Super Smash Bros game director Masahiro Sakurai has stated that some characters are decidedly more difficult to add into a new Smash Bros title. In his latest column in Famitsu magazine, the brawler’s director previously stated why the Ice Climbers narrowly missed the roster, but he’s also commented on how difficult it can be to bring back characters from Super Smash Bros Melee due to the aged data.

According to translations, Sakurai explains part of the development process for a Smash game is to migrate data from the older games, enabling their models and animations to be developed accurately. But as Melee’s data is so aged, the team would essentially have to build those past characters from scratch, extending the development process.

Sakurai also touched upon the 3DS game’s Smash Run mode enemies, where those characters selected needed to adhere to a set of specific guidelines, ranging from enemy originality to the maintenance of balance between enemy height and weights. As such, the amount of enemies from Kid Icarus: Uprising is larger due to the original 3DS models and their ability to fit smoothly within the set enemy guidelines.

Thanks, Takamaru64