Send your enemies flying with updated attacks!
In his column of this week's issue of Famitsu, the director of the Super Smash Bros. series, Masahiro Sakurai, talked about how he balances characters in the games. The upcoming 3DS and Wii U games so far will see the most change in Bowser.
“Now that Sunday’s day off is past, I’m currently working on the character adjustment for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U,” says Sakurai. “At the moment, Bowser is very strong. He’s really strong. Fans of Smash Bros. probably never saw him as too much of a strong character, but this time, his ability to knock others out is very strong!”
Sakurai wanted to focus on how it feels to play the game when designing characters this time around. This lead him to build up satisfying additions to moves, like allowing Bowser to send opponents flying through the air with his smash, aerial, and special attacks.
However, these strong attacks must come at a price for the sake of balance. Careful thought was put into adjusting attacks to make it feel natural, a process that is so fine-tuned, it started six years before Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s release. The differences in free-for-all and one-on-one fights also added to the complications, creating instances where certain attacks would be better in group fights than in singular battles, and vice versa.
“Rather than directly weakening an attack’s advantageous parts, we’re putting effort into keeping them strong, while adding other weaknesses to them. Like giving the attacks punishable openings, or weakening the character’s mobility or recovery rate. We’re making comprehensive adjustments to characters, even for parts that might seem completely irrelevant.”
“Doing things like simply ‘lowering the performance’ can make games lose its fun. Additionally, making a strong attack weaker can take away from the ‘good feeling’. By making adjustments that get rid of all advantages and disadvantages, it can turn a game into a mediocre one without any challenge.”
