Sakurai and Yuji Horii on how Hero made it into Smash Bros., Yggdrasil’s Altar was almost scrapped, initially just Luminary and Erdrick

New information has emerged about the addition of Hero in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Director Masahiro Sakurai and Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii discussed the character during today’s live stream for Dragon Quest XI S.

Here’s the full roundup, courtesy of Siliconera:

– It all started with Sakurai and Nintendo saying that they had a proposal, which turned out to be asking if they could add Hero to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
– The proposal itself was very detailed
– Sakurai and Nintendo spoke very passionately, saying “We want to use Hero”
– There was some discussion about whether a monster could be better, but in the end they agreed upon it
– From Sakurai’s side, he says that requests to add in a Dragon Quest representative have been around for a long time, but he felt it wasn’t possible
– However, Nintendo approached Sakurai, saying it might be possible, and so he ended up doing the presentation proposal with the intent of working with Dragon Quest, although what from Dragon Quest would be worked out later on
– If he was told ‘no’ to Hero and ‘yes’ to Slime or something like that, he’d do it, but Sakurai felt Hero was the best option
– He did know that there would be many hurdles to working on Hero
– Ex: Hero hasn’t been seen fighting other characters before and they haven’t gotten voiced before
– Sakurai was quite convinced that he’d be rejected really quickly, but the agreement came surprisingly quickly
– According to the Square Enix side, it was partially because of Sakurai’s passion, and partially because the ‘best of’ element in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was quite similar to that of Dragon Quest XI S, which brings together many elements from across the series
– From Yuji Horii’s point of view, while before there was a resistance towards seeing Hero fighting other characters and other Heroes, it’s slowly become less strict, seeing as there is the smartphone game Dragon Quest Rivals, and such
– With Smash Bros. being such a popular series as well, Horii wanted Hero to join
– Sakurai acknowledges that there are people who hate characters like Hero who add in random elements
– However, in the first place, Super Smash Bros. is an unpredictable game where you have fun and move onto the next game anyways
– One particular spell Sakurai had trouble with was differentiating the Frizz line of spells (neutral B) and Sizz/Sizzle (via Command Select)
– He had to look up how the spell functioned in the original games, and how Frizz would float out to hit the enemy, while Sizz would fly quickly and sear the enemy when it hit the enemy
– Making the Yggdrasil’s Altar was indeed very troubling, to the point Sakurai thought of giving it up
– Some other alternatives included the volcano
– In the end, they decided upon the altar as it would show the world tree that symbolizes Dragon Quest XI
– The world map as seen in the stage references the world map in the PlayStation 4 version, but otherwise is made entirely from scratch
– Originally, there were only two Heroes set to join Smash Ultimate, being Erdrick and Luminary
– Horii later said it would be fine to have four Heroes join
– According to Sakurai, he was ready to make eight different Heroes, but that wasn’t a realistic option
– After Erdrick and Luminary, the hero of Dragon Quest VIII was decided as he was popular overseas
– Popularity wasn’t the only factor, as then the hero of Dragon Quest V would be included
– But that Hero wasn’t known for using swords, but rather staffs
– In the end, it came down to either the hero of Dragon Quest I or Dragon Quest IV, but as there wasn’t a unified image for Dragon Quest I’s main character across media, IV was decided upon