The Rising Stock of Masahiro Sakurai
There is a new face of Nintendo boys and girls, and his name is Masahiro Sakurai: The Accomplished, Incredible, and Hilariously Spiteful Nintendo Troll.
Even though he has been a fixture with the company for decades, and even though he’s been making games for the Big N for a long time, his recent appearances and impact has been truly felt across the gaming world, especially within the Nintendo fandom. Miyamoto, Koji Kondo, and the immortal Iwata are notoriously delightful personalities that also dedicated their lives and all their talents to Nintendo. Sakurai is a skilled genius and rising legend, but the difference is he’s arguably the first Nintendo talent to directly challenge the fanbase with no regard. After battling the fanbase for years, after years of mega-stress over perfecting the Smash Bros. series, he has had enough, and has completely flipped the table on how to market Nintendo games and how to stifle the gaming crowds.
Before Sakurai became the top Nintendo challenger against the feverish but notoriously picky and demanding fanbase, he was a simple developer that invented the character of Kirby. He would direct several of the early Kirby titles, including what I consider to be hands-down the best Kirby game of all-time: Kirby Super Star. He would distance himself from the Kirby franchise after being stressed by the demands for constant sequels. Nonetheless, he stuck with Nintendo to continue developing Smash Bros. games, which had quickly become among the most popular franchises in all of gaming, let alone Nintendo.
Super Smash Brothers is arguably the most popular fighting game franchise of all-time. 5 of the 10 best-selling fighters of all-time are of the Smash variety, and they own the top two slots. Despite not necessarily gaining the proper respect from fighting game enthusiasts because of its unique fighting mechanisms and because it’s hard to take a game seriously when Kirby and Pikachu are among the available fighters, Smash Bros.’ extremely unique style of fighting gameplay makes it a hit with hardcore fighters, Nintendo fans, and even the casual crowd. Sakurai and company flipped the fighting concept upside down, as the health meter doesn’t decrease, instead you rely on a damage meter that increases.
The other reason why Sakurai is easily one of the best directors in the business is because of his intense devotion to detail. Smash Bros. transformed from a surprise-surprise Nintendo 64 hit into a generational party celebrating the history and culture of Nintendo. Starting with Melee, we get treated with increasing rosters, increased amount of stages, increased amount of music past and present, and lastly amount of hidden goodies and references to Nintendo lore.
But Nintendo fans wanted more. It was almost like gaming cocaine, it wasn’t enough, it was never enough.
You have the Melee fans. You have fans of characters that may never show up in a Smash Bros. game. You have the fans of the competitive aspect of Smash that demands an equally balanced roster in terms of skill sets. You have the Melee fans (yea, worthy of repeating). There are wildly different reasons why there are so many fans (and subtle critics) of the games, making it the franchise with the toughest task of pleasing everybody in the history of gaming.
Sakurai heard and felt the complaints. Melee was too fast. Brawl was too slow. Smash 3DS had clunky controls. Sm4sh didn’t have enough characters. Too many Fire Emblem characters. No Ridley. Sm4sh’s online mode wasn’t strong enough or deep enough to support our thirst. The sales were always there, but so were the small bickerisms as I like to call them. At some point, Sakurai rose from the ashes of stress and became a Nintendo titan.
For Smash Brothers Ultimate, no punches were going to be pulled. He’s going to make the game HE wants to do, regardless of how far the deep end it might seem. Like a content-creating Thanos, Sakurai killed every character in Smash Bros. during the infamous recent trailer with the exception of his one creation which was Kirby. Also along the way he is out to kill Smash Brothers Melee once and for all, by duplicating the entire model and transferring it over. He tossed in characters to the roster nobody asked for because he could. He made sure that your favorite requests became mere assist trophies, and only every once in a while did he allow a request to become a playable character. Waluigi and Issac still aren’t playable characters, but Sakurai tosses in Ridley and King K. Rool to soften the blow a little. Piranha Plant being a playable character was the ultimate pie-in-the-face towards every Nintendo fan that thought they had the roster figured out. But then there’s the Castlevania characters joining in the fight shockingly.
But all anger about Smash news comes off as childish because Sakurai did something nobody ever expected: built a brand new Smash from scratch, and then took every Smash Bros. element preceding it (probably except for that dumb tripping feature in Brawl) and dumped it into Ultimate, creating one of the biggest games ever. He didn’t enhance a port, he went back with his development team and crafted a new engine for the purpose of sending this franchise to the next level. And this time, minimal considerations concerning gamers’ requests. He was set out to break your hearts while also thrilling you with ions of content to keep you fighting for years to come. What Grand Theft Auto does to action games, Smash Bros. does to fighting games—deliver flawless content, and a complete abundance of it.
While most developers shy away from internal controversy between the fans and developers, Sakurai is out there on each Smash Bros. direct, toying with the audience with each announcement. He is out there directly feuding with the Nintendo crowd unapologetically. He knows his game is going to be awesome, he is fully aware of his powers, and this is dangerous to the consumer because our words and pleas are no match to his vision. Sakurai has evolved from humble stressed developer into the Man That Will Screw With Your Feelings.
Sakurai has directed the best Kirby game of all-time, revived Kid Icarus after nearly 20 years of inactivity, and has overtaken the top fighting franchise in all of gaming. He is rising the Nintendo ranks and who knows how high his ceiling is going to be. Rumor has it Ultimate will be the final Smash Brothers, so where should he go to next? Maybe create Kirby Super Star 2? Maybe create the next Kid Icarus? Maybe form his own vision of a Super Mario game? With his popularity surging and Ultimate poised to sell at least 10 million copies, Nintendo would be wise to allow him to choose his next path. Losing this talent would be a foolish mistake, as he has formed a fanbase (and a haterbase) all on his own.
Smash Brothers Ultimate’s biggest B-plot has been about Sakurai and his Nintendo Directs creating vivid reactions. He is daring you to protest his game, and you won’t. There won’t be a Marvel vs. Capcom or a Solo: Star Wars Story incident; in the midst of the rage you’ll still be in line waiting to get a copy of the game. Sakurai has developed a cult audience, and through his evolving skills and depleting care about audience expectations has transformed his image that went from poor child getting yelled at to developmental supervillain at the peak of his powers, and I’m embracing every second of this.
All this while making sure Waluigi never becomes a main character, just because he can.