It's good to know that the game is in good hands (although Kobayashi's credits are meh at best).

My only concern comes from the Tekken staff: Tekken is not like Smash Bros. Will they be able to change the way they make fighting games? Let's hope Sakurai can make it.

Btw, if the director/producer of Tales as well as the main development team staff of Tekken are involved in this project, does it mean that the next Tales and Tekken games are going to suck?

I'm still not sure how I feel about this, we'll have to wait and see

Which makes me wonder, what big project is Hal Laboratory working on that is preventing them from making this game? Kirby U?

Sakurai is still in charge, if you don't want to trust Namco at least trust him.

Nice. Nintendo's getting more top development help

I hope they take balance more seriously then.

I never saw credence to the claims that Brawl was unbalanced. Closest thing to unbalanced was Pit and Meta Knight, but they lost out in not having good "throwing power," that is to say, none of their attacks were really good at really launching people, so you had to rely on low-damage tactics. I never liked using them because of that.

The thoughts of Smash Bros tourney folk should have little to do with judgment of the game itself.

Yeh, people who spend hours every day learning the ins and outs of a fighting game system and characters probably know nothing about balance.