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Regular and prolific visitors of the Dojo will have noticed a relatively unassuming link under the bit about Manaphy (about Manaphy: why do all the Pokéball Pokémon look like they've been made using last-generation graphics?). It is a link to Wii.com. Of note is the first part of an apparently four-part series with Sakurai about Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
I'd advise those who haven't already to check it out now. Or, if you're to lazy, here are the highlights (and by highlights, I mean stuff that stood out to me the most).
The wall of text is worth reading. I truly do believe that, if the first Smash Bros. wasn't (and this is totally ignoring every single Kirby game, mind you!), then SSBB truly would be Sakurai's masterpiece. But, I think he's already proven himself a master of game-making with the aforementioned games, so, despite his relative youth, one daresay it may be his Swan's Song. But I don't think that best describes it, either. It's somewhere in between the two, for sure. Who cares where, though: SSBB will be an epic game.
I'd advise those who haven't already to check it out now. Or, if you're to lazy, here are the highlights (and by highlights, I mean stuff that stood out to me the most).
Iwata
So, during that E3 [2005], I invited you to my hotel room and told you what I was hoping to do. That was the start of the project…there wasn’t any specifications set, nor were there any framework.
Sakurai
And the fact that I had already quit HAL Laboratory made the things a bit complicated…
Iwata
Well, I had considered what I would do if you turned me down and decided that I would need to take the existing Smash Bros. title, Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo GameCube, and try to make it Wi-Fi capable while preserving as much balanced game play as possible in the event you didn’t want to get involved. Maybe it’s more appropriate to say that I realized we wouldn’t be able to add any new elements to the game without your help and I think I said as much when we discussed it at the hotel. It wasn’t right, but you might even say I used it as a threat of sorts.
Sakurai
It certainly had the desired impact!
Iwata
(laughs)
So, during that E3 [2005], I invited you to my hotel room and told you what I was hoping to do. That was the start of the project…there wasn’t any specifications set, nor were there any framework.
Sakurai
And the fact that I had already quit HAL Laboratory made the things a bit complicated…
Iwata
Well, I had considered what I would do if you turned me down and decided that I would need to take the existing Smash Bros. title, Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo GameCube, and try to make it Wi-Fi capable while preserving as much balanced game play as possible in the event you didn’t want to get involved. Maybe it’s more appropriate to say that I realized we wouldn’t be able to add any new elements to the game without your help and I think I said as much when we discussed it at the hotel. It wasn’t right, but you might even say I used it as a threat of sorts.
Sakurai
It certainly had the desired impact!
Iwata
(laughs)
Iwata
My decision to pursue the project in this way rested on one point and one point alone, and it is deeply tied to the point about which I have the utmost faith in a man named Masahiro Sakurai. To state it simply, you are capable of taking a project with nothing and visualizing a completed game almost perfectly in your head. As I mentioned earlier, you and I have a long history working together at HAL Laboratory. When involved on the same project, you were able to point out the smallest details even when the product had yet to take shape. The details were so small and so specific that, as a programmer, I thought there was no way you could know what you knew without actually trying it first. As the game progressed and took shape, however, it was clear that we needed to address the details in just the way you had described. So I would ask "did you really know this right from the start?" I mean, this was over ten years ago, but I remember you said you did and I thought to myself "is this guy for real?" As it happened over and over again, however, I had little choice but to believe you. I don’t know how, but you’re able to visualize a game right down to its very details, as if the finished game is working inside your mind. If not, how else could you have been right so many times? Even now, Masahiro Sakurai, of all the people that I know, you especially can readily form an image of how a game will look when finished. That’s why I knew that you would be capable of putting together the ideas of the talented staff around you. If you don’t have a person like that pulling together different ideas, you need a lot of trust within the team or the project will not go anywhere. When a project has just begun, it’s natural for directions to come from a vague concept of the product. It’s natural for there to be revisions and twists and turns, and as this continues, the project becomes something different than it was at the start. This is not necessarily a bad thing and happens all the time when designing games. However, this only works because of the trust built up from the past of a long working relationship. That’s why it was so unusual to recruit outside staff solely for the purpose of making such a large-scale game. Yet it was exactly this type of thinking on which I was betting our success.
Sakurai
Wow…uh, thanks for the words of praise. (laughs)
Iwata
Well, it’s not just a compliment. I realized I made a decision that would place a heck of a lot of pressure on you. (laughs)
My decision to pursue the project in this way rested on one point and one point alone, and it is deeply tied to the point about which I have the utmost faith in a man named Masahiro Sakurai. To state it simply, you are capable of taking a project with nothing and visualizing a completed game almost perfectly in your head. As I mentioned earlier, you and I have a long history working together at HAL Laboratory. When involved on the same project, you were able to point out the smallest details even when the product had yet to take shape. The details were so small and so specific that, as a programmer, I thought there was no way you could know what you knew without actually trying it first. As the game progressed and took shape, however, it was clear that we needed to address the details in just the way you had described. So I would ask "did you really know this right from the start?" I mean, this was over ten years ago, but I remember you said you did and I thought to myself "is this guy for real?" As it happened over and over again, however, I had little choice but to believe you. I don’t know how, but you’re able to visualize a game right down to its very details, as if the finished game is working inside your mind. If not, how else could you have been right so many times? Even now, Masahiro Sakurai, of all the people that I know, you especially can readily form an image of how a game will look when finished. That’s why I knew that you would be capable of putting together the ideas of the talented staff around you. If you don’t have a person like that pulling together different ideas, you need a lot of trust within the team or the project will not go anywhere. When a project has just begun, it’s natural for directions to come from a vague concept of the product. It’s natural for there to be revisions and twists and turns, and as this continues, the project becomes something different than it was at the start. This is not necessarily a bad thing and happens all the time when designing games. However, this only works because of the trust built up from the past of a long working relationship. That’s why it was so unusual to recruit outside staff solely for the purpose of making such a large-scale game. Yet it was exactly this type of thinking on which I was betting our success.
Sakurai
Wow…uh, thanks for the words of praise. (laughs)
Iwata
Well, it’s not just a compliment. I realized I made a decision that would place a heck of a lot of pressure on you. (laughs)
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