‘Smash Bros.’ Developer Stressed ‘Almost To The Brink Of Death’ Over Roster

Smash Bros.‘ developer is stressing “almost to the brink of death” over the game’s roster.

Smash Bros. designer Masahiro Sakurai is serious about the characters that are going into his latest fighting game. You could say he’s almost dead serious. The stress is overwhelming. He was literally quoted as saying, “The amount of stress I feel, it’s almost to the brink of death.”

Every character in the game is being selected and created with balance and design in mind, and, for anyone involved with video game design, that could become a huge headache.

After all, fighting games have always had that character or two that were just too cheap in the hands of the skilled player, to the point where anyone they took on just quit out of frustration. Masahiro Sakurai is trying to avoid that problem, even to the point of eliminating tripping, as previously reported in The Inquisitr. Tripping is any attack that immobilizes or knocks down a player’s character, and it will be removed from Smash Bros..

As far as the roster for Smash Bros., Masahiro Sakurai adds, “Because it’s not just a matter of me personally thinking this character or that character is going to be in the game. It’s that we also have the game balance, animation, graphics and sound to think about in order to make that character fully fleshed out in that universe. I have to think about all of that when I go through this decision-making process.”

So far, the confirmed roster includes mainstays Mario, Link from The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Fox from StarFox, and Pikachu from Pokemon as well as newcomers Megaman, the Animal Crossing Villager, and the Wii Fit Trainer. The roster is being built with the idea of giving the player a chance with any character they pick, to keep it fun and avoid abusers ruling the game just because they used a certain one.

With the announcement that there won’t be any DLC planned, obviously they are trying to make the game right the first time so they don’t have to sell you a patch disguised as new characters.

What do you think of Smash Bros. developer Masahiro Sakurai stressing “almost to the brink of death” over the roster of characters?