SonicMario
Star Spirit
Barring some situation where Nintendo decides to have someone else add more DLC after Sakurai has officially left development of Smash 4 to pursue his next project. Smash 4 is entirely done with adding new characters to Smash 4. Leaving the final total characters at 58. Which is a number thought impossible even among optimistic views of the roster for Smash 4. It's a really large roster and has the largest amount of added newcomers of any Smash game.
But now, here comes a bit of a dilemma in regards to the next Smash game. 58 is alot of characters especially for a game that boasts such character depth for a vast majority of them like Smash. It doesn't matter if you've been developing games your whole life or not. Trying to bring all those characters plus add a decent amount of new characters for a new game is alot on your shoulders. As not only when bringing them to a new game you have to balance them and possibly address issues such as complaints of how viable (On either side of the spectrum) they were in the previous game and balance the new characters while keeping them faithful to their games. Sakurai has said himself that games these days have become alot more difficult to make then they were even as far as just a decade ago. And the more effort that's needed to complete a full game, only the truly dedicated people would be left to design the game and sometimes that's not enough. Especially when it comes to expectations from the fans.
So the question is this: Would it be preferable to have the next Smash, possibly even all future Smash games, to simply port the characters over from Smash 4 if possible with relatively few changes so that most if not all the characters are back?. And even with that, if there is not enough time to bring everyone back, the fact DLC has been brought into Smash can come into play in case people really want some of their favorites from Smash 4 back. And Nintendo could even add some more new ones beyond even what Smash 4 brought us. Simply porting around 50 characters from Smash 4 to the next game would make many people happy and it's still give the developers time to focus more on whatever Newcomers are added to the game and even work on some fantastic new modes. The only problem is that taking it to this level gets the criticism of the developers being too lazy and may make the next Smash game feel like "Smash 4 2.0" instead of a full on Smash 5
The other option would to have everything done from scratch but at possibly the cost of losing alot of characters (And I mean quite a bit as in so much that they can't possibly just bring everyone back through DLC in favor of newer, more relevant characters). Even ones that are generally considered safe returns in order to make the next game feel truly different. Cause if you work on everything from the ground up, no doubt the developers would look down upon bringing all 58 characters from Smash 4 back in the Main Game. This is something where the developers can really get a focus at what they want for the next game instead of possibly just basing the game mostly on the previous one that would make some people feel they're going cheap on the process of bringing out Smash games. But it may break the hearts of many who loved any of the cut characters as every Smash character has fans that have some degree of attachment to them.
This is has just been something on my mind after DLC has officially finished when I just think about just how huge the roster of Smash 4 is and what impact it may have on the future of Smash considering people were hoping for little-to-no cuts between Brawl and Smash 4 too (For the exception of Wolf, Snake, Ice Climbers, and two of the three Pokemon Trainer pokemon we got that). If the next game isn't going to be simply porting over characters then there's no possible way they bring everyone from Smash 4 back and will no doubt probably have the largest amount of cut characters unless there's a promise to bring everyone else back through DLC. At the same time though the other side has a point in having the games feel truly different from what another. As while the differences between Brawl and Smash 4 are considered the smallest difference between each and every game in the series it still plays much differently enough for Smash 4 to be it's own game even with the rumors that much of the characters that were in Brawl that are in Smash 4 may have been somewhat ported over.
There's been talk that they've kinda already have been porting characters over, especially when Sakurai implied they may have tried to bring Mewtwo from Melee back that way but the technology was too obsolete to do properly so they built Mewtwo from scratch (While still keeping him faithful to how he fought in Melee). And if that's the case, then the question is should they continue to port characters like this so that we make sure a good majority come back? I think it's an interesting debate as Smash 4's speculation dies down and we look towards what the next game could bring years ahead of us.
We have no idea what the situation will be by the time Smash 5 starts nor do we know if Sakurai will even be the director of it. And we have no idea what side of this would a new director take it as it could be either/or. Cause it could be the porting so that alot of what Sakurai's done for the series hasn't gone to waste and it makes people happy with the new director that they brought most of the characters back. On the other hand the new director may have an entirely different vision of Smash Bros. then Sakurai does and want to do things his way. And that may include changing up everything from top-to-bottom, including cutting characters that only Sakurai had the vision to bring-to-life as fighters.
This is a vastly important question regarding the future of Smash Bros. that I feel definitely needs to be discussed. And should a Smash 5 be announced years from now, we can look back and see what they eventually went with.
But now, here comes a bit of a dilemma in regards to the next Smash game. 58 is alot of characters especially for a game that boasts such character depth for a vast majority of them like Smash. It doesn't matter if you've been developing games your whole life or not. Trying to bring all those characters plus add a decent amount of new characters for a new game is alot on your shoulders. As not only when bringing them to a new game you have to balance them and possibly address issues such as complaints of how viable (On either side of the spectrum) they were in the previous game and balance the new characters while keeping them faithful to their games. Sakurai has said himself that games these days have become alot more difficult to make then they were even as far as just a decade ago. And the more effort that's needed to complete a full game, only the truly dedicated people would be left to design the game and sometimes that's not enough. Especially when it comes to expectations from the fans.
So the question is this: Would it be preferable to have the next Smash, possibly even all future Smash games, to simply port the characters over from Smash 4 if possible with relatively few changes so that most if not all the characters are back?. And even with that, if there is not enough time to bring everyone back, the fact DLC has been brought into Smash can come into play in case people really want some of their favorites from Smash 4 back. And Nintendo could even add some more new ones beyond even what Smash 4 brought us. Simply porting around 50 characters from Smash 4 to the next game would make many people happy and it's still give the developers time to focus more on whatever Newcomers are added to the game and even work on some fantastic new modes. The only problem is that taking it to this level gets the criticism of the developers being too lazy and may make the next Smash game feel like "Smash 4 2.0" instead of a full on Smash 5
The other option would to have everything done from scratch but at possibly the cost of losing alot of characters (And I mean quite a bit as in so much that they can't possibly just bring everyone back through DLC in favor of newer, more relevant characters). Even ones that are generally considered safe returns in order to make the next game feel truly different. Cause if you work on everything from the ground up, no doubt the developers would look down upon bringing all 58 characters from Smash 4 back in the Main Game. This is something where the developers can really get a focus at what they want for the next game instead of possibly just basing the game mostly on the previous one that would make some people feel they're going cheap on the process of bringing out Smash games. But it may break the hearts of many who loved any of the cut characters as every Smash character has fans that have some degree of attachment to them.
This is has just been something on my mind after DLC has officially finished when I just think about just how huge the roster of Smash 4 is and what impact it may have on the future of Smash considering people were hoping for little-to-no cuts between Brawl and Smash 4 too (For the exception of Wolf, Snake, Ice Climbers, and two of the three Pokemon Trainer pokemon we got that). If the next game isn't going to be simply porting over characters then there's no possible way they bring everyone from Smash 4 back and will no doubt probably have the largest amount of cut characters unless there's a promise to bring everyone else back through DLC. At the same time though the other side has a point in having the games feel truly different from what another. As while the differences between Brawl and Smash 4 are considered the smallest difference between each and every game in the series it still plays much differently enough for Smash 4 to be it's own game even with the rumors that much of the characters that were in Brawl that are in Smash 4 may have been somewhat ported over.
There's been talk that they've kinda already have been porting characters over, especially when Sakurai implied they may have tried to bring Mewtwo from Melee back that way but the technology was too obsolete to do properly so they built Mewtwo from scratch (While still keeping him faithful to how he fought in Melee). And if that's the case, then the question is should they continue to port characters like this so that we make sure a good majority come back? I think it's an interesting debate as Smash 4's speculation dies down and we look towards what the next game could bring years ahead of us.
We have no idea what the situation will be by the time Smash 5 starts nor do we know if Sakurai will even be the director of it. And we have no idea what side of this would a new director take it as it could be either/or. Cause it could be the porting so that alot of what Sakurai's done for the series hasn't gone to waste and it makes people happy with the new director that they brought most of the characters back. On the other hand the new director may have an entirely different vision of Smash Bros. then Sakurai does and want to do things his way. And that may include changing up everything from top-to-bottom, including cutting characters that only Sakurai had the vision to bring-to-life as fighters.
This is a vastly important question regarding the future of Smash Bros. that I feel definitely needs to be discussed. And should a Smash 5 be announced years from now, we can look back and see what they eventually went with.
