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

News Flash! Smash Bros. Dojo: Mario

 

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


It’s a bit late, but Mario is here!

When starting development for Smash, we naturally start off with Mario.
That means modeling, movements, programming, sounds, effects, and parameters.

Here’s a simple explanation:

Modeling:
The character’s appearance, shape, structure and so on

Movement:
The character’s animation, including punches and jumps

Program:
How the character responds to the control on the actual console

Sound:
Voices and sound effects

Effects:
Visual effects such as light, splashes, and smoke

Parameters:
The values for things such as running speed, falling speed, and attack power

Everything moves forward using Mario as a foundation, so the direction and nature of the game is actually decided to a certain extent. This Mario has turned out like this.


That presence! Mario's here.

That presence! Mario’s here.

Mario Tornado! It's stronger than it was before.

Mario Tornado! It’s stronger than it was before.

Super Jump Punch! Grab your coins.

Super Jump Punch! Grab your coins.

Mario throws a Fireball. His glove's on fire!

Mario throws a Fireball. His glove’s on fire!

Mario's Cape will turn enemies around.

Mario’s Cape will turn enemies around.

It's Mario's forward smash, Fire Glove!

It’s Mario’s forward smash, Fire Glove!

(These images were taken during development)


 

Mario’s Special Moves

Neutral Special: Fireball

Side Special: Cape

Up Special: Super Jump Punch

Down Special: Mario Tornado


Check out the character portal for more!

4 comments
  1. “Everything moves forward using Mario as a foundation, so the direction and nature of the game is actually decided to a certain extent. This Mario has turned out like this.” This is extremely interesting because he’s basically implying he uses Mario as the center for balancing the roster, maybe just for Melee, but possibly for the other games as well! Great stuff.

    Cragley.K on September 12 |
    • From a developer’s standpoint, this is how many games with multiple characters work… ESPECIALLY fighting games. It’s usually your “balanced, default selection on the character select screen” person. I’m not sure with Smash 64 because it was so experimental, but I can guarantee that Brawl and Smash 4 were developed with Mario as the first fighter and everyone else following suit after that. Especially for balancing, it just makes sense that you start with a perfectly balanced, perfectly neutral character, and from there say “this character needs to run slower than our balanced character” or whatever the case may be.

      Ryu is another great example of this type of character as well. He not only applies to the Street Fighter series, but every “Capcom vs.” game.

      Winturwulf (@winturwulf) on September 12 |
  2. Hmm, it may be fair to put this into the ‘misinformation’ bin, but I thought I heard a while back in one game that Fox was actually the first one created. Maybe it was Brawl?

    I can’t validate this one’s source other than hearsay from years and years ago.

    spd12 on September 12 |
    • Fox was one of the first ones for Smash 64. See the quote/ interview below:

      “As preparation for when we were going to go up to Mr. Miyamoto and ask “please let us borrow Mario,” first, we gathered some staff and created a prototype version with only four playable characters. I believe it was Mario, Donkey, Samus, and Fox?”

      http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/10/11/itoi64-2/

      PushDustIn on November 21 |