No Larger Roster for Smash Bros. 4?

[Krazy4Krash]

This recent piece of news has spread concerning Masahiro Sakurai's view on Super Smash Bros. 4's character roster.

Next 'Super Smash Bros.' might not have a much larger roster

He is not wanting the roster to be much larger. According to him, he would like to spend time making all characters equal in balance and more unique in their own right. Having too many characters brings this sense down.

I, for one, believe that Brawl's roster is good and its current characters cannot improve much outside of updating to their more recent incarnations from more recent titles. Balance has always been an issue, and there has always been characters obviously better than others. To make characters perfectly balanced and equal would make it harder for each character to be unique. What do you think?


Regarding something of a similar topic, this picture drawn on a whiteboard was recently released via Masahiro Sakurai's Twitter.

Spoiler

This essentially confirms these characters, although they were all pretty obvious entries, anyway. Marth, Pit, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Fox, Mario, Link, Pikmin, Zero Suit Samus, Wario, Mr. Game and Watch, PIKACHU, Luigi, and Meta Knight. As well as the items; Sandbag, Mr. Saturn, Heart Container and Warp Star.

 

[A Link In Time]

Balancing is always important in any videogame especially fighting titles. It's great to hear that Sakurai is choosing to take this direction with his franchise. With Namco Bandai collaborating on the title, it's very likely we'll see some Tekken and Soul Calibur characters enter the fray. It would be wise to discard ancient Nintendo characters as well. Some veteran fighters such as the Ice Climbers might not see a return.

Dragonball Z Tenkaichi 3 is an example of fighting game with too many characters. Every being ever featured in the show found his or her way into the title creating an insane experience. Many also felt undeveloped and overpowered. Later games had less characters and this caused massive fan disappointment and lower critic ratings. Sakurai is wise to avoid such a fate with Smash Bros.

 

[JuicieJ]

I think Brawl had the proper amount of characters for Smash Bros. I wouldn't mind a few extra, but I don't see the point in going overboard with the roster just because you have the ability to go overboard. Everything else I'm going to say would be regurgitating ALiT's statements, so I'll just give him credit where credit is due and say "ditto".

 

[Spirit]

Most people want to play as as many characters as they can in smash Bros games and a criticism I've always heard (aside from the unbalanced roster) is that there is never enough characters.

I think the roster in Smash Bros brawl was ample enough, and i think its a very good idea to refine the characters that are already there. For example characters like Ganondorf who have the same move set as Captain Falcon and the Starfox Team whose only difference is the speed in which they can string moves together.
Having unique movesets for individual characters despite them being form the same game will make inclusions such as Wolf more appealing and not filler as he was in Brawl.

As far as the roster goes, perhaps 5 or so more characters would be nice, its always nice to see new characters in Smash bros games, its part of the charm of the game as a whole to unlock characters that surprise you with their inclusion, at the same time though i'd be fine with numerous character being replaced, much like the Roy-Ike switch. Perhaps instead of wolf we could have Krystal her staff and magical prowess would fit within the world of smash bros perfectly etc etc.

One thing i did hear though, is that Sakurai wants to bring even more retro characters into the fray much like he did with Pit and R.O.B. I do hope that Smash Bros as a series doesn't become a spring board for reviving old characters, (as much as i'd love a 3d Ice Climbers game <3)

 

[Vaati101]

Well it's good that Sakurai is focusing more on Quality then Quantity, I hope this cuts down on these Third Party character fantasies. I can think of a couple of Nintedno Characters that deserve a place in the roster, but if the team don't include them that's fine. Hopefully some characters are replaced with others (e.g. Ike replaced with Krom from Fire Emblem Awakening). I hope that is the case because I will be very disappointed if the Character Roster is exactly the same. Also they can get rid of Snake and Sonic, they had had their chance to shine, let other characters take the Fray.

 

[Krazy4Krash]

Well it's good that Sakurai is focusing more on Quality then Quantity, I hope this cuts down on these Third Party character fantasies. I can think of a couple of Nintedno Characters that deserve a place in the roster, but if the team don't include them that's fine. Hopefully some characters are replaced with others (e.g. Ike replaced with Krom from Fire Emblem Awakening). I hope that is the case because I will be very disappointed if the Character Roster is exactly the same. Also they can get rid of Snake and Sonic, they had had their chance to shine, let other characters take the Fray.

I think having more third-party characters is a good thing. They expand on the gaming universes. There actually aren't that many first-party characters that are staple enough in their series to fit in, or fit the criteria of being a playable character. Keeping a somewhat similar roster and removing and adding few characters would be fine. I don't think the roster should exceed, say, 42 characters. Characters like Megaman, Bomberman and Rayman are good additions (third-party wise) and entirely possible to be playable.

 

[Vaati101]

Characters like Megaman, Bomberman and Rayman are good additions (third-party wise) and entirely possible to be playable.

This is what annoys me, People don't explain why these third party characters should be in Super Smash Bros. What Valid reason do they have for being in Super Smash Bros.? Reasons like promoting said Third Party character's Game is valid, but as for reasons like "Because he's awsome!" just doesn't cut it unless the developers agree with the fanbase, which was the exact case for Sonic being in Brawl. If Myiamoto didn't agree with Sonic's inclusion, then I don't think Sonic would of made it into the game.

 

[Gooey Fame]

This is what annoys me, People don't explain why these third party characters should be in Super Smash Bros. What Valid reason do they have for being in Super Smash Bros.? Reasons like promoting said Third Party character's Game is valid, but as for reasons like "Because he's awsome!" just doesn't cut it unless the developers agree with the fanbase, which was the exact case for Sonic being in Brawl. If Myiamoto didn't agree with Sonic's inclusion, then I don't think Sonic would of made it into the game.

Them being awesome is a good enough reason! It is always cool in any game for a third party character to show up. It is something slightly unexpected and unique. We wouldn't have Link in SC2 if not for this!

As far as the roster being smaller, if they do actually make the fighting and characters tighter than good for them. I wouldn't mine more characters and I wouldn't mind less characters as long as the fighting is solid. Plus they could always make more sets of characters as DLC.

 

[PhantomTriforce]

I did not find any problem for the most part with the balance of characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, so if they balance out the characters in a similar way in SSB4, I'l' be pretty content. Also, I would really like to see many characters in the next game, say around 50 characters or so. More important, though, is that there are around 50 unique characters, unlike Ganondorf and Captain Falcon and the Starfox characters. But whatever choices Sakurai for this game, I'm sure it will make the next game even more fun.

 

[Dan]

Well that's a shame. I do enjoy large roasters mainly for the fun side. I guess a balance game is more important after all. A large roaster always does include a lot of QQ
I like the idea of the dragonball games having loads of characters on the other hand just for the experience
It may not be balanced but as long as you don't go in on a competitive level it's fine.

The only way we could possibly have more characters I suppose is have the "arcade" mode feature all the characters. The competitive side of the game can features a balanced roaster. Oh or enable rules to include Full roaster or a balanced roaster when hosting a game to give us the choice. Sort of like how Pokemon battles can have rules to not include legendaries. I'm sure if this was done everyone would be happy.

I think my idea could work out pretty well. I really would find it a shame if they dropped characters. I'm sure Nintendo will have to drop some of theirs if Namco include their own franchise characters.

 

[Reaca]

This is what annoys me, People don't explain why these third party characters should be in Super Smash Bros. What Valid reason do they have for being in Super Smash Bros.? Reasons like promoting said Third Party character's Game is valid, but as for reasons like "Because he's awsome!" just doesn't cut it unless the developers agree with the fanbase, which was the exact case for Sonic being in Brawl. If Myiamoto didn't agree with Sonic's inclusion, then I don't think Sonic would of made it into the game.

Mega Man could be a good addition to the roster. And it wouldn't be because of a reason like "because he's awesome!", it would be because his first 7 games and first 4 spinoff games were on Nintendo consoles.

 

[domo]

All I care for is the gameplay. If it has Amazing gameplay and awesome fighting, I'll love it even if it only has two characters.

 

[MonkeyFightSquad]

I think they should add a couple more characters it would be awesome. Even if they did not add more characters it would still be an amazing game. If the add Skyward Sword Link And Zelda it would be great. Maybe they should have more stages and more options for create a stage. And think about how fantastic this would be. They could do create your own character. There could be so many different combinations. You could make any body from Koji Kondo, to Master Chief. I would like there to be totally different moves for everybody. TOTALLY DIFFERENT MOVES.

 

[Johnny Sooshi]

Well it is disappointing to have little to no additional characters but I don't mind it so much. Characters are what make a fighting game but just tossing in a few more for the hell of it doesn't cut it. I'd much rather play a game with well balanced characters and maybe more features (ie. more super moves, better techniques, a new type of attack, etc.) than one with 300 billion characters going from Mario to Mario's mother.

As for 3rd party it can be justified that "because they're awesome" is a good reason. If a 3rd party character that Nintendo feels is awesome is offered then I see no reason why they need any other reason to include that character.

I've also stressed the idea of, rather than focusing on new characters, Nintendo expanding the old characters. My idea is that of an unlockable costume set where the character slowly unlocks new costumes that give them new move sets. For example you could use Hammer Suit Mario from Super Mario Bros. 3. His move set would be based on that costume so he would throw hammers instead of fire balls and do other moves based on hammers. I feel that it would expand characters without actually adding in new ones. It would probably expose fans to more characters and give newcomers a chance to see how they might of been in the old games. I played Smash Bros. 64 for the first time when I was 5. I used Samus and got pretty good with her. Then I decided to check out the game series she was from and that's why I love Metroid so much. So this idea could have multiple effects on the players, depending on who they are.

 

[TheMasterSword]

I might miss the selection, but as long as it's well amde and no repeated move sets, I'm happy