It is no surprise that Super Smash Bros creator Masahiro Sakurai is a Fire Emblem fan given how many characters from the series are on the roster. Sakurai recently took some time out in the latest edition of Famitsu to discuss his love and admiration for the series. Here’s what he had to say.
Interviewer: Please tell us about how you first encountered Fire Emblem.
Sakurai: I think that Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (henceforth referred to as Shadow Dragon (NES)) was released before I’d spent a year at HAL Labs, and I was really drawn to the spritework and animation. That feeling of satisfaction when a pirate cleanly hits with his axe (laughs).
Interviewer: (laughs) You played the first one, but did you play future entries in the series?
Sakurai: Generally speaking, as soon as they were released, I bought and played them. There were some where the release window overlapped with a particularly busy period and I gave up halfway through, but I’ve touched upon every entry in the series, and I’ve beaten most of them.
Interviewer: Among those, which titles stick out the most in your mind?
Sakurai: I think it has to be Genealogy of the Holy War (henceforth referred to as Genealogy).
Well obviously. I really don’t think Sakurai would’ve added six without loving FE.
except he was asked to add the new one by the fire emblem team, and roy was pretty much fan demand
Fire Emblem is a classic game series. Just like Mr. Sakurai (Sakurai-San?) I’ve spent plenty of hours on this series and beaten almost all of the games. It’s well worth the time spent if you like strategy and tactics games. I actually recently just picked up Blazing Sword, the 7th entry in the series and the 1st released to America, which featured Eliwood, the father of Roy from SSBM. And it still holds up quite well. So if you haven’t played this game I would highly recommend it. One of the better games on one handheld.
I have played Blazing Sword a couple of months back, and it’s my favorite entry of the Fire Emblems games I have played so far, and I do hope that in the next Smash Bros. game a non-sword wielder like Hector or Ephraim gets to be in the game.
Hector is one I would love. I kinda want a Wyvern Knight or Pegasus Knight. They’d never pick a non-main character but I’d love Heath.
Tiki is also an option. She appeared in five games + SMT X FE. She is the main manakete and uses no swords. She would have been a better idea than Corrin.
By that logic, Camus is a better choice, as he appears in a whooping 7 games.
He appears in the most Fire Emblem games excluding the Anna sisters.
Plus, he uses a legendary spear. He is more fit than Tiki.
I wonder how many metroids he has played and beaten (0)
Keep wondering, this article is about Fire Emblem.
Brace yourselves
The Biased Accusers are coming
Accusers? He basically admitted it.
Can’t blame him, it’s such a fun, addictive series I can’t wait for fates 😍
Can’t blame him. It immediately became my favorite franchise when I played The Sacred Stones (my first one) and just got better from there.
He’s a bigger FE fanboy than J.J. Abrams is of Star Wars lol
I would have figured his favorite was the Fire Emblem games with Ike since he’s STILL in the franchise as a non-DLC character. Ike really should have ended up a DLC character instead this time around & replaced with Chrom.
At least we now know he has good taste in FE.
If Ike should be the DLC character, then what’s your opinion on Roy? xD
Crap! I forgot about Roy! In that case, screw Ike! He can come back as DLC for a future Smash game, because I prefer Roy.
Roy was originally planned to be Leif instead, but someone told him about Binding Blade’s release, and Leif, who can wield ALMOST EVERY WEAPON TYPE IN THE GAME was replaced by Roy, because “The fire looked like a good idea.”
You’re fucking kidding me. I didn’t know this.
Also, Lucas shouldn’t have been DLC- I’m not too thrilled that I had to pay that extra $5 for my Brawl main. Any DLC should have been newcomers or Melee vets who missed Brawl, like Mewtwo.
DLC should have been only all newcomer characters! And the worst thing to think about is that among the 4 brand new DLC characters, only one is a Nintendo character, Corrin, people never realized this because they were very occupied yelling about too much FE characters.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved Mega Man and Pac-Man in the full game, I was positively surprised by Ryu and Cloud and I’m crazy hyped for Bayonetta, because at least they are all new characters, I don’t have anything against the veteran DLC characters (maybe freaking Roy), but having the DLC funcionality being used for bringing back old characters is such a waste. These three veterans were brought back only because of the fans, Mewtwo is such a beloved pokémon but one of the worst characters in Melee, Lucas came from a Japan-only game from a discontinued series that only came back because of Brawl, same goes for Roy but because of Melee and for being from a game with changing characters in every new release.
Ended as DLC? Mewtwo, Lucas and Roy would never get back if it wasn’t by the fans of these characters. Just try to tell me why Wolf didn’t got back, with the entire internet treating him as a mere Shoo-in.
More proof, Sakurai plays favorites, and it’s more about what HE likes compared to what the fans like. He likes FE a heck of a lot more then poor old Starfox.
Exactly this. When Smash is a conglomeration of all things Nintendo and 60% of the enemies in Smash Run come from Kid Icarus Uprising, you’re doing something wrong.
People loves to complain about this like these enemes was the major part of the entire mode. I play Smash Run every single day, and I spend more time fighting Goombas, Koopas, Shy Guys, Hammer Bros., Kritters, Tiki Buzzes, Mites, Roturrets, Poppants (I miss the Primids), Deku Scrubs, ReDeads, Stalfos, Darknuts, Waddle Dees, Bronto Burts, Waddle Doos, Bonkers, Reos, Geemers, Kihunters, Metroids, Gastlies, Koffings, Chandelures, Devil Cars, Starmen, Polar Bears, Mii Ghosts, Pookas, Mettaurs, Eggrobos… And I’m pretty sure I missed someone. I only worry about KI enemies when a fucking Orne pops on the screen and screw my progress.
Least Starfox has two playable characters in Smash while Metroid still only has one since Zero Suit Samus is just Samus with a different moveset.
Yup, because Star Fox is far more popular and have more games and more sells than Fire Emblem.
>>>Star Fox might have more games released in the west but in no way does it have more games than Fire Emblem in total>>>
Like only the west matters.
Can’t you just accept that any attempt to include a Star FOx character would result in a clone?
I seriously can’t see the matter of having 6 FE characters, FE have tons of eligible characters, just like Pokémon, why the fact of being a character from FE bugs you so much? Get over it.
>>>I only corrected your statement about total games released, I don’t really care other than that what Sir Sakurai does>>>
One more thing, Star Fox Zero is the most recent entry in the series since SF Command back in 2006 (I don’t count the SF64 remake for 3DS), while Fire Emblem usually recieves one or two entries per console.
And you know what, I strongly dislike the actual direction of Fire Emblem, they transformed a perfect war simulator into a relationships game for weeaboos.
>>>Well it’s typical western “culture” to include relationships and sexual rituals in everything, they can’t just enjoy something for what it is and sadly our Homeworld is forced to appease to these you call “weaboos”>>>
movingthegoalposts.jpg
I don’t frequent a ton of sites on the internet so what is movingthegoalposts.jpg?
No image in particular, just a fun way to point out what he’s doing.
*looks it up on google again with the question “what does moving the goalposts mean” & gets a direct answer* Damn. I should have typed that out from the get go yesterday. Oooooh okay! Now I get it! Yep. Sounds about right.
I was being ironic. The fact of there are still people oeverreacting about the FE characters in Smash sets me up.
>>>I see>>>
Well, Starfox characters didn’t originally fight hand-to-hand, they used vehicles all the time.
And, what character would they add, anyways?
That annoying frog?
I’ve never played any Fire Emblem game. And maybe this is one of those “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” situations. But, in every video I’ve watched of Fire Emblem games, I never liked the looks of them. They look SO boring to me. I never understood the appeal.
If you can find a good deal on it, I would highly recommend Awakening (the one Robin, Lucina, and Chrom come from). Never played FE before, but I tried the demo and by the end of it, it had me like “I HAVE to find out what happens next!” It’s very accessible, too- you can ease into things on the lower difficulty + casual mode (no permadeath) and then start a new file at a higher difficulty and turn permadeath on if you want, if you feel confident. Plus, you don’t need to have played a previous game before- aside from mentions of Marth, there are no direct allusions to any exact game.
It also has a descendant of Ike in the game as a special playable character that you can unlock late in the game.
You mean it wasn’t clear before when FE now has 6 fighters while Star Fox and Donkey Kong still only have 2?
*points at poor little Metroid with only 1 character with two separate movesets trying to manipulate the more gullible part of Nintendo’s fanbase into thinking Smash has “two” playable characters*
Do you know about another Metroid rep without being the impossible and tri-deconfirmed Ridley? To be honest, I believe the Space Pirate from Super Metroid would be an excellent fighter, they are intelligent and they have variations thad could be fit in a consistent moveset. Story-wise, they are Mother Brain’s cohorts and make the most of the dirty work than Ridley.
Deconfirmed? Says who? Sakurai? The very same man that has lied countless times before as to why a character can’t or won’t be in Smash for whatever bullshit excuse yet was in Smash in a new release anyway because he changed his mind or actually made it work regardless of his previous comment of said character? Yeah. Ridley is just as deconfirmed as Villager or Miis are. Oh wait!
Yes! One, two, three times deconfirmed by your very truly Masahiro Sakurai. The guy who never lied and people are constantly misunderstanding everything he says even when he proves his arguments in practice (like showing that Ice Climbers are impossible on 3DS).
And WTF is this Villager and Miis randomness?? Are you seriously trying to associate Ridely’s problems with Villager and Miis inclusion?
Sakurai once said Villager wouldn’t work in Smash because he’s not fighting game material. Same excuse he used for Miis in the past. Yet here we are today: they are in Smash & fully playable. In other words, Sakurai is known to lie about why this or that character can’t work. And it’s because of one reason: he refuses to delegate some of the work of balancing characters to the rest of his team because he wants to do it all on his own. So yes. Ridley is in the same position as those two. Sakurai using some lie that he knows some people will buy. “Not true to character to shrink Ridley & limit his flying ability.” Yet having Ridley submit to someone beating his ass then helping them fight others is true to character? Hah! Oh & let’s not forget Ganondorf is a big fat contradiction to that excuse from Sakurai. Ganondorf isn’t even true to his own character. He’s a clone of Captain Falcon for crying out loud & isn’t even using any of his abilities from the Zelda franchise. So I’ll say it again: Ridley is just as deconfirmed as Villager or Miis: only a matter of time before he’s playable.
RIDLEY FOR SMASH 5!!!
According to your logic, people are not allowed to change their minds, am I right? You compaired a design decision from a 2008 game with another from a 2014 game, look at the time lapse, please.
But yeah, if you are this level of fanboy, I hope you’re happy with those crazy Brawl mods and Smash Crusade that managed to make Ridley playable (and gloriously proved that Ridley would fail as a fighter in the official game).
I can understand about DK, but can you point another Star Fox character that would make a fighter without borrowing moves from other fighters like Wolf did? Wolf was one of the most forced characters in Smash, he was like a chimera fighter with a bunch of animations copied from other fighters, his up smash was just like Sonic’s up air, his down air was just like Diddy’s, his dash attack was just like Fox’ up smash. Being a chimera is worse than being a clone in my opinion, proof of that is that he got insufficient votes in the ballot.
Um, yes, this one pops up a lot- Krystal. Gives her the staff from adventures, that already makes her different from Fox and Falco. Neutral special- Fire blast. Up special- Boost (no damage but very strong vertical recovery). Side Special- Ice Blast (could work similarly to Ice Climbers’ down special, and why not since they were cut). Down Special- Earthquake (cannot hit airborne enemies, but buries standing enemies right next to her).
It amazes me how so many people just outright think she would be a clone.
Palutena already fights with a Staff, and I wonder why people persist on Krystal so much. I rather prefer Peppy over Krystal and Wolf, simply because he is the owner of “Do a Barrel Roll”, this very catchphrase symbolizes Star Fox as a whole, in fact, Peppy deserves a bigger spotlight than Falco in my opinion, the only problem is, again, the moveset, when you think about creating a moveset for a Star Fox character, you can’t think something far from Fox and Falco, and Krystal also wouldn’t be that far from Palutena. Of course, I can be wrong, and I wait to be surprised, always.
So? Link already fought with a sword before all these other sword users came along in the original Smash. Just because a character fights with a certain weapon shouldn’t stop others that also use it from getting in. But you bring up one good point with mentioning Palutena using a staff: Sakurai will be lazy with Krystal’s staff moveset & just give her a cloned moveset of Palutena’s. Kind of like how he was lazy when giving Ganondorf a moveset when the game he was from gave plenty of ideas as to what his original moveset could have been. If Sakurai doesn’t have a good enough of an imagination to make a character different from another even when the game they come from easily gives you a good idea for a moveset for that character or is too lazy to do research for a character to give them an original moveset, he could just get someone else to help him out & think of one for him for that character. I have an idea for another Star Fox character that could actually work well: Slippy! He’s the inventor of the group, right? There’s plenty of ideas for Slippy’s moveset you could come up with when you keep that in mind to keep him from being a clone as long as you don’t take the lazy route & make him into yet another clone. If Sakurai wasn’t so hellbent on doing every single thing on his fucking own, there would be no clone in the game because the other people on Sakurai’s team could pick up the slack & create an original moveset for characters he can’t come up with a moveset for because of his own limitations or because of a time frame of the game’s release.
The problem isn’t the characters, really, but Sakurai himself. He’s holding the franchise back because he won’t delegate the responsibilities. Exactly why Sakurai as Nintendo CEO would never, EVER work. The fact some people actually entertained the idea was hilarious. But that’s a discussion that’s long since passed since we thankfully got Kimishima instead.
TL;DR, you are just one more upset fanboy that didn’t accepted that your favorite character didn’t got into Smash and Sakurai is the only one to blame for being the director of the series.
Loveable how people forgets that Star Fox took 9 years to get a brand-new entry in the series and scream as crazy for him including a character as deep and relevant for the series as a dish. I wanted Wonder Red, I didn’t got Wonder Red and I’m not upset over this because I knew this was a hard request.
I tried to be civil with you by not insulting you personally. But since you want to go the route of calling me an upset fanboy & personally insult me, fine. I’m an upset fanboy, eh? What’s wrong? Did I insult your precious Lord Sakurai? I didn’t realize you were just an upset Sakurai fanboy mad a lot of people aren’t kissing Sakurai’s ass. Now that I think about it, if I remember correctly, you were one of the people that thought Sakurai being Nintendo CEO would be a good thing. lol Sakurai might be a great developer but he’s a fucking terrible leader.
“I’m an upset fanboy, eh? ”
Yeah! You are an upset fanboy indeed! If trash talking makes you fell good, go ahead, bash me at your little closed heart’s will. After all, I’m intelligent enough to not buy a product from a man I hate.
lol You started the trash talking & bashing toward me first, because I was talking shit about Sakurai & you apparently took it personally. I’m simply retaliating in self-defense. And I hate Sakurai? That’s funny. I disagree with some of his decisions, yes, but I don’t hate the guy. Being critical =/= hate.
As for our other conversation, if Sakurai can change his mind about Villager & Miis being playable, he can change his mind about Ridley being playable for a future Smash game, too.
Oh, and, Ridley’s not getting in Smash.
Ever.
I foresee it not happening.
And my predictions are always spot on. Like, I predicted a score for a football game, 5 seconds later, my mother checks the score on her phone, BAM! I was right. Oh, and, I had no way of cheating, thank you very much. I’m not lying either.
Ridley’s not going to be in Smash. Shrinking a character is much more awkward than growing one.
And if Ridley did, that would just open up MORE stupid requests, like, say, Godzilla. Sure, I like Godzilla, but it would make no sense at all. Or, more requests for indie game characters and Shrek and Goku. Because, if Ridley could get in, so could these other characters, because than that would prove your point entirely, and people would constantly pester Sakurai into oblivion.
And Sakurai thinks about these things in advance.
But if it wasn’t for all these complaining fans, Smash Bros. would have stopped at Melee.
So, instead of being angry and ranting about why your characters didn’t get in, you should be more thankful. Or, at least, stop whining. It is, to be frank, quite annoying. It’s the main reason why I don’t like to hang around on big Smash webpages. Because all these fans can’t stop complaining.
Yes, I am complaining about those who complain. I’m fed up with it. I am simply too annoyed by the thousands of complaints that exist about their memes and indies game characters not getting in.
Did you really just compare Ridley, a 1st party Nintendo character that’s a huge mainstay of one of it’s biggest franchises, to characters that didn’t even originate in video games? And compared Ridley, a monster the size of a small house, to Godzilla, a monster the size of a skyscraper, who also hasn’t originated in video games? Ridley’s a stupid request because he’s in the same boat as Godzilla, Shrek, Goku, etc. Yeah, sure. That’s funny. And there goes that excuse that “shrinking isn’t the same as expanding.” Nice double standard some of you people have there. It’s not like I haven’t heard THAT before. If Sakurai wants characters to be true to character, shrink Olimar back to the size of 4 quarters, give Ganondorf a moveset from the Zelda games, shrink Kirby & Pikachu because they shouldn’t be coming up to Mario’s shoulders, remove the data that forces Ridley to side with someone that beats the crap out of him to help them in the battle to name a few contradictions to that “true to character” excuse he just now suddenly decides to use.
Sakurai really shouldn’t make up lies or excuses as to why he won’t make a character work and just come right out and say the truth: he doesn’t have time for that character this installment because it’s too hard to make them work right now because of the hardware limitations or his own limitations because he apparently tries to do most of the work himself & doesn’t delegate to his team. I’d agree with his decisions a hell of a lot more if he wasn’t patronizing us as if we’re just a bunch of dumb, stupid casuals like the rest of Nintendo has been doing the last 2-3 years.
Oh, did you know that Marth was originally planned for the original Smash game, but the team just didn’t have enough time or money? Sakurai said it himself, that he wanted a quick, agile fighter to contradict Link.
Sadly, as fabricioogrande pointed out with mentioning Palutena also using a staff, she could end up being a clone in the same way Ganondorf ended up a bloody clone: using the moveset of a character from a different franchise. So sadly, they would be half right considering we know exactly how Sakurai is at times.
I would like to think that won’t happen, but I admit you have a point.
I just purchased awakening and holy shit that game is so fucking addictive. Better than that weak ass pokemon shit they’re shoveling out this days. I don’t like how lucina is portrayed in smash bros. I use think lucina was a stuck up bitch who used marths identity. But now I know the reason behind those actions. I now realize that smash can ruin a character that you know next to nothing about.
Meh, I had more of a problem with her inclusion being a spoiler for a game that wasn’t even two years old at the time. One more reason it should have been Chrom on the roster, but I’m done vouching for him- FE has 6 fighters now, that is more than enough.
If you played awakening. Chrom is kinda the main character. The avatar is just fucking there. He just chooses who the fuck he wants in the game. I personally think lucina could have had her own unique move set. Sure she took on the marth personal. But the game fucking mentioned that she had a unique fighting style of her own. Far better than that of her father’s.
Nah, Robin/Avatar was very important when you remember who the main antagonist is. Robin has a more centric role to a game’s plot than the avatar in Xeboblade Chronicles X does, if you played/are playing that (unless that changes later- not that far in yet).
Yeah xenxenoblade really doesn’t have a antagonist. But I in my opinion I would say Elma is the antagonist. Since she’s the leader in all. Idk sure robin moves the army and organize them. I just feel like he’s a fucking secondary character compared to Chrom who the exalt of the kingdom.
>>>How is Elma the antagonist? She basically saved humans alone, unfortunately…>>>
Eh Protagonist……….
Robin is not secondary to Chrom. Nor is Chrom secondary to him/her. They both share the responsibility as main character since the fate of the world is tied to both of their fates. The story also revolves around both characters, too. So secondary to Chrom, Robin is not.
I’m not a huge fan of Fire Emblem, however I have no complaints about Sakurai’s choices. He added a bunch of characters I like and love in Smash, Mega Man, Palutena, Pac-Man, Ludwig, Bayonetta, and he also improved my previous characters such as Bowser and Sonic.
Pingback: Sakurai Discusses His Love for the Fire Emblem Series