Super Smash Bros. Brawl details have been scarce since it was unveiled at E3; most of us fans just ogle at the screenshots and comb forums for anything that smells of information.

But now it appears that the journal the Masahiro Sakurai, the game’s director, keeps on the official Japanese website has been translated by the folks at the Smash World forums.

In his latest entry, Masahiro announced some details about the game and how the fan’s wishes are being incorporated, although not all; Sakurai talks about making the game a simpler experience and perhaps not even keeping all of the previous characters.

Here’s a rundown of the info:

• Not all characters might be back from previous versions
• There’s talk about 2 more 3rd party characters being incorporated not including snake.
• Sakurai says. although he doesn’t want to include many japan-only characters, the great demand for Fire Emblem characters might bend that rule a little bit.
• The online component of the game will be simple and, destroying many fan’s expectations, there wont be a leaderboard.

While any information is like water in the desert right now, its somewhat unsettling that the game will be simpler. Much of the success SSBM enjoyed was due to its complexity in detail, will SSBB live up to its name while adapting to the Wii philosophy?

[Via 1up]