Summary
Super Smash Bros.creator Masahiro Sakurai still doesn’t seem to be over Brawl’s cutscenes being leaked online when it launched in 2008, as he’s made a cheeky reference to the situation in his latest YouTube video.
Although Super Smash Bros. Brawl is widely considered to be the worst game in the series(despite still being great in its own right), there is at least one thing that it has over every other Smash game - Subspace Emissary. This unique story mode finally gave Smash’s massive roster of characters the chance to interact with each other,which they did through a surprising number of memorable cutscenes.
Sadly, as Smash 4 and Ultimate proved, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever get anything on that scale again. Back in 2023,Sakurai revealed that the Subspace Emmisary’s elaborate cutscenes weren’t brought over to later Smash gamesbecause they were leaked online by players and journalists before launch, which is a stance that has drawn some ire from fans.
Masahiro Sakurai Is Still Annoyed About Brawl’s Cutscenes Being Leaked
It was already clear that Sakurai held a bit of a grudge about Subspace Emmisary’s cutscenes being leaked when we didn’t get anything on the same level for Smash 4 and Ultimate, but his most recent video makes it even clearer. Just a few days ago, the beloved developer released a new episode of his YouTube series, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games,that focused on in-game cutscenes and their uses.
At one point in the video, Sakurai muses on cutscenes being treated as a reward for gameplay, before noting that he finds it hard to consider them as such since they always end up being shared online. As you’ve probably figured out by now,that is almost exactly what Sakurai had to say on the subjectwhen talking about why Brawl was the only Smash game to receive a story mode with fully fleshed-out cutscenes.
Sakurai’s barely disguised jab makes it pretty clear that he hasn’t changed his mind about including these types of cutscenes in Super Smash Bros., which is a little surprising since the character reveal trailers are pretty much the same thing.Sakurai’s long-standing annoyance against Brawl’s cutscenes being leaked is getting a bit of flack from players, who think he probably just needs to let it go.
While I don’t agree with Sakurai’s point on cutscenes being a reward for gameplay, I do think that if anyone has the right to hold a grudge against the internet, it’s the person who has to listen to endless requests for Shrek to be added to Smash.
