Smash Bros. shown in Japan

By Tom Bramwell Published 3 November, 2006

With Fox back in the line-up.

Nintendo has shown off a new Super Smash Bros. Brawl trailer at its Nintendo World event in Japan today, "comprised almost entirely of gameplay" according to reports.

Kotaku notes that the line-up of characters - already featuring Solid Snake, remember - will also include Fox McCloud out of Star Fox. Not that big a surprise, since he was in the previous Smash Bros. games, but the first we've heard of him in Brawl.

But weren't there supposed to be surprise announcements? As it turns out, no. Wired's GameLife blog has gone to the source of the rumour - Smash Bros. designer Masahiro Sakurai's Japanese blog - and discovered that the point of his comments was lost in translation.

"Apparently a few first-year Japanese students are looking at the beginning of [the offending] paragraph, seeing the construction shin-kyara ('new characters') and assuming the rest of the sentence says WILL BE REVEALED!!!1 when what it actually says is 'For the first time, the general public will be able to see the new characters moving around in actual game screens!'" Wired's Chris Kohler writes.

Oh well. Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Nintendo Wii, announced at E3 earlier this year, is due out sometime in 2007 and is said to offer players the option of controlling it with the GameCube pad.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • dbeamish #1 5 years ago

    je suis unimpressed.

  • Muddtallica #2 5 years ago

    Ah, tu es stupide. :p Given that I must have sunk well over 300 hours into the Smash Bros series thus far, this is a guaranteed first day purchase for me, and easily my most awaited game. Shame there's nothing really new unveiled, but there will be in good time, I don't doubt. For now, it's nice enough to know Fox is back, and I can't wait to see what he's like now. He was OK in SSB, but amonst the best characters in SSBM. I wonder if they've tweaked him again?

    In any case, I really need to track this footage down, pronto...

  • Blerk #3 5 years ago

    Gash Bros.

  • Banjax #4 5 years ago

    I thought Nintendo had already said that you wouldn't be allowed to use Gamecube controllers with Wii games?

    /is confused

    /edited to clear up Wii confusion

    /is still confused
    Edited by 2 at 03/11/06 @ 08:44

  • Steroyd #5 5 years ago

    Like Heck am i going to play SSBB with that wii controller.

  • spongebob #6 5 years ago

    Tom is the king of cynics! And it's ace!

  • Kazzahdrane #7 5 years ago

    @Banjax: Obviously with the Wii supporting GC controllers there is always the option there for using them. And Nintendo thankfully aren't stupid enough to change the SSB interface and input so much to use the motion-sensitive controller. Chances are you'll be able to play it with the Classic Controller too, since it has quite a lot of buttons (pure guessing).

  • Dezm0nd #8 5 years ago

    There would be no way of playing SSBB with a wii controler, there's not enough buttons. This is a bit of a nightmare situation for the Wii, but hopefully the use of the gamecube controler will rectify this.

    If the player is forced to use a different control method other than the one he/she is given out of the box it will no doubt cause frustration. even if nintendo say "you must use the classic controller we're releasing" it's still a total pikey move from nintendo.

    I say launch SSBB with a controller. Nuff said.

  • peterfll #9 5 years ago

    I have a soft spot for the GC version, it came with my US Gamecube in time for Xmas 2001 and I spent many hours with it.

  • Roamer #10 5 years ago

    Smash Bros Melee is pure brilliance. Easily the deepest fighter I've ever played in the sense that it's all about timing and strategy instead memorizing button combos. I think my memory file for Smash maxed out at 999:99 hours years ago.

    Captain Falcon was always the greatest character. Sheik was there for the sake of being cool, but quite effective nonetheless.

  • Steroyd #11 5 years ago

    pfft Link owns Captain Falcon's arse anyday of the week.

    Gannondorf hardest CPU player EVAH!!

  • Santino #12 5 years ago

    no no no samus makes every one her personal bitch that should be common knowledge by now :p

    edit: totally agree with the ganondorf cpu being a hardcore sob though!
    Edited by 1 at 03/11/06 @ 10:44

  • malteaserhead #13 5 years ago

    footage for muddtallica

  • corimi #14 5 years ago

    Cool, cheers malteaserhead!
    Looks like the artists are well into denim, cloth of fighting.
    Also, Snake's 'crawl' move looks amazing. I did that in a fight last Friday and my enemies were really scared till they stamped on my head.

  • malteaserhead #15 5 years ago

    "Snake's 'crawl' move looks amazing. I did that in a fight last Friday and my enemies were really scared till they stamped on my head".

    lol!
    yeah seemed a bit weird

  • Pooley #16 5 years ago

    Graphics look nice, and are starting to show the difference between the GC and the Wii. At last...

    I'll get this one as soon as it's out. SSBM spent loads of time in my GC. The single player game quickly became boring, but multiple player games with friends used to end in hours of game play and thorough enjoyment for everyone playing. Oh the arguments that used to ensue, and the laughter at the end of each round when you studied the achievements. I think I ended up collecting most of the statues, which was quite a nice feature.

    Roy FTW!

  • ProfessorLesser #17 5 years ago

    Aw that looks shit hot. Wii Most Wanted, after MP3.

  • Nostromo13 #18 5 years ago

    trash brothers,

  • crazyhorse174 #19 5 years ago

    Never ever got the attraction of these games...

  • Pooley #20 5 years ago

    Is this the difference between Nintendoids/Sony fanboi's and Xbots then?

    Nintendoids/Sony fanboi's have plenty of friends that come round to play loads of great party games, especially after the pub or clubbing...

    Whilst Xbots have no friends and have to play online with people they don't know from the other side of the world...

    Is that why XBL is so good, because it needs to be, whilst Nintendo and Sony have no real online offering because it's not that necessary?

    /runs for the hills... ;-p

  • Khab #21 5 years ago

    I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant it. Nooooooooow.

  • KillerMonkey #22 5 years ago

    Mmmmm... can't wait to try those new characters!
    Hurry up and launch the Wii already, Nintendo! ;)

  • alexg #23 5 years ago

    I don't see why they couldn't use the wii remote to control this game.

    Chucking your opponents across the screen with a swing of the remote would be fun.

    Considering it's one of Nintendo's bigger titles it's surprising it seems like there's no use of the remote at all.

    What do we get instead?

    "Oh, you can use your Gamecube controllers."

    Woop eee fucking dooo. What's the point of this? We can just play Melee on Wii instead then. There's no difference.

  • Freek #24 5 years ago

    It's a fighting game, the fact that they are not bodging the wiimote in there in some half assed way is a good thing.
    Edited by 1 at 04/11/06 @ 15:02

  • alexg #25 5 years ago

    @Freek
    I disagree.

    If anything, fighting games are the clearest example of why the old ways of doing things need to change.

    Memorising a whole host of button combinations in order for that to translate into a kick or punch from your on-screen character is just a ridiculous system really.

    Swing your controller like a punch and your character punches. What's wrong with that? Seems a lot more sensible to me.

    I hoped things were truly going to change. I thought some genuine new approaches were going to be tried. I thought some risks were going to be taken.

    But no; as usual the games industry clings on to its ancient conventions. It will die, trust me, games are going to die if this stubborn refusal to progress and innovate continues to be the norm.

  • Muddtallica #26 5 years ago

    malteaserhead: Cheers for that. I like. :p

    alexg: Whilst your commitment to innovation is admirable, I'm not sure you're thinking this through. The way you phrase it, it makes it sound like up until now, we've been pressing "A+B+180 degree rotation on the D-pad" to do a punch, which obviously isn't the case. Usually, doing a basic punch action takes one button press, which is easy enough translate to a motion sensing system.

    The problem is that A+B+180 degree rotation usually yields an elaborate punch-kick-80-foot-somersault combo, which is somewhat trickier to recreate. There would be two ways of doing this; either make your player actually train to become a supernatural weapons master who needs stage a mimed fight in their living room in order to play the game, or else just arbitrarily map the more elaborate moves to certain gestures (like, spin the remote whilst holding A does a fireball), but in essence that's just replacing one system of unnatural, unintuitive control with another, and it wouldn't actually improve the experience at all.

    If you think about it, fighting games are a genre that have stood relatively still over the course of time; most new fighting games merely refine what went before rather than come up with something really new. Sure, we got the transition from 2D to 3D, but that really just added an extra plain of movement, with the core gameplay remaining the same. It's somethign you could criticise, but you do have to think; in what way could you revolutionise the fighting game genre without totally altering, perhaps even ruining, the basic foundations that have made it such a well-loved type of game? I'm not saying there's not a way, but I sure as heck can't think of one.

    In any case, as much as I do support the innovation ideal of the Wii, I'm not someone who embraces a universal "out with the old" policy anyway. Fact is, I'm keen to play new types of games, but that doesn't mean I want to totally abandon all the old style of games that made me a fan of games in the first place.

  • dudefella #27 5 years ago

    Yeah also these people who want every game to use motion controls should be careful what they wish for. Clearly you haven't thought it through very well. How long would it remain fun to have to swing a controller around before you get tired, or you just simply want to sit on the couch and play a game? Swing the wiimote for a punch? And the rest of the controls? You'd be worn out after the third fight. I have serious doubts about how long motion controls remain playable. And when the novelty value wears off, how long till the Wii becomes Gamecube 2? Sorry, being overly pessimistic here, but a nagging part of me keeps thinking the Wii will do as well as the Gamecube...

  • alexg #28 5 years ago

    I still think "You can use the Gamecube controller" is a disappointingly backward way of thinking.

    Even using the remote like a NES controller with the D-pad and one or two buttons would be progress toward simplicity and accessibiltiy imo.

    I agree, you don't HAVE to use the motion control for every game.

    And I do think the fighting genre needs either an overhaul or to be abandoned completely. Dial-a-combo that you have to first learn, memorize, get the timing right and then be quick enough to use it at the appropriate time in a match is a crazy way to play games. It means all but the most fanatical players are ever going to do is button mash and hope.

  • dk_rare #29 5 years ago

    "Gash Bros, gur gur gurr"

    Idiot.

    Smash Bros has been a favourite with the fans, I'm seriously looking forward to it