 would be for the best, with or without Sakurai at the helm. Smash 4 is a great game for me all things considered so I would be fine with fresh blood or Sakurai v. 5
Melee proved that it can be BOTH.
Sakurai needs a break for health reasons rather than the quality of the Smash games. I personally feel he has improved with each one, there always room for improvement and there are questionable decisions (where my Wario tunes Sakurai?) but in no way would I consider the Smash 4s a step down from Melee.
Considering what I want is fan service I wonder who could bring that to the table. Wario Ware's team seem pretty good with delving into Nintendo's past so perhaps someone from there could continue it while also expanding on the Smash humour.
Also what is Melee 2 meant to be? The proposed threat of Melee with just online that Iwata mentioned to get Sakurai back for Brawl ergo a version with loads of the great new features removed?
Considering what I want is fan service I wonder who could bring that to the table. Wario Ware's team seem pretty good with delving into Nintendo's past so perhaps someone from there could continue it while also expanding on the Smash humour.
Also what is Melee 2 meant to be? The proposed threat of Melee with just online that Iwata mentioned to get Sakurai back for Brawl ergo a version with loads of the great new features removed?
crap monkey
Member
This is pretty much spot on. This game has been able to appease both communities in ways that many other games haven't done or try to and just can't. Melee is proof that making a game accessible while still being "hardcore" and competitive is possible, and I think it's better for it. Hell, the most casual of my casual friends still ask me to play it when we hang out. In addition, they find the changes made to Brawl (we haven't got much time with 4) to be less appealing than Melee. For some reason whenever the differences between Melee and other Smashes are discussed, it always comes down to absolutes that make no sense. Melee was not made for the hardcore and only them. It's a pretty casual game that with very little intention, has turned into a competitive fighter.
I don't think that Nintendo will ever find that happy medium that Melee achieved again, whether Sakurai returns or not. But it's clear that with Sakurai flying the ship we will never approach anything close to Melee again.We're talking about a guy who added a game mechanic, not an item or mode that can be turned off, but a gameplay "feature" in which you lose controller of your character and are vulnerable for NO REASON, in a game where having control of your character at all times is essential to success. All to avoid people playing the game in a specific way. That's kinda fucking crazy, whether you're trying to play competitively or "for fun" (as if those have to be mutually exclusive concepts) that mechanic is stupid and people casual and hardcore alike find it dumb.
I would not be opposed to Sakurai returning to another Smash. He is passionate about the games he makes and it really does come through in the end product. However, I would like to see a fresh take, or at least new eyes overlooking the next Smash. I would love to see Sakurai pour out all his passion into a different Nintendo title or even a new IP. He has his own studio doesn't he, (Sora I believe its called) with hand picked talent no less? I don't really know what kinds of games he has worked on in the past (other than Smash and the DS Kid Icarus) but I'm sure he could put forth his efforts toward different endeavors, perhaps one that allows him to breathe a little bit and not have to work under the immense pressure of getting a new Smash out.
MaverickHunterAsh
Member
This is the best post in this thread, bar none. You nailed it, all while not taking a definitive side and addressing valid concerns on all sides of the issue.
Smash was originally designed and meant to be crazy, chaotic, and fun for people of all skill levels, elements that have been there since the beginning in Smash 64. It's the Melee community who turned it into something else only a relative handful of people enjoy, and an obnoxious vocal minority in that community who now demand that Sakurai make more games suited to their minority tastes in favor of games designed for the majority that carry on the vision of what Smash has always (officially) been about, like Brawl and Smash 3DS/Wii U.
I'm not saying at all that Melee players shouldn't play the game in whatever way they want; the fact that Smash can be played in so many different, equally legitimate ways is one of the best things about it. But that heretofore mentioned obnoxious, vocal minority in the Melee community have completely forgotten that Melee - in the specific way that they play it, with items off, only a handful of characters used, and most of the stages "banned" - is not even close to Sakurai's original intent for the series and its gameplay. They're the outliers, not the rest of us in the overwhelming majority who don't ban stages, turn items off, and only use a handful of characters in the roster. Thankfully I've learned recently that most of the people in the hardcore Melee community are decent folks who understand this and simply would like another game that caters to all tastes, but I think some of the angrier Melee players tend to forget that for the vast majority of people - no matter how good they are and what rules they play with - mechanics mean nothing in the face of the fact that the newest Smash game has beloved characters to play as that weren't in the last game (unless the newest game is completely shit, which none of them are even close to being). Speaking personally, Smash Wii U's near-perfect character roster that includes my dream character, Mega Man, guarantees by itself that I have no reason to ever go back to Brawl, Melee, or 64 (other than curiosity/nostalgia), just as Brawl having Sonic, Snake, Meta Knight, King Dedede, etc. made Melee irrelevant for me and my friends, just like Melee having Peach, Bowser, Zelda, Sheik, etc. made Smash 64 irrelevant to us. As long as the games look great and play well (and they all do in the context of their respective times of release), people outside of the hardcore Melee community are generally going to put a lot of value into this stuff over things like Melee's faster gameplay, wavedashing exploit, and edge-grabbing mechanics being carried over.
But getting back to your post, yeah, you really nailed it. In terms of preserving and carrying on the series' original intent and characteristics as Sakurai intended them, the series has only been improving with each iteration. Melee fans feel that Brawl and Wii U suffer competitively compared to Melee, and maybe that's true in terms of a very specific tournament-focused rule set, but in terms of what Smash is and has always officially been designed to be - a 2D platform-based fighting/party game with an all-star cast of fan-favorite Nintendo and third-party characters and chaotic/random gameplay elements thrown in to maximize the laughs had by those playing - there is no doubt that each game has greatly improved upon the last, and in that context, no one other than Sakurai even approaches being qualified for the job (IMO). That said, I'd rather the man take a long vacation and focus on his health for a long time before even thinking about making another Smash game - dude more than deserves it.
HeavyMetalLover91
Member
I want Sakurai to stay if only for the reason that it's his baby and he knows how to stuff a game full of content.
My only beef with him is his sometimes weird justifications and reasoning for certain decisions. Like I get that a character is a ton of work and takes 6 months to make. But if they choose not to make DLC for Smash WiiU/3DS then they are sitting on a goldmine. I'd pay £10 each for a new character. Same applies with stages. My only gripe with the new Smash is that there was no solo mode in the vein of Melee or Brawl but the rest of the game is so awesome I don't miss it all that much.
So I'm open to having someone new come in and Sakurai take an advisor role, if only for his health's sake. But I'd be sad to see him go and a new Smash in the hands of someone else is more risky than what Sakurai would do. Just give me Lucas, Wolf, the Ice Climbers and all the missing stages and Smash Wii U will be prefect.
My only beef with him is his sometimes weird justifications and reasoning for certain decisions. Like I get that a character is a ton of work and takes 6 months to make. But if they choose not to make DLC for Smash WiiU/3DS then they are sitting on a goldmine. I'd pay £10 each for a new character. Same applies with stages. My only gripe with the new Smash is that there was no solo mode in the vein of Melee or Brawl but the rest of the game is so awesome I don't miss it all that much.
So I'm open to having someone new come in and Sakurai take an advisor role, if only for his health's sake. But I'd be sad to see him go and a new Smash in the hands of someone else is more risky than what Sakurai would do. Just give me Lucas, Wolf, the Ice Climbers and all the missing stages and Smash Wii U will be prefect.
crap monkey
Member
I want to address these two paragraphs in your post. While I agree that the original intent with the creation of Smash Bros and what it is now has changed over the course of the games, especially with Melee, I don't agree that the series has to stay that way, or that each successive release has to get ever closer to the perfect original vision of Smash Bros. Like any creative medium, what the author intends and what the audience interprets doesn't have to line up. There are tons of arguments and discussions in every creative medium about author intent and audience interpretation. I've even read about authors who have argued online with fans of their work about what any given book is about! its obvious that to you and others in this thread author intent is extremely important, or perhaps even the only important thing about the game. It's also clear that others think the opposite, or perhaps regard a certain aspect or idea about some of the games are more important. Thhe thing is, at least in my opinion, both are completely valid and I think that's a really cool and more interesting way to not only view games, but other creative mediums as well.
I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent and am really trying not to be pretentious with this post, as difficult as that's gonna be with what I'm about to talk about, but I think it's relevant to your specific post and other points that people have brought up in the thread. I wrote a paper in college about James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man where I wrote about an idea that Stephen (the main character in the novel) speaks about near the end of the novel in which he posits that there are three main ideas or aspects behind a piece of art and how it should be judged (in the case of the novel, it happens to be literature, but this can be applied to any creative work). For the sake of brevity and simplicity, the first aspect is the relationship between the artist and the work he has created, the second being the relationship between the work and other artists, and the thirst being the relationship between the work and the larger audience. All three of these relationships are valid interpretations of the subject, along with an underlying theme that with every relationship the artist must be willing to further "let go" of his creation, so to speak. You can agree with this viewpoint or not, I only bring it up because it's fairly recent in my mind and I think it's relevant to the discussion at hand. I just want to put the idea out there that just because something doesn't match the original vision or the creators intent doesn't mean it shouldn't be regarded, it just means that a truly great work can be seen in a lot of different ways and that one isn't necessarily more valid or correct than the other, you can really only provide well informed opinions and arguments as to why you think a certain way about a creative piece of work within a medium.
I am not as passionate about the Smash Bros. games as others in this thread, although I do hold my own opinions as I've posted earlier. I just want to make the point that author's intent or original vision doesn't have to be the end-all, be-all criteria for a games success or its further iterations.
Diprosalic
Banned
yes he should, i don't think anyone else is up to the task to deliver the total smash experience in the moderate timeframe.
For real. Many people have been added to my ignore list as a result of this thread.
A Link to the Past
Banned
Sorry? I was just wondering why a drive-by poster felt that Melee players are "fake" hardcore players.
smash 64 was great, melee was better, brawl even greater, smash 4 the clear best.
i only see improvement with each game. The only thing to complain is wario, ganondorf, and the feeling of a rushed game outside the smash for wii u (interface, stage builder, etc) but otherwise, Sakurai has my full support.
I would ignore the lament of the few as there can be no happy medium when there is change. I enjoy how some mention the dota and cs communities and utterly fail to include their respective laments. nothing is black and white.
i only see improvement with each game. The only thing to complain is wario, ganondorf, and the feeling of a rushed game outside the smash for wii u (interface, stage builder, etc) but otherwise, Sakurai has my full support.
I would ignore the lament of the few as there can be no happy medium when there is change. I enjoy how some mention the dota and cs communities and utterly fail to include their respective laments. nothing is black and white.
MaverickHunterAsh
Member
Great post, and I too am familiar with that book (though I didn't write a paper on it). I generally agree with what you're saying as it relates to Smash, and I think my post pretty much reflects that. Maybe it got lost in everything else I said (my post was admittedly kind of wordy), but I maintain that one of the best things about Smash is that it can be played in so many different ways, all of them equally valid.
The issue is that there are toxic, obnoxious people in every subset of the Smash community who argue that their way of playing Smash is the best way and/or should be the only way, and that somehow translates into a feeling that Sakurai should make every future Smash game exclusively for them. There's a general and extreme lack of regard for varying opinions, schools of thought, and styles of play in the Smash community, which is its core problem.
Despite my personal preference for Wii U/3DS and Brawl over Melee, I can objectively see exactly why Sakurai chose not to design Wii U/3DS as a follow-up to Melee. He was absolutely right when he said that there's less of an overall future and audience for a game like Melee than there is a game like Smash Wii U, which is still competitively viable but is far more conducive to letting people of all skill levels jump in and have fun. I do wish there was a way to make everyone happy, and I do think Sakurai genuinely tried his best to throw a bone to the Melee community with stuff like For Glory mode and the Omega stages, even if those efforts were maybe a little misguided and those things aren't exactly what Melee fans wanted. Still, it's more than he had to do and in the end, none of us should have ever been expecting to get exactly what we personally wanted out of a game designed for millions and millions of people.
I still think a game like Smash Wii U, which doesn't have every single thing Melee fans wanted but still has a lot to offer both casual and competitive players (as we have seen thanks to Smash Wii U's growing tournament scene), is a much better compromise than Melee 2.0 would have been, which literally would have only made a very small minority of the Smash fanbase happy. There's no business sense in that.
JediLink
Member
Ugh.
A Link to the Past
Banned
I wasn't being defensive, I was questioning the point and value of trying to dismiss people for being "fake" hardcore gamers.
Looking forward to your super civil next reply.
JediLink
Member
What about "Ugh" don't you understand? Clearly a perfectly adequate response.
Tertullian
Member
It should be designed by a committee of competitive Melee players. That would undoubtedly produce a game with the same polish, charm, character balance, and broad appeal that Sakurai's obsessive perfectionism always brings to the table.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
This is one of those things that sounds great in theory but would more than like be awful in reality.
You would also have a hard time convincing a lot of Melee folks to move to Melee HD because of the whole LCD thing.
crap monkey
Member
Backroom: The Game.
Starwolf_UK
Member
I think Sakurai really needs to starting training up some disciples like Miyamoto has done for about 15 years (so he can be relatively hands-free when it comes to Zelda/Mario to focus on other projects) but the whole Team Sora disbanding after each game make this seem unlikely.
I dont mind him staying, I just wish he could make stages less complex("Final Destination" mode for all stages was a good idea, but I don't want stages like the new Star Fox one or that huuuge Kirby stage ever again) and give better single player modes. I really miss the Adventure mode and Break the Targets from Melee. The Targets mode in Smash 4 just isn't the same.
To you and the others: The designers of Nintendo or Namco aren't bad at those things.
The difference are the philosophy and the direction the game-design takes. PM is designed to appeal to a specific audience, change the game to be more like Melee and fix the problems of Brawl. If Sakruai and Nintendo wanted to go into the same direction, i guess one of the best developers in the industries and one famous game-desinger wouldn't have a problem of achieving this goal. They don't need to hire a countless number of random inexperience people, who mostly didn't develop a high-profile game before.
Don't get me wrong, PM is sill an impressive work of modding and passion for the series!
A Link to the Past
Banned
Nintendo isn't known for making competitive fighting games, why should their qualities as a developer be relevant?
"Original intent" should never stand in the way of a series development. Many important techniques which are a standard in present Street Fighter games were bugs/glitches that were not "meant" to be "abused". But those things changed the game's pace for the better and animation cancels are now even taught in the tutorials while they originated from a glitch. They looked at it and instead of just removing everything that was unintentional they actually implemented it and included it in the balancing progress, as it should be. Yes, it was never meant to happen. Is that a reason to abandon it if you found something great by accident? As we all know advanced stuff like this never stood in the way of casual gaming and the best (fighting) games are easy to pick up but hard to master. I see no reason why you, as a developery, should abandon this possibility except for "I just don't want to".
Keep in mind that I like the general way Smash 4 feels and plays. My main criticism with Smash 4 is about modes, quantity and quality. I even think that they at least tried to implement some of that Melee feeling in with the reduced landing lag for example and less floaty jumps. But I still feel like the series could have progressed differently if they cherished the stroke of luck they had with Melee (as being liked by truly all kinds of players) instead of cursing it.
Yes, there are not known for there competitive fighting games, because they didn't try to make one yet! Melee wasn't planed to be, what it ultimate became (even so it only accidental became overall competitive under specif set of rules, through some glitches and imperfect game-balance).
If you want to create a competitive fighting games, you handle the development differently. Sakurai was always completely honest and clear with his direction and vision of the series. The always wanted Smash Brothers to be a fighting game for every kind of player and a bright audience. He also stated more then enough times, that if he wanted to create a competitive fighting games, he would handle the development of the game differently. But he simply just doesn't want to!
A Link to the Past
Banned
I call bullshit. Being a good dev doesn't make you a master of genre. It's the same as "hi I'm Miyamoto and I could make Halo." Nintendo needs to make games that it knows how to make, because when they don't, they make an undignified game. Let people who know how to make those kind of games, make those kinds of games.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
No. His best games are in other series.
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