As part of today's presentation on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's newest fighter, Terry Bogard, series director Masahiro Sakurai spoke briefly about the younger generations' lack of knowledge surrounding the character, Fatal Fury, and developer SNK.
It's a topic that became prominent within the Nintendo community when Terry was first revealed for Smash, with plenty of younger people being left confused at the reveal, not knowing who Terry was supposed to be, and some - shall we say, more mature folk - being left equally shocked by the young 'uns lack of understanding.
In the presentation, Sakurai spoke about how his use of SNK terminology might confuse younger players throughout the presentation, and used the opportunity to also comment on Terry's inclusion in the game. He highlights that the fact that, in his eyes, how fun the character is to play should be more important than their age.
"Since we have the opportunity, I want to talk about Terry using a lot of SNK lingo... meaning, in this discussion, the younger generations may feel a little out of the loop. But there's nothing to worry about.
"When we released the original Nintendo 64 version of Super Smash Bros., I was often asked, 'Who is Samus?!'
"Whether or not the character is fun to play as is more important than whether the character is new or old, or whether the character is recognisable to everyone."
If you do happen to fall into the 'I have no idea who Terry really is' camp, you might want to check out our recent feature all about the character and his history. If you've got to read and learn about something, it may as well be video game-related, right?
If you missed the news, Terry will be available in Smash Ultimate today.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 37
Better headline: Sakurai WokeScolds Youth.
can't say I've ever played an SNK game, that I am aware of. I can't say that of most companies. And I'm 31
Darn you, and your wisdom, Sakurai-san!
Sad state of affairs if you ask me.
SNK is a part of video gaming history and still going "strong" to this day.
( As in SNK is stil alive after they went bankrupt in the early 2000's )
@Mando44646
Fine truth be told SNK is fairly niche, they do mostly arcade games and beat em ups.
Fatal Fury, King Of fighters ( up to nr 15 now ) Samurai Shodown, Art of Fighting.
That's some of their bigger titles.
Despite not being old enough to have played anything in the actual Fatal Fury series, I was actually a bit interested in Terry because of y8 Games. It had a lot knock-off browser games which featured the Fatal Fury cast. I was a lot more familiar with Iori Yagami though, his design stood out.
"Whether or not the character is fun to play as is more important than whether the character is new or old, or whether the character is recognisable to everyone."
That right there is why it’s silly to get into debates about who should or shouldn’t be in Smash.
@KitsuneNight not to mention Metal Slug!
Back in the day, Ice Climbers, Mr Game & Watch, ROB, and any Fire Emblem character were unknown to most in the US
Man this was the best direct ever about a new character! Terry is Fr#*king awesome.
I had a good opinion of SNK from some of their games on the NES(Baseball Stars among them) and early Neo Geo arcade games, so I was happy to give their later fighting games a shot, especially as I didn't really find Capcom's fighters all that appealing. Getting into SNK's fighting games for me coincided with fully embracing import games for my Sega Saturn. Being aware of the Japanese game market was probably the best way to know and understand SNK's place in the industry, especially in the Playstation/Saturn/N64 era. SNK was an important developer to me and to my friends. It was seeing King of Fighters '97 as an arcade machine that grabbed my attention. When I got home, I immediately checked to see if it was coming to the Saturn, and I got it a few months later. The last several weeks, I reacquainted myself with KOF'97 and KOF'98 and have been playing them both a ton and am still greatly enjoying it. And Terry is always on my team.
My fave SNK game of all time is hands down BASEBALL STARS for the NES. Why this game isn't on the Nintendo Switch Online service to play is beyond my brain capacity.
I would’ve thought the Neo Geo releases on eShop would’ve made them familiar again.
It’s not just the younger generation who didn’t know who he was either. But it’s alright, nothing wrong with that. It’s funny, back in the day I’ve seen a lot of Neo Geo Arcade games and even rented Fatal Fury 2 on SNES but never really thought much of it. It was Capcom vs SNK 2 that really got my attention on PS2. Since then, I was hooked on SNK and Neo Geo games.
Only really played Garou but it’s incredible. Possibly my favourite 2d fighting game.
I knew Fatale Fury and TKOF, but I never played one, so I didn't know Terry. Just like when I played Melee more than ten years ago, nowadays Smash still makes me discover new characters from videogame history. Tonight I'll download one of the TKOF on eshop.
Gen Z gamers might not know about SNK but Millennial and Gen X gamers absolutely adore them.
@HobbitGamer Yeah there is no shortage of Japanese characters that aren't familiar to me but you don't see me getting in a fuss about it.
I don't understand I'm 16 and it was my nr 1 requested character but all my friends were looking at me like what is wrong with you
Ah. This will give context if Shantae and/or Travis Touchdown make it in. Alucard's animal transformations look like they'd make for a great idea for Shantae's moveset.
Samus, much like other Nintendo characters who don’t come from E ticket franchises, is actually a Nintendo character so the analogy doesn’t quite work. If you’re explaining you’re losing, as the saying goes.
He is right. A lot of kids today do not know most old-school characters from the early 90s or 80s, unless they are involved in a popular meme. I really do not get the kids today.
@RareFan Try teaching kids of today... truly uncultured!
@Bliquid No, not all teachers at least. I mean the ones that want to make math and science class about white privilege and social justice probably are where they are because they couldn’t do anything else. But I know plenty that are more intelligent than I am and passionate about what they do. The axiom is generally about marketing and rhetoric, not teaching a skill or an academic discipline. Quadratic equations are different from a video game product.
@Euler Samus was a very dormant character at the time of Smash 64, especially in Japan.
Hell, around that time I’m sure more people in Japan knew who Terry Bogard was over Samus.
@mittens I tend to only play fighting games that have story modes of some sort (Smash, Mortal Kombat, Injustice, etc). Do any of the Fatal Fury games on the eShop have stories? The descriptions for them are less than clear on that
Shoot if being fun is more important take out Rob, Samus, The Belmonts, and Megaman. Zone heavy characters are super annoying.
I've never played Neo-Geo, or the SNK titles. I'm vaguely familiar with the characters, and franchise title names.
@Mando44646
Well it does depend on where you grew up. I grew up around Mexico and it was all the rage. Like Sakurai said, the machines could be in lease, so many street stores had SNK. All the kids played it.
But many here in the States played Mortal Kombat or Tekken (well at least around me)
Sakurai out here droppin' that Knowledge.
I member Terry. But let's be real, he looks frankly amazing as a character. Like, why make him completely overshadow ryuken in every possible way? I mean, looks like he has the same weaknesses and he's definitely a more defensive dude, but he looks awesome
What if you're both a zoomer but then SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 happened to be your very first Wii game
@KitsuneNight That may be true, but the last Fatal Fury game came out in 1999. I know Terry is in all the KoF games, but he's just another fighter in a series that has tons of them.
A younger player might not understand the importance or how cool it was back in 1994 to have Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters in a single game along with other fighters who were drawn from other SNK games like Ikari Warriors and Athena.
It does not help that Terry and Ryo, as well as the other fighters from their respective series, have never been the focus of King of Fighters. That role as the main character has gone to fighters like Kyo who were created for the King of Fighters franchise itself.
So, I can understand why some younger gamers might not understand the importance of Terry being in Smash.
thats how i felt playing ness in smash 64! i had no idea who he was, but i ended up sticking with him all the way to smash4 cause i enjoyed playing him. even got into the mother series cause of it
Only Sakurai-san and his love of gaming history and attention to detail can keep making me spend money on a game I don’t even like.
I never played any of the Fatal Fury games, but I was aware of the “baseball cap Ken” being from a Street Fighter competitor franchise.
After the crowdpleasers that are Sans and Banjo-Kazooie, I think we can allow Sakurai some old-timey nostalgia for Japanese games.
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