Summary
Masahiro Sakurai, the creator and director of theSuper Smash Bros.series, gave fans some insight into the creation of the fighter reveal trailers that have been made for the franchise over the years. Nintendo’s crossover franchise has been famous for its extensive character roster, picking fighters not only from Nintendo’s catalog but also several third-party fighters from across gaming history. One of the most exciting parts about aSuper Smash Bros.game is the roster, especially during the pre-release period going into a game or with DLC fighters, which became more prevalent with the fourth and fifth titles in the series,Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DSandSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate.
The tradition ofSuper Smash Bros.’s elaborate character reveals can be traced back toSuper Smash Bros. Brawlon the Wii, where Sakurai was providing fans with information about the game via daily blog posts on theSuper Smash Bros.DOJO website. While there would be promotional trailer videos, such as the one shown at E3 2006 and a surprise reveal trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog (who was one of the most highly requested fighters at the time of release), this tradition wouldn’t be put into place until the aforementionedSuper Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS. Masahiro Sakurai recently went into detail about how these trailers were made for the series.
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According to Sakurai, these movie sequences were created to show the abilities of each individual fighter in a unique way sinceSuper Smash Bros.was a crossover game. These videos were created in a way for all fans to enjoy easily, instead of being tied to progress like inBrawl’s Subspace Emissary Adventure mode. As such, the fighter reveals were conceptualized, breaking them down between gameplay and CG segments. The plots of these videos were all written by Sakurai himself, except for Pyra and Mythra’s trailers, which were written by Monolith Soft instead.
These scripts would then be handed off to Digital Frontier, a motion picture company that specializes in CG animation and handled the reveals for the series. For the gameplay portion, these were recorded by members of theSmash Bros.development team, with the footage being captured using replay features and debug camera tools. All oftheseSmash Bros.trailers were supervised by Sakuraihimself, adding small details like interactions between fighters or serious and comical elements.
Sakurai noted that all oftheSuper Smash Bros.character reveal trailersbecame incredibly popular, especially during the pre-release period where there was plenty of hype between the releases of games and the DLC fighters. He thanked the fans for supporting them, as these reactions were a huge source of encouragement. He concludes by stating that he is lucky to have worked on a series as special asSuper Smash Bros.
Super Smash Bros.
Super Smash Bros is a Nintendo-exclusive 3D action fighting and brawling game starring a roster of beloved Nintendo and third-party characters. Taking place across a plethora of arenas, players duke it out in real-time as their favorite characters.
