Topic: Virtual Console Preview Reveals Smash Bros. for Japan

[Kairon]

I recall people demanding serious texturing like that for all Nintendo games...

I repent! I don't want it anymore! Oh why WHY did Nintendo give us what we wanted?!?!?! T_T

[Mop it up]

I would never wish for such a thing as dull colouring. Any game featuring Mario should look like a rainbow exploded.

Whoever decided to make the Mushroom Kingdom stage in Brawl look like a desert deserves to be dragged out back and beaten severely with a bat of many colours.

[Kairon]

I'll be the first to say it. Sakurai has failed us!

[LuigiHann]

I actually thought that the Mushroomy Kingdom stage was a sort of satire on that concept. Some combination of "This is what happened to the Mushroom Kingdom during all those years" and "This is what the game would look like if it were developed today"

[NWR_pap64]

Looking back, Melee was more serious than SSB64, but still had its tongue firmly in its cheek. The music was more refined, but had quirky Nintendo charm. As was already mentioned, the graphics were colorful and vivid.

Its as if Sakurai really wanted people to take Brawl seriously, that it was more than just a party fighting game.

The best way to describe Brawl would be this...

Its what a Nintendo game would look like if it was developed by a hardcore gamer.

*Note I still love Brawl, but I stand behind my belief that I miss the wacky feel of the original.

[Mop it up]

That is quite an interesting observation LuigiHann, and it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case. However, such a thought depresses me even further.

Wasn't Brawl developed by a team who usually makes RPGs? That probably has to do with it being serious, and having an opening theme which does not fit the game one bit.

Pap64: If Sakurai wanted people to take Brawl seriously as a fighter then he shouldn't have dumbed it down and added a slew of overly powerful items and cheap attacks which can be spammed to victory. I don't think making Smash more serious was really his intention anyway, as the whole reason he made the original Smash in the first place was because he wanted to make a 4-player fighting game which wasn't as complex as your traditional fighter. Of course, after eight years perhaps his vision had changed. Sure seems like it...

[NWR_pap64]

The original SSB was an off-shoot project they didn't expect to do so well. They didn't have any expectations for it. But lo and behold, it was a hit.

I think the proof that Sakurai wanted the game to be epic lies in the SSE mode. Out of all the features the SSE mode was hyped the most. It was Sakurai's vision to create an expanded adventure mode, and that's where the epic lies the most.

Even if the game played the same, Sakurai did note about the game's deeper mechanics.

So again, its as if Sakurai wanted Brawl to be taken seriously as an event game, not as a party fighter.

[Luigi Dude]

Its what a Nintendo game would look like if it was developed by a hardcore gamer.

That's because it was.  Back in 2005 when Sakurai first revealed some info, he said he was introduced to a mystery studio (that we'd later find out was Game Arts) to help him make the game by Miyamoto and that the people at the studio were all huge fans of Melee.  He also said that the according to games data, these guys had put in thousands of hours into the game.

Of course I wouldn't say Brawl is all serious though.  There's still quite a few silly and charming things in the game. 

Now if Sakurai goes and makes the next Smash Bros look like this



then I'd say there's a problem.

[Kairon]

LuigiDude delivers.

[KDR_11k]

Oh come on, Cho Smash Aniki would be hilarious.

[Ian Sane]

I'd say each game appears to be more serious entirely because of the "status" of the series at the time.  The first SSB sounded on paper like a minor novelty title.  They reused models from other N64 games for it.  It became a big hit.

Because of that Melee was not just some game, it was a sequel to smash hit.  So they gave it more attention.  A big part of it is that it's jammed full of Nintendo references and has the trophies and everything.  It's been described as a love letter to Nintendo fans.  Well if you're going to do that you're going to go the trouble to really make the best presentation you can.  I am someone who wanted those graphics in other Nintendo games but that was entirely because SSB Melee looked almost FMV quality and Super Mario Sunshine looked like a Dreamcast launch game.  HAL made a good looking Mario and EAD didn't.  Mario Sunshine looked half-assed and lazy in comparison.  Fortunately EAD did a great job with Galaxy both in gameplay and graphics so things worked out.

Anyway Melee turned SSB into a BIG Nintendo franchise.  It's not treated like some spin-off, it's like one of Nintendo's major system-selling franchises now.  So Brawl has to meet such expectations.  It has to be an event.  So of course it's going to turn out the way it did.  I didn't see any problem with it.  Any backlash I'm seeing here seems to be "hardcore gaming is teh sux" bias, which never existed with Nintendo fans until Nintendo informed them that the last 20 years of Nintendo games was actually no good and we should really just want dumbed down gameplay with intentionally half-assed graphics and sound.  I don't see much of a difference between Melee and Brawl (as a result I prefer Melee as it was more fresh) and everyone loved Melee's graphics.  But Melee came out at a different time when Nintendo wasn't trying to train its fanbase into thinking "hardcore games" are bad.

Though one thing to note is that SSB has to have a graphics style that works for all these characters from different games with different styles.  You have to make a world that both Kirby and Samus Aran have to co-exist in.  I think HAL has done a great job at that.

[KDR_11k]

I am someone who wanted those graphics in other Nintendo games but that was entirely because SSB Melee looked almost FMV quality and Super Mario Sunshine looked like a Dreamcast launch game.

I don't know, SSBM felt much older than SMS when I played it. The reflection in the fountain of dreams left a big impression with me though it was not positive.

[Kairon]

Any backlash I'm seeing here seems to be "hardcore gaming is teh sux" bias, which never existed with Nintendo fans until Nintendo informed them that the last 20 years of Nintendo games was actually no good and we should really just want dumbed down gameplay with intentionally half-assed graphics and sound.

As someone who played Both Turok 2 and Yoshi Story on the 64, before all this hullabaloo, I really couldn't agree with you less Ian. At least for me, this isn't about graphics or serious or silly at all. It is entirely to do with the innocent, yet sublimely cynical charm of stuffed dolls fighting each other on a table, being manipulated by a gloved hand, that's present only in the original Super Smash Bros.

That doesn't mean to say that I don't enjoy Melee and Brawl. But it does mean that I can recognize that I've lost something along the way. Make of that what you will.

[LuigiHann]

Though one thing to note is that SSB has to have a graphics style that works for all these characters from different games with different styles.  You have to make a world that both Kirby and Samus Aran have to co-exist in.  I think HAL has done a great job at that.

I agree that they did a great job in that respect. I almost want to disagree with the premise, and say that it'd be awesome if each character appeared as if they had popped directly out of their own world, but I suppose that wouldn't work quite as well in practice as it does in my head.

[Ian Sane]

It is entirely to do with the innocent, yet sublimely cynical charm of stuffed dolls fighting each other on a table, being manipulated by a gloved hand, that's present only in the original Super Smash Bros.

I like that storyline too but I'm more annoyed that the sequels don't really explain the context of what's going on very well.  The characters being toys was a good way to explain it while the later games have some weird ass crap to do with figurines or something?

That has no effect on the presentation or look of the game to me though.  I see the original SSB as being largely thrown together using models from other games and the sequels being given more attention and thus having their own models and a clear "SSB look" that the original doesn't have.  I don't think the original has much of a style, it's mostly Nintendo being lazy.

[Kairon]

Haha, then I gotta decouple myself from this visuals argument. All I really care about is that N64 intro, and the whimsy it imparted to the rest of the game.

[LuigiHann]

SSB64 definitely had its own style. It was a bright and happy style, but a style nonetheless. Also I wouldn't say a significant number of models were taken from other games. A good chunk of SSB's characters had never been seen in 3D before, and you couldn't mistake the models used for Mario, Link, or Donkey Kong for the ones used in their solo outings. The SSB models were extremely low-poly and simplified. It was the animations and the relative cleverness of the movesets that really made them feel like familiar characters.

I remember going into training mode and watching some of Link's animations in slow-motion. For a Nintendo 64 fighting game, I was impressed that for each of Link's item-based moves, they animated him reaching into his invisible backpack and pulling out the weapon before using it. There was a lot of attention to detail there.

[Mop it up]

HAL made a good looking Mario and EAD didn't.  Mario Sunshine looked half-assed and lazy in comparison.  Fortunately EAD did a great job with Galaxy both in gameplay and graphics so things worked out.

I don't know, I think that was more of a stylistic choice than laziness. Mario has always been a character with a simple personality, and as such having a simple art style suits him the best. Mario's overalls shouldn't have the stitching of the denim visible, Mario's hat shouldn't have a visible crease; his clothes should just be a singular colour with no texturing, which captures greatly a character of no complexity. The Mario model used in Melee and Brawl may be better designed in the technical sense, but it is too intricate to fit the character it represents. It looks too... real.

Simple, bright, colourful: that's Mario. There's no reason to change that.

[kraken613]

Lucky Japan!

I lost my copy of it... Hope it comes here soon!