Smash Bros. Creator Answers Fan Questions

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is completed, but series creator Masahiro Sakurai’s job isn’t done yet. There’s still the Wii U version to come. But in the meantime, he answers some fan questions.

In his semi-weekly column in Weekly Famitsu, Sakurai addressed questions about Super Smash Bros. and added some insight and advice.

Question 1: Why does the game support the C stick on the New Nintendo 3DS, but not the expansion slide pad?

Sakurai: “Because supporting the expansion slide pad adds to the processing load on the CPU. Back when I was working on Kid Icarus: UPRISING, I was told it would add about 5%. This is a rather large amount. Both Kid Icarus and Smash Bros. utilise the Nintendo 3DS to its fullest extent and this was a wall that could not be overcome. Especially with Kid Icarus I would have liked to have used the expansion pad for targeting. With the New 3DS, however, the CPU has been upgraded and the C stick is not an expansion, and so we were able to support it.”

Question 2: Why did you make Zelda and Sheik and Samus and Zero Suit Samus separate individual characters?

Sakurai: “This is mainly due to the limitations of the 3DS. It’s a portable console and no matter what we do, making them into dual characters was impossible. However, limitations can lead to positive outcomes. Form-changing fighters have the negative aspect of losing their character distinctiveness as well as gameplay becoming vague, so I feel the way it turned out is cleaner and better.”

Question 3: Which is your preferred character?

Sakurai: “I don’t have one. However, for this game, I tend to like the heavier fighters.”

Question 4: What should I do about network play being laggy?

Sakurai: “Connectivity can depend heavily on location so I really don’t know what to say. At the very least, we’ve confirmed that smooth play is possible under various conditions of external networks. During multi-player, you’re connected with another player and sending light amounts of data back and forth, so if the game feels laggy, it’s due to the connection speed. If you play when it’s laggy, then the person you’re playing with will experience the same lag, so it’s best to play when the connection is clear. During development, there were cases where we had too many people and the connection became sluggish, so we turned off our cell phones and the connection would clear up. It’s best to avoid playing while streaming something or by a tethered connection. Free wi-fi spots are probably not very good either.”

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is out in Japan and scheduled for release in the US and Europe on October 3, and Australia on October 4. Happy fighting!

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