Smash Creator: "There are No Favorites in SSB"

If you love Super Smash Brothers, or hate Super Smash Brothers, or are generally ambivalent about Super Smash Brothers but are aware of its existence, you’ve got one man to thank for it: Masahiro Sakurai. Something of a legend in the Nintendo world and Gaming at large, he’s well-known for being an extremely hard worker (even by Japanese standards) and a very talented game designer, single-handedly responsible for the hitboxes, move-sets, and stats for each of the characters in the game. Or, to put it another way, he’s largely the man who decides how balanced the game is.

Well, you may not know this, but Mashiro Sakurai isn’t only responsible for Super Smash Brothers. He’s also the man who created Kirby and Pit, two reoccurring fighters in the series (with Kirby having been in every single one, while Pit only the past two)—and as it turns out, there are some people hurling mud, accusing him of playing favorites with his two creations to make them “better” than the standard fighter in the game.

Well, Mr. Sakurai isn’t going to take that kind of critique sitting down, so in his bi-weekly column for Famitsu, he addressed his doubters head on:
 

“First off, what merit is there for me to play favorites with characters I worked on? To bring up an example, two characters I have trouble with and can’t use very well are Pit and Palutena. Therefore, for me, I feel that ‘Pit and Palutena are weaker than the average character.’ If I were to adjust them to fit myself, they would become even stronger – but as you may notice, I haven’t.”

 
He then cited Kirby’s famous down-B move, which turns him into a heavy, invunerable object that falls at high speeds. He said that while the move is easy to use for beginners, it’s easy to punish in high-level play, as Kirby is vulnerable when he leaves the rock form and can still be grabbed.

He continued to say that while he is the final authority on balance, he has a separate monitor team who offer different perspectives and insight into character designs that sway his decisions. And while he admits that there might be imbalance in the game, it’s not out of favoritism on his end.

Interesting tidbits into the world of Smash, but was the accusation that Kirby or Pit were stronger than the other ever truly valid? Looking at the statistics and the current SSB tier list, it seems those were largely unsubstantiated claims: Kirby is 35th on the list, while Pit is 30th. Even Meta Knight, the god of Brawl, is currently sitting at 44th on the list, close to the very bottom. And while those numbers are often in flux, it seems right now the professional Smash Community strongly disagrees with the haters out there.

Now, back to putting Solare of Astora into Super Smash Brothers, Mr. Sakurai. I assume he’s the one who won the fan vote, right?