New Masahiro Sakurai YouTube Video Breaks Down Super Smash Bros. 64 Development

Veteran game developer Masahiro Sakurai's YouTube channel has become a trove of information on the inner workings of game development, and the most recent upload focuses on the beginning of his most successful franchise: Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64.

The eight-minute video is filled with information about the game's beginnings, including a never-before-seen look at the game's prototype predecessor, which Sakurai and former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata called Dragon King: The Fighting Game. While many of Smash Bros.'s features were missing, much of the game's DNA can be seen in the brief footage.

The video also reveals that Sakurai had developed the prototype for what would become Super Smash Bros. concurrently with another prototype, this one for a stealth exploration game where players control a RC robot who must disable security cameras and avoid enemies in order to proceed.

One particularly challenge highlighted by Sakurai involves the thought process behind making established Nintendo characters the fighters in Smash Bros. Where non-fighting games have one central character that the player controls, fighting games throw multiple characters into the mix at once, which in Sakurai's eyes risks being overwhelming.

"It's not so easy to make someone care about [all of those characters]," Sakurai says. "I didn't want to throw players into a roster full of characters nobody had ever seen, and [I] knew we needed to come up with an objective solution to this problem."

The most recent game in the franchise, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, is available now on Nintendo Switch.