Masahiro Sakurai has addressed several subjects in regards to his upcoming project, “Super Smash Bros. 4” for Wii U. According to a report from Operation Rainfall on Sept. 18, the game director first talked a little bit about the roster selection. He revealed that, although the amount of playable characters is larger compared to the previous games, some fans are still disappointed with the choices.
Masahiro Sakurai went on to specifically talked about Ice Climbers. Although the duo was functional in “Super Smash Bros. 4” for Wii U, the same can’t be said for the 3DS version. Furthermore, Nintendo currently does not have a lot invested in the old school franchise at this time. As a result, Ice Climbers ended up being cut.
The development team wanted the roster to be the same with the two versions of the fourth installment from the “Super Smash Bros” series. The Ice Climbers are unique in that players can control the two characters at the same time. However, the pair apparently takes up a lot of hardware resources, which prevented them from returning in the upcoming title.
The crossover fighting game features 49 characters in total. One of which is Mii Fighter, which can be customized with several different moves and looks. However, players won’t be able to re-create the aforesaid Ice Climbers. Based on the aforementioned comments, it is also unlikely that the duo will be a part of any potential DLC releases. An image featuring some of the roster can be seen near the top of this article (via the official “Super Smash Bros.” Facebook).
The series creator also talked about the “Super Smash Bros. 4” for Wii U release date by stating that the 3DS version was released first in order to prevent a potential delay of both iterations. Nintendo Everything reported that the two products needed to be debugged separately due to the differences in content and hardware. If the development team was aiming to release the game at the same time on two platforms, both iterations won’t end up being released until next year.
As a result, “Super Smash Bros. 4” for 3DS launched first in Japan on Sept. 13 while the North American release date is set for early next month on Oct. 3. The development team, which is made up of members from Bandai Namco Games and Sora, should then focus on completing the development for the console version. The “Super Smash Bros. 4” for Wii U release date is still officially set for the holiday season although retailers are beginning to list a Nov. 21 launch for the software product.