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Filed under: Industry People, Masahiro Sakurai, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. Series

News Flash! Smash Bros. Dojo: Ice Climbers

Hello! This is nocturnal YL, and this is my first post.

This is a translation of the Ice Climbers’ character page from News Flash! Smash Bros. Dojo, Melee’s version of the Smash Bros. Dojo. Thanks to PushDustIn and Soma for their help with the translation.


Ice Climbers:

Updated: 9th October 2001

Did they really get revived in this form!?

It’s the Ice Climbers of the street legends.

I often have people asking me, “why did you choose the Ice Climbers?”

First off, we wanted a single representative from the characters that originated from the Famicom! After that was decided, we made our pick by process of elimination.

  • Balloon Fight — seems like he wouldn’t be able to do anything after his balloons are popped
  • Urban Champion — seems like he doesn’t have a lot of moves
  • Clu Clu Land — don’t know how she would fight
  • Excitebike — we’d need to make ramps for him to jump
    (that’s not really the issue)
iceclimber_pinup

Also, in character selection, whether they have “things only that character can do” is important.

With the Ice Climbers, we thought it’s interesting to translate that game’s simultaneous 2-player play to having both characters move simultaneously here, so that’s how they joined in.

If you fight the Ice Climbers, you’ll find them annoying.
Having both of them at the same time will be powerful beyond imagination, but they don’t seem very powerful to the player controlling them, and it seems possible that the player will find themselves winning without really realizing it.

With the Ice Climbers, their mid-air horizontal movement is slow, which is a fatal flaw of theirs that’s been faithfully translated from their own game to Smash. This makes them rather extreme as combatants.
(Are the recent adjustments not going for this direction? I still don’t know…)

By the way, Popo and Nana are a childhood friends-like boy-and-girl pair.
The “more than friends, but less than lovers” kind.

 


 

sansen_120

furi_120

ice_shot_120

8nin_120

takai_120

hammer_120

(Images taken during development)


Ice Climber’s Special Moves
Neutral Special: Ice Shot
Side Special: Squall Hammer
Up Special: Belay
Down Special: Blizzard

 

SG
5 comments
  1. So, that’s the inspiration for their “two-in-one” fighting style then, translating the idea of two simultaneous players on screen at once. Come to think of it, that wasn’t really so common back in the day, was it? They’d usually alternate playing.

    Thanks for sharing this.

    spd12 on September 9 |
  2. I never found Ice Climbers annoying to fight. I did destroy event 50 with them though. Master Hand’s worst nightmare in my GC.

    haruhisailormars on September 9 |
  3. R.I.P. Ice Climbers

    Brandon (@Brandon_SM101) on September 9 |
  4. It’s funny… I just played Ice Climber a little bit the other day, and their lack of horizontal aerial movement is true. It’s actually quite annoying having to back up, run, and jump for a platform only to miss it.

    I do miss them… but I’m sure we’ll get them back in Smash 5.

    Winturwulf (@winturwulf) on September 9 |
  5. Very awesome to have this translated here, thanks a lot. If I remember correctly, Sourcegaming once said they were considering translating something about an e-mail that “possible influenced Mr. Game & Watch”. He’s my favorite character since Melee, so I really wanted to see that translation someday. Many people say things like “Mr. Game & Watch was the star of the Game & Watch games, his first appearance was in Ball”, but his first real appearance was… in Melee.. He was created to represent the Game & Watch.. Or was he? Is it possible that this character always existed but was never formally presented until Melee? I really wanted to know more about him.

    Ar on September 10 |