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Super Smash Bros.

Super Smash Bros. future Masahiro Sakurai

Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai has shared his thoughts in the future of the series, including his involvement.

In a new video published to YouTube today, he mentioned that he “can’t really imagine a Smash Bros. title without me.” Sakurai added that, currently, there isn’t someone that could “take the reigns” from him.

Super Smash Bros. music

Have you ever wondered what the process is like when it comes to arranging music in the Super Smash Bros. series? Director Masahiro Sakurai provided insight as part of a new video shared today.

Sakurai first started out by explaining that a ton of potential songs are considered – the idea is to cast a wide net, even if some aren’t used in the end. After that, composers are gathered and he gives them instructions.

Super Smash Bros. Mortal Kombat

Super Smash Bros. has brought in characters from all sorts of legendary franchises – including fighting games like Street Fighter, Tekken, and Fatal Fury  – but Mortal Kombat has been left out of the mix. However, that’s not due to a lack of interest from its developers.

Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon, speaking with Axios, recently mentioned that Nintendo hasn’t asked for a Mortal Kombat character to appear in Smash Bros. But if Boon had his way, Scorpion would be his top choice to join the roster. If Nintendo asked for two characters, Sub-Zero would be next. Boon said “it’s cool to see a spear pull somebody,” which is why he’d go with Scorpion above anyone else.

Following his previous videos detailing development on games in the Kirby series, Masahiro Sakurai has released a new video on his channel providing a closer look at Super Smash Bros’ development.

Sakurai mentions that after Kirby Super Star’s launch was wrapped up, he moved onto independent 3D study, and proposed two games for the Nintendo 64: an RC robot adventure game where you would hack into security cameras to progress, and a four player free-for-all fighting game called Dragon King, which would go on to become Super Smash Bros. Sakurai also shares prototype footage of Dragon King in the video.

It’s summertime again (at least in the US), and around the time that Nintendo partakes in their sporadic tradition of creating renders of their characters in summer scenes. These are most commonly used for promotional images and can vary from individual renders of characters in a void space (such as this image of Peach with ice cream) or detailed scenes of characters in a natural environment (such as Mario lounging on the beach with sailboats in the background).

However, regardless of the content and the intended use of these images, they almost always cause speculation on upcoming game releases. An example of this comes from 2019 when this artwork of Mario eating a watermelon had people swearing that Super Mario Sunshine was coming to Switch. Since these theories never seem to bear any fruit (Super Mario Sunshine did eventually come to Switch, but there was no relation to the watermelon render), we figured instead of analyzing past renders that Nintendo has released, it might be fun to make our own.

The Mario movie is coming out next year and while very little is known about it, its delay in April hasn’t given Nintendo fans a lot of confidence in the production. Of course, it’s too early to tell if it will be a good movie or not, but what is interesting to discuss is what other Nintendo properties would be good movies.

When we consider this, it’s fair to ask – what makes a “good” movie? Is it the plot, memorable characters, an amazing soundtrack, or lots of Morbin’? I would say all that helps (especially the Morbin’), but when it comes to conceptualizing a movie from a video game, there’s a greater thing to consider: how does the core premise fits into a cinematic wrapper?

Smash Bros. movie

Cinematic universes and connecting characters is a big part of the movie industry, but we’ve seen to see Nintendo tackle the idea with something like Super Smash Bros., which is a gaming franchise famous for its crossovers. However, there is at least one notable director out there with experience who would like to give it a shot.

Jeff Fowler is just coming off the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 film which he directed. In an interview with Comicbook, he was asked about giving Smash Bros. the movie treatment. Here’s what he said in response:

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order

Fans have many dream characters they’d like to see in Super Smash Bros. across all sorts of franchises and mediums. Now that Marvel is getting heavily involved with gaming and even has an exclusive Switch title coming out in the very near future, could we see one of their characters in Nintendo’s fighter?

Game Informer posed that question to Marvel Games’ VP and creative director​​​​​​​ Bill Rosemann in its podcast last week. Rosemann seemed somewhat interested in idea, but was quick to note that such a decision would not fall in his hands.

Shmuplations has translated an interview with Super Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai. But rather than a recently-published interview, the site went back into the archives of Nice Games magazine from 1999, in which Sakurai discussed the original N64 game and more.

There are a few interesting comments here, such as talk about the original prototypes for Smash Bros. and how it could have been an action-adventure game. Sakurai also talked about having to overcome the perception that it would be “cheap”, and being upset with some of the overseas reviews.

Super Smash Bros. is celebrating a big milestone today. As it’s already January 21 in Japan, the series is now twenty years old.

Masahiro Sakurai has been at the helm since the beginning, and had a few words to say about the occasion on Twitter. He passed along the following message:


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