Masahiro Sakurai discusses the addition of Miis in the new Smash Bros.
In this week’s issue of Famitsu, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS director Masahiro Sakurai wrote another column and discussed the addition of Miis to the game. You’ll find what he shared inside the magazine below.
“Incorporating Miis was explored in the previous game, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but I thought it over for about a minute and immediately decided against it.”
– There were concerns about potential bullying
– Miis were also generally viewed as light-hearted and simple caricatures, and not really fighting game material
– The change in how Miis were viewed and used led them to be revisited with the newest Smash Bros.
“Since the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the Mii has become an even more important figure as a personal icon through things like Miiverse. After all, it’s a character you see every time you start up your Wii U, and frequently with the 3DS, so it would be fair to say [the Mii] is quite a famous Nintendo character.”
– The main reason why Miis ended up in the new Smash Bros. is because it allowed players to add anyone into their game experience
– Sakurai has seen the myriad of character addition requests from gamers around the world
– Because of issues like copyright and development cost, most have never been used
– Players can now make and add their own character requests
– The ability to use Mii fighters in online play is disabled when playing against people you don’t know
“We don’t want the online play to become a copyright free-for-all and it’s probably not as fun to play against someone using a character based on someone you may not know.”
In his article, Sakurai’s pride in the effort that went into incorporating the Mii fighter is quite palpable.
“It’s a feature we’ve put quite a lot of effort into. I think it’s a revolutionary thing to be able to fight with Mario or Link or Kirby with your own character. Depending on who you are, this new Smash Bros. may hold quite a different meaning compared with previous iterations of Smash Bros.”
