Super Smash Bros.

Sakurai sums up each fighter in one sentence before designing anything. Design documents list a pithy theme per fighter, such as "Puppet Fighter" for Rosalina and Luma, "Pointed Sword Dancer" for Meta Knight, "Heavy Weapons Specialist" for Snake and "Third-party Cover Fire" for the Duck Hunt Duo. If the theme is generic, the character is redesigned or cut.

The unique trait can be a gimmick, a special move or a whole playstyle: two characters at once, mid-match transformation, changing the stage, storing a projectile or fighting only with grabs and counters. "If I cannot meaningfully distinguish them from other characters, that's the end for them."

A distinctive candidate beats a popular but redundant one. Sakurai passed on Chrom because Marth and Ike already wield swords, and invited Robin instead, whose tomes and sword break from overuse. Robin's theme was "Sword and Magic, Limited-Use Attacks".

"Sword and Magic, Limited-Use Attacks is a much more interesting theme."

Little Mac shows every design step tracing back to one theme. He is an up-close brawler with a Power Meter, fast on the ground and useless in the air. His moves are all boxing, his animations are short and snappy, and his look comes from the Wii game with more detail.

His reveal trailer was done in comic book style to save money.

Fan demand, franchise coverage and uniqueness pick candidates; cost and permission decide. Of the top 10 requests in a 1999 poll, Bowser, Peach, Ganondorf and Mewtwo reached Melee. The Ice Climbers were added to represent the Famicom, and Wario was cut from Melee to limit Mario characters.

Games unknown outside Japan, like Murasame Castle, get passed over. Franchise fairness has since waned, with many Fire Emblem fighters now in the roster.

Reusing rigs and animations makes clones and echo fighters cheap to add. Wolf was easier to model than the all-new Krystal because he resembles Fox, and Ganondorf reused Captain Falcon's animations. A full fighter takes about a year to produce.

Sakurai once had to fight to borrow Pikachu and Jigglypuff for Smash 64; now developers like Yuji Naka and Hideo Kojima ask him to include Sonic and Snake.

One control scheme for everyone keeps Smash approachable while moves still vary. Every fighter uses the same inputs, and variety comes from damage, knockback, range, area and status effects, plus very different specials like projectiles, counters, traps, coloured Pikmin and grab-based wrestling.

Specials can also mimic other fighters, trigger a random RPG move or summon a motorbike.

Movement stats capture a character's feel, then get bent for play. Dozens of parameters such as run speed, traction, jump height, gravity and air control set how a fighter moves. Mario and Sonic match their original jump height and run speed, but Bowser is tuned faster than his boss self, who would feel too slow and heavy.

Incineroar is the slowest runner and Sonic the fastest.

When the source game offers nothing, the team invents fitting moves. F-Zero and Star Fox characters sit in cockpits, so the team created Falcon Punch and the reflector shield, and Snake never jumps in Metal Gear Solid. Other moves come straight from the source, like Mega Man's robot master powers and Mario's water pistol.

Moves are also sped up for Smash's pace: Sakurai says its fastest move launches five times faster than the Tekken equivalent.

Pair each strength with a serious drawback rather than capping it. Capping strengths would make everyone feel the same, so Sakurai accentuates strengths and attaches weaknesses. Ganondorf has one of the strongest forward smashes but is slow and short on range; Mewtwo is strong but light; Link's projectiles cost walking speed and jump height.

Drawbacks take many forms: Simon's whip has a long recovery on a miss, Banjo and Kazooie's Wonderwing is limited to five uses per stock, and Charizard's Flare Blitz damages Charizard. Characters have hundreds of tweakable parameters.

The goal is no dominant fighter, not perfect balance. Pichu in Melee was left underpowered on purpose so that "if you can win with this character, you'll look really cool." The real rule is that no one should win every match.

Brawl's Meta Knight dominated because he had advantages without trade-offs. He had very fast attacks and a mid-air momentum cancel that helped him avoid KOs, and others lacked tools to counter him.

Match-up charts show who dominates but not why, so the specific cause has to be found before nerfing, or counters can be buffed instead.

Sweet spots like Marth's sword tip make positioning matter. Marth does much more damage with the tip of his sword than with the rest of the blade, so players must manage spacing to get full value.

Every attack is planned as idle, wind-up, attack and follow-through. The wind-up warns the opponent, the attack pose shows power during hit-stop, and the follow-through shows vulnerability. Poses come from a master spreadsheet of every animation a fighter needs.

Sakurai adds notes, illustrations and source-game screenshots, and poses a Figuarts Body-Kun figure as reference for human-shaped fighters. Because the camera is zoomed out and the screen is busy, rigs are squashed, stretched and over-twisted to keep silhouettes readable.

The wind-up appears on the first frame so controls feel instant. Responsiveness matters more than smooth interpolation, so the pose snaps in right after the button press, and transitions are sped through to make kicks feel snappier.

"It's more important that Smash feels instantly responsive to the player's action."

Animation timing doubles as a balance parameter. King Dedede's hammer swings slowly to convey strength, while Zero Suit Samus's neutral jab skips the wind-up. Timing is set during planning but exact frame data stays tweakable for later balancing.

Colour, scale and detail are normalised without overriding original designs. Heights are squeezed to between 3 and 9 feet so 20-foot Ridley and tiny Olimar fit together, bright palettes are desaturated, simple characters gain texture and realistic ones lose detail.

Olimar's suit gains pockets and straps and Donkey Kong gets rounded teeth and toenails, while Ness keeps his Funko Pop eyes and Pokemon look like plastic models. Sakurai "absolutely did not want to betray the original characters' creators."

Pick one definitive version, and modernise characters that never got one. Pac-Man uses his original sketch design, Mega Man an NES-era look and Sonic his modern one. Pit, a 24-pixel sprite before Brawl, was redesigned by imagining how he would have evolved like Link.

Reveal trailers replaced cutscenes after Brawl's expensive cutscenes leaked. Brawl's Subspace Emissary cutscenes were posted online before release, so Sakurai put the effort into fighter reveal trailers, which drew big fan reactions.

He writes the events as text, then a studio makes storyboards, previz and the final video. Some trailers trick viewers, like the fake Wii Fit one; Ridley's first was too intense, and Microsoft required Steve and Alex to feature equally.

Check designs against the age rating early to avoid late revisions. Ultimate's CERO A rating meant Mythra got tights and a fuller shirt, Snake uses no knives or guns, and Mai was left off the King of Fighters stage.

Revising Palutena and other female models nearly made the Wii U version miss its release date.