Masahiro Sakurai hurts arm; might affect Smash Bros. development

Smashgoom202

Smashgoom202

Dry Bowser
Retired Wiki Staff
Masahiro Sakurai hurt his arm, and it MIGHT affect the progress of the next Super Smash Bros.:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/27/4035046/why-masahiro-sakurais-bum-right-arm-is-hindering-work-on-the-new

Sakurai himself denies that, but thanks everyone for their concern:

 
Hopefully his injury doesn't impact Super Smash Bros. development. Sakurai is an overall good developer (despite making mistakes with Super Smash Bros. Brawl)
 
Baby Luigi said:
Hopefully his injury doesn't impact Super Smash Bros. development. Sakurai is an overall good developer (despite making mistakes with Super Smash Bros. Brawl)
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Funnily enough, I just saw this:

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Also, if his reactions to criticisms of Kid Icarus: Uprising is any indication, he doesn't seem to be the type of person who thinks there's anything wrong with the games he makes... which is a terrible mindset to have.
 
People just don't seem to acknowledge that he made Kirby and the Super Smash Bros. series in the first place. I think that comment was a bit uncalled for

But you're right on how he views that his games are perfect, even with clear criticisms of the game.
 
Baby Luigi said:
People just don't seem to acknowledge that he made Kirby and the Super Smash Bros. series in the first place.
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Shigeru Miyamoto created Mario, but that didn't make Paper Mario: Sticker Star any less of a disappointment... or his reasoning for the changes anymore hypocritical when you look at the New Super Mario Bros. series.

Just because Masahiro Sakuria created Super Smash Bros. doesn't mean he's automatically immune to criticism.
 
I knew someone would say that to me...

First, the comment was "if you're in charge, I'm always worried about Super Smash Bros. development". This implies that the other projects he worked on such as Super Smash Bros. Melee are also bad. And I didn't say that Sakurai was exempt from any criticism; I'd agree that Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a very solid game with some great flaws.

And Super Smash Bros. Brawl isn't as much as a disappointment as Sticker Star. At least Brawl retained many key elements Melee had and tried to have a new engine with more items, stages, and characters. Paper Mario: Sticker Star was badly butchered. If there was a set sample, chances are, people would probably have higher enjoyment with Brawl than Sticker Star.
 
actually brawl improved to hell and back considering how pathetic melee's balance was and its far worse roster.

Which sticker star hasnt seemed to improve really anything.
 
Crystal said:
actually brawl improved to hell and back considering how pathetic melee's balance was and its far worse roster.
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Tripping.

...Although, I do like Brawl's roster a lot more, of only because it has King Dedede and Wario in it. I feel like, as time goes on, SSBB just doesn't seem to hold up as much as the other SSB games... Maybe it's because of Sonic & All-Stars Racing and even PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale going nuts with their properties while in Super Smash Bros., characters barely seem to represent the games their from... or in some cases, even their own characters (Ike sticks out in my mind)! Stages are also guilty of this, too (New Porky City, pretty much a backdrop with an occasional appearance from the Ultimate Chimera, everything else... bleh).

But I guess those are all just nitpicky things in an otherwise enjoyable game. Still, I can't help but think of the trophies you can collect, and how limited they feel compared to the variety Melee had.
 
tripping is a minor thing compared to melees horrible balance and pathetic roster, not to mention its laughable ai.

plus trophies do nothing but sit there, so i dont see the problem.

and besides brawl had less clones, a better single player mode, and a much better ost.

There were some bad nerfs like samus and mario, but at least for the most part, brawl was a better game.

First two games are just meh in about every category i can think of.
 
Crystal said:
tripping is a minor thing compared to melees horrible balance and pathetic roster, not to mention its laughable ai.

plus trophies do nothing but sit there, so i dont see the problem.
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I don't pay attention to balance or tiers, but what I DO pay attention to is something that completely screw you over and you have no control over whatsoever in the middle of an intense fight. Also, what's there to complain about A.I.? That's only really an issue if you're playing alone.

I guess my problem with Brawl is appearance, not so much actual gameplay. The way it presents itself, it just feels shallow to me. Like they could have done more, instead of wasting time with "Masterpieces" or "Chronicles", whatever the heck they do.
 
balance is always important in fighting games, especially if the game decides that only a few select characters can actually do anything and not everyone has a bunch of friends to play with either, so often times they must rely on ai for them to play it.


although tripping is entirely random and i find it rarely ever happen, annoying yes, but its not like it happens every two seconds.

plus tripping alone does not effect the game as a whole. Brawl overall had better gameplay and features.

not sure how you think its presentation is any worse than any other smash bros games, its not like fighting games are the ultimate impact on people in terms of presentation.
 
I don't see what all the complaints are about "Masterpieces" and "Chronicles". Isn't the whole point of the blasted game to celebrate the different Nintendo IPs and then some, while including little tidbits of their many games into the game, be it trophies or the aforementioned masterpieces and chronicles. The Masterpieces didn't seem unnecessary, it gave some people a chance to see what the game the characters came from were like. The chronicle was basically a list of every Nintendo game released till that date which probably didn't take much time at all.
 
Crystal said:
balance is always important in fighting games, especially if the game decides that only a few select characters can actually do anything and not everyone has a bunch of friends to play with either, so often times they must rely on ai for them to play it.


although tripping is entirely random and i find it ever happen, annoying yes, but its not like it happens every two seconds.
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I acknowledge that there are characters who inherently have an advantage over other characters, but I'm also of the opinion that, with the time and dedication, you can be incredible amazing with any character. I have a friend who owns as Dan Hibinki in Street Fighter VI.

Also, in regards of the A.I., I speak as a guy who typically plays the game by himself, and I seriously don't give a dang either way. I hardly notice the difference between the two games, really, they're just computers programmed to do stuff during a fight. Eventually, when you fight them enough times, you figure out what they're going to do during any given situation. I'm told that if you ever want to get good at Smash Bros., you have to play with real people, it tests your skills with someone who doesn't fight conventionally.

Not that I care about any of that. To me, it's all about the novelty of playing as Nintendo characters, and playing on stages based on different Nintendo games, which is why I felt, in retrospect, Brawl was SLIGHTLY a bit of a letdown.

Looker said:
I don't see what all the complaints are about "Masterpieces" and "Chronicles". Isn't the whole point of the blasted game to celebrate the different Nintendo IPs and then some, while including little tidbits of their many games into the game, be it trophies or the aforementioned masterpieces and chronicles. The Masterpieces didn't seem unnecessary, it gave some people a chance to see what the game the characters came from were like. The chronicle was basically a list of every Nintendo game released till that date which probably didn't take much time at all.
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the basis of my complaints is that they COULD have used that time and energy making the Masterpieces and Chronicles stuff to be more creative with the characters and stages. Try to have the stages really encompass what kinds of games they're based on! And have the characters actually move and behave like they would in the game! Having Ike a slow heavyweight goes against who he was in Path of Radiance, not to mention, he feels more-or-less like a stand-in for Roy with his Eruption technique.

Again, REALLY nitpicky things, but I'd like them to devote more time to that instead of stuff we're not even going to use. Like, if I want to look up Nintendo games, I'd just use Wikipedia. Masterpieces hardly give you enough time to really "experience" the games, and honestly, I'd rather just use the Virutal Console itself. At least Trophies give you fun little bits of trivia (whether factual or not), and I'm a collectaholic when it comes to that kind of thing, and Stickers have a use in the Adventure Mode.
 
actually dan is known to be a very effective character so your point is pretty invalid, but hey whatever.

and the ai improved to a pretty huge amount, since they could actually notice a pattern, could actually dodge when needed, and not do the same exact thing every other cpu did.

a level 6 cpu in brawl was more challenging then a level 9 in melee for example.


and also melee made many characters useless, as mewtwo, bowser, donkey kong, pichu, zelda, and roy could do little to defend themselves from other characters.
 
I'm going to stop this debate now, because I literally have no information to go on with this, nor do I even really care about the "improvements" you're talking about. My issues with Brawl are purely cosmetic, since that's how I deal with every fighting game/mascot crossover.
 
Phew, for a second I thought somthing bad happened. Hurting an arm? I 've done that before, just pick yourself up and dust yourself off.
 
I'm hoping Sakurai gets better soon, and that the game will be even better than Brawl. =P

And without starting a Melee vs. Brawl war, I think Melee did some things better than Brawl, mainly for the single player modes since there more events that were more memorable, character unique target tests, and when you fight like certain CPUs in classic mode (like a Team) they actually spawn immediately once the match began, not like 5-10 seconds later. Also, there's no random tripping. :p

I still prefer Brawl in the end though. However, there are still some things I want fixed:

- I think Brawl was somewhat more balanced then Melee, but it's still not great. Now, I'm not asking to make literally EVERY match up even since that's impossible; it's fine if one character has a SLIGHT disadvantage/advantage against another character (like a bit more range overall than X character), but they need to make it so characters are not completely shut down by others. If they also put in Final Smashes, those need to be balanced too. I don't want to see them if they'll be overpowered like Sonic's where you have freedom of movement, super speed and invincibility. Or ones that give your character an entirely new moveset and make you invincible and ridiculously strong with freedom of movement (like Wario's). :P
Also, some stages need to be improved so it's not more of a hazard than the players, and not enormous/gimmicky stages. I'm looking at you, Rumble Falls, 75m, New Pork City, Aero Port Town Dive and others (except Temple, that one was actually fun lol). They make matches drag on FOREVER.

- I don't mind if they keep tripping, but please, NOT RANDOMLY. Low angled attacks or Banana Peels causing you to trip is fine though. And apparently the random trip rate is 1%. :p

- Make the online servers better. I don't need to go more into this; most of us know how bad Brawl's wi-fi is LOL

Yeah, that's pretty much my rant. =P
 
why exactly would an arm injury prevent or hinder the development of a game...?

it's not like he was coding or doing anything with his arm, he was probably just producing anyways.
 
Dr. Javelin said:
why exactly would an arm injury prevent or hinder the development of a game...?

it's not like he was coding or doing anything with his arm, he was probably just producing anyways.
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No, he personally playtests every single thing, so he would need both hands.

My opinion is that Sakurai is obviously pushing himself too hard, he should take a break at least until his arm is better, I'm pretty sure his team + Namco Bandai's fighting game team can handle themselves for a little while.
 
Xpike said:
Dr. Javelin said:
why exactly would an arm injury prevent or hinder the development of a game...?

it's not like he was coding or doing anything with his arm, he was probably just producing anyways.
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No, he personally playtests every single thing, so he would need both hands.
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ah, well

in that case i suppose it is slightly important, but unless his arm was amputated or something it'll heal and he'll be back at work

i still don't see why this made the news
 
That's because his condition was serious enough to make the news
 
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