Last month’s issue of United Kingdom magazine Edge included a variety of developer interviews, one of which spent time discussing Nintendo’s upcoming installments of Super Smash Bros. on Wii U and 3DS with director Masahiro Sakurai. As often happens in these types of conversations, the fluctuating nature of the series was brought up as a main topic, and Sakurai offered another look into his design philosophies.

While Super Smash Bros. Melee is often held up by community as the most competitively-sound title in the franchise, the longtime director looks at it from a different perspective, mentioning that the game’s complicated control scheme is one of his main regrets regarding its development. “The most important thing is that the game have breadth and depth, since we would like them to be popular with both novices and hardcore gamers,” Sakurai said, citing overbearing controls and execution as one of the biggest flaws of the larger fighting game genre.

To put that balance into the fourth iterations, the game had to be slowed down. Sakurai’s team did, however, rework almost every character in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS from the ground up, something that contributes to his belief that the upcoming titles are much more interesting experiences than their predecessors.

For a full look at Sakura’s discussion with Edge, feel free to visit Nintendo Everything for more.

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS is scheduled to launch in Japan on September 13, with a North American release following on October 3. The home console version will also be available sometime later this year.

Source: Edge via Nintendo Everything and Siliconera