Sakurai on how the amiibo support in Smash Bros. came to be, involvement with the figures
IGN has another round of quotes from Super Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai, this time focusing on amiibo. Sakurai discussed the origins of amiibo support in Smash Bros., how involved he was with the figure designs, and more.
Head past the break for the full comments.
On how the amiibo Smash Bros. support began…
“Discussions began toward the end of development. It was Nintendo that brought up the topic first, expressing a desire to use NFC compatible figures across all forms of Nintendo content. Smash Bros., as you know, is a game themed around figures which also has a ‘Nintendo all-stars’ aspect to it.”
“For getting amiibo involved with the game, we tried coming up with ideas that wouldn’t clash with the core of the Smash Bros. titles we’ve made up to now, wouldn’t put too much burden on production, and provided something attractive to players. Having them be computer players (CPs) you can enhance and upgrade – in other words, not making them player-controlled – was a good move, I think, in terms of positioning them as a separate entity from the players themselves.”
On what excited Sakurai about using amiibo as A.I.-driven computer players…
“Having characters mature via a typical level-up process is something we’ve seen as taboo in Smash Bros. That’s because a system where fighters get more powerful the more you use them goes against the grain of a game where people pit their techniques against each other. Using CPs instead provides an effective way of doing that, and also provides another outlet for gamers seeking stronger CPs. An amiibo raised up to max power is going to be really, really strong, as well as possess a lot of personality from a strategic perspective. I definitely recommend trying it out.”
On the level of input Sakurai had for the amiibo designs…
“The designs for the amiibo figures are originally based off character artwork, and I conceived just about all of the poses for this character artwork. For humanoid characters I posed figures and took photos of them; for non-humanoids, I provided assorted instructions to the people who created them. I’ve also provided a varied amount of supervising input to the three-dimensional amiibo figures. I didn’t do this with all the Nintendo characters – sometimes I was entirely hands-off – but I performed some checks and also provided feedback and changes for some amiibo.”
