Discussion Over praise of Sakurai undermines the hard work of all the others that made Smash Ultimate possible

[HockeyBird]

With Smash Ultimate coming to the end, a lot of people are reflecting on the game and the franchise as a whole. One common theme I see pop up his how Sakurai is the GOAT and how only he could make the impossible possible. Now I am not disputing that Sakurai isn't one of the best game directors and designers ever. He put an unthinkable number of hours into making Smash Bros and his passion for the series permeates every aspect of the games. But I feel like over time, people have built up a narrative that makes it seem like he's the only one making Smash Bros, he's the one doing all the negotiations, and he's the only one with ideas. And I think that downplays the effort from all of these people that helped make the game.

Sakurai is the most public figure of Smash Bros. He of course appears in the presentations but he also writes articles about the difficulties of game development. We get to know his thoughts and struggles while making the game so it makes sense that people focus a lot of the praise on him. But he didn't do it alone. His vision was only possible because of the development team and people from all these game companies. Before the DLC even started coming out, Sakurai stated that it was Nintendo that picked the DLC fighters. Now people have become very selective when remembering this fact. If it's a character they like, then it was made possible by the GOAT Sakurai. But if it's a character they don't like, then it was those evil people at Nintendo that forced him to do it. Wouldn't it stand to reason that the people forcing Sakurai to make Byleth at gun point are also the people who negotiated for Banjo-Kazooie, Joker, Steve, etc.? I made a joke a few days back that while Sakurai is getting all of this praise for getting Sora, some unknown Nintendo lawyer is quietly shouting how they were the ones that actually made it possible. That's probably not far from the truth. While I'm Sakurai was involved in negotiations, we know for a fact that the highest levels of Nintendo were involved in getting fighters for the game.

And then there are the designers at Bandai Namco who have been working on the series since Smash 4. It took a lot of skill and dedication to implement Sakurai's ideas and visions. And no doubt the designers themselves had ideas of their own that probably got implemented into the game. This team made one of the biggest games ever and majority of the credit will likely go towards one man. The focus on just Sakurai alone also does a disservice to the future of the series. We don't know if this is his last Smash Bros game but people can't imagine the series without him. But eventually, the series has to move on without him and that's ok. Many people have taken up the mantle for other Nintendo franchises. There's no reason why someone else can't do the same for Smash Bros. I have no doubt that are game designers who are just as passionate, just as hard working, just as visionary as Sakurai working at Nintendo or elsewhere today ready to take up the franchise. We just haven't the chance to meet them yet.

So like a said, Sakurai disserves a ton of praise. But let's not forget everyone else that made this all possible.

 

[DecoReturns]

Even Sakurai has mentioned this multiple times.

Cause he’s the face and all, fans just give it all too him most of the time.

 

[Porygon]

It's the same with Harada, Kojima, with movie directors, singers...

 

[lemonfresh]

That goes for any big franchise with a famed director

 

[Sheldon]

It's true about the lawyers. But no one likes giving praise to lawyers.

Less clear in fields outside legal negotiations. Sakurai personally writes the trailer outlines just like he designs the character's move sets himself or picks the music and composers. And that's already three huge characteristics of what makes Smash stand out covered. Any other responsibilities where we know he delegates instead of being a total hands-on workaholic control freak? Menus don't count!

 

[rAndom]

To be fair, even Sakurai himself deflects the enormous amount of praise and gives credit to all that helped make Smash Ultimate possible.

It's just fans tend to give praise the most to the most prominent person on the team. It's not just in gaming, but in other forms of entertainment as well.

 

[Cantaim]

Yeah the entire smash team deserves praise as well. It’s just hard to give them all credit as there’s a tendency to focus on one person as the “auteur” of the game. Which is definitely something that I think people into gaming need to start thinking of as wrong/outdated.

 

[E.Gadd]

Reminds me of how years ago people were convinced Nintendo wouldn't be able to put out any new hit Mario and Zelda games if Miyamoto ever retired.

 

[Apopheniac]

It's probably for the best that everything gets dumped on him, since the alternative is people combing through the credits to get pissy at random Bandai-Namco people.

 

[totofogo]

He/Nintendo puts him forward as the symbolic face of the dev team, I doubt anyone on his team takes the praise in any other way.

 

[totofogo]

It's probably for the best that everything gets dumped on him, since the alternative is people combing through the credits to get pissy at random Bandai-Namco people.

"Thank you Sakurai! But fuck you Steve, your netcode work sucks!"

 

[WestEgg]

I agree and disagree with this. Yes, the work on Smash was immense, and a lot of the people who helped with everything from negotiations to development don’t get enough recognition. But I also believe Sakurai himself is extremely respected and trusted by the industry, and that amount of faith in him personally is what makes so many third party developers trust him to do their IPs right, rather than something like PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, where the developers wanted to make a more ambitious product, but third parties were either unwilling to let them use their characters, or when they were, they weren’t given a ton of creative freedom.

 

[Yoshifan31]

I honestly don’t consider the opinions of anyone who says Sakurai’s name in any context other than talking about him specifically. The people who start saying his name while whining about character nerfs or funny interactions in Smash are so corny

While I’m at it the same can obviously be said about Miyamoto, he’s basically the boogieman for Paper Mario fans. I’m pretty sure the “generic toads” complaint is due to Nintendo’s new rules about their characters given that they are making theme parks and such, so they had to standardize their character designs so they can be consistent with their merch. Miyamoto had nothing to do with this

 

[rAndom]

Also worth noting that as much as he gets all the praises, he also gets all the hate as well when the internet goes furious about Smash.

 

[AngryAlchemist]

I agree, but weirdly enough I also think we need more gaming auteurs, not less. Yes, it doesn't really make sense to have auteurs in a triple A environment, but I trust fetishizing gaming directors a lot more than publishers or studios, which is kind of where we're still at.

I honestly don’t consider the opinions of anyone who says Sakurai’s name in any context other than talking about him specifically. The people who start saying his name while whining about character nerfs or funny interactions in Smash are so corny

While I’m at it the same can obviously be said about Miyamoto, he’s basically the boogieman for Paper Mario fans. I’m pretty sure the “generic toads” complaint is due to Nintendo’s new rules about their characters given that they are making theme parks and such, so they had to standardize their character designs so they can be consistent with their merch. Miyamoto had nothing to do with this

Actually your comments about Paper Mario are wrong. While we'll obviously never get the complete picture without being head developers of Paper Mario ourselves, and the Miyamoto complaints are a bit tiring, every interview about Paper Mario points to Miyamoto being to blame, either because of direct rules or his influence.

Most importantly though, this rule has been in place since long before Nintendo's theme parks. It's actually been a rule since Sticker Star, which the team talked about in Origami King interviews.

From the Origami King interview:

"Tanabe: From the production of Paper Mario: Sticker Star onwards, we were no longer able to graphically represent individual characteristics, such as age, gender etc., in the Toad NPCs (non-playable characters), and so it has become that much more important to convey their personalities simply through text. Our writer, Mr Taro Kudo, has been grappling with this difficult challenge since Paper Mario: Sticker Star, but has managed to achieve giving all the texts a sense of humour. In this instalment, Paper Mario: The Origami King, we were able to include some Toads wearing an outfit to match their role, and also created original origami characters."

Which connects directly to the Iwata asks about Sticker Star that happened around its release:

Aside from wanting us to change the atmosphere a lot, there were two main things that Miyamoto-san said from the start of the project—"It's fine without a story, so do we really need one?" and "As much as possible, complete it with only characters from the Super Mario world.

But being unable to use new characters is pretty strict. Of course, we could not make any new enemy characters, and as for allies among the Super Mario characters, there's really only Toad in various colors!

Not a Paper Mario fan, just think this topic is interesting. At least from what we know straight from the teams mouth, fan complaints seem to be generally correct.

 

[HockeyBird]

I agree and disagree with this. Yes, the work on Smash was immense, and a lot of the people who helped with everything from negotiations to development don’t get enough recognition. But I also believe Sakurai himself is extremely respected and trusted by the industry, and that amount of faith in him personally is what makes so many third party developers trust him to do their IPs right, rather than something like PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, where the developers wanted to make a more ambitious product, but third parties were either unwilling to let them use their characters, or when they were, they weren’t given a ton of creative freedom.

Playstation All Stars was a brand new franchise being developed by a studio that had never made a game before. And while we don't know 100% of the specifics with regards to the acquisition of third party fighters, many of those deals could have fell through because of money. It's clear from the final product that there was a limit to the amount of money was willing to invest in the game. By the time Smash started getting a ton of third parties, it was already a proven franchise. Of course I'm sure Sakurai played a part in negotiations but if Nintendo comes asking for a collaboration, the likes of Capcom, Sega, and Namco I'm sure will have more than willing regardless of who was directing it. The Microsoft collab was born out of the relationship between NOA and Microsoft who are based out of the same city. Steve and presumably Sora took years to get. Presumably while Sakurai was working on other fighters, others were hard at work getting those fighters approved.

 

[Dark Cloud]

He’s the face of the franchise since day 1. He’s put his body in harm for the series. He will always get the most credit. Nobody will take away from everyone else has done on the project and Sakurai is always thanking the development team for what they’ve done.


And this goes across all mediums. James Cameron, Spielberg, actors, sports players will get all the praise and they will also get all the blame.

 

[MetalLord]

Ironically, sakurai is who came the closest to deserving this kind of praise in a large scale project,Meele didnt have a single game designer,sakurai had just one assistant director and they created all the characters/stages/rules/settings whats insane for a project of this size

 

[TheDok]

I don't think the praise is mutually exclusive. It's hard to individually praise a team consisting of hundreds of people. You kind of need a singular point of reference

 

[Soul Skater]

I think maybe during some of these showcases he could have just given some of the controllers to some other developers involved in making the characters instead of learning how to play with his hands and feet so he could control four characters at once lol

 

[Aigis]

I don't mind the public face getting praised as Sakurai was the guy at the wheel, but I do think Sakurai is probably the most hyperbolically praised in the industry. The last showing for Sora where we need a 40 min breakdown on how to play the character and having an audience laughing at his lame jokes is just another level to me. I think a large reason why is just the heaps and heaps of praise he gets from the fans as the face of the franchise. He's a great developer, the team is talented, but I don't think he's the only one that could have made that game.

Overall figure heads will get the most praise in any industry.

 

[Sheldon]

Sakurai is probably the most hyperbolically praised in the industry

This can't be true as long as Geoff Keighley forms sentences whose subject is Hideo Kojima.

 

[Rooster]

I notice Sakurai heaps praise on all the other parties who have helped make Smash what it is, like Nintendo proper and the license holders, but he never talks about his own actual dev team very much.

Or maybe I've just missed it.

 

[Dark Cloud]

I notice Sakurai heaps praise on all the other parties who have helped make Smash what it is, like Nintendo proper and the license holders, but he never talks about his own actual dev team very much.

Or maybe I've just missed it.

He’ll give thanks to the dev team + he doesn’t have to tell the world he thanks the dev team. That stuff happens behind closed doors.

 

[ShadowFox08]

Whole heartedly agree. He put his blood, sweat and tears into the franchise, but so did the rest of the team. We should really be thanking the smash team as a whole.

 

[Rooster]

He’ll give thanks to the dev team + he doesn’t have to tell the world he thanks the dev team. That stuff happens behind closed doors.

When one person receives praise for the work of the whole team it's nice to acknowledge how the praise ought to be shared, though.

 

[FrostyLemon]

I mean this is kind of normal when you've been the face of a franchise for 20 years.

 

[Aigis]

This can't be true as long as Geoff Keighley forms sentences whose subject is Hideo Kojima.

Naw, if only because I think Kojima actually produces more unique industry standards or concepts than Sakurai. Sakurai is not to the level of Kojima as a developer.