Last night Super Smash Brothers fans around the world were giddy with excitement as Nintendo unveiled several new features for the latest incarnation of the franchise coming to the 3DS and WiiU. Masahiro Sakurai bestowed upon the fans of the series a new game mode, new features, and most of all—if going by the screams of the crowd—a new character: Pac Man.
A choice that Mr. Sakurai described as being made out of reverence to the beloved character and its creator, Tōru Iwatani, Pacman has been added as the fourth video game history character, joining the ranks of Mario, Sonic, and Mega Man. During the developer round table, Mr. Sakurai took some time to go into detail on how the character will be represented in the game. In order to capture the essence of Pac Man while still feeling at home in the modern aesthetic of the game the main model for the character will be Pac Man as he was first envisioned in Pac Land for the Arcade and NES. For some special attacks, however, he will take on his original “pizza with a slice cut out” form. Mr. Sakurai showed off the character’s strengths by playing a live single round against Mario, Sonic, and Mega Man on stage and defeating all three handedly.
This led naturally into the discussion of the new customization and item systems. In “with friends” mode players will be allowed to customize each of their special attacks with one of three variations that changes the fighting style of the character. In the example provided Mario’s fireball could be changed into a much faster projectile that moves in a straight line or a larger, slower projectile that hits opponents multiple times. The Mii fighters that were unveiled earlier in the day, have an even greater level of customization. Players will be allowed to pick one of three archetypes—gunner, swordsman, or brawler—which means there are up to 12 special powers that the Mii Fighters can be customized with.
Customization of characters could be further enhanced by equipping items on the characters. These items will adjust speed, defense, or power at the expense of one of the other three or some other specific weakness. In example they highlighted an item called the power gloves that would have increased damage at the expense of being more easily knocked up to showcase this tradeoff. It was also announced that this customization system will also be tied to a weight system, whereby heavy characters will have more item customization slots than light characters as an offset to what Mr. Sakurai termed as the natural benefits that lighter characters possess. The hope, Mr. Sakurai explained, was that players would find a character they enjoy and then dive deeply into the customization systems in order to enhance player expression and the strategic experience.
They made it clear that both of these features would only be available in the “with friends mode” a move that seems to have been made in order to make balancing easier for high-level competitive Smash Brothers play in “with anyone” mode.
This brought the presentation to the new Amiibo figurines. These figures are actually smart figures, similar to Skylanders, that are used in tandem with the game itself. When starting a round figures can be placed on the WiiU pad and a FP —Figure Player—version of the figure will be selected as one of the players in the match. It was explained that these FPs will level up over time and can eventually vastly exceed the abilities of a level 9 computer player—the FPs have a level cap of 50. Mr. Sakurai mentioned that these FPs also have a self-learning feature that allows them to adapt over time to players strategies and adjust their tactics. The hope is that players will partner up with their FP in 2v2 matches against other players and their FP partners.
The final announcement was Smash Run Mode, a fundamentally new way of playing the game. In this mode players are placed in a massive open-ended stage and set to the task of defeating a series of computer controlled enemies drawn from various Nintendo franchises including Kid Icarus, Mario, and Zelda. These enemies when defeated will drop items that power up the character in various stats such as speed, defense, and attack. Players will have 5 minutes to power up as much as they can before the round ends and they must use their freshly empowered character to defeat players in a series of skill challenges that range from a race to a single round of classic smash.
During the Q/A Mr. Sakurai made it a point to discuss the challenges they’ve faced in balancing the game in order to meet the needs of veteran fans and also potential fans. The “for fun for glory” concept was bandied about several times, and it appears that they’ve put forth considerable effort to provide a satisfying experience for both camps without much in the way of compromise.
Super Smash Bros Wii U is set to drop sometime this 'Holiday Season'.
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