Masahiro Sakurai has been doing great work on his YouTube Channel, “Creating Games.” He’s been dedicating lots of time to all sorts of topics within the gaming industry while also showing off the industry’s history in the process. For example, he’s talked about the importance of text, why the Famicom was a revolutionary console, the need for risk and reward in a video game, etc. He’s appealed to all manner of people within the game-building process, and his latest video is no different, as he took a deep look into Super Smash Bros Ultimate through its stages.
Why the stages? Because in the game, there were over a hundred stages, and those were just the stages in their “base form.” You might recall that you could alter the stages to have a form similar to “Final Destination,” where it’s more focused on combat than jumping onto platforms.
As Sakurai noted in the early parts of the video, having so many stages and then having to make sure that eight players could be on those stages and fight was challenging. They had to both make a fair stage and then make it visually appealing while still being accurate to the game worlds they were based in.
Given the fights going on within said stages, you might not have realized all the details that went into each one. As such, Sakurai made the video below over 17 minutes long so you could see the stages without characters on them and get a good look at how much detail they put into each one. Check it out below!
Do you see all the details that make these stages shine? Like in the Fountain of Dreams level, how there are falling stars and auroras and circles of light in certain spots? Or how about that special view of Mute City SNES? Wasn’t it cool to notice that you’re really on the course as you’re fighting?
Or maybe when you looked at the Kalos Pokemon League stage, you noted how beautiful the stage’s details were to make it feel like an official league.
As Masahiro Sakurai was no doubt trying to convey, the game’s artists had to go full tilt to make each level shine, even when you didn’t notice the details yourselves. Sakurai also wanted these stages to serve as inspiration for future artists. So if that’s you, take a good look and see how far you should try and push these levels to make them look incredible!
