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Kirby Creator Leaves Company

Posted by simoniker on from the morphs-into-new-position dept.

Thanks to Gamers.com for their news that Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Super Smash Brothers and the Kirby series, announced his departure from developer HAL Labs in his latest column for the Japanese magazine Famitsu Weekly. Although an independent developer, HAL Laboratory is tied very closely to Nintendo, but Sakurai said that "...his departure was entirely amicable, and he is leaving with the approval of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata." Going forward, it's confirmed that "HAL will continue to develop games starring Kirby, although the fate of the Smash Brothers franchise remains uncertain", according to Sakurai's column.

7 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. Could be bad news... by tyroney · · Score: 2

    Since Smash Bros is one of the bigger titles that N has had the past few years. Loss or significant degeneration could mean less sales of their next console, or something like that. Then again, I never bought SSB:M, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad after all.

    1. Re:Could be bad news... by Daetrin · · Score: 3, Insightful
      You guess correctly. SSB:M isn't half of what the original is. All the characters are nothing but doubles of eachother and you spend more time trying to keep yourself alive while the levels try ceaselessly to kill you than you do smashing your opponents. The N64 SSB is a true classic. The sequel is a joke and is one of the reasons I haven't bought my own GC yet. (Although, Metroid Prime is quite tempting.)

      Are you sure you learned how to play the game? You clearly didn't spend more than five minutes trying it out.

      I spend pleanty of time smashing people. A few of the levels are kind of annoying, but the majority of them aren't actively hostile. Personally i think it's a nice break to spend a round once in awhile trying to franticaly keep myself onscreen while also trying to do incidental damage to the other players and screw with their efforts to do the same. However if that totally puts you off, you can turn off the levels that do that move, spin, or whatever.

      As for character doubling, all the original characters are there, so you certainly haven't lost anything. They've approximatly doubled the number of characters, and although about half the new ones are doubles of pre-existing characters, the other half aren't. If you are somehow offended that by the existance of doubles, just don't play with Bowser, Gannondorf, Marth(or Roy, pick one) Pichu, Falco, or Dr. Mario.

      However just because some of the characters are doubles is no justification not to use the original characters, as well as Zelda, Peach, Roy (or Marth, pick one =) the Ice Climbers, Mewtwo, or Game & Watch. (I may have missed a few on either side, but the general rule holds true)

      Melee is just as good as the original if not better. I like a lot of the quirky new characters, and a lot of the new mini games are cool and colleting trophies is an amusing diversion.

      --
      This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  2. Kirby but no SSB? by quandrum · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Okay, Nintendo would be making a grave mistake to end development on the Super Smash Brothers line. This is THE fighting game for the Nintendo platform. From my personal anecdotes, SSB:M gets more play on the Gamecube then any other game. Period. It's just one of those games that anyone can sit down in front of and have fun. Kirby is fun, but it's no SSB...

  3. Doesn't Nintendo own HAL ? by edwdig · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I was almost positive Nintendo fully owned HAL. I remember back when Nintendo sold Rare, there was a financial report floating around that had an organizational chart of Nintendo, which listed HAL as a subsidy of Nintendo.

    Anyway, as to Smash Bros, there's no way Nintendo would stop further development of it. Smash Bros Melee is by far the top selling GameCube game. The N64 version was somewhere in the top 10 of the N64.

  4. No problem... by lightspawn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just as long as Nintendo remembers to suck him in and absorb his powers before he leaves.

  5. Re:What ever happened to Tilt and Tumble? by hibiki_r · · Score: 3, Informative

    Kirby's Tilt 'n Tumble just lost it's Kirby license (They didn't want to dilute the Kirby franchise, IIRC), and is now called Roll-O-Rama. The game has no release date in Japan, and hasn't been announced as an US or EU bound title AFAIK.

  6. A metaphysical crisis by Kirby · · Score: 2

    I feel so alone now, adrift in an empty Universe...

    Wait, I'm not that Kirby. Whew.

    --
    -- Kate