Masahiro Sakurai and Satoru Iwata secretly built a prototype called Dragon King: The Fighting Game, using generic fighters, with Iwata himself handling the programming. Only afterward did they pitch Nintendo on populating the chaos with Mario, Link, and Pikachu — something unthinkable at the time: throwing sacred mascots into a brawl. The clandestine gamble founded a genre, sold millions of copies, and became the most ambitious crossover franchise in the medium.
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