A Super Smash Bros. player wrote in to series creator, Masahiro Sakurai, lamenting the tendency of online players to play the game defensively, Sakurai reports via his regular column in Famitsu magazine.
“What I found was that nobody ever went on the attack; it was like everyone was taking the approach of waiting for the other guy to take the offensive,” the player in question wrote, according to a Polygon translation.
“There were no items, either. I wanted to shout at them ‘This isn’t how you do Smash Bros.!’ As the producer, what do you think of fights like this?”
Sakurai took the time to respond via his column, and explained that the point of Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s “carefree brawling” concept was to allow people to choose their approach to the game.
That said, Sakurai conceded: “I’d like people to take some freer approaches with their gameplay, but the sort of battle style you describe in your letter is not interesting or fun. That’s why I’ll probably be thinking of a way to deal with that in the next game. We’ve learned a lot about net play since Brawl was released, after all, so a lot more is possible.”
Sakurai is currently dealing with a repetitive strain injury to his right arm. Despite this, development on the next Super Smash Bros. games is still progressing, although it’s putting more of a strain on Sakurai’s schedule. The new Super Smash Bros. games are being developed for 3DS and Wii U in partnership with Namco Bandai.
