Sakurai yelled at fans for complaining about clones
One source states, "The Smash Bros. fanbase is made up of some of the most passionate and dedicated fans of any video game franchise. Smash Bros. represents the childhood fantasies of many gamers. If you grew up in the '90s, then you could only dream of a fighting game where could fight Sonic or Ryu from Street Fighter could take on Pac-Man in battle. With so many different video game franchises being represented, Smash Bros. has the unique ability to appeal to a wide variety of gamers across several generations of players.
With all that being said, it cannot be easy to be the creator of the Smash Bros. series. This job has fallen upon the shoulders of Masahiro Sakurai. He has directed every game in the series and he holds a great deal of creative control. Despite this, Sakurai still has to take orders from Nintendo and must include characters that he may not want in the game (like Corrin). He also has to take abuse from fans for not including their favourite characters. The biggest issue that fans have with Sakurai is the inclusion of clone characters. These are characters that are essentially slightly changed versions of established characters. Examples include Dr. Mario (Mario), Dark Pit (Pit) and Lucina (Marth). Most fans would rather have one new character in place of several clones. Masahiro Sakurai actually responded to this criticism in for Famitsu magazine. He said that fans should be grateful for the clone characters, as they are free gifts from the developer. He also said that the ones who complain are acting like children"(Baird).
