Super Smash Bros and Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai believes the games industry needs to focus on brand-new ideas to survive. However, as they push for originality, they worry gaming audiences are too focused on playing what they know.
After discussing the rise of AI games earlier this month, the iconic game designer stressed in a new interview that originality is missing from the games industry. In an industry where terms like Soulslike are commonplace, it’s clear that sales rest in jumping off other title’s strengths but Sakurai wants to create something new.
“As I’ve talked about several times, originality is a very low priority when it comes to whether a game can sell or not,” Sakurai told Japanese outlet Denfaminicogamer. “But I’m trying to put in some kind of novelty or originality. If it’s the same thing, it’s best to play the original.”
Sakura has created a number of games in similar genres to other games. Super Smash Bros is a fighting game, but it’s incredibly different to its contemporaries in the genre. Kirby Air Riders, which released last year, is a kart racer, but it’s incredibly different compared to Mario Kart.
“Kirby is also a side-scrolling action [game],” he said. “But if the rules are the same as Super Mario Bros, of course it will be: ‘then go play Super Mario’. That’s why I think it’s meaningless if I don’t change [the game] in some way.”
“Even if it had been released, it likely would have been dismissed as nothing more than a gimmick, and the history of Super Smash Bros would have ended right there.”
Masahiro Sakurai on if Smash Bros was just a 1v1 fighter with Nintendo characters.
Sakurai explained that “users expect ‘what is expected is what is expected’” nowadays, and many buy games on their similarities to others instead of their differences. “if you were to create something without incorporating any originality or new systems, you’d essentially be left with a product that makes people think, ‘Well, I might as well just enjoy the original instead.’
“Imagine if Super Smash Bros had simply adopted the standard rules of a conventional fighting game. 1-on-1 matches, a system of guarding, attacking, and special moves, with a health-bar mechanic where you win by scoring a K.O. I suspect the original would never have been released in the first place.
“Even if it had been released, it likely would have been dismissed as nothing more than a gimmick, and the history of Super Smash Bros would have ended right there.” He explained that Smash was designed around “accumulated damage” to introduce “unique mechanics and strategic interplay” which was unique at the time, and beloved today.
With that said, Sakurai explained that “injecting that kind of originality is an incredibly difficult task”. He continued: “Originality is truly a difficult thing—much harder than one might imagine. Really… especially lately, games have become more complex.”
The Smash Bros creator explained that, nowadays, there “control schemes, for instance, have become fairly standardised. There are established rules for everything—which button fires a gun. Which buttons correspond to light or heavy attacks, and so on. Is there any way to change that? Or is it something that must not be changed? Rather than trying to be eccentric for the sake of it, is it possible to create a new kind of gameplay experience? One that’s build on a genuine understanding of what makes a game fun in the first place?”
Sakurai used the unique control schemes of Kirby Air Riders and Kid Icarus: Uprising as examples, but also explains that “there are people who view Air Riders as nothing more than a knock-off of Mario Kart”.
“Currently, there are so many games that fall into the ‘something-like’ category—games that resemble existing titles,” he continued. “In a sense, this suggests that such games represent the “flavour” that people are actually looking for. True originality, however, requires creating something that falls outside of that “sought-after flavour”—and doing so with careful calculation.”
