How Characters are Chosen in Super Smash Bros.

By Jorge Ba-oh 10.10.2014 6

How Characters are Chosen in Super Smash Bros. on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

With such an extensive cast of much-loved  and fairly random characters, how is the Super Smash Bros. line-up compiled?

The latest pair of games in the series, for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, both boast a long list of playable faces - from Mario to Link, Captain Falcon to Pikachu, with well over 45 fighters to use.

Speaking to Japanese magazine Famitsu, series producer Masahiro Sakurai noted how the team first conducts a poll both locally and overseas, and also research currently-developed titles. From there it's down to the studio to decide the final roster.

That said, he asks the question "Does the character have something inherently unique about them?" and if they fit in with the rest of the roster. "Was there anything about them that stood out when we began development?"

Characters "from a series that has no future are rarely chosen," he highlighted.

After all this, however, it really does come down to Sakurai and that "any character is accepted if I believe it works."

Where there any characters you were expecting to join the line-up?

Box art for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
Developer

Bandai Namco

Publisher

Nintendo

Genre

Fighting

Players

4

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10 (6 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now    Also on Also on Nintendo eShop

Comment on this article

You can comment as a guest or join the Cubed3 community below: Sign Up for Free Account Login

Preview PostPreview Post Your Name:
Validate your comment
  Enter the letters in the image to validate your comment.
Submit Post

Comments

SirLink is offline. SirLink 10.10.2014#1

There's another part to this where he pretty much crushes everybody that whines about the roster and the clones. Pretty hilarious. Those people just don't get that a clone doesn't take the spot of a completely new character that requires far more development time, so it's just a matter of having them as extras or not. Contrary to popular belief, there ARE players that prefer the clone over the original because of the slight differences, so they might as well give us more options.

Twitter | Backloggery
 
Vorash Kadan 10.10.2014#2

Well given the fact that Duck Hunt had NO FUTURE outside of the single NES game I have high hopse that Bayonetta will make the roster as DLC at least. She's very unique & there's always an option to do Bayonetta 3. All the idiotic trolls who are condemning Bayonetta 2 as "failonetta" based solely on Japanese sales are just desperate to NOT be proven wrong & it shows with how quick they are to jump the gun.

( Edited 10.10.2014 17:49 by Vorash Kadan )

It is not wise to speak on subjects you do not know all facts about, nor is it smart to judge a game based on looks alone. PSN: Nintendo_Gamer 3DS: 4296-3029-7422
 
crackedthesky is offline. crackedthesky 11.10.2014#3

I think the roster is very strong, but it could have been revealed better. They announced most of the cool characters early on, and left mostly clones and veterans as secrets (Dark Pit, Jigglypuff, Ganondorf, Dr. Mario, etc.). Duck Hunt, which is a very fun and well-designed character, is the exception to this, but I can see how people might think he's another "joke" character (along the lines of Wii Fit Trainer and Mr. Game and Watch) and be disappointed. The other exception is Bowser Jr. which is also a good character but, being another Mario character, one not a lot of people were clamoring for.

I think people are failing to look at the bigger picture. We still got fan favorites like Shulk, Palutena, Robin, Rosalina, and Lucina. We got characters like Sheik and Zero Suit Samus separated into their own characters characters with their own movesets, and we had almost every veteran from Brawl return. The game has a very solid roster.

Vorash Kadan said:
Well given the fact that Duck Hunt had NO FUTURE outside of the single NES game I have high hopse that Bayonetta will make the roster as DLC at least.

I'm not sure about this. Bayonetta is still a third-party character, as Sega still owns the rights to the franchise. That said, Sega and Nintendo are on fantastic terms, Sega is easily the largest third-party still supporting Nintendo. I feel like if Sega were to give Nintendo a second character for Smash, it would probably be Eggman. But I also don't think Bayonetta is too farfetched, considering the series' revival is due solely to Nintendo.

I saw a theory that Bayonetta was going to be in the game early on but was cut, and some of her animations were ported over to Zero Suit Samus. If you look at close-ups of ZSS, sometimes her hands are bent to look like she should be holding guns. And she attacks out of high-heel shoes that don't exist in Metroid but do exit in Bayonetta. That's pure conjecture of course, but it's always fun to think of what might have been.

NNID: crackedthesky
My blog, mostly about writing: http://www.davidjlovato.com
 
Flynnie is offline. Flynnie 12.10.2014#4

All I read was "characters from a  series that has no future are rarely chosen" 

Meaning that we are not going to get another Ice Climbers game? But he's practically confirmed another Fzero, Metroid, Duck Hunt, Punch out, Game and Watch collections, Megaman? 

Thanks Sakurai! Smilie

I'm still confident about Bayonetta and Rayman making the final cut. I also reckon Toad could squeeze his way in including a Toad amiibo in the launch up to Captain Toad (which has already been confirmed to have amiibo connectivity) 

Either way the roster is solid! I would like to have another Starfox character in there and thought they missed out by not putting in another Kong (Dixie or cranky would have worked!) as well as Prof Layton and Pheonix wright but otherwise it's not a roster to be scoffed at! 

#140.15 ALERT....

 
origonalname112 is offline. origonalname112 16.10.2014#5

With this one, I'm not as upset about the presence of clones as much as the choices. Wolf and Lucas were two of the best clones from brawl because they were so varied from fox and ness. And, aside from the disappointingly identical final smashes, they felt pretty different to play as. But instead of them making a return, we get toon link and dr. mario who feel pretty identical, despite some tiny tweaks. Why couldn't they treat more clones like luigi or ike, who in addition to feeling different have entire moves that are completely unique? Of course, I'll never forgive Sakurai for leaving out Mewtwo. Again.

 
Vorash Kadan 17.10.2014#6

Yep I agree, Mewtwo>Lucario anyday.

It is not wise to speak on subjects you do not know all facts about, nor is it smart to judge a game based on looks alone. PSN: Nintendo_Gamer 3DS: 4296-3029-7422
 

Subscribe to this topic Subscribe to this topic

If you are a registered member and logged in, you can also subscribe to topics by email.
Sign up today for blogs, games collections, reader reviews and much more
Site Feed
Who's Online?
Ofisil

There are 1 members online at the moment.