Smash Bros. Director Justifies "Clone" Characters, Dismisses Complaints

[Steven Bogos]

Smash Bros. Director Justifies "Clone" Characters, Dismisses Complaints

Super Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai justifies the inclusion of "clone" characters his latest game, claiming that they more or less arose by accident.

Many Super Smash Bros. fans were dismayed to discover that some of the game's more interesting and unique characters, such as Snake and the Ice Climbers, had been cut, yet several Famitsu [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137378-Super-Smash-Bros-3DS-Fan-Streaming-Early-Gameplay-Character-Leaks] about this issue, stating that the clone characters were like a "free dessert" that kind of arose by accident, and telling fans to please "leave it to me" to select the characters who get added.

"There are 3 fighters [Lucina, Dark Pit, and Doctor Mario] that are alternate models (clones) in the game," explained Sakurai. "Each was originally a color variation, but during development, they were given balanced characteristics. Since their functionality had differences, forms were separated from each other. However, it was vital that this didn't increase the required man-hours. Some relative tuning was sufficient as it wasn't necessary to create balancing from scratch."

"This is like a free dessert after a luxurious meal that was prepared free of charge. In a restaurant with this type of service, I don't think there's anybody who would say, 'Change this to a meat dish!!'"

Furthermore, he dismisses complaints about new character choices for the new game, stating that "a lot of [the complainers] are children" and implores fans to "please leave it to me to select [characters] with man-hours and costs in mind."

"However you look at it, the game is a great bargain buy as a result," he added.

I guess when you look at the clone characters as more of a "happy accident" than something they dedicated a lot of resources to, it makes a lot of sense. It is still a shame that some cooler characters were cut, but going by the fact that Mario Kart 8 is getting DLC [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137073-Mario-Kart-8s-First-DLC-Packs-Detailed], I think it's safe to assume we'll have new fighters added in the future.

Source: Nintendo Everything [http://www.famitsu.com/]

Permalink

 

[Sould1n]

I must question then why at any point they were then given balanced characteristics. It can't simply be the case that they were different people, as this certainly didn't stop Alph from being a skin for Olimar. Surely he had to have intended for characteristics to be different, and to have known that even the slight change of characteristics would result in him wanting to give them their own slot.

I mean, how is it that Dr. Mario was somehow given different balanced characteristics if he is literally Mario in a doctor's outfit. It would have been much easier to have simply given Mario the Mario Tornado as a customisable Down B (an whilst it cannot be used online, the same thing has been done with Ness having Lucas' specials, and entire characters in the form of Mii Fighters are restricted from online which is a much bigger matter anyway).

Also, his dismissal of complaints and accusation that the ones complaining are mostly children is rather ignorant, I can assure him that most of them are likely not children (and given that children have generally been a primary demographic for Nintendo games, I'm not sure why he'd use it in a derogatory manner).

I do like the games Sakurai makes, I do like how dedicated and hard working he is, but there are certainly aspects I don't like about him and I really do think he shouldn't have as much control over the game as he appears to have. I do have many complaints about this upcoming SSB, with the roster being a primary one;

* The return of pure clones despite their exclusion from Brawl (seems like a step backwards).
* The inconsistent case of who gets their own slot and who becomes an alternative skin.
* Having 7 Mario reps and 3 Kid Icarus reps in proportion to other series few reps or lack of playable representation.
* Separation of transformation characters.
* Lack of villains.
* The removal of Ice Climbers simply because of the 3DS whilst it'd have at least been nice to make them Wii U exclusive in such a matter.

This... yeah, this annoys me, but I think I've already vented out most of my anger out when Ice Climbers were confirmed cut. I guess I'll see what the possible future of DLC will bring, but given what I've heard of Sakurai's situation and why he made Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U together, I don't have much hope for that.

 

[Morsomk_v1legacy]

"This is like a free dessert after a luxurious meal that was prepared free of charge. In a restaurant with this type of service, I don't think there's anybody who would say, 'Change this to a meat dish!!'"

Furthermore, he dismisses complaints about new character choices for the new game, stating that "a lot of [the complainers] are children" and imploring fans to "please leave it to me to select [characters] with man-hours and costs in mind?"

This is probably the worst attitude I've seen coming out of him in a long time. First of all, he compares a video game to food? Something that we require to sustain on so that we can actually fucking survive!
Second, this is a bad analogy. A better one would be saying that you put too much of pepper on the food and the costumers complained about it and said "Could you please remove some of this pepper and add another fresh ingredients on it?"

Also, most of Sakurai's interviews are inconsistent at best, like when he said that he wasn't going to add any new clones and he was going to trim the rooster list from previous games so that we could have more unique fighters then ever. Which, admittingly he did, by removing one clone, one semiclone and four unique characters.

He also seemed like he wanted to rework on some characters that had issues in the previous games, by either reworking some of their moves or giving them new animations like they did with Bowser and Yoshi. But at the same time, he decided not to rework on the most problematic character that is a huge clone of another character but is objectively worse then compared to any other character in the game and was on the bottom tier list of fighters during SSBB time.

Smash 4 isn't perfect when it comes to the characters. Some of the characters could be worked on, others could be outright removed from the game and some newcomers probably shouldn't have been included at all. It is still a great game with a huge roster of characters to pick from and I honestly can't see myself stop playing it in the next few months. It could however be better and seeing the director himself acting like his product is some sort of a 5 star dinner at a fancy restaurant is quite frankly embarrassing as hell.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Well, with such an attitude from the designers, guess who's not buying the game?

 

[Story]

Whoa people really feel strongly about this. I have pretty much the same view of the clones as Sakurai does. I don't think they actually take away slots from other "more worthy" or diverse characters more like they were are just happy accidents that would have either would have been part of the roaster or not. So would people really just prefer these three characters (excluding Falco and Ganadorf) as skins and just not have them at all?
Apparently so, judging by the comments.

I don't agree with his food analogy really, but heck I can tell he's pretty proud of the game he's created and it is a good game with lots of little details things to do so I can respect that at least.

That being said, I'm not nearly as crazed about getting a certain character in as some people are. So that might be why I can accept Sakurai and his team choosing what characters make the cut. *shrug*

 

[Rossco64]

The only clone I have a problem with is Dark Pit. He's an uninspiring side character from one game who's only in Smash because because Masahiro Sakurai worked on said game. I know technically DP doesn't take up a slot but I just feel the time spent on him could have been spent on creating another clone with a bit more personality such as Alph, Dark Samus (Samus), Ridley (Charizard), or bringing back Lucas or Wolf. Lets face it though if Sakurai hadn't been the one to create Dark Pit, then Dark Pit would not have been in.

 

[major_chaos]

Wow, I really hope something was lost in translation there, because if that's what he actually meant to say then Nintendo has officially joined the EA/Actiblizz/Ubi "oh my fucking god muzzle your insufferable asshole higher ups so they stop saying stupid shit and pissing off the community" club.

As for Smash, I'm waiting for the all clear from the community that its not as shit as Brawl before I have even a peripheral interest.

 

[Dragonbums]

Smash fan anger is always the best. Like damn who cares? Your talking to the guy who refuses to make Ridley a playable character and keep Mewtwo dead in the water. Yet you guys are going to get more mad about his stance on shitty clones. I'm just glad Metaknight isn't a broken ass fuck anymore.

 

[Neverhoodian]

For the record, the game looks great and I'm planning on getting the Wii U version when it comes out. However, that doesn't mean it's perfect and exempt from critique.

"This is like a free dessert after a luxurious meal that was prepared free of charge. In a restaurant with this type of service, I don't think there's anybody who would say, 'Change this to a meat dish!!'"

Perhaps it's a case of mistranslation, but this analogy is bollocks. Nintendo is not just giving away copies of the game, ergo it was not 'prepared free of charge." Moreover, the customer paid for the entire game including the unlockables, so the whole "free dessert" bit doesn't work either.

Also, sometimes I'm not in the mood for dessert. Sometimes I just want more meat.

It's just disappointing that, after all that hoopla about wanting to "trim the fat" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125115-Smash-Bros-Director-Is-Stressed-Out-Deciding-The-Roster] from previous rosters by not adding a bunch of clones, they end up adding a bunch of clones. It's particularly maddening for characters that were clones in previous games as well. Will Ganondorf ever get the custom moveset he deserves, or is he cursed to be "Fat Captain Falcon" for all eternity?

As for dismissing all naysayers as "children," don't be so quick to throw the baby out with the bath water. Sometimes they come up with some pretty cool stuff. [http://projectmgame.com/en/about]

 

[TWEWYFan]

I'm kind of torn about this. On the one hand I can see his point; they're not filler so much as they are extras. Still, to quote major_chaos:

Wow, I really hope something was lost in translation there, because if that's what he actually meant to say then Nintendo has officially joined the EA/Actiblizz/Ubi "oh my fucking god muzzle your insufferable asshole higher ups so they stop saying stupid shit and pissing off the community" club.

He really should have tried to put it better.

 

[Steven Bogos]

I'm kind of torn about this. On the one hand I can see his point; they're not filler so much as they are extras. Still, to quote major_chaos:

Wow, I really hope something was lost in translation there, because if that's what he actually meant to say then Nintendo has officially joined the EA/Actiblizz/Ubi "oh my fucking god muzzle your insufferable asshole higher ups so they stop saying stupid shit and pissing off the community" club.

He really should have tried to put it better.

Since I can't read the source article, I'm going by the Nintendo Everything translation. I've reached out to Nintendo to clarify if this is what he actually said. It may be a translation error, or even just a Japanese phrase that doesn't translate that well into English

 

[Shanahanapp]

I really don't get how people could complain about this. I think they need to realise that the alternative is not having 3 full new characters but having nothing. I think he put it well actually. The clone characters are like a bonus they added in.

 

[Razhem]

So people ***** about a couple of extra "characters" that barely sucked resources? Gotcha, gamer entitlement GOOOOO!

 

[Headsprouter]

I really don't get how people could complain about this. I think they need to realise that the alternative is not having 3 full new characters but having nothing. I think he put it well actually. The clone characters are like a bonus they added in.

I agree. He's not saying they disregarded some new characters in favour of adding clone characters, rather that while creating skins for existing characters they realised their skin could become slightly more than just a skin. The characters don't take anyone's place, they were just thrown in as an extra.

That said, Bowser Jr. has many skins without any of them taking up another slot. Some of the others might have been able to do the same to help avoid this sort of confusion.

Also, I feel I may be in the minority saying that I enjoy Dr. Mario. More than regular Mario, in fact.

I might hold a differing view because the only nintendo franchise I follow is Pokemon. I didn't have my hopes up for as many characters as others did, and the playable Pokemon characters were downright predictable.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

So people ***** about a couple of extra "characters" that barely sucked resources? Gotcha, gamer entitlement GOOOOO!

I didn't even care about the clones and the cut characters. However, if he's going to be such a gigantic douche about it, he can fuck off and look for money elsewhere.

 

[Razhem]

So people ***** about a couple of extra "characters" that barely sucked resources? Gotcha, gamer entitlement GOOOOO!

I didn't even care about the clones and the cut characters. However, if he's going to be such a gigantic douche about it, he can fuck off and look for money elsewhere.

Whoa, so now he is a gigantic douche for telling people too cool the fuck off and trust him? Good god, how do you go through life without punching everybody you interact with?

 

[GeneralFungi]

For me it's not so much about clone characters. I don't mind Lucina at all, Falco is pretty swell, and Ganon is a lot of fun. I just don't like the look of having identical looking characters in the character select. For me there really isn't some mass problem or complaint about having characters with similar move sets, as long as they're a unique character and not just an almost identical version of another character. If Dark Pit and Dr. Mario were alternate skins then I feel like the character select screen would look much tidier, even if it means less characters to play as.

 

[deth2munkies]

His point is that the difference isn't between having these clone characters and having cool characters in their place. It's between having the clone characters and having less overall characters. Nothing wrong with that, don't have to twist it.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

So people ***** about a couple of extra "characters" that barely sucked resources? Gotcha, gamer entitlement GOOOOO!

I didn't even care about the clones and the cut characters. However, if he's going to be such a gigantic douche about it, he can fuck off and look for money elsewhere.

Whoa, so now he is a gigantic douche for telling people too cool the fuck off and trust him?

Because of his tone, yes.

Good god, how do you go through life without punching everybody you interact with?

With some measure of difficulty.

Spoiler

Joking of course. I left most of my hair-trigger temper behind after hitting puberty

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

So people ***** about a couple of extra "characters" that barely sucked resources? Gotcha, gamer entitlement GOOOOO!

I didn't even care about the clones and the cut characters. However, if he's going to be such a gigantic douche about it, he can fuck off and look for money elsewhere.

Whoa, so now he is a gigantic douche for telling people too cool the fuck off and trust him? Good god, how do you go through life without punching everybody you interact with?

If he really called his critics children, then yes he is. You can tell a lot about someone by what they think of their critics, and writing off one's critics as children is quite (ironically) the childish thing to do. Insulting the opposition doesn't prove them wrong.