Masahiro Sakurai explains the process of integrating Sora into Super Smash Bros. in his bi-monthly Famitsu column. The column received a rough translation on Twitter from gaming journalists @PushDustIn and @KodyNOKOLO.
According to the translations, neither Sakurai nor Nintendo were sure about bringing Sora into Smash. Although Sora was the number one voted character in the Smash poll, the Fighters Pass Two DLC did not originally include him. It was only going to be five fighters, just like Fighters Pass One—Min Min, Steve, Sephiroth, Pyra/Mythra, and Kazuya were all already decided before Team Smash could get the go-ahead to bring Sora on.
Luckily, Sakurai was able to meet a Disney representative at an awards show. This is where Sakurai mentioned the desire to bring Sora into Smash. From there, Nintendo had long and careful discussions with Square Enix and Disney. Eventually, Sakurai and his team got the go-ahead and were allowed to put Sora into Smash. That's why Fighter Pass Two has gone from five to six characters.
Related: All Kingdom Hearts Games In Order
But one day an opportunity presented itself. At a certain awards venue, Sakurai was lucky enough to meet a Disney representative. They said it would be awesome if Sora could come in! pic.twitter.com/xMyEzJj07W
— PushSusIn (@PushDustIn) October 20, 2021
Originally, the FP2 was planned to have only 5 fighters in the pass, just like the FP1. All the fighters had been decided, but it looked like Sora would be able to join them after all. So even though it was quite difficult, it was decided to increase the number of fighters in FP2! pic.twitter.com/hS73pc8Xdc
— PushSusIn (@PushDustIn) October 20, 2021
Sakurai's fateful encounter with the Disney rep echoes developer Tetsuya Nomura's encounter with a Disney rep in an elevator to create Kingdom Hearts.
Another thing Sakurai talked about in the column was how complicated it made Sora. The Smash team had to follow many guidelines, and Disney and Square Enix oversaw them. Creating DLC also took as much development time as working on a full game. In the end, Sakurai says he was happy working on Ultimate and the following column will be the end of his bi-weekly column in Famitsu.
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