The Ice Climbers Were Cut From Smash Bros. Due to 3DS Hardware Limitations

[Steven Bogos]

The Ice Climbers Were Cut From Smash Bros. Due to 3DS Hardware Limitations

Sakurai said that the Ice Climbers were working in the Wii U build of the game, but were cut because they couldn't work on the 3DS.

For many Smash Bros. fans, the leak of the full roster [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137378-Super-Smash-Bros-3DS-Fan-Streaming-Early-Gameplay-Character-Leaks] was a moment of joy, so many new faces and returning favorites to look forward to playing on release. But, for some fans, namely, those who used Snake, Wolf, Lucas or the Ice Climbers as their mains, it was a day of sadness to discover that they didn't make the cut. Now, game director Masahiro Sakurai has explained why at least one of these fighters, the Ice Climbers, were cut from the game, and it basically boils down to: the 3DS version couldn't handle them.

Sakurai told Famitsu [http://blog.esuteru.com/archives/7855980.html] that the twins were actually playable in the Wii U version at some point, but due to the 3DS's limited hardware power, the team couldn't make them work in the handheld version. He also said that the Ice Climbers didn't have as high priority as many other characters, as their series wasn't likely to see a new title in the foreseeable future.

In the same interview, Sakurai talks about why the release dates for the 3DS and Wii U versions were split up. He claims that this was due to debugging for both games being done separately due to their considerable differences, and if they had aimed for a "combined launch," we probably would have been looking at 2015.

Either way, this really sucks that the characters were working on Wii U, but were cut due to the 3DS - it's definitely a case of one version of the game holding back the other. Would it really be such a problem to have a couple of characters exclusive to the Wii U version?

Source: Nintendo Everything [http://blog.esuteru.com/archives/7855980.html]

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[mysecondlife]

If they're the New 3DS (name still stupid) exclusive content, I wonder how much rage Nintendo is going to get.

 

[smithy_2045]

Good, Ice Climbers were stupid and annoying.

 

[Sould1n]

This disappoints me so much. I'm sad, I'm angry, and I ultimately feel let-down. All this time, I and many others have been reassuring ourselves that the 3DS was a strong enough system, that it could handle things, that it wouldn't limit the Wii U version... and yet here we have clear evidence of it limiting the Wii U version. This just goes to show that the 3DS version shouldn't have been made in tandem with the Wii U version, given Sakurai likes to consider them Super Smash Bros 4 and Super Smash Bros 5 respectively, it'd have made far more sense to anyway.

Ice Climbers are one of my favourite characters in SSB, one of my mains, and it absolutely sucks to see an entire series lose it's playable status within SSB simply because of the decision for the 3DS to share rosters.

If they're the New 3DS (name still stupid) exclusive content, I wonder how much rage Nintendo is going to get.

I hate the idea of the New 3DS having exclusive games, but I'd probably be content with it having an exclusive feature for a game or two (if I remember correctly, the GameBoy Colour did compared to the Gameboy, at least with my Pokémon Trading Card Game it appears to). Any means to get my Ice Climbers back into the game would be greatly appreciated.

 

[FFMaster]

For people that don't know (as basically every website reporting this fails to mention as its kinda important in my eyes) the ice climbers were a unusual fighter in melee and brawl as it was essentially one human controlled fighter with a AI backup.

Now this AI had a few different states, it would normally just copy your moves but if it got knocked away it would get back to you, sometimes hit the enemies that are attacking you as you go back to it, it would try to get back onto the platform if knocked away and use pathfinding to get back to you if knocked to another platform.

Basically its another AI fighter but with a few limitations on what it can do (as it will sync with you rather than outwardly attacking the enemy). Now if you have 4 people playing ice climbers you have 4 human characters and 4 AI's to run. This was already causing slowdown in the older games and when you add assists and Pokemon into the mix i imagine it got even worse. Its entirely possible that even on the WiiU it would cause slowdown (did on the other home consoles) in a 4 player match, hence the decision to get cut from both.

Yes the 3DS version caused the cut, but you cannot say they would 100% be in the WiiU version now due to development time.

Yes someones going to say "they were playable but then they were cut" (I predict at least one person to not read this sentence and post it), being playable in a early version doesn't mean it would be fine for release as other system bolted onto the game later may have caused issues when there's 4 players and 4 AI at the same time (and trophies, and stage hazards etc)

It still might have caused slowdown in a 4 player match... and considering how much of a fuss the internet made about Mario Kart 8 having the 59.9 fps instead of 60 they could be making the 60 fps a focus

 

[JagermanXcell]

Tis a shame we won't be seeing these vets return.
But at the same time I imagine they will be needing a huge buff in the creativity department when the next Smash comes to be, cause have you seen Rosalina and Luma?! Now THAT'S what Ice Climbers should have been: Tactical AND Controllable. And while I found Nana's AI to be pretty neat throughout the Smash series, it's one of those things that is in need of a more interesting improvement later down the line. (Which I can't think of right now because lazy)

Either that or they'll maaaaaaaybe be free DLC. And I say free because cmon... it's Nintendo. Minus region lock and lack of 3rd party support, THEY LOVE US!... *cries internally*

 

[themilo504]

I do find it strange that they decided not to include the ice climbers in the wii u version, I get that they don?t want to make characters exclusive for each version, but I think most smash bros fans would understand that impossible on the 3ds means impossible on the 3ds.

 

[Erttheking]

Eh, I was never that crazy about them. They were clunky as hell to handle and I'm not too upset that they're gone. I doubt Nintendo will get that much hate over this, compared to if they had gotten rid of, say, one of the original eight/twelve.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

sacrifices must be made at times. My guess is we might see them return in the next installment, but until then they're on vacation. Of course, this has caused a lot of people who were seething about the 3DS version an excuse to lash out. It's kind of annoying.

 

[blackrave]

For people that don't know (as basically every website reporting this fails to mention as its kinda important in my eyes) the ice climbers were a unusual fighter in melee and brawl as it was essentially one human controlled fighter with a AI backup.

Now this AI had a few different states, it would normally just copy your moves but if it got knocked away it would get back to you, sometimes hit the enemies that are attacking you as you go back to it, it would try to get back onto the platform if knocked away and use pathfinding to get back to you if knocked to another platform.

Basically its another AI fighter but with a few limitations on what it can do (as it will sync with you rather than outwardly attacking the enemy). Now if you have 4 people playing ice climbers you have 4 human characters and 4 AI's to run. This was already causing slowdown in the older games and when you add assists and Pokemon into the mix i imagine it got even worse. Its entirely possible that even on the WiiU it would cause slowdown (did on the other home consoles) in a 4 player match, hence the decision to get cut from both.

Yes the 3DS version caused the cut, but you cannot say they would 100% be in the WiiU version now due to development time.

Yes someones going to say "they were playable but then they were cut" (I predict at least one person to not read this sentence and post it), being playable in a early version doesn't mean it would be fine for release as other system bolted onto the game later may have caused issues when there's 4 players and 4 AI at the same time (and trophies, and stage hazards etc)

It still might have caused slowdown in a 4 player match... and considering how much of a fuss the internet made about Mario Kart 8 having the 59.9 fps instead of 60 they could be making the 60 fps a focus

Thank you
Detailed explanation is necessary when discussing such things

 

[Czann]

If your lesser hardware can't handle it then just let them out of it.

But then it's hard to understand how game developers think anyway.

 

[Story]

I heard about this.
The funny thing is that people are asking why Olimar and the Pikmin and Rosalina and Luma were in the game but not the Ice Climbers.
I think it has a lot to do with how large Nana is and that she functions differently than the Pikmin (who also got cut to 3 anyway) and Luma. The fact that ultimately the Ice Climbers aren't getting a new game in their franchise for a long time is also a good reason in my book. Though I'm certain that fact will only disappoint fans farther.

The reseason for the separate release dates baffles me though. I thought they decided to separate them so that sales wouldn't cannibalize each other. In any case, it is smarter that they did.

 

[Davroth]

I'm surprised they got Rosalina to work then, to be honest... Couldn't they ave made the ice climbers work similarly? I know it wouldn't quite have been the same, but hey... It would have been a way, maybe.

 

[Mahorfeus]

Shame to hear that a veteran will be missing, but honestly, I can't say that I will miss them. I dunno, I've always just found the Nana mechanic painful to manage.

 

[Rad Party God]

To my understanding, the 3DS is pretty much a miniaturized GameCube, right?, so to be honest, this "hardware limitation" thing kinda smells fishy.

But w/e, I hated the Ice Climbers anyways.

 

[Story]

To my understanding, the 3DS is pretty much a miniaturized GameCube, right?, so to be honest, this "hardware limitation" thing kinda smells fishy.

But w/e, I hated the Ice Climbers anyways.

Good point but remember Melee didn't have Final Smashes, an online function, and assist trophies to account for.
I'm about as "meh" about this news as you are though, so I'm not completely defending them its just something to point out.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Was it a space issue? That's the one that sticks out most to me. How much can a 3DS cart hold? (If it's under 1.8 GB, maybe Ninty should have gone with UMDs. *insert trollface here*)

 

[weirdee]

I heard about this.
The funny thing is that people are asking why Olimar and the Pikmin and Rosalina and Luma were in the game but not the Ice Climbers.
I think it has a lot to do with how large Nana is and that she functions differently than the Pikmin (who also got cut to 3 anyway) and Luma. The fact that ultimately the Ice Climbers aren't getting a new game in their franchise for a long time is also a good reason in my book. Though I'm certain that fact will only disappoint fans farther.

The reseason for the separate release dates baffles me though. I thought they decided to separate them so that sales wouldn't cannibalize each other. In any case, it is smarter that they did.

pikmin were cut down to three for mostly balance reasons (compare: megaman can only fire three small shots/one sawblade/one crash bomb at a time, diddy kong can only deploy one banana peel at a time, villager can only fire one gyroid rocket at a time, peach and link's throwables are too slow to spam, etc.)

the pikmin and luma are essentially brain dead, if you don't take control of luma when it's far away, it's really easy to sucker punch it into oblivion

 

[Story]

I heard about this.
The funny thing is that people are asking why Olimar and the Pikmin and Rosalina and Luma were in the game but not the Ice Climbers.
I think it has a lot to do with how large Nana is and that she functions differently than the Pikmin (who also got cut to 3 anyway) and Luma. The fact that ultimately the Ice Climbers aren't getting a new game in their franchise for a long time is also a good reason in my book. Though I'm certain that fact will only disappoint fans farther.

The reseason for the separate release dates baffles me though. I thought they decided to separate them so that sales wouldn't cannibalize each other. In any case, it is smarter that they did.

pikmin were cut down to three for mostly balance reasons (compare: megaman can only fire three small shots/one sawblade/one crash bomb at a time, diddy kong can only deploy one banana peel at a time, villager can only fire one gyroid rocket at a time, peach and link's throwables are too slow to spam, etc.)

the pikmin and luma are essentially brain dead, if you don't take control of luma when it's far away, it's really easy to sucker punch it into oblivion

Yeah, I know that. Which is why I mentioned that she "functioned differently than the Pikmin and Luma". This is why I can't get behind that excuse.

As for balancing, I knew that too, though I wouldn't be surprised if the Pikmin were also cut down because of technical reasons. That was theoretical on my part, but it would kill two birds with one stone.