The Appealing Abstraction of Masahiro Sakurai

In videogames, the level of “immersion” that the player feels — that is, their relation to the fictional world — is frequently considered to be the focal point of whether the game has succeeded or not. Ludologists, such as Jesper Juul, are correct in pointing out that there are also “incoherent games”, such as Tetris, which do not have a fictional world in the same manner as, say, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and cannot provide immersion in a way related to the definition above. However, a type of game that appears even less often walks a fine line between the two: at once having coherent worlds while, within that fiction, having incoherence accepted alongside.

Masahiro Sakurai, director and designer of games such as Kirby and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, creates these curious game examples. At once coherent and incoherent, they specifically ask the player to abstract aspects of the text from itself throughout. In this way, “immersion” becomes a moot point; the player has entered a world where anything is possible and games within games within games become the norm. It is not a disavowal of the fiction but, rather, making all aspects of the text a game, including the world itself. The game’s world becomes a game for the player to manipulate and change, ultimately urging the player to think imaginatively about what they are experiencing.

One of Sakurai’s first games, Kirby’s Dreamland, has the player — as Kirby, a famous videogame character who resembles a pink ball of fluff — set to the task of recovering the Fountain of Dreams from the evil King Dedede. To accomplish this, in the typical style of platformers (games like Super Mario Bros. which consist largely of running and jumping sequences), Kirby must beat levels and, having done that, progress to new ones. These levels will appear on an ‘overworld map’ of sorts, along with bonus stages and the like. These bonus stages are of importance. In them, there are games like “Quick Draw”, where you face off in a ‘fastest draw’ game sort of like a gun fight, where you have to pull before the computer. Within these games, withdrawn from the world, the player can face King Dedede and future bosses prior to meeting them within the game’s narrative (progressing to the Fountain of Dreams).

These games within a game, distanced from the main narrative thrust of the text, ask the player to specifically abstract the game’s fiction away from the gameplay itself. It does not matter, the game says, that it makes no sense; rather, fighting King Dedede here would be cool and we should accommodate this. You are, as the landscapes would suggest, in a land of dreams, and the fiction and rules are molded to accommodate this altered state.

Later in the Kirby series, Sakurai took helm again to create Kirby Super Star. In a twist, the game is divided into 8 different sub-games — the only constant is that the player’s avatar is Kirby. These separate games range from the mundane (another version of the quick draw game) to the complex (an adventure quest reminiscent of Dragon Warrior except with Kirby as the avatar). Functionally, this furthers the rhetorical point of reimagining characters in different situations. Although Kirby and other characters like King Dedede and Meta Knight might originate from specific fictions, they can be imagined (dreamt, as it were) into other locations if the designer sees fit. This allows Sakurai’s games, in a certain sense, to exist as an elaborate sort of ‘fan-fiction’ which asks players to imagine and create situations for their own enjoyment (that the last boss, Marx, simply wanted a different role, as a boss rather than enemy, seems a tacit acknowledgement of this). If Kirby can compete in all these different worlds, whether vaguely Metroid-esque or otherwise, the player should be given that power as well. This is, ultimately, the aim of the most famous game series to Sakurai’s credit: Super Smash Bros.

Super Smash Bros. is an odd game series to the uninitiated. It consists of famous videogame characters — formerly just from Nintendo, but things have changed as of late — fighting one another. Think of it as a videogame equivalent of late night, wine-swilling discussions of whether Clint Eastwood from A Fistful of Dollars could best Toshiro Mifune from Yojimbo. Mario can fight Link, Kirby can fight Sonic, and so on; the characters are removed from their specific fictions, quite often in tongue-in-cheek ways, to be used by the player like dolls (or, if you’d rather, “action figures”).

The first game in the series, Super Smash Bros., actually begins like that: the player is shown a disembodied hand moving diverse Nintendo representatives into fighting positions. The player, now in this role, can move the fictional characters away from their own worlds and into a new play pen of the player’s own design. With game options such as handicap and time limitations, the player is given the ability to create new fictions, new worlds for these characters. Although these characters are individually abstracted, players are offered the tools; given the imaginative worlds they are in possession of, they can craft new stories.

Super Smash Bros. Melee, the next in the series, adds an important element to this new form of story crafting: snapshots can be taken for later viewing. This allows the aspiring artisan to frame new fictions and worlds with the characters in the game (I imagine I was not the only one who finally let Bowser get away with capturing the princess). The individual fictions of the characters still have relevance to us, as fans, but the new tools allow us to dream up new situations for these characters to take part in. Just as Kirby could fancy himself a knight temporarily, or battle King Dedede like Musashi Miyamoto (for some reason), the game creates new games if players are willing to let their imaginations let loose. The game encourages it, even fosters it.

The relatively new Super Smash Bros. Brawl takes the idea of fan made abstracted fiction even further. The main story, “The Subspace Emissary”, centers on all videogame characters, including even third-party characters like Solid Snake (of Metal Gear Solid fame) fighting against an evil threat from another dimension. Multiple fictions are thrown wildly together with a near-disregard for their sources. This reimagining of the worlds, and the characters inhabiting those worlds, allows a bizarre, and oftentimes silly, game to develop: it is the end result of Kirby’s fight against abstracted characters from his own world.

Additionally, Brawl provides players the ability to take snapshots (like Melee), make movies, and craft their own stages (with the accompaniment of nearly 300 music tracks from the many games featured). A player, having just gone through an extended story of abstracted fiction in motion, might decide to link together a series of stages to form a new, wholly unique story. With brief instructions, these new stories can then be sent to friends to play — a new world, with old music and characters, is created right in front of their eyes. The game, then, allows the creation of new games so long as the player accepts the basic tenants that Sakurai adheres to: the game, all aspects of it, can become a game in and of itself. Ganondorf, the ancient king of evil, can have a dance competition against Pikachu; the fictions become jokes to be played around with, to be changed by the player.

Think of these steps as the gaming equivalent of Disney’s Fantasia. There are accepted songs (art) in a particular cultural framework, and the new text alters their meaning; then, implicitly, the movie asks the audience to do the same thing (this is ‘our’ view of A Night on Bald Mountain; now, if you would, go and imagine something different). Although Sakurai had to start with his own dreams and imagination(he has Kirby continually rescue the Fountain of Dreams to allow multiple players the chance to have new adventures), he moved on from there. With access to a larger cultural framework, and more famous individuals like Mario, Sonic and Snake, Sakurai was able to create the end product of his earlier design. All aspects of the game (the world, the rules, and the fiction), can be made enjoyable in their own rights. If something does not make sense, such as if the player makes a giant Pikachu sleep while Donkey Kong does nothing but continually laugh, that is their option as players. They are asked to make new games, to use the tools with their imaginations. In this sense, they are less games then venues for players to express themselves in multiple fashions. Aspects of the game and the characters are being willingly abstracted to create more diverse gameplay scenarios. Just as Kirby can take on new forms from the enemies he encounters, players can change the game state (the fiction, the rules) to fit their own preferences.