SSB4: SSB for Wii U and 3DS, maybe the NX and also your toaster!

[Ragnell]

I'm assuming either Reyn is an assist trophy or Shulk's final smash randomly chooses 3 companions to attack. I can't imagine they would neglect Reyn for Riki when Reyn is your first party member and Shulk's best friend. Plus, how could they pass up a chance to include such gems as "Now it's Reyn time!" or "What a bunch of jokers!"?

The "Now it's Shulk time!" had me in stitches.

[Mighty Kamina]

I'm assuming either Reyn is an assist trophy or Shulk's final smash randomly chooses 3 companions to attack. I can't imagine they would neglect Reyn for Riki when Reyn is your first party member and Shulk's best friend. Plus, how could they pass up a chance to include such gems as "Now it's Reyn time!" or "What a bunch of jokers!"?

The "Now it's Shulk time!" had me in stitches.

I'd bet that Reyn, and maybe Fiora would show up as assist trophies. Reyn is Shulk's best friend, and Fiora is his love interest so I bet they'll show at at some point.

[Florete]

I think a lot of the anger toward this roster stems from people not understanding game development. When Sakurai and his team set out to design a SSB game, they don't start with "There will be exactly 50 characters, so let's start cutting!" they say, "How can we allocate the limited time we have to make as many fun characters as possible?" As such, the new clones should NEVER be seen to play a role in regular characters making it or getting cut. After Melee, Sakurai claimed that all 6 Melee clones took them about the time it would take to make one new character. We have seen 3 full clones, so even if every single one was cut, there more than likely would not be any new characters. The clones are complete bonus characters. Dr. Mario did not get revived over Mewtwo. Dr. Mario was probably slipped in at the last second using the devs' scraps of spare time. Honestly the SSB4 clones were probably even faster than the Melee clones, since they were likely alt costumes, so they were already modeled and rigged. There was no way Mewtwo could be added like that, he would have taken much, much more time. The Brawl vets would not return either; they're too unique, and would have taken much longer.

Next, and even more importantly, no one character necessarily causes another to get cut. I've seen lots of people shouting that they hate Shulk, or Duck Hunt, or the Wii Fit Trainer, because they "stole" someone else's spot. This is a baseless temper tantrum. If WFT was excluded from SSB4, Ridley would not automatically surf into the game basked in rainbows and happiness. There is no telling what would happen. Rarely is there ever a single character that blatantly gets in over another character (though we occasionally encounter that with characters in the same series, like Chrom/Robin). None of the newcomers has Ridley or Mewtwo's spot, because this idea of spots is wrong. They did not have time to make other characters yes, but that's a result of the development of all the newcomers AND veterans. It's all about dev time, and different characters may take widely different durations to make. It appears some characters are using re-textured Brawl models, which would obviously expedite their development. Other characters have no 3D models at all, or need a complete redesign, so they would definitely take a lot more dev time. In the end, this game of "What if Character X Got Cut?" is just that, a game of imagination. We have no idea how various characters impacted other character's inclusions or exclusions.

It's one thing to be upset that your favorite character did not make it, which is totally understandable, but it's starting to bug me how much people are crying out that certain characters shouldn't be in the game. Just because you don't like a character does not mean they do not deserve to be in SSB. Nor does it mean that no one likes that character. And just because they were not a popular request does not mean they will not become popular. If Sakurai only went by popular requests from Western players, we would not have Captain Falcon, Ness, Ice Climbers, Marth, Roy, Game & Watch, Pit, Ike, Lucas, R.O.B., and many others. And look how popular they've become. Hell, Ice Climbers apparently had some technical issues and probably got cut and the entire internet is practically burning down from the outrage. And the same people are shouting that Duck Hunt dog doesn't deserve to be in this game. Had ANYONE actually played or even HEARD of Ice Climber before Melee? Sakurai has a very good eye for unique fun characters, and I trust his judgement. I am cautiously optimistic that this will be one of the best SSB games yet.

Lastly, it was a couple pages back, but Duck Hunt dog totally is a part of gaming culture. How else would virtually the entire internet (even those who were too young to play Duck Hunt) know who he is, when his last game was 25 years ago?

This is a good post, but I think you posted it at the wrong forum. That is to say, I don't think much of what you said really applies to the people here. At least specifically, because I don't think anyone here has complained that Dr. Mario got in over Mewtwo and absolutely no one has complained about Shulk, much less "lots."

What could apply to someone here is your third paragraph, but it's still so general that it's hard to tell if you're actually trying to reach anyone in particular or just covering as many bases as you can.

For the record, R.O.B. still isn't popular and yes, I had heard of Ice Climber before Melee.

[solrocknroll]

lol at saying R.O.B. is less important than Ice Climbers

i mean, he's a peripheral for crying out loud. Even Duck Hunt is more important than Ice Climber,

[Florete]

lol at saying R.O.B. is less important than Ice Climbers

i mean, he's a peripheral for crying out loud. Even Duck Hunt is more important than Ice Climber,

Uh, are you responding to me? I never said anything of the sort. In fact, I've made plenty of arguments in the past about how much R.O.B. is one of the most important characters on the roster to Nintendo. I never compared it or Duck Hunt to Ice Climber.

I said R.O.B. isn't popular. That's all.

[Roivann]

lol at saying R.O.B. is less important than Ice Climbers

i mean, he's a peripheral for crying out loud. Even Duck Hunt is more important than Ice Climber,

Yeah, but he's a shitty peripheral.

[solrocknroll]

Uh, are you responding to me? I never said anything of the sort. In fact, I've made plenty of arguments in the past about how much R.O.B. is one of the most important characters on the roster to Nintendo. I never compared it or Duck Hunt to Ice Climber.

I said R.O.B. isn't popular. That's all.

Oh. Sorry. I took the whole "R.O.B. isn't popular" thing wrong.

[Jotari]

Popularity and importance are vastly different things. R.O.B clearly wasn't popular since they only bothered to make one game that didn't come bundled with him. But his importance far exceeds possibly any other character out there.

[Kiseki]

I think a lot of the anger toward this roster stems from people not understanding game development. When Sakurai and his team set out to design a SSB game, they don't start with "There will be exactly 50 characters, so let's start cutting!" they say, "How can we allocate the limited time we have to make as many fun characters as possible?" As such, the new clones should NEVER be seen to play a role in regular characters making it or getting cut. After Melee, Sakurai claimed that all 6 Melee clones took them about the time it would take to make one new character. We have seen 3 full clones, so even if every single one was cut, there more than likely would not be any new characters. The clones are complete bonus characters. Dr. Mario did not get revived over Mewtwo. Dr. Mario was probably slipped in at the last second using the devs' scraps of spare time. Honestly the SSB4 clones were probably even faster than the Melee clones, since they were likely alt costumes, so they were already modeled and rigged. There was no way Mewtwo could be added like that, he would have taken much, much more time. The Brawl vets would not return either; they're too unique, and would have taken much longer.

Next, and even more importantly, no one character necessarily causes another to get cut. I've seen lots of people shouting that they hate Shulk, or Duck Hunt, or the Wii Fit Trainer, because they "stole" someone else's spot. This is a baseless temper tantrum. If WFT was excluded from SSB4, Ridley would not automatically surf into the game basked in rainbows and happiness. There is no telling what would happen. Rarely is there ever a single character that blatantly gets in over another character (though we occasionally encounter that with characters in the same series, like Chrom/Robin). None of the newcomers has Ridley or Mewtwo's spot, because this idea of spots is wrong. They did not have time to make other characters yes, but that's a result of the development of all the newcomers AND veterans. It's all about dev time, and different characters may take widely different durations to make. It appears some characters are using re-textured Brawl models, which would obviously expedite their development. Other characters have no 3D models at all, or need a complete redesign, so they would definitely take a lot more dev time. In the end, this game of "What if Character X Got Cut?" is just that, a game of imagination. We have no idea how various characters impacted other character's inclusions or exclusions.

It's one thing to be upset that your favorite character did not make it, which is totally understandable, but it's starting to bug me how much people are crying out that certain characters shouldn't be in the game. Just because you don't like a character does not mean they do not deserve to be in SSB. Nor does it mean that no one likes that character. And just because they were not a popular request does not mean they will not become popular. If Sakurai only went by popular requests from Western players, we would not have Captain Falcon, Ness, Ice Climbers, Marth, Roy, Game & Watch, Pit, Ike, Lucas, R.O.B., and many others. And look how popular they've become. Hell, Ice Climbers apparently had some technical issues and probably got cut and the entire internet is practically burning down from the outrage. And the same people are shouting that Duck Hunt dog doesn't deserve to be in this game. Had ANYONE actually played or even HEARD of Ice Climber before Melee? Sakurai has a very good eye for unique fun characters, and I trust his judgement. I am cautiously optimistic that this will be one of the best SSB games yet.

Lastly, it was a couple pages back, but Duck Hunt dog totally is a part of gaming culture. How else would virtually the entire internet (even those who were too young to play Duck Hunt) know who he is, when his last game was 25 years ago?

Not sure if you're trying to call me out specifically, but I agree with your whole post. It surprises me that people think Wii Fit Trainer stole someone's spot, even though she was revealed shortly after the games were announced. To me, it feels like people now don't want Sakurai to do what he wants to do, which is making the impossible become possible. Nobody thought Wii Fit Trainer had any potential moves at the time and now people are saying that Duck Hunt Dog has no moves. In fact, I think Wii Fit Trainer is a very clever and excellent addition to the roster that I don't think people should hate on. I was originally against Duck Hunt Dog being included, but once I thought of the idea of his moveset referencing classic NES titles I started to lighten up to the idea of his inclusion. Besides, I don't see any point in arguing "Character Y replaced Character X!", because that would just open up room for more unnecessary arguments that really aren't worth the trouble.

Also, when was it mentioned that there were technical issues with Ice Climbers? I don't ever recall hearing this anywhere and I don't think that should prevent their inclusion. Sakurai has proved many times in the past that anything is possible, so the issue of technical issues seems unrealistic for someone like him.

[DodgeDusk]

Whilst I can't search for the article right now, Sakurai said something around E3 2013 that the Smash team were having difficulties implementing the Ice Climbers in the 3DS version

Edited August 30, 2014 by DodgeDusk

[Nova]

Whilst I can't search for the article right now, Sakurai said something around E3 2013 that the Smash team were having difficulties implementing the Ice Climbers in the 3DS version

Although he never explicitly said that he meant the Ice Climbers themselves. I don't remember his exact words, but he said something along the lines of "something like the Ice Climbers". Rosalina was revealed a little while after that, so many believed that he meant her.

[DodgeDusk]

Luma's AI is said to be less complicated than Nana (I've got nothing to back this up; heard this from aspiring programmers). Which makes sense, considering Nana actually has to act independently whenever she's separated from Popo, or when the player has inputted a command for Popo. Perhaps the 3DS simply can't handle 8 Ice Climbers at one time. The old one, anyway

[Ninian]

What about 12 Pikmin and 4 Olimars?

[kingddd]

What about 12 Pikmin and 4 Olimars?

The Pikmin always follows Olimar and they don't act independently in a lot of situations. They only take actions when you throw them and even then those actions are only one specific task. There isn't much actual AI in it to begin with. Nana on the other hand has to follow what the player does, act naturally and has a lot of complicated situations where she has to act independently in her current situation.

Edited August 30, 2014 by kingddd

[Anacybele]

Olimar was reduced to three Pikmin at a time though. There might still have been some issues with him.

[Ninian]

Then implement a Super Ice Climber with two hammers.

[Jotari]

Nana's AI really isn't that complicated though. It's barely even AI. She's just mimicing the actions of Popo. Essentially when you're pressing the A button to attack it just results on two characters performing the action if able. In fact it's so easy they were considering having Ditto as a pokeball pokemon who could give every character a Nana style assist in Melee but only scarpped it because of problems when it came to cloning two Ice Climbers (which easily could have had more to do with balancing than technical difficulties).

[kingddd]

Nana's AI really isn't that complicated though. It's barely even AI. She's just mimicing the actions of Popo. Essentially when you're pressing the A button to attack it just results on two characters performing the action if able. In fact it's so easy they were considering having Ditto as a pokeball pokemon who could give every character a Nana style assist in Melee but only scarpped it because of problems when it came to cloning two Ice Climbers (which easily could have had more to do with balancing than technical difficulties).

It may not be complicated but there are a lot of actions Nana does on her own that isn't player dependent. She only mimicks when you're beside each other. When she's far away, she actually does somethings independently like jumping on her own and tries her best to reach back the player as much as possible. This is especially problematic depending on the stage.

[Ninian]

Isn't the 3DS supposed to be more powerful than the Gamecube? I remember hearing that somewhere...

[Alertcircuit]

Isn't the 3DS supposed to be more powerful than the Gamecube? I remember hearing that somewhere...

It's slightly below it I think.

[Ninian]

I remember having four Ice Climbers on Mushroom Kingdom 2 and on Icicle Mountain, even Mute City in Melee, no issues. So why would it be an issue on the 3DS?

[kingddd]

Isn't the 3DS supposed to be more powerful than the Gamecube? I remember hearing that somewhere...

It maybe but they probably added a lot more graphical processing to the 3DS version of Smash bros compared to Melee and Brawl. Sure the resolution maybe lower but the shaders and the graphical effects on the 3DS version is much more cleaner and prettier than the GCN and Wii verson. At the same time, the character animations runs at 60fps and the Assist Trophies are 30fps on the 3DS version. Not to mention if you turn up the 3D and added 8 Ice climbers into the game could cause problems. When I was playing smash run, I actually felt some FPS drops when I kept getting hit by enemies. They were probably wanting to achieve a flawless 60fps interactions with the battles.

[Jotari]

It may not be complicated but there are a lot of actions Nana does on her own that isn't player dependent. She only mimicks when you're beside each other. When she's far away, she actually does somethings independently like jumping on her own and tries her best to reach back the player as much as possible. This is especially problematic depending on the stage.

That still isn't incredibly complicated stuff at all. The regular CPU enemies do way more complicated actions with no issues in the slightest.

[Comet]

That still isn't incredibly complicated stuff at all. The regular CPU enemies do way more complicated actions with no issues in the slightest.

imagine this. You have four IC players on the field, desynched from their respective nanas. The game is now processing all of the popo inputs, AND the four nanas, whose actions depend on what popo does even when desynched, meaning 8 total "players." Melee actually lagged sometimes when there were 4 players (citation needed), so with the 3ds's weaker cpu, it shouldn't be hard to see the result. Edited August 31, 2014 by Comet

[Jotari]

imagine this. You have four IC players on the field, desynched from their respective nanas. The game is now processing all of the popo inputs, AND the four nanas, whose actions depend on what popo does even when desynched, meaning 8 total "players." Melee actually lagged sometimes when there were 4 players (citation needed), so with the 3ds's weaker cpu, it shouldn't be hard to see the result.

I'd have to test it out myself but I never recall melee ever lagging due to excessive Ice Climbers. The game even pits you against two sets of Ice Climbers in both event matches and Adventure mode so it's not shy about using them. The game also would send at least five Wire Frames at you in Multi Man Melee/team battles from what I can recall which means if your using Ice Climbers yourself means there's seven fighters on the stage at once without issue. Considering even when desynced the extent of Nana's AI is, get back to Popo, jump when needed, attack when told and able, which is barely more advanced than the Pikmin's run back to Olimar method. Four desynced Ice Climbers is also an exceptional situation that isn't likely to occur unless intended. In which case a little lag is not the end of the world. So long as it doesn't crash the game isn't not a problem. If they're concerned with lag then they wouldn't have even given us online Brawl -_-. And while the current 3DS may have a weaker CPU than the Game Cube, it's still a console made a good ten years later which is an immense amount of time when it comes to developing new methods in computer science.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Jotari