The Smash Brothers series is the creation of one of the finest game designers in Japan not named Miyamoto: Masahiro Sakurai.

Working for HAL Laboratory, Inc. at the age of nineteen, Sakurai-san created the world famous kirby series, one of the iconic mascot characters of the 1990s. They were also some of the most unique and wonderful platformers of their day, rivaling even Super Mario Bros. 3 in gameplay and fun.

The original Smash Brothers in 1999 was a creation of Sakurai and his boss at HAL, one Satoru Iwata (now president of Nintendo). Originally conceived without Nintendo characters, it was eventually decided that this would work best with Nintendo's iconic mascots. Naturally, HAL Laboratory icons such as Ness (Mother) and Kirby were included.

For those of us who viewed Sakurai's blog over at the official Smash Brothers website, his earnest tone and down to earth apologies for not including every single feature requested by fans was endearing. Gamers in America have to endure the pomposity of American game designers, who in some cases are, to be blunt, arrogant and condescending to fans.

So, it was without a hint of smugness in which Sakurai uttered perhaps the biggest endorsement of Super Smash Bros. Brawl: that despite years of breaking his back over it, even he isn't tired of playing it.