Masahiro Sakurai, creator of the popular 'Super Smash Bros' franchise, is justifying the appearance of "clone" characters in his latest game, saying that the characters appeared by accident.

Fans of the game were dismayed after learning that some of their favorite characters, including Snake and the Ice Climbers, had been cut from the latest installment in place of several new "clone" characters, such as Dr. Mario and Dark Pit.

However, game creator Masahiro Sakurai responded to the issue. In an interview with Famitsu, the director said the new characters are like "free dessert" that more or less appeared by accident.

"There are three fighters [Lucina, Dark Pit and Doctor Mario] that are alternate models in the game," Sakurai said, "Each was originally a color variation, but during development, they were given balanced characteristics. Since their functionality had differences, forms were separated from each other."

Sakurai explained that because the fighters' moves are different from each other, it ended up that the forms were separated from each other.

Sakurai also revealed how the fighters were selected for 3DS and Wii U versions of the game.

"We conduct a character popularity poll both domestically and internationally." said Sakurai, according to Latin Times, "We also research games that are currently being developed. After that, it's pretty much up to us, with a touch of convenience. It's a lot simplistic than we thought but makes sense. "

The game creator said choosing the characters takes a lot of effort since they need to consider several things, including the character's uniqueness and possible contribution to make the game interesting.

"Characters from a series that has no future are rarely chosen. Also, fighters that switch models are a different matter," Sakurai said. "Basically, any character is accepted if I believe it works [in the game]. On the other hand, even if a character is unique, if they overlap with other characters and aren't unique as a fighter, they are rejected."