The final Grab Bag video from Masahiro Sakurai was released on Friday and recounts the relationship the Super Smash Bros. creator had with legendary Nintendo programmer, businessman, and eventual CEO, Satoru Iwata.
Here we get a bit of a story about how a legend influenced a then up and coming legend. Iwata had a great deal of influence on Sakurai in both direct and indirect ways, including offering a key bit of wisdom when it came to coming up with the name of the Super Smash Bros. franchise.
Sakurai paints a picture of a hard-working, young developer hoping to prove himself with noteworthy contributions to his company. Meanwhile Iwata is the always-busy manager who is juggling responsibilities as he leads multiple teams through multiple projects.
Iwata took some precious time to devote some direct attention to a new Nintendo fighting game that was in development, and was especially enthralled as he had a particularly good time testing and working on it.
When it came time to come up with a name, Iwata was invested enough to add his voice to the group tossing around ideas, and promoted the concept of adding “brothers” to the title. This was the family-friendly Nintendo, after all, and promoting a sense of playful rivalry as opposed to bad-blood violence was important.
You can hear all about this episode along with a handful of others, including an emotional final meeting between Sakurai and Iwata, in Sakurai’s full video below:
Time flies as the original Super Smash Bros. came out a full quarter century ago, and now the young up and comer from these stories has an immensely successful franchise and is semi-retired.
Even so, fans have not thrown out speculative hope that one more Super Smash Bros. entry might be on the horizon. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate received a surprise (albeit small) update patch on Wednesday, and with the Switch’s successor now en route we wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear about a Smash title headed to it.