User:TheJoebro64/drafts/Brawl

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a 2008 crossover fighting game for the Wii featuring characters from Nintendo franchises. It is the third installment in the Super Smash Bros. series created by Masahiro Sakurai and the sequel to 2001's Melee. The game was primarily developed by Sora Ltd. and Game Arts, with Sakurai serving as director, designer, and co-writer.

Like preceding Super Smash Bros. titles, Brawl departs from traditional fighting games due to its emphasis on knocking opponents off the screen rather than depleting their health bar. It features 35 playable characters and a variety of game modes, ranging from elimination-based tournaments to objective-oriented minigames. Brawl also features The Subspace Emissary, a story-driven campaign with side-scrolling levels and CGI cutscenes. It is the first Super Smash Bros. game to feature non-Nintendo characters, with Konami's Solid Snake and Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog being playable. It also introduced Final Smashes, character-specific super attacks, and online multiplayer via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

Development began in October 2005 and required the involvement of 700 individuals, with roughly 100 working on the game full-time. Sakurai was initially unsure about returning to Super Smash Bros. a third time, having left the series' original developer HAL Laboratory in 2003, but decided to after receiving encouragement from The Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma.

Gameplay

Premise

See also: Gameplay of the Super Smash Bros. series

Like its predecessors Super Smash Bros. (1999) and Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001), Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a fighting game in which players attempt to defeat opponents and win matches. It differs from traditional fighting games because, instead of winning matches by depleting an opponent's health bar, players seek to eliminate others by knocking their opponents off the screen. A meter measuring damage represents health; players start with none and can reach a maximum of 999 percent. The higher the percentage value, the farther the player gets knocked back. When a player is knocked beyond a stage's boundary and disappears from the screen, they lose either a life, a point, or coins, depending on the game mode. The game supports a variety of control configurations, including the Wii Remote (with or without the Nunchuk extension), the GameCube controller, or the Classic Controller. Players can create profiles with personalized button configurations for each control method with their chosen username.

Players fight using a variety of attacks, executing each move by pressing a button in conjunction with a tilt of the control stick or a press of the D-pad depending on the control method. In addition to basic attacks, the selected characters have access to more powerful moves, known as smash attacks. Each character has four unique moves, which often cause effects besides damage to an opponent. Brawl introduces "Final Smashes", character-specific super attacks. Significantly more powerful than regular attacks, Final Smashes have a wide variety of effects that range from nearly unavoidable blasts to temporary transformations. Final Smashes can be performed by destroying a colorful floating orb bearing the Smash Bros. logo. Players can also use items ranging from projectiles to melee weapons; each has a different effect on the characters. Although many items have returned from previous Smash Bros. games, new ones have been introduced as well. Some returning items have changed appearance and function.

Game modes

Brawl's main multiplayer-oriented game modes are accessed from the Group section on the menu. In the Brawl mode, up to four players or computer-controlled characters can fight. After selecting a character, players choose a stage to fight on. Stages range from floating platforms to moving areas where the characters must stay within the field of play, and are usually based on plot devices or locations from series represented in Super Smash Bros. Certain stages return from Melee. Variations of Group are present, such as Special Brawl, which enables players to customize the rules. Tourney mode enables players to create an elimination-based tournament where up to 32 can play, while Rotation allows up to 16 players compete in sequence by switching out winners or losers after each round.

Single-player modes designed to improve the player's skills are accessed from the Solo menu. In Classic Mode, players fight individual characters in a predetermined order; each match features an arena or opponent from a particular series and some have a unique battle condition. In All Star Mode and Boss Battles, the player has only one life and must defeat all of the playable characters and bosses, respectively. Events are matches with predetermined battle conditions such as defeating opponents within a time limit or reaching a specific goal. Brawl also features Stadium mode, a collection of objective-oriented minigames. These include Target Smash, where the player must break ten targets as quickly as possible, and the Home-Run Contest, where players must beat Sandbag to inflict as much damage as possible in 10 seconds before striking it with a baseball bat. Most Solo modes support cooperative or competitive multiplayer.

The game's story campaign, The Subspace Emissary, is also accessed from Solo menu. It features approximately eight hours of platforming gameplay, with a unique storyline, numerous side-scrolling levels and bosses, and CGI cutscenes explaining the plot. Unlike other game modes, The Subspace Emissary has a team system for the characters, with a limited choice of characters at the beginning of the mode. Others join as the story progresses, while some characters may leave the team temporarily. In cooperative multiplayer, once one player loses a life, an ally can take his or her place until they run out of lives, at which point the game ends. Players are given the choice of quitting or starting again at the last point they saved progress. The Subspace Emissary also features a game mechanic in which players can apply collectible stickers to their character and strengthen their abilities.

Brawl was the first Super Smash Bros. game to feature online multiplayer. Via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, players could engage in online battles with registered friends or with randomly selected participants. With friends, they could converse with up to four preset phrases appearing as speech bubbles when activated. Players could also spectate matches and bet on the outcome using coins earned within the game; the winner earned a jackpot of coins. Additionally, players could send video replay footage can be captured in specific game modes. On May 20, 2014, Nintendo discontinued the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, disabling Brawl's online mode.

Characters

See also: Characters in the Super Smash Bros. series

Brawl features 35 playable characters from various Nintendo franchises, such as Super Mario and Kirby. Of these, 20 return from the original game and Melee, while 15 are new. Players are given access to 21 of these characters at the start of the game and must unlock the remaining 14 by completing challenges. Returning characters play similarly to their incarnations in Melee, but have been updated in terms of appearance and/or fighting capabilities. For example, Mario can now use his water cannon from Super Mario Sunshine (2002), while The Legend of Zelda's Link wears his outfit from Twilight Princess (2006). Like Melee, some characters are "clones" of others, meaning they play similarly but have some different aesthetics and moves. Five characters from Melee—Mario's Dr. Mario, Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade's (2002) Roy, Zelda: Ocarina of Time's (1998) Young Link, and the Pokémon franchise's Mewtwo and Pichu—are absent in Brawl.

Some of Brawl's newcomers come from previously represented series: Wolf joins Star Fox's Fox and Falco; Meta Knight and King Dedede join Kirby; Diddy Kong joins Donkey Kong; Lucas joins Ness from Mother; the Fire Emblem series gains Ike from Path of Radiance (2005); Pokémon's Pokémon Trainer, who can summon Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard, and Lucario join Pikachu and Jigglypuff; and Toon Link from Zelda: The Wind Waker (2003) replaces Young Link. Additionally, Samus Aran from Metroid can now transform into Zero Suit Samus, granting her a different set of moves and attacks. Representatives for new series include Wario from WarioWare, Pit, the title character of Kid Icarus (1986), Captain Olimar from Pikmin, and R.O.B., a character based on the eponymous Nintendo Entertainment System accessory. Brawl is the first Super Smash Bros. title to feature non-Nintendo characters, with Solid Snake from Konami's Metal Gear and Sonic from Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog appearing as playable characters.

Numerous non-player characters appear in Brawl, although their functionalities differ. Two varieties of items, Assist Trophies and Poké Balls, respectively summon guest characters (such as Waluigi) and Pokémon that temporarily aid the summoner. They cannot be controlled by players and are usually invincible. Like previous games, Classic Mode culminates with a boss fight against the glove-like entities Master Hand and Crazy Hand. The Subspace Emissary features existing Nintendo characters such as Mario's Petey Piranha and Metroid's Ridley, in addition to new ones like Tabuu—a humanoid apparition and the mode's main antagonist—and its levels feature enemies like Goombas from Mario alongside original ones. Numerous other characters also make cameo appearances.

• https://www.denofgeek.com/us/games/nintendo/278829/super-smash-bros-characters-ranked

Extra content

Extra content the player has unlocked can be viewed in the Vault section on the menu. The trophy game mechanic from Melee returns in Brawl. Trophies are statues of video game characters and objects that give brief histories or descriptions of their subjects. A minigame, the Coin Launcher, is the primary method of obtaining trophies; players use coins as projectiles to shoot trophies and counter incoming dangers. Trophies unavailable in the Coin Launcher are obtained by throwing an item called the Trophy Stand at weakened enemies in The Subspace Emissary or through the Challenges menu, an interactive display which catalogs unlocked features and items in gridded windows. Players can also collect stickers of video game artwork, and place them along with trophies onto virtual backgrounds and take screenshots.

The Vault contains Masterpieces, demos of several Nintendo games released for older consoles, such as Super Mario Bros. (1985) and F-Zero (1990), that feature characters playable in Brawl. These games use Virtual Console technology to emulate older hardware and have time limits ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes. Additionally, the Vault features the Chronicle, a comprehensive list of Nintendo games sorted by release date and console. New games appear when certain characters, trophies or stickers related to the game are unlocked. Players can also view saved replays of matches and screenshots, and can use the Stage Builder to create custom arenas for play in the Brawl mode. Another section, Data, lets the player watch trailers and Subspace Emissary cutscenes, and listen to music.

Plot

• https://www.shacknews.com/article/87146/re-visiting-super-smash-bros-brawls-subspace-emissary-story-mode
• https://www.smashbros.com/wii/en_us/gamemode/modea/modea17.html

Development

In 2003, HAL Laboratory's Masahiro Sakurai, who directed and designed Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64 and Melee for the GameCube, resigned from his position due to what he perceived was a lack of creative freedom. While he was unsure of the series' future, Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo who had worked on the games, told Sakurai he would be consulted if a new game was commissioned. In May 2005, at Nintendo's pre-E3 press conference in Los Angeles, Iwata gave a presentation about the Wii console (then known by its codename Revolution). Prior to the presentation, Nintendo conducted a poll on which games players wanted to be Wi-Fi compatible, and many named Super Smash Bros. Nintendo of America employees wanted to announce a new game in the series, but planning had not begun and they had not discussed the idea with HAL. At the conference, Iwata said he hoped a new Super Smash Bros. game would be released for the Wii as a Wi-Fi compatible title. However, many in the room mistook this as confirmation the series would come to the Wii. For example, IGN reported Iwata said a team was "hard at work" on a Wii Super Smash Bros. and that it would be a launch title for the system.

Satoru Iwata in 2011

The announcement took Sakurai, who was in attendance at E3 to find an opportunity for a new project, by surprise. After the conference, Iwata invited Sakurai to a meeting with him in his hotel room. Iwata clarified development had not actually started and asked Sakurai for his involvement, possibly to direct. Sakurai was initially hesitant, but accepted the offer after Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma encouraged him to return to the series. While he had other job requests, Sakurai determined no other project would make people as happy as Super Smash Bros. Iwata said that in the case Sakurai declined, Nintendo would have ported Melee to the Wii with Wi-Fi compatibility instead, an idea both thought would have been disappointing. Development of Brawl began in October 2005, when Nintendo established a new office in Tokyo for its production. Sakurai received suggestions to develop the game at Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto, but determined it was best to work in Tokyo because transportation was convenient. Nintendo rented an office in Takadanobaba, and Sakurai even moved to the neighborhood for the project.

Brawl had an unusual development team, as the one at HAL that produced Melee was preoccupied with another project. The preliminary development stages were handled by Game Arts, a studio Shigeru Miyamoto introduced to Sakurai. According to Sakurai, Game Arts recently finished Grandia III (2005) and had staff free who were fans of Melee. Other staff came from Sakurai's studio Sora Ltd., as well as Monolith Soft and Paon. HAL provided the team with the original game engine used to develop Melee, which Sakurai felt made production more efficient. Overall, 700 people were involved with the development of Brawl, with roughly 100 working on the game full-time. Because all strongly desired to work on a new Super Smash Bros. game, according to Sakurai, the team did not encounter problems. Like he had with Melee, Sakurai treated Brawl as if it would be the final Super Smash Bros. game, as he felt "it wasn't possible to keep on increasing the characters that are entitled to take the field in Smash Bros. And even if you try to utilize new familiar characters that resonate with the fans, you can't get each and every gamer to be happy."

Design

Sakurai finished the software design description for Brawl on July 7, 2005. One of his main goals was to make the option of playing online available in some way. He chose to avoid implementing a ranking system because he feared only a small number of individuals would have fun. While online multiplayer was one of the primary reasons Brawl was created, Sakurai said there were "hurdles of all sorts that [made] it very difficult" to implement the feature. For example, he wanted to implement the ability for players to communicate using a keyboard or through voice chat, but was unable to because of Nintendo's regulations about communicating on the Wii. The team limited the abilities to converse and see others' names to matches with friends so new players would not be insulted by others. Sakurai also chose against implementing Mii characters and the Wii Remote's motion capture technology—both major features of the console—because he thought Wii players would be looking for a new experience. Additionally, the team found that the Wii Remote got in the way of gameplay, so they kept the same control scheme from the GameCube game. Sakurai commented that had he worked at Nintendo, Brawl would have been "more in line with the Wii."

While all Super Smash Bros. games are designed for beginners, Sakurai and Iwata felt Brawl in particular would develop players' interest in the series. Indeed, it is meant for a casual audience, with gameplay slower than the fast, more competition-oriented Melee. Sakurai reasoned the adjustments made the game easier to play, as he felt Melee's style made it harder for less experienced gamers. He also noted the Wii Remote has a D-pad rather than an analog stick, which he said could not withstand Melee's speed. Sakurai considered Final Smashes Brawl's biggest addition to the Super Smash Bros. formula. These moves were designed to make it easier for less experienced players to catch up if they were losing a match. He conceived the concept during the development of the Nintendo 64 game and went as far as to have voice actors record clips for the moves, but did not implement the idea until Brawl. The nine-year-old voice clips were reused unaltered because Sakurai thought they were "perfect". The game was programmed using Havok, a physics engine that allows developers make characters and objects in games react more realistically.

One difficulty the designers faced was creating a consistent aesthetic. Because the roster is varied, Sakurai felt it would be unnatural to have cartoonish characters fight photorealistic ones and made small changes to bridge the gap. For example, the artists gave the texture of Mario's overalls a more realistic denim appearance instead of the bright blue texture he is traditionally seen with, and made Olimar's space suit more detailed. Pit's appearance had not been updated in 20 years, so the Brawl team redesigned him entirely, looking to the way Link evolved into his Twilight Princess incarnation for inspiration. Although the Wii does not support high-definition graphics, Sakurai noted it was still powerful enough to create detailed visuals. Sakurai used a 4" Microman figurine to show artists/animators the character poses he wanted. He took 30 to 50 pictures of figurine poses for each character, which were then used as a reference to animate. Sakurai handled all the balancing and looked to characters' games for inspiration when doing so. He made Samus' jump have "more float" that Mario's because in Metroid titles "players needed to be able to fire at enemies and doors from an arbitrary height", and sought to preserve Sonic's "exhilarating" speed. Since Sonic is not traditionally seen punching and kicking in Sonic games, Sakurai looked to Virtua Fighter for inspiration when designing his basic moveset.

Character selection

The majority of Brawl's playable characters were determined in the initial planning documents, although the roster had not been finalized by June 2006. Initially, Sakurai did not want to emphasize Japan-only characters, but became more interested in these after the Fire Emblem characters in Melee proved popular and resulted in that series being released worldwide. Some newcomers had been considered for inclusion in Melee but were deferred to Brawl. For example, Ness's Melee spot was actually intended for Mother 3 (2006) protagonist Lucas, but the developers later fit Ness into the character design when Mother 3 was delayed. Both characters would go on to appear in Brawl. Dr. Mario was chosen to feature in Melee instead of Wario; Sakurai commented that he likely would have still implemented Wario if he had the time. In May 2006, Nintendo of Japan set up a website where fans could submit their ideas for desired characters. Sakurai commented that offering new characters via WiiConnect24 and as downloadable content was nonviable due to the Wii's hardware limitations.

Unlike previous Super Smash Bros. games, Brawl includes Snake and Sonic, characters owned by third party developers. During the development of Melee, Snake creator Hideo Kojima's son told him there was no character he created in Super Smash Bros. Kojima, a friend of Sakurai, noted that few Metal Gear games have been released on Nintendo platforms and realized including Snake in Super Smash Bros. could win new fans. Thus, he called Sakurai and "practically begged" him to put Snake in Melee. However, the game was too far into development, so the idea did not come to fruition until Brawl. Meanwhile, the addition of Sonic as a playable character was something the Super Smash Bros. community had been requesting since Melee. Miyamoto wanted Sonic to be included in that game and his creator Yuji Naka approved of the idea, but, like Snake, he could not be implemented because it was too far into development. In contrast to the majoirty of Brawl's cast, Sakurai did not decide to include Sonic until 2007. While Sakurai included the character in the initial planning documents, Sonic publisher Sega objected to the idea, and did not change its mind until late into production. Another character owned by a third-party, Bandai Namco's Pac-Man, was almost included, but Sakurai thought his "incomplete pizza shape" would not fit in the game world. To have been considered, third-party characters had to have appeared on a Nintendo device at some point.

Wolf was another late addition to the roster and was included because of his popularity among fans. Sakurai chose Wolf over another Star Fox character, Krystal, because he was easier to create, as his model is similar to those of Fox and Falco. The team would have added four or five more playable characters if they had time. Fans who datamined the game after release discovered files for seven unfinished playable characters—three from Melee (Dr. Mario, Mewtwo, and Roy) and four new ones (Dixie Kong from Donkey Kong, Toon Zelda/Shiek from Zelda, and Plusle and Minun from Pokémon); these characters have been collectively referred to as "The Forbidden Seven". Sakurai later stated that Dixie would have been paired with Diddy as a single "tag team" character, a reference to a game mechanic in the Donkey Kong Country games. In 2016, Sakurai said Geno, a character from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (1996), was also considered, but did not make the cut for unknown reasons. Some characters could not be included due to licensing problems. Assist Trophies were implemented because Sakurai knew there would be popular video game characters who were too difficult to include as playable characters, and felt incorporating them in some capacity would make fans happy.

Writing

Brawl's single-player campaign is significantly larger than those of the first two Super Smash Bros. games.

The characters who play a major role in The Subspace Emissary were those who were confirmed to be in the game at an early stage. Three characters—Wolf, Jigglypuff, and Toon Link—did not play a role at all because were nearly cut from the game.

Refs

• http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/ssbb/3/0
• http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/ssbb/5/0
• http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/ssbb/6/0

• https://web.archive.org/web/20060525003834/http://e3src.nintendo.com/news/shigeru_miyamoto_and_masahiro_sakurai_talk_smash_b/
• https://www.ign.com/articles/2006/05/18/sakurai-talks-smash-brothers-brawl
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODaYRVsgWmA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHai9J_FMAg
• https://www.destructoid.com/nintendo-president-iwata-interviews-smash-bros-brawl-director-part-two-66442.phtml
• https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/i_miyamotosakurai
• https://www.ign.com/articles/2005/12/02/sakurai-elaborates-on-smash-bros-revolution
• http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/15390/sakurai-speaks-on-brawl-character-development
• https://www.gamezone.com/originals/gdc-08-sakurai-on-brawl-voice-chat-dlc-crossover-characters-sequel-and-ds/

Legacy

• Meta Knight being OP:
  • https://www.geek.com/games/the-ultimate-super-smash-bros-character-guide-meta-knight-1764308/
  • https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/10/03/meta-knight-banned-from-super-smash-bros-brawl
  • https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-14-meta-knight-return-confirmed-for-super-smash-bros-wii-u-and-3ds
• https://www.redbull.com/us-en/project-nx-smash-bros-ultimate-interview