This week, I dove into Game Maker's Toolkit's breakdown of Masahiro Sakurai's eight-step process for designing Super Smash Bros. fighters.
What makes this particularly valuable is that we're getting unprecedented access to the systematic thinking of one of gaming's most influential designers - the man who didn't just create the most successful platform fighter ever, but fundamentally changed how the industry thinks about accessibility versus depth in competitive games.
What makes Sakurai's approach fascinating isn't just the games themselves, but the methodology.
However, what truly makes this special is that Sakurai is sharing this knowledge freely. Through his YouTube channel, interviews, and presentations, he's essentially giving away a master class in game design that most studios would consider proprietary trade secrets. The fighting game genre was largely inaccessible to casual players until Super Smash Bros. proved that depth could be achieved without complexity barriers.
His influence extends far beyond fighting games - the "easy to learn, difficult to master" philosophy he perfected has become standard across competitive gaming. Now Sakurai is showing exactly how he achieved this, in 8 steps.
Ready? Let’s dive in to it !
PS: I’m a huge Nintendo fan, there’s some bias :).
PPS: I highly recommend watching both GMTK’s breakdown of the videos, and Sakurai’s entire series. Links (haha) in the intro.
The Roster: More Than Just Popularity Contests
The process starts with character selection, and this is where most people think they understand Smash Bros. but actually don't. Yes, fan polls matter. Yes, promotional needs from Nintendo play a role. But Sakurai's approach goes deeper than just picking the most requested characters.
Take the Ice Climbers. Nobody was begging for these obscure NES characters, but Sakurai included them specifically to represent the Famicom era of gaming history. It wasn't about demand; it was about creating a museum of interactive entertainment where every major period gets representation.
The clone fighter strategy is brilliant and misunderstood. When fans complain about "wasted roster slots," they're missing the point Characters like Dark Pit or Lucina exist because they can be created with a fraction of the resources required for completely original fighters. It's not laziness, it's efficient resource allocation that allows the roster to be larger than it would be otherwise.
This is project management disguised as creative decision-making.
Theme: The One-Sentence Philosophy
Every character needs what Sakurai calls a "theme" - a core concept that can be boiled down to a single sentence. This isn't marketing speak; it's a design constraint that forces meaningful differentiation. (Fun fact: it’s one of my favourite questions to my client “explain this to me in one sentence, no buzzwords”. Try it!)
The example that stuck with me is Chrom vs. Robin from Fire Emblem (one of their best license, I’m dying on this hill). Chrom was initially considered but rejected as just another "Dude With Sword" - the theme was too generic. Robin got chosen instead because the theme "Sword and Magic, Limited-Use Attacks" introduced entirely new mechanics to the game.
Think about how many game developers struggle with character differentiation, especially in competitive multiplayer games. Most approach it backwards, starting with visual design or lore and then trying to figure out gameplay mechanics. Sakurai starts with the mechanical hook and builds everything else around it.
Stats: The Invisible Foundation
This is where things get technical in ways that most players never notice. Each character has dozens of variables: run speed, jump height, gravity, traction, weight, shield size etc.. These parameters determine how a character feels to control before you even consider their moveset.
What's clever about Sakurai's approach is how these stats reference the source games while serving gameplay first. Bowser isn't as slow as his size would suggest because being true to his visual mass would make him unplayable. Sonic is fast, but not so fast that he breaks the game's fundamental mechanics.
Most people focus on the flashy moves and special abilities, but the foundation determines whether a character is fun to play or frustrating to control.
Moveset: Honoring Legacy While Building New
While every character shares the same basic control scheme for accessibility, their movesets create the specialization. This is where Sakurai's team performs their most impressive balancing act: staying faithful to source material while making everything work within Smash's framework.
Mega Man's moveset pulls directly from his robot master powers. Link's arsenal comes straight from Zelda games. But then you have characters like Captain Falcon, who don't actually fight in their original games. The team had to invent an entire combat style that somehow feels authentic to a racing game character.
The accessibility principle here is worth noting for any multiplayer game designer. Complex inputs aren't the goal; meaningful choices are. Every player can perform every character's basic moves, but mastering the timing, spacing, and combinations creates the depth.
Balance: Embracing Imbalance
This might be the most counterintuitive part of Sakurai's philosophy. He explicitly does not aim for perfect balance where every character has equal win rates. Instead, he accentuates each character's strengths while coupling them with significant drawbacks.
Ganondorf hits harder than almost anyone, but he's slow with limited range. This creates distinct advantages and disadvantages rather than homogenized gameplay. The goal isn't equality; it's variety.
Most competitive game developers chase perfect balance like it's the holy grail, but Sakurai understands that interesting imbalances create more engaging gameplay than sterile equality. The asymmetry is the feature, not the bug.
Animation: Clarity Above All
The animation philosophy focuses on readability and responsiveness. Each action gets broken down into key poses: idle, wind-up, attack, follow-through. The silhouette has to be clear enough that players can instantly recognize what's happening, even in the chaos of four-player battles.
To make the game feel responsive, animations often snap instantly into wind-up poses rather than smooth transitions. This sacrifices visual realism for gameplay clarity, which is the right trade-off in a competitive context.
Frame data becomes another balancing parameter. The timing of these animations determines whether moves are safe or punishable, fast or slow, creating another layer of strategic depth that most players feel but don't consciously analyze.
Visual Style: Unity Through Constraint
Making characters from completely different art styles look cohesive is a problem most crossover games handle poorly. Sakurai's team has developed a systematic approach: adjust proportions to fit standard height ranges, desaturate overly bright colors, and add or remove details to match consistent complexity levels.
But here's the cool part: they do this while maintaining faithfulness to the original designs. It's not about making everything look the same; it's about finding the visual language that allows different styles to coexist.
This is brand management at the visual level. The Super Smash Bros. aesthetic becomes strong enough to absorb wildly different source materials without losing coherence.
The Age Rating Reality
The most revealing insight comes at the end: everything happens within the constraint of maintaining an all-ages rating. When including characters from mature games like Bayonetta, Metal Gear Solid, and Persona 5, the team makes specific compromises. Snake doesn't use realistic weapons, Mythra's design gets modified with tights, and Mai Shiranui gets excluded entirely from background appearances.
These constraints force creative solutions. Instead of limiting the roster, the age rating requirements push the team to find clever ways to represent mature franchises in family-friendly ways. Constraints enable creativity rather than restricting it.
Reveal Trailers: Marketing as Storytelling
The final step is the reveal trailer, and Sakurai is personally involved from initial concept to final storyboard. These aren't just marketing materials; they're character introductions that establish personality and hint at gameplay mechanics.
What makes these trailers effective is how they serve multiple purposes simultaneously: they generate hype for existing fans, introduce characters to newcomers, and preview gameplay mechanics without feeling like instruction manuals.
The production value here sends a message about how seriously the team takes every aspect of the character creation process. If the reveal trailer matters enough to get direct attention from the series director, everything matters.
There’s a reason why these trailers become events themselves!
The Little Mac Case Study
Little Mac demonstrates how all eight steps work together. He represents Nintendo's arcade history (roster), embodies the unique theme of ground-based brawling with a power meter (theme), has exceptional ground speed to close distance (stats), uses boxing-inspired attacks (moveset), trades air game weakness for ground game dominance (balance), features snappy punch animations (animation), uses the detailed Wii Punch-Out!! design (visual style), and got revealed through a comic book-styled trailer (reveal).
Every element reinforces the core concept while serving the larger game's needs.
Lessons for Modern Builders
Three principles emerge from Sakurai's approach that apply beyond fighting games:
Start with mechanical differentiation, not visual novelty. The theme-first approach ensures every addition serves a functional purpose rather than just expanding the roster for its own sake.
Embrace meaningful imbalances over perfect equality. Interesting asymmetries create more engaging experiences than perfect balance. Accentuate strengths while coupling them with clear weaknesses.
Design within constraints, not around them. Whether it's technical limitations, age ratings, or resource budgets, treat constraints as creative parameters rather than obstacles to overcome.
What strikes me most about Sakurai's methodology is how it systematizes creativity without killing it. Each step has clear criteria and objectives, but the execution still requires intuition, taste, and deep understanding of what makes games fun - Nintendo’s most important pillar.
More importantly, Sakurai is sharing this framework openly at a time when the industry desperately needs it. As games become more expensive to develop and publishers become more risk-averse, having systematic approaches to design problems becomes crucial. The fact that one of gaming's most respected directors is essentially teaching his methods for free represents a rare act of industry generosity.
For those of us building games or any creative product, there's something reassuring about discovering that even seemingly intuitive creative decisions follow logical frameworks. The magic isn't in abandoning process; it's in building process that enables better magic.
Until next time,
Rachid