Duke It Out!
In 1999, having spent a decade prior working on Kirby games with HAL Laboratory, prodigal designer Masahiro Sakurai and future Nintendo president Satoru Iwata began working on various prototypes for up and coming Nintendo 64 adventure games. Among these prototypes, one fighting game stood above the rest. It was tentatively titled “4 Player Simultaneous Faceoff No Damage Battle Royale Fight,” then “Dragon King the Fighting Game” or “Pepsi Man.” We’ve now come to know it as Super Smash Bros.
Particularly interested in this fighting game prototype, Sakurai would even work weekends during the development because this project became so special and distinguished in his eyes. Sakurai had a deep concern revolving around characterization in the games early development, and at one point, considered making all the characters Kirby related. He eventually thought of including an ensemble of Nintendo characters that would pack more of an overall punch.
Choose Your Character!
Mario, Donkey Kong, Samus, and Fox prototypes and character animations were showcased to Shigeru Miyamoto internally when he visited HAL Laboratory to check in on development projects, as a first impression was of the utmost importance. Miyamoto initially refused the prospect of these characters being included, and Sakurai knew why the creators of these characters would be apprehensive. They’d be concerned how these characters, their personalities and characteristics would be represented. Not wanting to betray the creators, Sakurai made a concerted effort and consented to the original creators. Sakurai stated in regards to the original roster “It’s a matter of balance. For example, when you think “who are the 8 greatest Nintendo characters?” I think those 8 are the ones you think of.”
Because the game wasn’t a port and each character had different physiques it took a long time to implement; people thought using them in a fighting game would feel cheap or didn’t like the idea of some of the characters holding weapons. The lifespan of a fighting game is often affected by player reception directly, so there has to be a convention breaking chemistry to any new concepts that keep fans coming back. In contrast to the well established side-scrolling action of Street Fighter, Super Smash Bros (Often referred to as Smash 64 by fans), however, is more like a “sumo game” to force opponents out of the ring, and as damage counters increased, it would ring out players by sending them flying further and further.
Sakurai wanted to make a game that was simple, yet had depth, while not isolating newcomers to the genre. The goal was to appeal to seasoned gamers while offering an experience that was fun first and foremost, like a playground compared to a sandbox or a field that had all the combo-oriented intensity 2D fighters. The unique appeal of Smash meant customizing matches across nine stages with whatever match rules and items you want. Whether you want explosive 4-player brawls, to white knuckle one-on-one combat, the limitless possibilities help transcend Smash 64’s legacy that influenced future entries and modern gaming.
Show Me Your Moves!
Link’s design in Smash 64 was developed simultaneously alongside The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Therefore, the overall modern design and aesthetic references were in part outmoded and more in reference to the game’s beta version, as Ocarina of Time released only four months before Smash. Even with only pulling from the NES originals and Super Nintendo title A Link to the Past, the visual design of the Hyrule Castle stage from Smash 64 is forever a part of the legacy of Zelda as a whole. Considering Metroid lead character Samus Aran, who owes a large amount of her familiarity with gamers to this franchise instead.
Super Smash Bros provided a great introduction point to the concept of her equipment, and the dark sci-fi environments of Metroid. Much like Hyrule Castle, the Brinstar stage had to elevate a 16 Bit environment into 3D for the first time, and still manage to be fun to play a battle on. Not only that, but artists would have to try and keep the stage’s geometry under 150 polygons, evidenced by what can now be recognized as a lot of added 2-D sprite work throughout these stages. Given that Metroid ended up having to skip the entire Nintendo 64 era, Smash 64 was instrumental in keeping the franchise alive.
Sakurai spearheaded the project’s design, graphics, and modeling while Iwata led programming and debugging. The game presented fierce aerial attacks, smash attacks, and dashing.All were met with high praise from Nintendo, but nobody was available at Nintendo to help develop it because there was already so much in the pipeline. Many of HAL’s projects ultimately fell through, and the four-player brawler would be quicker to develop. The fighting game took the world by storm due to a competitive report between developers. Sakurai devised this idea for Smash 1996, opting for simple controls that somebody could intuitively pick up – and adapted to the new functional analog stick as introduced with the N64. The first impression this gave would plague them right until the end.
N64’s Super Smash Bros. is a benchmark blueprint in the modern fighting game genre. The result is a robust, widely appealing fighter with high-octane energy that excels compared to other traditional fighting contemporaries of the time. Not only in gameplay UI but in confident art direction and a spear-headed an essential merging of both the party game structure and one-on-one competitions for a new generation of gamers in the 90’s and for years to come.
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