Sakurai/Nomura explain how Cloud came to be in Smash Bros. Wii U/3DS

Interviewer: Today’s conversation came out of the fact that plans for Cloud to appear in Smash for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U were actually realized, but did you two have any sort of acquaintance prior to this?

Sakurai: Actually, we didn’t. We’d had a couple of situations where we just missed each other, but we only got to talk to each other face to face because of Smash. But honestly, I was surprised that Mr. Nomura agreed to talk to me (laughs).

Nomura: I was glad to, of course.

Sakurai: Well, I was sure you’d be busy, and I thought you wouldn’t have the time to discuss it with me.

Nomura: It was an opportunity for Cloud to appear in Smash, how could I turn it down?

Sakurai: This isn’t an exact number, but among the requests for a Final Fantasy character to appear in Smash, around ¼ to ⅓ of the requests we got from fans were for Cloud. [TN1] I really wanted to answer the desires of those fans, and even though I thought it would be impossible, I reached out anyway, just to try.

Nomura: When we first talked, I asked “are you sure you’re okay with Cloud?” He’s not a character from a new game, after all.

Sakurai: But on the other hand, if you think about who to add from Final Fantasy, it’s hard to come up with a choice that’s not Cloud. We could have used Terra or Bartz, protagonists in their own right, but I feel like there would be some people who wouldn’t know who those characters are.