Nintendo reportedly considered portingSuper Smash Bros. Meleeto the Wii instead of making its sequel,Brawl. This is notable, asNintendo recently shot down the idea of portingMeleeto the Switch.
Super Smash Bros. Meleeis the second in the popular fighting game series,Super Smash Bros., in which the protagonists of Nintendo’s biggest IPs (alongside some third parties) get together to combine combat and platforming. Despite having three sequels that have outsold it,Meleeremains a popular game to this day, with a very prominent tournament scene and many players still considering it the best in the series due to its exploitable physics engine and faster movement speed. Series developer Masahiro Sakurai originally left the company in 2003 after growing fed up with Nintendo’s propensity for sequels, but despite this has since returned to direct everySmashinstallment since.
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In a video released to his official YouTube channel, which mostly details the new ideas and development process forSuper Smash Bros. Brawl, Sakurai revealed that Nintendo’s backup plan for its then-upcoming Wii was to simply portMeleeover to it, in the event that he would not sign on to directBrawl. In the video, he explains that the game would have just been ported over with no changes to its content aside from possibly the addition of online play. It’s common knowledge that a thirdSmashgame with online functionality was promised to fans before it had even been pitched, with late former president Satoru Iwata approaching Sakurai about the project after announcing it at E3 2005.Announcing a game too earlyis not a new trend, but it is just one of many bold moves Iwata took that turned him into an industry icon.
Sakurai ultimately ended the video by saying that he’s glad to have worked onBrawl, otherwise it would have been the end ofSuper Smash Bros.as it is known today. This would likely be due tothe more casual directionBrawltook, which drew in a lot more new players who might not have been able to get a handle onMelee’s precision-based controls. As a testament to this,Brawlremains the second bestselling individual installment in the series to this day.
It is up in the air as to what would have come ofSmashhad Nintendo gone with its backup plan. It would’ve undoubtedly gone down well with the prosperousMeleecommunity, many of whom felt alienated by the later games' more casual approach and more methodical gameplay speed. It doesn’t help thatNintendo has cracked down on the competitive scenefor allSmashgames in recent years, so perhaps giving the game a rerelease on newer hardware with more accessible repairs could work as a peace offering of sorts, and not have to come at the cost of other, original entries.
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