Topic: Super Smash Bros. for WiiU (& 3DS)

[tendoboy1984]

Nintendo used Brownie Brown to help make Mario 3D Land? Source?


Is Brownie Brown owned by Nintendo? Because they helped develop quite a few 3rd-party games for the GBA and DS, including Heroes / Sword of Mana and Blue Dragon Plus (the latter series is ironically owned by Microsoft & Mistwalker). It would be very odd of Nintendo to loan one of their own studios to help make a game (Blue Dragon Plus) that's partially owned by a competitor (Microsoft).

http://mariocars.com/how-super-mario-survived-the-quake/

Nintendo typically didn’t do many outsourcing on a Mario games. But Super Mario 3D Land was on a rather parsimonious growth schedule; there was a charge to get it on shelves for a all-important holiday deteriorate to boost a sales of a Nintendo 3DS. One of a outward teams enlisted to get it finished was Brownie Brown, a Nintendo auxiliary also located in Tokyo. This was their initial outing over to a Mario team’s office.

And yes Brownie Brown is a Nintendo first party studio.  As I've said before, Nintendo has no problem letting some of their studio's develop games for third party developers, as long as those games appear on a Nintendo system.  Other Nintendo studio's that have done this besides Brownie Brown, would be Monolith Soft who made are Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier and Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans on the DS for Namco, and are also making the upcoming Project X Zone on the 3DS for Namco as well.  There's also Genius Sonority who helped make Dragon Quest Swords for the Wii, and Paon who made the Klonoa remake for the Wii as well.

I don't think Nintendo owns Paon. On a related note, they also don't own AlphaDream (makers of the "Mario & Luigi" RPG series).

[S-U-P-E-R]

I'm curious to see if Smash Bros Wii U is gonna get any public exposure before it gets released. I'm really starting to think this is one of the things that can really make or break a fighting game in general.

Check it out: every good fighting game over the last 5 years or so has gotten location tests, arcade versions, promotional appearances at events, a good run in the hyperbolic time chamber with top players, etc. Brawl really didn't get much exposure before it came out, did it? Just an E3 appearance or something?

I think there's a better chance that some of the problems with Brawl, like bad character balance and motherfucking slips, would have been shot down during development if it wasn't developed in a bubble. I have personally seen stuff get changed (for the better) in fighting games because of feedback from players getting fresh pairs of eyes and hands on the game.

Namco has been really good about this. Tekken console versions are highly polished and they come out quite a long time after the arcade versions (sometimes after a couple arcade revisions!) and Soul Calibur 5 is the best SC in a long time - it was brought to events for many players to get their hands on. Maybe with Namco on board, this game can get some better pre-release exposure.

[Caterkiller]

That would be amazing! With Namco there are so many possibilities, still it's all up to Sakurai if the idea gets thrown out there.

[TJ Spyke]

Slips rarely happened,so they didn't bother me.  And the so-called character imbalances are so subtle that only a tiny fraction of  people will notice (and please explain how Metaknight is overpowered, my hundreds of hours spent on Brawl show to me that at best he is a so-so character). Even with these "problems", Brawl is still one of the best fighting games of the last 10 years.

[nickmitch]

Maybe we'll get a demo version.

[Caterkiller]

TJ I don't know man, MetaKnight is like a demon. Thay tornadoe has so much priority, his attacks have so little lag, he has about 6 jumps and he can kill with his smashes and shuttle loop. In casual play or tourney play he is a beast. That's why he was banned from tournaments, he really is that good.

Chain grabbing is so affective against big characters and some guys like Link and Ganndorf have the hardest time keeping up with the rest of the cast. You have to work insanely hard for one of those guys to keep up with Snake, Diddy or Metaknight.

[ThePerm]

i could see 2013, and heres why. It will probably not be that good. Brawl didn't live up to my expectations, this will probably be more of the same. As for as 3d Mario Wii U, i recall in an interview they had that they created a software that made it much faster to make mario galaxy 2 levels. Mario Galaxy already looks pretty sweet. All they have to do to make it look better is better lighting, a better Mario model, and better textures. The addition of crazy shader capability hopefully will help things look amazing.

[S-U-P-E-R]

Slips rarely happened,so they didn't bother me.

Even a couple times a match is too often. Even once is too often. I'm interested in finding out if anyone on this forum would leave them on if there were an option.

I heard the rate was 1% of all dashes/smashes but couldn't find a test to back it up. If true, though, it's substantial, but hell, you can tell by playing.

And the so-called character imbalances are so subtle that only a tiny fraction of  people will notice (and please explain how Metaknight is overpowered, my hundreds of hours spent on Brawl show to me that at best he is a so-so character).

I'll try to break this down without being mean. Really! (If you want I can post the mean version later )

In the hands of a good player, Metaknight dominates. Dominates tournaments filled with lots of good players playing other characters. This is due to his mobility and dearth of safe, fast, long-reaching moves. The further you progress into good player territory, the less you'll see non-Metaknight characters able to compete.

In the January tournament, four of the top eight players and 21 of the top 64 competitors in the singles tournament used Meta Knight. The doubles tournament saw a similar saturation, with all four players in the grand finals competing with the character.

Also here's a usage chart right from an MLG person!



Conclusion: Smash Bros has bad balance and it is detrimental to the game. Although, what I originally had in mind when I posted was handful of unusably bad characters that I'd like to see moved up to viable, non-garbage status.

Even with these "problems", Brawl is still one of the best fighting games of the last 10 years.

Yeah not really. I think even most big Smash fans will tell you they liked Melee better

[MegaByte]

Ty, are those stats for matches including all the stage restrictions, etc. that such tournaments often have?

[S-U-P-E-R]

Yeah, under the ruleset MLG was using in 2010 that allows 16 stages. Here's the post it came from if you want to look at a lot of charts and words:
 
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=304174

[ShyGuy]

Go back to your Sony Royale Ripoff thread, Nintendo hater!

[S-U-P-E-R]

I promise I will never post in this thread again if someone gives me a Sony PSASBR beta code this week

[Kairon]

I'd be a big fan of LESS characters in the next Smash Bros. if it meant that each character got more attention and designers had better control of game balance.

Of course, I'm nowhere near tournament level. I just Smash-spam with Pikachu or Peach. So I probably won't notice that much.

[MegaByte]

My point was that if you leave out parts of the game, of course characters will be unbalanced even more. That's not to say that they aren't unbalanced to begin with, but tournament play will exacerbate the problem.

[S-U-P-E-R]

I'd be a big fan of LESS characters in the next Smash Bros. if it meant that each character got more attention and designers had better control of game balance.

Of course, I'm nowhere near tournament level. I just Smash-spam with Pikachu or Peach. So I probably won't notice that much.

I'd be okay with that but I don't think it's necessary. You can balance a really large amount of characters if you just bring in outside people, which I'm pushing for. Will Nintendo sign off on invites to big events full of good players, or host stuff on their own with an open invite? Namco does...

My point was that if you leave out parts of the game, of course characters will be unbalanced even more. That's not to say that they aren't unbalanced to begin with, but tournament play will exacerbate the problem.

How does that necessarily imbalance the game further? I'd be inclined to say playing stages that move constantly further tilt things in favor of high speed and mobility characters like Metaknight.
 
I've got some interesting anecdotes about a tournament I ran out of my place back when the game was brand new, and I chose my own ruleset. I hate anecdotes but I think it illustrates some interesting causes and effects, so I may post it in a bit.

[Kairon]

I'd like to suggest that Smash is for non-tournament players too, so I believe in keeping in mind that there are aspects of the game that are more important than high-end tournament balance.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

In hindsight, Brawl absolutely cannot claim to have the most balanced roster of characters, but it was never really a problem for the group of friends I played with. We're far from tournament standard, counting frames and measuring hitboxes, but we're not incompetent at the game either and we weren't ever struck by balance issues. Unless you're at the uppermost level of play (which arguably takes away some of the fun of Smash Bros. with such limiting rules), I don't think it has that much of an effect.

As far as the roster for the new Smash Bros. is concerned, I also wouldn't mind a slight decrease in numbers, but I hope there can still be some brand new fighters as well. It would help if they just cut away the fat in Brawl e.g. guys like Wolf or Lucas, who are totally fine to play with, but they're perhaps a bit too close to other long-standing characters.

[S-U-P-E-R]

I'd like to suggest that Smash is for non-tournament players too, so I believe in keeping in mind that there are aspects of the game that are more important than high-end tournament balance.

Competitive viability doesn't preclude wet and wild casual fun - it would be pretty easy to serve both audiences, really. I believe that a symbiotic relationship exists between casuals and tournament jerks. If a game is popular with the casual crowd, a certain percentage 'trickle up' into the tournament scene, and feed stream and youtube hits which turns into more support and money for tournament events. Likewise, a competitively viable game that gets a lot of talk and event coverage entices more new players to try the game that everyone is talking about, and sustains exposure for the game through online coverage, word of mouth, etc. Hell, who hasn't seen Evo Moment #37?

Games like Street Fighter, Soul Calibur I, II, V, Smash Bros Melee, Marvel vs Capcom 2 & 3, and Mortal Kombat 9 illustrate this really well. Casual fun *and* competitively viable (they sell well too!). Games like Brawl and Mortal Kombat 4-8 have dropped the ball on the competitive end, while games like Guilty Gear, Virtua Fighter, and Arcana Heart have not been a success with those filthy casuals.
 

In hindsight, Brawl absolutely cannot claim to have the most balanced roster of characters, but it was never really a problem for the group of friends I played with. We're far from tournament standard, counting frames and measuring hitboxes, but we're not incompetent at the game either and we weren't ever struck by balance issues. Unless you're at the uppermost level of play (which arguably takes away some of the fun of Smash Bros. with such limiting rules), I don't think it has that much of an effect.

I don't claim to be at the uppermost level of play either (just good enough to trash people that "think" they're good ), but to me, the differences between character capability is blindly, retna-burningly obvious. I mean, once you really explore a game and find out it has problems once you get to a certain level, it becomes less fun. And it is the fault of the designer, not the player. If you never get to that level, well, that's fine, fun is fun. Why limit the good part of the game to just casual players, though?
 
edit: if you still play with your friends, do some friendly $5 buy-in tournaments and see how long it takes for someone to start talking about balance. I give about it 10 seconds.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

Maybe so. I live in Britain, where there's not exactly a massive amount of tournament opportunities. I wonder, though, if you removed Meta Knight from the equation (and I know some tournament rules ban use of Meta Knight entirely), if that would make a significant difference. I don't know. I feel like I can string together a decent performance with Mario, particularly with the underused potential of KO'ing people with F.L.U.D.D. in mind, but apparently he's low on the 'Tier Lists' that are out there. Then again, I play on all stages and set items to 'Low', so I'm probably so far removed from that competitive scene that I can't appreciate the disparity.

You know, at some point, I have to question why Smash Bros as a series is played at that high level. In my opinion, enforcing all these restrictions as far as what stages are "tournament-ready" and all that jazz takes some of the fun and the unique qualities away. There aren't many other fighting games where the layout and hazards of the arena impact the fight so strongly, and yet by limiting it down to the stages with no dynamic elements, it kind of becomes just like any other fighter. Wouldn't being able to use stage hazards to use your advantage and dealing with them show an extra kind of skill? Shouldn't the top tier players be able to deal what these stages throw at them?

Like I said, I don't know all the ins and outs. Lay into me if I'm talking absolute rubbish. But it does seem like competitive rules, in an effort to make proceedings "tournament-viable", often make the games a more sterile experience.

[S-U-P-E-R]

I wonder, though, if you removed Meta Knight from the equation (and I know some tournament rules ban use of Meta Knight entirely), if that would make a significant difference.

I think you do see a greater variety of characters being used (the next best character doesn't tower over the other characters so much) but I guess Metaknight loyalists could be pretty butthurt. I think a lot of people don't really care so much, because the ship has sailed on Brawl as a competitive game. Some die hards might disagree with me though

In my opinion, enforcing all these restrictions as far as what stages are "tournament-ready" and all that jazz takes some of the fun and the unique qualities away. There aren't many other fighting games where the layout and hazards of the arena impact the fight so strongly, and yet by limiting it down to the stages with no dynamic elements, it kind of becomes just like any other fighter. Wouldn't being able to use stage hazards to use your advantage and dealing with them show an extra kind of skill? Shouldn't the top tier players be able to deal what these stages throw at them?

Like I said, I don't know all the ins and outs. Lay into me if I'm talking absolute rubbish.

No, you're asking good questions. I think my answer may also surprise you. First, that anecdotal story I mentioned earlier? Here it is:

I've got some interesting anecdotes about a tournament I ran out of my place back when the game was brand new, and I chose my own ruleset.

So the ruleset I picked looked like this:
Double elimination bracket. 3 stock + 7 min time limit, best 2 out of 3. No items . First stage in a set was a random "neutral" stage like Final Destination, Battlefield, or Animal Crossing (there were a few others I think). Characters could be picked double-blind if so desired by either player. After that, the losing player could pick whatever stage he wanted, then winner picks his character, then loser picks his character. By picking the stage before characters, I figured I could prevent horrific counter-picking against certain characters.

The game being relatively new and not having any world-class players in the neighborhood, I didn't think I would see any truly awful stage-exploiting gameplay. Actually, I kind of wanted to see it so I could get a handle on the stuff first-hand, and also reward the smartest, most merciless players if they had figured out some clever stuff.

If I remember right, the top 3 players or so leveraged from pretty gnarly stuff. #3 always picked flat stages without edges - like that Hyrule bridge one or Super Flat - so he could chain grab off the side of the stage off of any grab. #2 played Pit and his tactic was picking a stage he could circle around perpetually (like the old Hyrule ruins stage) and get a timeout victory off of any lead. #1 basically just killed everyone with Metaknight's superior slugging out and mobility. He* picked DK Jungle, or the Metroid Frigate stage that flips upside down most of the time for some reason.

Holy ****, the match between #1 and #2 was painful to watch every time #1 was up. Imagine circling around Hyrule ruins for like a solid hour. I wanted to die.

*it was me

So the answer to "Wouldn't being able to use stage hazards to use your advantage and dealing with them show an extra kind of skill? Shouldn't the top tier players be able to deal what these stages throw at them?" is actually YES, AND IT IS AWFUL. It's like some grim bloody fable where somebody makes a wish and they get a cackle and "more than they bargained for." There's only one right, effective way to play on hyrule bridge and flat world, and it's to chaingrab instantkill. There's only one right way to play on Hyrule Temple, and it's to get a lead and run away for the time limit. There's only one right way to that scrolling DK jungle stage, and it's to pick the most mobile character. If you exclusively play character X that loses for free on stage Y, you ought to know that any player worth their salt will pick stage Y.

So yeah, by playing on those really bad stages in a competitive environment, you actually reduce viable playstyles. A lot of the matches in the anecdotal tournament were really only decided by the first game on the neutral, "boring" stages - which ended up actually being the closer and more interesting matches of the tournament.

One more note, a lot of the permitted stages in the popular rulesets still have plenty of hazards. Just not the ones that heavily favor certain characters, or suddenly and randomly kill you.

[MagicCow64]

I'm pretty surprised to see Snake and Olimar so high on the tourney list. I enjoy Snake, but he feels unwieldy, and Olimar I've always considered a novelty character given how difficult it is to manage Pikmin in the chaos. I also would have assumed that King Dedede would be at the bottom of the list, and that ROB would be in the bottom tier.

Another surprising element: Most of the "good" players I've encountered are devastating with Mario. Really curious why he gets little tourney love.

But also glad to see that Diddy Kong is as awesome as I believe. He was a great consolation after they nerfed Jigglypuff.

[tendoboy1984]

It's just a video game. Stop taking it so seriously. Ever heard of playing games for the fun of it?

[Kairon]

I've got some interesting anecdotes about a tournament I ran out of my place back when the game was brand new, and I chose my own ruleset.

So the ruleset I picked looked like this:
Double elimination bracket. 3 stock + 7 min time limit, best 2 out of 3. No items . First stage in a set was a random "neutral" stage like Final Destination, Battlefield, or Animal Crossing (there were a few others I think). Characters could be picked double-blind if so desired by either player. After that, the losing player could pick whatever stage he wanted, then winner picks his character, then loser picks his character. By picking the stage before characters, I figured I could prevent horrific counter-picking against certain characters.

The game being relatively new and not having any world-class players in the neighborhood, I didn't think I would see any truly awful stage-exploiting gameplay. Actually, I kind of wanted to see it so I could get a handle on the stuff first-hand, and also reward the smartest, most merciless players if they had figured out some clever stuff.

If I remember right, the top 3 players or so leveraged from pretty gnarly stuff. #3 always picked flat stages without edges - like that Hyrule bridge one or Super Flat - so he could chain grab off the side of the stage off of any grab. #2 played Pit and his tactic was picking a stage he could circle around perpetually (like the old Hyrule ruins stage) and get a timeout victory off of any lead. #1 basically just killed everyone with Metaknight's superior slugging out and mobility. He* picked DK Jungle, or the Metroid Frigate stage that flips upside down most of the time for some reason.

Holy ****, the match between #1 and #2 was painful to watch every time #1 was up. Imagine circling around Hyrule ruins for like a solid hour. I wanted to die.

This is why the ONLY stage I consider worth playing is RANDOM. All stages. All items. Luck of the draw. Deal with it.

I'd like to suggest that Smash is for non-tournament players too, so I believe in keeping in mind that there are aspects of the game that are more important than high-end tournament balance.

Competitive viability doesn't preclude wet and wild casual fun - it would be pretty easy to serve both audiences, really. I believe that a symbiotic relationship exists between casuals and tournament jerks. If a game is popular with the casual crowd, a certain percentage 'trickle up' into the tournament scene, and feed stream and youtube hits which turns into more support and money for tournament events. Likewise, a competitively viable game that gets a lot of talk and event coverage entices more new players to try the game that everyone is talking about, and sustains exposure for the game through online coverage, word of mouth, etc. Hell, who hasn't seen Evo Moment #37?

Games like Street Fighter, Soul Calibur I, II, V, Smash Bros Melee, Marvel vs Capcom 2 & 3, and Mortal Kombat 9 illustrate this really well. Casual fun *and* competitively viable (they sell well too!). Games like Brawl and Mortal Kombat 4-8 have dropped the ball on the competitive end, while games like Guilty Gear, Virtua Fighter, and Arcana Heart have not been a success with those filthy casuals.

I agree with you, as long as this doesn't become a situation where "the ends justify the means except that they really don't." I want more balance, less exploits, less bugs... but first I want to be able to have fun playing it.

[Luigi Dude]

Smash Bros Brawl - 11 million copies

Smash Bros Melee - 7 million copies

Once again, Smash Bros is not a tournament fighter series and was never meant to be.  The sales show most people who play Smash Bros don't care.  People buy Smash Bros because it a great party fighting series, not because they want to win money at Evo.

This is something some of you can't seem to realize.  The tournament side of Smash Bros makes up a very small percent of the real audience.  To say Nintendo need to please both sides is foolish when the tournament side makes up less then 1 percent of the overall fanbase.

[S-U-P-E-R]

This is why the ONLY stage I consider worth playing is RANDOM. All stages. All items. Luck of the draw. Deal with it.

Actually this is what I like to play when I'm just playing some rounds with my pals at home.  You should see some of our dirty custom stages

It's just a video game. Stop taking it so seriously. Ever heard of playing games for the fun of it?

Tournaments are crazy fun, you should try one. Or make one

Smash Bros Brawl - 11 million copies

Smash Bros Melee - 7 million copies

Once again, Smash Bros is not a tournament fighter series and was never meant to be.  The sales show most people who play Smash Bros don't care.  People buy Smash Bros because it a great party fighting series, not because they want to win money at Evo.

This is something some of you can't seem to realize.  The tournament side of Smash Bros makes up a very small percent of the real audience.  To say Nintendo need to please both sides is foolish when the tournament side makes up less then 1 percent of the overall fanbase.

This is one way to look at it, yeah. Yes, they apparently designed Brawl not to be tournament friendly on purpose. Yes, Brawl sold more copies. Here are some more numbers:

Wii total sales: 96.56
SSBB sales: 11.12m
SSBB adoption rate: 11.5%

GameCube sales: 21.74
SSBM: 7.07m
SSBM adoption rate: 32.5%

Smash clearly has a lot of room to grow, I think. The adoption rate is way lower, and although I don't have month-by-month numbers, I kind of want to say the long-term sales were worse compared to Melee, and that's because people basically dropped the game for something else. Sustained popularity driven by a good metagame, word of mouth, and people running events is a real thing!

It's not foolish to want the game to be better - it doesn't take an amazing amount of effort and company resources to not design the game to be bad on purpose design a game with a good metagame. It's like some of bizarre us-vs-them exclusion that shouldn't even exist in the first place.

If Brawl had a balanced roster and no slips, do you think it would have sold worse?