Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Reveals Big Feature Cut Before Launch

November 4, 2021, 1:03pm

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate creative director Masahiro Sakurai has revealed a fairly big feature cut right before launch in the name of not favoring skilled players at the cost of casual players. In his final Super Smash Bros. Ultimate column for Famitsu, Sakurai reveals that he and his team were originally planning to add “Smash attacks in the air.” However, in the end, it was too complicated for the team to implement, partially because Sakurai and co. wanted “to keep the balance between casual and hardcore players.”

Videos by ComicBook.com

“In fact, in the original plan for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate… there was some consideration for adding Smash attacks in the air,” said Sakurai. “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. The more skilled the player is, it seems the more they use aerial attacks. I decided against it because I felt like [Super Smash Bros. 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.”

Between Sora and Min-Min, Sakurai and his team further explored aerial fighting, but it sounds like it was going to have an even bigger emphasis in the original game.

All of that said, it’s important to keep in mind all of these details and insight come through translation via PushDustIn. While the translator in question has proven reliable in the past, it doesn’t change the fact that everything that comes through translation should be taken with a bit of hesitancy as vital meaning and context can be lost through translation because that’s just how language works.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available via the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, and the Nintendo Switch OLED. For more coverage on the best-selling and critically-acclaimed 2018 platform fighter — including all of the latest news, all of the latest rumors and leaks, and all of the latest speculation — click here.