So what did Sakurai REALLY think of Smash Brothers?

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
201

I don’t see why Sakurai would care about how the game is played as long as people are buying it and he is getting money.

I played brawl competitively when it first came out just because of all the hype and popularity it was getting. I figured i could win some free money from some early tourney’s by picking the most broke character (i knew there was going to be a bunch of retarded stuff in a game like this), so I got it right when it came out in japan and immediately started exploiting things.

First big thing i found within a couple of hours was DDD’s chain grab, and i instantly made him my main. I tested it out on all my friends, and they were like “that’s gonna be banned” (i thought it was too). I won some tourneys at some anime conventions, and the like. After that i quit the game, about 4 months after it first came out i wasn’t surprised when MK and Snake were top

I got a good bit of easy money, and i plan on doing the same thing with the next smash game :slight_smile: THANKS SAKURAI! You helped me get through college! :slight_smile:

202

I never said the “hardcore” made it the success it was. Did they show immense support? I beleive so. I also think think that midnight preorder tourney was for them. But that makes no difference because they aren’t taken into consideration.

203

I used to play smash with items on then someone said items were cheap and got them banned. Then I got that guy in a throw loop with Falco (or Marth I forgot) and I got banned from playing smash.

An off topic story: A run away game with Gon got me no more comp for Tekken 3.

204

Well that’s why I said it all falls on you folks.

There isn’t actually anything inherently wrong with the game, and Sakurai accomplished in making the statement with it like you ALL KNEW HE WAS TRYING TO. I might be playing the devil’s advocate here but again, you guys are the minority, it’s his product, so if you were him HONESTLYand you were aiming to make the four player party fighter that’s full of crazy items and great stages and the like and a group of people come and said “Nah, fuck that, get rid of all the items, 85% the stages, and play by OUR RULES” how would you feel?

Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be deep, and it certainly WAS NOT for the hardcore demographic either. So why are you guys so offended?

205

I never said I was offended, at least not in a major way. Oh no, Brawl isn’t deep, big whoop. It was a big issue for me back when I was actually playing the game, yea, but it’s been like 2 years since I picked up a classic controller and played the game.

Also, you ask how I would feel if I tried to make a four player party fighter and other people came in and played it differently? Well, once I sell them the game they’re free to do with it as they will. Take Team Fortress 2 for instance, some people play the Prophunt game mode or the Zombie Fortress game mode made by fans and have fun with it, but no one gives them any guff about it AFAIK. The developers certainly don’t. However, like the hardcore Smashers, the prophunt people are in the minority. The difference here is whereas Valve doesn’t actively balance the game against prophunt players, Sakurai actively balances the game against hardcore players.

The analogy doesn’t quite hold up either, Sakurai did design Brawl/Melee to be highly customizable; giving the players the power to make their own games and then throwing a fit when they played their own game seems to be a bit hypocritical, no?

206

What if after SF2 they realeasd a new game to completely counter what that game had created?

That is how smashers feel right know. Though it was expected, its hard NOT to get mad.

207

IMO he’s offending the average player even more than anything else. I mean how hard is Smash to pick up to play? Now you want to simplify things more…how? One button smashes? Melée got to where it was by accident (like Marvel). Idk how you can make it simpler without damaging gameplay (like before) or making it 15 times slower then Brawl, which would be 45 times slower then Melee which has been the most successfull. Why not follow that model. So I just don’t know where he is getting these conceptions from that Smash (at it lower level) is extremely hard to grasp.

And no items and neutral stages are the most fun…to me.

208

I’m not “offended” at all that brawl is a much worse competitive game than melee is. I do think that Sakurai’s game design philosophy is poor, because Melee was a very easy game for casuals to get into while also catering to a hardcore playerbase, which essentially means that he alienated a chunk of the series’ fanbase for no real reason. I would understand if he made changes based on “freshening up the gameplay” or whatever, but that’s not the case; he went out of his way to avoid pleasing the hardcore playerbase because of some idea that his idea of “fun” was somehow infringed upon by “their version of fun.” and that just wasn’t the case.

I haven’t read much of this thread because my advanced intuition is telling me that all of the posts are probably horrible, so I can’t speak for other smash players who might be “offended” by sakurai or whatever. I’m also not a game designer myself, so I can’t lay claim to some level of experience with the situation Sakurai might have felt he was in. I think I know enough to say with at least some confidence, though, that Sakurai’s decision was probably misguided.

209

And again, as I posted earlier that’s one of the prime differences in regards to Smash vs Fighting games at large. Most take things players discovered and take them into account, making better future titles; they didn’t really have a specific goal in mind or demographic. Whereas according to the interview Sakurai did from the beginning and wanted to specifically make it a certain way.

Likewise, competitive melee involves banning multiple things to the extreme and its almost a completely different game than casual smash…you don’t see such a difference in SF and even less conventional fighters with items.

I just don’t understand the community. They do all that stuff and ban everything to make the game “more balanced” and “fair” when in reality why go through all the headache? Why not just play a fighting game? Is the appeal of Nintendo characters really that good? All the laundry’s list of rules and bans are obviously trying to bring the game closer to a normal fighter, so in that case why even bother playing at that point? Its self-defeating imo…

210

The equivalent of what you hardcore smash players did to Melee / Brawl is like going into system directions for any SF game and taking out everything because the options are there. Take away all the fireballs, all the super cancels, parry, two in ones, whatever. Let’s be real here, taking away ALL the items and severely limiting stage selection doesn’t really make ‘Smash’ anymore, you know? The problem with your analogy is that TF2 was created to be balanced and acknowledge both camps. Sakurai specifically noted he didn’t want to appeal to you guys, you should have just taken that as is.

211

The item thing you’re right about but the stage situation is pretty far overblown. And seriously we’re really not banning much, it’s nothing close to banning things like super cancels, parry, & two in ones.

212

You can’t take fireballs or specials out of SF though. But you can change timer and rounds. Why does everyone use 99sec, and 2 rounds? Does it best display the player’s skills? Why does Tekken use 3 rounds in a match instead of the standard 2 rounds? 3 best shows the skill of the player. Neutral stages and no items has been agreed to showcase the player skill. Doesn’t really show skill if a bob-omb drops on your head for instant death. Good to know that you lost because of you then a 3rd party. Like a stick malfunction…almost

213

Casual smash and hardcore smash are completely different games.

The ONE time I entered a tournament for Brawl it was my shitty ZSS against one of the better known ZSS at the time, and right before we started he asked:

“Hey, do you mind if we toss all the armor pieces off the side?”

I just said, sure, fine. We’re ALREADY on Final Destination, there are no items, and now I can’t even use what’s rightfully an advantage that’s part of my character? Come on now (has this changed?).

And in reality you shouldn’t really limit stage selection at all. Period.

214

That’s the first I’ve ever heard of that, up here using the armor pieces is all good. And I do agree about the Stage selection, I would prefer it if all stages were used.

215

You shouldn’t take away items or stages then.

If fireballs and specials are part of what make SF, then items and non neutral stages are what make Smash. That’s a factual statement by the way.

You guys are playing in the middle. You’re not really Smash, but you’re not really anything else either, are you?

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Tech Romancer: I can agree with that viewpoint, I’m not a fan of banning things myself. There was discussion of banning Metaknight simply because he was too good within months of Brawl’s release, which is ridiculous since, like you and many others have said, extensive testing is required to truly know if something is fair or unbalanced. Still, some people just enjoy that particular ruleset. Some aspects of it are ridiculous, but if it’s fun then why not let them play it?

Chibi: The problem with the system direction menu comparison is that for the most part, you’re not actually changing anything pertaining to the core system when you take items out. The fundamental way that you play the game is not changed by losing items, you can still spike other characters, you can still ledgehog, the same combos still work, etc. Yea, you can argue that the people hacking Brawl to “make it more competitive” are doing the equivalent of changing the system direction menu, but they’re sort of outside the realm of this discussion. Also, if I recall correctly, the system direction menu was also a console extra, with arcade versions of 3s existing way before the ports were made, thus establishing the proper rules for the game. I’m not going to make a ridiculous argument about that, but I could.

Also, consider that when you play Prophunt or Zombie Fortress, it really isn’t TF2 at all either. In Prophunt, the way I understand it is that a team plays the Pyro, the other team plays various level props (Brooms, buckets, whatever) and hides, whereas the pyro has to look for the players hidden amongst the real props. Certainly the TF2 team doesn’t balance around this mode, but as I said they don’t actively balance against it either.

When you design a game you should go in with a vision of what you want it to be, but you shouldn’t go in with a vision that is so rigid that it actively kills one of your potential demographics, especially since as others have said, Smash is braindead simple to play on a casual level. It’s not all that different from what Ono tried to do with Street Fighter IV; he simplified the inputs and other system-based aspects of the game to make it more appealing to casuals…except although people could always play Street Fighter casually just fine, Ono didn’t completely ignore the hardcore players while doing so. Sakurai, however, did because he was too caught up in his vision of what his game should be that he forgot that the people he was making the game for could still play the game just fine the way that he wanted them to.

EDIT: Sorry for the essay guys, I’ll totally understand any tl;drs on your parts.

217

you can turn off parries on 3s, yet you dont see them doing it even when there are a lot of complaints agaisnt it

218

But I mean a game on Big Blue is not the greatest way to display competitive. I mean that wario ware stage. Same deal with that. It’s not even like those stages are even fun to me anyways so I’m cool.

I mean the attraction to generally any game is the the characters first and foremost. But I like Melee becuase of it’s speed, momentum shifts, % system, DI, and the added dimension of the edge. I mean edge guarding/hogging is fucking fun. The game is not stagnant at all (I’m a Marvel head so of course I love that shit) it changes all the time and there are many different styles to every player and their character. It truly is something different that I enjoy because it’s not like any other.

@Chibi: I mean the game was meant to be customized alot (lightning Melee, Giant melée, etc) I don’t know of anywhere that states OG smash must be played with items. A general amount of people like playing with items and 4 stock. So why don’t we all get together and form tournaments based on the style we have fun with? Doesn’t Tekken have items now? They are not used in competitive play and should they? It’s up to the players to use them or not. IMHO until the developer tells the players of a special ruleset to play by then they are playing that game. It still the game. Would you like it better if it was called “No item Smash”?

219

even though mvc2 uses 99 seconds, its not actually 99 seconds. Its damn near 3 minutes and other fighters are like that. Gotta watch how fast the clock ticks.

not every game has 2 rounds. mvc2\mvc1\xvsf, vampire savior, jojo, cvs2 and other games use alternate round systems.

you can’t compare how tekken does it as oppose to how its done in SF. For quite a while now, since a1\a2, being able to dump the bar on that round where it matters has been crucial. Its a power house strategy. If you set it to 3\5 rounds, you pretty much change how the game has been played for 15 years now. Tekken has no supers and no bar so the whole thing is kung fu for 3 rounds. Its a different type of game thats all.

220

I’d really love to continue this discussion but I’ve got to head off to sleep.

Thanks you two, I appreciate it and look forward to continuing tomorrow.

<3