Sakurai talks about streamlining Brawl’s development

One big feature that the fans love about Super Smash Bros. Brawl is its sheer number of selectable characters. However, did you know that it was supposed to carry an even bigger roster back when it was till in development? Nintendo’s Masahiro Sakurai has more on this matter over in the full article.

As the old saying goes, less is better. The next Official Nintendo Magazine release (out this Friday) has an interview with Super Smash Bros. Brawl developer Masahiro Sakurai, who offered some details on how he went about designing the game. Sakurai noted that he had to cut out several concepts from the development.

For one, SSBB‘s current roster is just a fraction of the original character list Sakurai had in mind. Due to time constraints however, the SSBB team had to trim the fat on the game design:

It’s taken over three years to make Brawl but I actually stopped trying to include new ideas early on in development. What happened in the next year and a half was that we distilled the game down, worked out which ideas we had time to include and which we didn’t. Sadly, we had to trim out many great concepts just to keep within the time constraints. I had a lot more characters, for example.. but sadly I can’t discuss which ones didn’t make it.

Speaking on the possibility of a new title to encapsulate the axed characters, Sakurai said this was unlikely. He further explained that adding just a few more characters to another game would not make any sense. Sakurai noted that he would have to try a different approach should development start on a new game.

“As long as the fans enjoy it, though, that’s what matters and in the distant future, I guess that might be something I have to consider,” Sakurai said. And enjoy SSBB we did – the game took the world by storm since its various regional launches, with worldwide sales amounting to 4.85 million since March 31. Sakurai noted that he would have to try a different approach if he did make a new game.