Smash Ultimate Director Masahiro Sakurai has revealed that Nintendo’s flagship fighting game could have had an incredible new gameplay feature, but it was scrapped because of casual players.
In his latest and final Famitsu column, the Smash creator discussed the history of Ultimate, its DLC, and finally bringing Kingdom Hearts’ Sora to the game – the most-requested fighter of all time.
When discussing Sora’s aerial gameplay and how the character is best known for his aerial combat, Sakurai revealed that originally, Smash Ultimate was planned to have a crazy new feature related to air attacks.
According to Sakurai, there were some serious considerations for fighters to be able to perform smash attacks in the air.
Why were air smash attacks scrapped in Ultimate?
“It was too complicated so it didn’t get added. I think aerial combat is important. But the options for aerial attacks are quite limited,” Sakurai said, as translated by PushDustIn.
But that’s not all. It turns out that Smash’s more casual party game scene was what kept the developers from moving forward with the plan.
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As noted by the lead dev himself, the more skilled players tend to use more aerial attacks. It came down to wanting to keep the game fun for less serious players while still crafting a competitive title veterans would enjoy.
The more skilled the player is, it seems the more they use aerial attacks.
I decided against it because I felt like [Smash Ultimate] was able to keep the balance between casual and hardcore players. Sora’s concept was to make aerial fighting fun even for casual players.
— Will (PushDustIn) (@PushDustIn) November 3, 2021
“I decided against it because I felt like [Smash Ultimate] was able to keep the balance between casual and hardcore players,” Sakurai added. “Sora’s concept was to make aerial fighting fun even for casual players.”
With the future of Smash uncertain, we may never get to see aerial smash attacks added and it’s wild to think of what the game would have been like if they were implemented.
However, judging by Ultimate’s success, there’s a good chance that Sakurai and company made the right call after all.
