Rumor: Sony working on Smash Bros-style fighter
Who would win in a fight? PaRappa the Rapper or Sackboy? Sly Cooper or Jak? Sony is apparently working on a Smash Bros-styled mash-up.
Who would win in a fight? PaRappa the Rapper or Sackboy? Sly Cooper or Jak? Clank or Buzz? Sony has three generations' worth of mascots to call from, making a Smash Bros-styled mash-up entirely feasible. A new rumor suggests that's exactly what Sony is working on.
Developer SuperBot Entertainment is supposedly working on a new PS3 exclusive. Previous job listings confirm that the team is, indeed, working on a fighting game, with calls for a senior combat designer and a lead designer with "strong familiarity with online mode and matchmaking design." In addition, a picture of employees playing with arcade fighting sticks leaked online.
Paul Gale Network claims that the purported fighter is called "Title Fight," and will feature PaRappa, Kratos, Sly Cooper, Nathan Drake, Sweet Tooth, Fat Princess, and more in the Smash Bros-inspired brawler.
A Twitter account for one of the game's senior level designers (now removed) featured a number of images supposedly from the game's development, including a detailed Sweet Tooth character model, and another image referencing Kratos. Thankfully, NeoGAF managed to save the pictures before they were taken down.
Should the rumor be true, "Title Fight" will be remarkably similar to a PlayStation advertisement released earlier this year, which featured quite the assortment of PlayStation mascots:
As expected, Sony offered the standard "we do not comment on rumour or speculation" line to Eurogamer when pressed for confirmation.
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replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Rumor: Sony working on Smash Bros-style fighter.
Who would win in a fight? PaRappa the Rapper or Sackboy? Sly Cooper or Jak? Sony is apparently working on a Smash Bros-styled mash-up.-
Smash Bros. works because Nintendo has dozens upon dozens of recognizable names and faces that any gamer, not just Nintendo fans, can recognize. I can't say the same about Sony's characters. Not to take anything away from those characters or their games, but really, who is more recognizable than Mario, Link, and Pikachu?
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ronald mcdonald?
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ronald mcdonald vs col. sanders now theres a fight anyone would pay for.
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Nintendo used Ness and Captain Falcon, there is room for lesser knowns as well.
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Ah, well then we agree.
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Daxter*
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You don't play enough video games then :p (also, they've done a piss poor job capitalizing on their IPs this gen).
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Yeah, I recognized most of those from the original PS and PS2 days, had a lot of friends with Playstations and they were a little heavier on the commercials back then too.
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I'm predominantly a PC gamer but I have a 360, a Sega Master System II and Megadrive and every Nintendo console from the SNES. I read Kotaku, Shacknews and Joystiq every day and I have 293 Steam games; I consider myself a hardcore gamer. I've never owned a Sony console but my housemate is a casual gamer who has one. Here's how I see these chars:
MGS - Not a PS exclusive and Solid Snake is in SSBB.
DMC - I couldn't tell you who the main character is in this. I assume he's the white haired guy.
Crash Bandicoot - I agree, this is a well known and recognised character.
Jak and Daxter - I only know this because I used to play it with a friend and I don't know anyone else who knows who they are.
Same with Ratchett and Clank, who I'm surprised you missed.
God of War - I really should know the premise of this game, but having never owned a Sony console I don't.
LBP - I know Sackboy but I think this is more of a cult hit than a broad casual thing?
ICO / SOTC - I have no idea what ICO is and I don't know who the characters are in Shadow of the Colossus.
Infamous - Some guy who's basically Alex Mercer, right?
Pixel Junk - I've never heard of this. I just looked it up and I can't see how you can include this. There's no character? Just cars or dots or something?
Uncharted - Male Lara Croft.
And I'd say other than Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter I only know these games because I'm a gamer.
Whereas when I saw SSB as a child there were:
Mario - EVERYONE knows him. He's a household name and every parent, teenager and kid in the western world knows him.
Link - Every gamer will know who Link is and lots of non-gamers.
Samus - I would assume most gamers know the basic premise of Metroid.
Kirby - Okay, I had never seen Kirby before SSB.
Luigi - Most people who know Mario know Luigi. Granted he was a clone character.
Pikachu - EVERYONE knows Pokémon.
Captain Falcon - You probably have to be a NIntendo gamer to know F-Zero.
Ness - You have to be a hardcore or retro gamer to know Earthbound.
DK - Any person who knows old arcade games and all nintendo gamers know DK. Probably the fact that DK got a joke in the Simpsons shows it's pretty mainstream.
Fox - Granted, to know Lylat Wars and Starfox you need to be a gamer.
Jigglypuff - Anyone who watched the Pokémon anime or played a Pokémon game should know Jigglypuff.
Sony doesn't have its own characters associated with its name. You hear "Sony" you think "TVs, hardware, music, Playstations". Nintendo you think "Mario, Zelda, Pokémon, Metroid". Even if you named the console PS3 I would still think "Killzone, MAG, Resistance, PSN". 360 I think "Halo, Gears, RARE games", so even there there's more of an identity.
For a casual gamer, not even Solid Snake would be recognisable.-
The difference is pretty massive.
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Crash Bandicoot isn't even Sony. Used to be. Activision owns it now. He's been depreciated too. He may have been recognizable enough when the PS1 was on shelves, but he isn't anymore. He's probably as recognizable as Peppy Hare. Actually Peppy probably wins that because of the barrel roll meme.
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But not AS recognizable as Nintendo's characters. That was my point. Characters aren't the end all, be all reason for Smash's success, of course. Sony can create a Smash clone and fill it with characters that, yes, many gamers will recognize. But without the solid gameplay of Smash, the game will fail.
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ya maybe 30% of those are actually mainstream. maybe.
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Why would owning a PS3 give you knowledge of: Dante, Crash, Jak or Daxter, or Wanderer? The only one of those that is even debatable is Wanderer and that's because he was in one of the best games ever made (and most people don't even know his name).
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Brawl+ is your friend in reference to tripping and other stupid shit that was introduced in Brawl.
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Pretty much ^this. I don't think Nintendo will do the same thing in the Wii U's Smash but it wouldn't be the first time the stuck with a poor decision.
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SSB was totally well made, no disputing that. I'm saying it worked as a CONCEPT first and foremost because its roster was almost universally recognizable.
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Considering more than half the people I know (who aren't gamers, obviously) refer to Link as Zelda and have no idea what Pokemon is about, I'd debate those two. But then again, that's a non-gamer crowd, not gamers.
However, I agree with you. The Smash Brothers formula is geared towards a very casual crowd, and Sony just doesn't have enough casually recognizable figures to fill out a game like that. But who knows, it could turn out decent.-
That's the thing about SSB though. You'd think it was just a fighting game designed for casual pick up and play with an accessible roster but it's actually a complete reference in game design for a very tight and fluid hardcore gaming experience. The director behind it, Masahiro Sakurai, is a card carrying game design genius.
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Including how to screw up a product launch...
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