Nintendo didn’t have much to say on the subject at this years E3, but Super Smash Bros. is rarely absent from gamer minds. Thankfully, their appetites are being slowly satiated just under month since the convention, as news concerning the popular fighter has been trickling steadily in. But this most recent tidbit hints that the series will be heading in a very different direction than they are used to. Will the changes be positive or leave gamers wanting?
It was recently announced that both the 3DS and Wii U versions of the project will be headed by Namco Bandai, assuring that franchise characters from their camp will make an appearance alongside other fresh, old school characters that will allow the game and its players to get in touch with their roots – not to mention educate young whippersnappers on what came before.
But the most interesting news to step forward came from an interview with Masahiro Sakurai in Nintendo Power. In it, they discuss the difficulties in developing the latest title. The shear amount of content available in Sakurai’s last two games, Kid Icarus: Uprising and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. suggest that that tradition might continue with this sequel however, it doesn’t seem to be the case. Brawl, which had an impressive roster, boasting 35 characters to choose from, two of which were the first third-party characters in series history, also included a full single-player mode, an “Event” mode and lots of other playable or collectible goodies. While the single-player campaign was a creative way to unlock characters, it was long and became tedious. In addition, most unlocked characters were similar to previous characters already available, so the excitement of variety was damped by the lack of originality. This time around Sakurai wishes to trim the fat, cutting down on size and focusing on quality.
“It isn’t a matter of ‘if the next game has 50 characters, that’ll be enough. There is a certain charm to games that have huge casts of playable characters, but they tend to have issues with game balance and it becomes very difficult to fine-tune each character and have them all feel distinctive…. In terms of quantity, we’ve probably already reached the limit of what’s feasible. I think a change of direction may be what’s needed.”
While fans might be bummed at the prospect of a smaller roaster, they should be pleased that the game will receive lots of extra care so that each playable character will feel unique — that, coupled with a plethora of new faces mixing in with classic, returning characters, could make this the best Super Smash Bros. yet.
No release date has been announced at this time, but stay tuned to Game Rant for all of your updates on Super Smash Bros. Rumble, Battle, Clash… Altercation – or whatever they end up calling it.
Source: Nintendo Everything
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Bomberman, Mega Man, Simon Belmont, Ladd Spencer. Right there would be four amazing additions from the NES. Problem being all four of them are third party…
I jus cnt wait for playstationallstars, that shits gunna b crazy
Playstation all stars doesn’t seem really good to me :/ but I’m playing the game anyway!
i think this might be just an excuse to sell other characters via DLC…
100%
Would you rather have 35 crappy to mediocre characters at launch or 15-20 great balanced characters? Then pay for more good characters later on?
Good and bad at the same time. It is good they will be pikey about what characters they add. We need more characters from games people really love which sadly didn’t make the cut last time, like Tails or Knuckles from Sonic or Sheeda from Fire Emblem as examples and few filler characters like R.O.B., Olimar, or Pokemon Trainer (I know some of you like them, but seriously there are other Nintendo characters FAR more worthy of those spots.)
But a smaller roster could mean less variety Going from Brawls robust character list back to the N64 version continues to be a shocker of how little variety there was before. it would suck to lose variety in the nextinstallment. Plus, this reeks of “DLC characters to come in the future” planning. Smash Bros continues to be a HUGE group/party game and it seems as though Nintendo isn’t too thrilled about the missed opportunity to sell new characters for use in Brawl.
At the very least, the number of characters should stay the same, and they should just replace a bunch of the filler characters with characters people actually want.
I personally think that Olimar is far more deserving then Tails or Knuckles…. Not that I don’t like those characters. Also, with Pikmin 3 coming out for Wii U, he is most likely going to be in the next game. But since they might have more third party characters from namco bandai, other third party characters like tails or knuckles have an even worse chance of getting into the game.
Also, I don’t know why you guys are saying that the roster will be smaller? I might have just taken what Sakurai said differently then you guys, but I thought he ment that there would just be less characters added. In the other instalments they added 10ish so this time maybe just adding three. And replacing a few characters like Wolf or Lucario. (I really hope they don’t replace Lucario but it seems likely…)
TOM NOOK ALL THE WAY. I’d be fine with anyone from Animal Crossing though.
……itd be nice to have someone from golden sun…….
This. Golden Sun is awesome.
shulk from xenoblade.
hell yeah.
if bandai namco is in on it we may se a soul calubur character or 2 and even a baten kaitos character and I heard it will be called super smash bros universe if not that’s gonna suck
sagi most likely from baten kaitos origins he has a lot of attacks
I wanna see commander shepard in there. Him and snake would make a great team!
Lol.
That WAS a joke, no?
Namco Bandai…… I’m sure Pac Man will be in it then….
Eh…Im skeptical. This could make or break the franchise.Like, i LOVE having alot of characters to pick from. Heck, put 100 characters in, i’ll be SET! Thats what makes Smash Bros, Smash Bros. New Characters. New Gameply. New stages. AS far as quality goes, i think Bralw had great quality in characters. It was much diffrent from Melee which had tones of clones. So, in my opinion why fix what is not broken. But thats just me. Imma still buy SSB4
For god sake people we want more 3rd party characters yes, but do ou guys forget that this is a Nintendo game? 2 may seem like few, but this is a NINTENDO fighter game, screw anymore mgs characters and screw tails, knuckles and shadow we don’t need more characters that would be cool for a little while and then just fill the roster
What we really need is to cut out the fat like said
R.o.b.
Toon link.
Lucario (before you flame respond, it’s cause lucario is a sucky Pokemon anyways, based off mewtwo a much better Pokemon, but at this point just cut this Pokemon out.)
Falco or Wolf, one of these characters needs to be cut out, and the other needs to be completely redesigned to be differently from fox, this could have been as simple as giving falco an arwing final smash.)
What we do need
Limited number of 3rd party characters, so we could have Sonic & Snake return, and add in 1 more like Megaman, or bomber man, or Simon from Castlevania.
Bring in Isaac from GoldenSun, he was an assist trophy and gave a glimpse of the fun he’d be.
Bring in Lloyd, yes another sword fighter, but his 2 sword style makes his potential outstanding.
Give gannon his own magic and maybe his sword back.
Bring in Tom Nook, unique fighter, it would be fun using him.
Sidenote: let’s be realistic, 3rd party characters like Cloud from FF or Sora from Kingdom hearts, will never happen, they’re more likely to be in the play station all stars.
But characters from capcom, or now even namco are much more likely (ijs naruto is more likely then cloud or sora (because namco works on naruto ultimate ninja storm games.)
I hope they keep Lucario. He’s my best/favorite character in the game and one of my favorite Pokemon. He’s way better than Mewtwo was in the previous game. It’d be cool if they added in Shadow, but he’d just be the same as Sonic so no real point. I don’t like having clone characters in the same game. There’s no point to having two of the same fighter with just different looks.
Actually shadow is nothing like sonic , he is a bit diferent …he would be able to teleport, and use chaos control to fight, ……and some kind of super chaos control as a special..
For god sake people we want more 3rd party characters yes, but do ou guys forget that this is a Nintendo game? 2 may seem like few, but this is a NINTENDO fighter game, screw anymore mgs characters and screw tails, knuckles and shadow we don’t need more characters that would be cool for a little while and then just fill the roster
What we really need is to cut out the fat like said
R.o.b.
Toon link.
Lucario (before you flame respond, it’s cause lucario is a sucky Pokemon anyways, based off mewtwo a much better Pokemon, but at this point just cut this Pokemon out.)
Falco or Wolf, one of these characters needs to be cut out, and the other needs to be completely redesigned to be differently from fox, this could have been as simple as giving falco an arwing final smash.)
What we do need?
Limited number of 3rd party characters, so we could have Sonic & Snake return, and add in 1 more like Megaman, or bomber man, or Simon from Castlevania.
Bring in Isaac from GoldenSun, he was an assist trophy and gave a glimpse of the fun he’d be.
Bring in Lloyd, yes another sword fighter, but his 2 sword style makes his potential outstanding.
Give gannon his own magic and maybe his sword back.
Bring in Tom Nook, unique fighter, it would be fun using him.
Sidenote: let’s be realistic, 3rd party characters like Cloud from FF or Sora from Kingdom hearts, will never happen, they’re more likely to be in the play station all stars.
But characters from capcom, or now even namco are much more likely (ijs naruto is more likely then cloud or sora (because namco works on naruto ultimate ninja storm games.)
I think Tom Nook would be so cool! Nobody from AC yet and he would be awesome! he could throw all sorts of trinkets from his store! and his grab could be with a fishing rod… and for his final smash, he couldcall Gracie to run people over in her car. or maybe call timmy and tommy and have them beat the snot out of people. or a hord of fish and bugs could mass attack the other players! So many possiblities… haha please Nintendo. Tom Nook.
My opinion, i highly doubt SSBB’s Snake and Sonic will make a return for Smash bros U simply because they were 3rd party exclusives for that game. There was never any indication that they’d be a staple for future installments. if such a thing happened that 3rd parties stay, you might as well ask Capcom to make a VS Nintendo series (which i’d love to see myself).
Take a look at Namco’s Soul Series (aside from Mitsurugi). Throughout it’s life we’ve seen mascots, jedi, and assasins. Don’t see them making a return in the next game. Mortal Kombat 9′s Freddy and PS3 exclusive Kratos; probably not going to show up on MKX. it’s the normal trend. The inclusion of 3rd party chars makes that game more unique; an extra spice to your meal per say. it also promotes both parties’ series; attracting new and old fanbase who wouldn’t normally go out of their way to look at other franchises (you’d be surprised how many new generation gamers (outside of Japan) don’t know who Namco are for instance).
As for roosters, i really don’t mind a smaller rooster just as long as every character plays differently with individual movesets. No clones if possible. None of that Fox, Falco, Wolf crap (exclude Luigi simply cuz he’s been developed and plays differently enough to be his own character). Cool thing too is that SSBU will be able to patch itself to fix any bugs and balances unlike pass installments (Meta Knight anyone?).
For mechanics, i’d love SSBU to have the same chaotic mayhem back in SSBM; faster. Fix the damn broken Final Smash Mechanic. Don’t have them overpowered to the point where skill doesn’t matter to win a match include a special meter and have it either accumulate through hits/blocks or smash balls. i doubt Sakurai will put individual input commands for Final smashes due to accessibility but it sure would add another layer of depth to the game and possibility of more than one kind of final smash per char like traditional fighting games. Honestly, the same special gets old fast.
A combo system would be a welcomed edition. What better way to gratify a win by an awesome combo. Tweak the damage and launches to accomadate a combo system; increasing hit-stun and untechable time as your % increases; able to combo off of wall bounces and finish off with a final smash…that’d be a dream i’d want come true.
A set of smash attacks for air to increase normal movesets and special smash attacks a bit like how Samus uses her seeker/power missiles to make more movesets. Frankly, a 3 button brawler (normal attack, special, block) could use more moveset. Would be ok if they separated the normals to either Punch and Kick or go to a 4 button scheme of low-medium-high attacks plus shield.
Lastly, have a workable online matchmaking system. Brawl was just atrocious. No doubt that Sakurai will pack the game with enough content to last a long time but i’m hoping the online will be good this time around.
Can’t wait to see how this game shapes up.
As for DLC–don’t get me wrong. i love DLC’s. it keeps the game alive and tells it’s fans that the game is supported by its company hence extending it’s playability. Nintendo, don’t pull a “CAPCOM” on us and have DLC content in the disk already. Locked content just doesn’t sit right with when i’ve paid for the disk and it’s content only to find out some features need me to cough up cash to unlock.