Sakurai on origins of Meteos, shares original proposal

Masahiro Sakurai is famous for his work on Smash Bros., but he’s working on a variety of other titles throughout his career – including Meteos. In the latest video for his YouTube channel, he delved into the game’s origins and even shared a proposal he made to help explain things a bit more easily.

During his days of supervising and consulting work, Tetsuya Mizuguchi – who was at SEGA before co-founding Q Games – asked Sakurai to make a falling-block puzzle game. Interestingly, Sakurai said he’s not really good at these types of titles. He wanted to do more than the risk and reward gameplay they offer (like creating a high stack in Tetris which is a risk, and then knocking them down into a big reward at once). 

Another aspect Sakurai was considering was coming up with a concept beyond just destroying blocks. This led to the idea of making matched blocks “blast off” and launching them dramatically in the air.

You can check out Sakurai’s full video on Meteos below, including the proposal presentation.

Meteos originally came to the DS in 2005. It spawned a few other related games, including Meteos: Disney Magic in 2007.