Who would be next to enter the Smash Spotlight

[Smashchu]

snuka7 said:

Well......Brawl made me slightly sad....that they put some characters(Like Wolf) in the roster over people Like geno, K Rool.....Ridley for goddness sakes! Don't get me wrong though, I wanted Wolf in..But not as much as I wanted Isacc, chibi robo, K Rool, Ridley and all those others. Even Mega Man disapointed us all. Sakurai stated that after Snake was reveled there would be 1-2 more third parties. So I think Sakurai did want Bomberman, Pac Man, Mega Man in his game. But why didn't he ask. I think the biggest let down was Mega Man not being playable...or even in the game. Remember we all thought Mega Man was going to come on his 20th Anniversary. And then he didn't. If there is another smash bros., Mega Man will be the Sonic for it.

Well, the answer would be not everyone can get in. I'd like to see Issac, and Ridley would have been cool, but they didn't make it, and I know many people feel this way. But come Smash 4, they stand a good chance. As for Sakurai wanting to add third parties, I think he was more reluctant then willing. I've explained it in depth so I won't go any further. As for Megaman being the new Sonic, it depends. It's possible, but it depends on how popular he ecomes. Sonic did have a little help in the form of EGM.

Also, I was thinking on this: I'm glad no one fallows another person mindlessly, and we all have our own opinions. On other Messageboards, there are always people who are worshiped like gos. It's not their fault; they are just smart and make a good point. I'm glad that everyone here thinks for themselves rather then another person. (Idea came becuase my long rant won't go opver well, and then I though that that is the beauty of the board).

[Fryguy64]

I figured everyone who got into Brawl (bar Guest characters) would have been trophies in Melee, but then Diddy Kong got in... and Pokemon Trainer. Not to mention secret characters!

I seriously think there are no rules for entry. A combination of popularity and suitability in Sakurai's eye are all that matters.

And yes, I am proud that everyone in this forum holds their own opinions on things, and defends those opinions with reasonable justification. That's why I like hanging out here

[The Qu]

Well, Fry, apparently Diddy was supposed to have a trophy in Melee, but got cut due to time constraints. Another cut trophy was allegedly Little Mac. Anybody have a link to confirm this rumor?

[parrothead]

admin said:

I seriously think there are no rules for entry. A combination of popularity and suitability in Sakurai's eye are all that matters.

Not every character has those. The Ice Climbers weren't very popular before they appeared in the SSB series. Also, their suitability was low, because all they did in Ice Climber was swing their hammers. The main reason why Sakurai added them was to represent the NES era. Another reason was that he thought it would be interesting to let players have a tag-team-like character.

Here are the main reasons why each character was added to the SSB series. I'm only going to mention the most major reasons for each character, so don't tell me what other reasons I forgot, because I probably already know them.:

* Mario - Nintendo's long-time mascot.
* Donkey Kong - To represent the successful Donkey Kong Country series.
* Link - To represent the successful Legend of Zelda series.
* Samus Aran - To represent the successful Metroid series.
* Yoshi - To represent the successful Yoshi games, mostly SMW2: Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Story. Also, due to him making Super Mario World one of the most (if not the most) popular Mario game.
* Kirby - To represent the successful Kirby series.
* Fox - To represent the successful Star Fox series.
* Pikachu - To represent the successful Pokemon video games, his major role in the anime and due to him being the most popular Pokemon.
* Captain Falcon - Sakurai wanted to represent the F-ZERO series.
* Ness - There is a rumor saying that Sakurai is interested in the MOTHER / EarthBound series.
* Jigglypuff - To represent her major starring role in the anime, as well as to add an extra Pokemon character.
* Luigi - To have a clone, as well as to add an extra Mario character.
* Peach - To add another Mario character.
* Bowser - Due to a bunch of requests for his appearance and to have a villain from the Mario series.
* Zelda/Shiek - To add another Zelda series character(s), as well as to have a unique transforming character.
* Ice Climbers - To represent the NES era.
* Dr. Mario - Sakurai wanted the SSB series to have an arranged version of the catchy Fever music from the Dr. Mario series.
* Falco - To add another Star Fox character.
* Ganondorf - To have a villain from the Zelda series.
* Young Link - Due to SSBM having the Great Bay stage from Majora's Mask. Also, to add another Zelda character.
* Marth - Due to his most recent appearance (Fire Emblem: Monshō no Nazo) being the best-selling game of the Fire Emblem series, and to represent the Fire Emblem series.
* Roy - To advertise Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi, which was nearly finished by the time SSBM was released. Also, to add another Fire Emblem character.
* Mewtwo - To represent Pokemon: The First Movie and Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back.
* Mr. Game & Watch - To represent the successful Game & Watch series, the Game & Watch Gallery series and to pay tribute to Gunpei Yokoi after his death.
* Meta Knight - To add another Kirby character.
* Pit - To represent the popular Kid Icarus series.
* Zero Suit Samus - To add another female character, as well as a special form for Varia Suit Samus (Samus Aran).
* Wario - Due to a bunch of requests for his appearance and to represent mostly the WarioWare series, while his original look with purple overalls was added to represent his other appearances.
* Solid Snake - Due to Hideo Kojima practically begging for him to appear.
* Ike - Due to a bunch of requests for his appearance, to replace Roy, to have a swordsman that uses a two-handed sword, to represent the first 3D game in the Fire Emblem series and to advertise Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.
* Diddy Kong - Due to a bunch of requests for his appearance and to add another Donkey Kong Country series character.
* Lucas - There is a rumor saying that Sakurai was going to replace Ness with Lucas to advertise the N64 version of MOTHER 3 (EarthBound 64), but when it was cancelled, Sakurai decided to add Ness again. In SSBB, Lucas was added due to a bunch of requests for his appearance, as well as to advertise the GBA MOTHER 3/GBA EarthBound. Also, he was added along with Ness to have more than one character from the MOTHER/EarthBound series.
* Pokemon Trainer - To have a human Pokemon character that is actually three different characters (four if you count the Pokemon Trainer) in one. Also, to add another Pokemon character.
* King Dedede - Due to a bunch of requests for his appearance and to have a major villain of the Kirby series.
* Pikmin & Olimar - Due to a bunch of requests for his appearance and to represent the successful Pikmin series.
* Sonic - Due to him being one of the most (if not the most) requested character for his appearance. Also, while Solid Snake was being the first 3RD-party character to appear in the SSB series, this opened doors for more 3RD-party characters to come.
* Toon Link - Due to a bunch of requests for his appearance, to represent The Wind Waker, to advertise and represent Phantom Hourglass, to replace Young Link and probably to represent Four Swords, Four Swords Adventures and the Minish Cap.
* Lucario - To represent Pokemon: Lucario and The Mystery of Mew
* Wolf - To add a villain from the Star Fox series.
* R.O.B. - Due to saving the video game business in North America from the North American video game crash of 1983. Also, due to his many cameo appearances in Nintendo games, starting with StarTropics 1.

[Flip]

Now that I have the game, Wolf is actually a pretty kickass and worthwhile character. He plays totally different from Fox other than his similar specials and his personality oozes badass. He slashes with his claws for his standard moves and he has this great red and white costume that makes him look like an '80s rockstar (he has mascara or some crap under his eyes, so it adds to the effect). Surprisingly one of my more well-received additions in the end.

That said, I don't think he was my issue in the first place (before you all start calling me a hypocrite). Just that it wasn't as BAM! in my face as I expected as far as hidden characters went.

[Fryguy64]

Most of that's guesswork though, Parrothead. Yes, in SSB64 he was representing the major Nintendo franchises, but that doesn't explain the appearance of Jigglypuff, Ness or even Samus!

Note how I said "Suitability in Sakurai's eyes". He has his unknown reasons for picking the majority of these characters. I am sure ROB didn't get in thanks to him "saving" the NES in America (I'm sure those reports are exaggerated), for example.

[The Qu]

admin said:

Most of that's guesswork though, Parrothead. Yes, in SSB64 he was representing the major Nintendo franchises, but that doesn't explain the appearance of Jigglypuff, Ness or even Samus!

Note how I said "Suitability in Sakurai's eyes". He has his unknown reasons for picking the majority of these characters. I am sure ROB didn't get in thanks to him "saving" the NES in America (I'm sure those reports are exaggerated), for example.

Isn't Mother a much bigger series in Japan? Would it maybe fit in better with 'major franchises' better overseas? Likewise, Metroid wasn't a small franchise when 64 came out, as I'm sure you know. Sure, Samus hadn't had a game in several years, but Metroid and Super Metroid were both major games in their time. Not so sure about Metroid 2, however. Plus, 'creator' Gunpei Yokoi was a major Nintendo employee, and gets a large part of credit for Metroid from what I've seen. Samus may have been a tribute to his work.
You've got me on Jiggs though. I've long heard that Pit was suppoesed to be in (Altough Flip debunked that a few months back) and Jigglypuff was his replacement. *Shrugs*

[Fryguy64]

Metroid and Super Metroid are both great games, but both didn't do very well in Japan. What I'm really saying is that Nintendo has its major franchises - Mario, DK, Zelda, Pokemon, Kirby - then come the lesser (but still active) franchises - F-Zero, Star Fox.

At the time, Metroid was no longer an active franchise, and neither was Mother. Both were moderately popular in Japan in their day, but nothing compared to the above list.

Samus might have been inserted for the American market (where Metroid was much more popular) or maybe Sakurai just liked the Metroid games! Considering how much Metroid content is in Brawl - and how unimpressive the sales figures for the Metroid series continue to be in Japan - I'm guessing both.

I'm sure Jigglypuff was just added as a bit of a joke. Remember, Pokemon was still quite shiny and new back then!

[Smashchu]

thequ said:

admin said:

Most of that's guesswork though, Parrothead. Yes, in SSB64 he was representing the major Nintendo franchises, but that doesn't explain the appearance of Jigglypuff, Ness or even Samus!

Note how I said "Suitability in Sakurai's eyes". He has his unknown reasons for picking the majority of these characters. I am sure ROB didn't get in thanks to him "saving" the NES in America (I'm sure those reports are exaggerated), for example.

Isn't Mother a much bigger series in Japan?

No. Mother 2 didn't break a million sold despite being in two territories. Mother 3 only sold about 300k (which uis pretty bad, especially for that system). In it's defense, however, it was late in the GBA's life. Lucas's inclusion was probably based on Japanese fans (which is in my big rant). I don't know this for a fact, but I believe he was one of the most requested for Japan.

As for Samus, it was probably becuase the franchise was praised for it's pure win. Metroid was probably a gamer's franchise, one that's loved by the gaming populous but is unknown elsewhere, much like Mother is. Jigglypuff I believe was becuase of how popular it was in Japan (Pokemon was around for about 3 years before Smash came out).

[The Qu]

Thanks Smashchu. I asked because I had heard that Mother 3 was, the week before it was released, the most wanted game in Japan according to Famitsu. Kinda surprised that both Mother 2 & 3 did that bad.

[Fryguy64]

I'm pretty sure Mother's Japanese status isn't that different from that in the West - a very loud, vocal and obsessive community. See Starmen.net for more details

[Smashchu]

thequ said:

Thanks Smashchu. I asked because I had heard that Mother 3 was, the week before it was released, the most wanted game in Japan according to Famitsu. Kinda surprised that both Mother 2 & 3 did that bad.

Well, Famitsu's most wanted is not related to how well it will actually do. Nintendogs was never on there, yet look at how well it did. These are what gamers want, and gamers don't always make up the majority of sales.
Also, my numbers come from VGchartz.

[TV Eye]

Well, the Pokemon characters in Smash 64 were based off the anime. That's why Jigglypuff and Pikachu were in. Also the Pokeball Pokemon were ones used by Ash (Charizard and Snorlax), Misty (Goldeen and Staryu), Brock (Onyx), Team Rocket (Koffing, Meowth), or just important to the show (Beedrill, Chansey, Clefairy).

[Smashchu]

tveye said:

Well, the Pokemon characters in Smash 64 were based off the anime. That's why Jigglypuff and Pikachu were in. Also the Pokeball Pokemon were ones used by Ash (Charizard and Snorlax), Misty (Goldeen and Staryu), Brock (Onyx), Team Rocket (Koffing, Meowth), or just important to the show (Beedrill, Chansey, Clefairy).

Well, it usually works the other way around. The pokemon in the anime were added because they were popular. Pikachu is a great example of this. We see the Anime influencing the games becuase we got the anime first. Although your pokeball ones entice me.

[Game Guru]

smashchu2 said:

No, that's not how they get in. If this were the case, then why were not more third party characters? It is truly Nintendo picking other companies's characters.

It's because of Red Tape. Nintendo at the very least owns half the rights to the first-party characters, which are in fact mostly second-parties who have a really good relationship with Nintendo. Snake and Sonic are not owned by Nintendo, so Nintendo would have to struggle to get the rights. If Konami and Sega are willing to lend their characters, then it is less of a hassle. Either way, Snake snuck in and Sonic broke the door! Fans will be expecting both to return and for more third-party characters to come, no matter how much Nintendo says "Guest Fighter" in reference to Snake and Sonic. (Seems like every fighting game has guest fighters now... I blame Soul Calibur II!)

smashchu2 said:

Now I want to mention something on third party characters.

First off, when mentioning popularity, you do not use real popularity, but it doesn't matter. You look at Smash popularity, how much that character has been requested and how much the character wants to be seen as a fighter. So, it's safe to say Megaman is not as popular as most of the characters in Brawl. While Megaman is more well know, he is not wanted by smash fans as much as other characters. We can see this with characters like Ike and Lucas. Most people won't know Ike unless they played the GC FE games, and almost no one knew who Lucas was. Megaman is more well known then Lucas, so why is he not in Smash.

The reason was because he was another face in the crowd as are all third party characters. In fact, if you look back to Aug 2006, you'd se that not everyone was clamoring for Megaman. It was Sonic. No one else mattered. But also, Megaman was as wanted as Sora was. Back then, people were asking for Sora, and he had a sizable fanbase (not a large one, but about or less then megaman's is today). Which brings me to my second point: the third party character who is wanted today may not get in. This is becuase by the time SSB4 is announced, a new third party character will take his/her place. This will shuffle around for quite a while.

Now lastly, the focus is on Nintendo, and as such, third partys will always get the shaft. This can be seen with Sonic. The original game was planned having 36 characters and 40 stages. Did it ever seem weird there were 41 stages. What an odd number. The same can be said for 35 characters (not as bad until you realize that with transformations and PKMN Trainer that there are 39 characters). The reason was Sonic was shoved into the game late. Why? Why would it not be until late in development that they add Sonic, on of the most requested characters? The reason is that this is truly a Nintendo fighting game. Snake was an odd situation. Sakurai added him on request of a friend. He gets a special head over other characters. But this is why we see a "low" number of third party characters. Snake was a guest and the idea was that he always was. It was not meant to open any flood gates even though it did. This is why we see Sonic so late. It was reluctance of adding other characters from companies outside of Nintendo. This is why I said that they need Sonic level popularity, becuase otherwise, Sakurai and Nintendo will turn a deaf ear to them.

Sorry to ramble. I believe there is a misconception with how people are viewing third party characters. But, there was also a misconception on how we viewed characters in general. It wasn't until Sakurai gave us some light on the situation till we realized just how he does it, and how it comes out so perfectly. We want to not only see more third party characters, but also more obscured Nintendo characters, or just ones we think should be in. This is partly why everyone's roster was off. It was their quota. When thinking about characters, we must remember to add what we think people will like. I do think people will like third party characters, but we must remember that it is a Nintendo fighting game, and it can't lose that. If there is truly a franchise that stands out beyond all else, then it should be added. But that doesn't mean that Megaman or anyone else should just be added because they had a few request (which we can also say about Nintendo characters). This is also why I say to build on Metal Gear and Sonic. They are the guest franchises. There aren't that many of them and they don't overpower the rest of the game. A simple balance. Third parties are fun, but must not be over blown. We must focus on the Nintendo aspect of it before all other. Of course, in the same sence, we can't just add any Nintendo character becuase they are Nintendo. Overall, we must think what characters will be unique and wanted.

Sorry to ramble. I got carried away. I know I said I wouldn't say any more on the subject, but I had too.

Because Nintendo did not want to have to deal with the rights, and that no one requested for Brawl actually got in without being planned for Melee or being a logical extension... That is except the Hedgehog. Ike is essentially Roy declonified. Lucario is Mewtwo dewimpified, Toon Link is Young Link, just less Majora's Mask and more Wind Waker. Olimar was the third big star created by Shigeru Miyamoto. Everyone else was planned for Melee, with the exception of Sonic the Hedgehog. We may never know the true scenario around Sonic's inclusion, but if he was so popular that Nintendo delayed the game just to put him in, do you think Nintendo will just cut him for SSB4? I sure as hell don't. As for Snake, people love him too even though they didn't expect him. And you think the suggestions of Mega Man, Pac-Man, or even Cloud Strife is bad, I've seen big websites that want MASTER CHIEF... from HALO! At least Mega Man, Pac-Man, and even Cloud Strife have some tiny remote chance of appearing in Smash in our lifetime.

smashchu2 said:

But that's your opinion. We could add Issac. He seem rather popular now. King K. Rool is popular in Japan and would add a villain to the DK franchise. There could also be a new pokemon. And also a new classic character like Pit of the Ice Climbers. There's also the possibility of new IPs. And there are always those crazy original ideas, like a creatable Mii. I think there are loads of possibilities. You just have to look.

I said BRAWL not Smash 4, I gave my predictions for Smash 4 in a humorous and sarcastic manner, and which gave the nods to Isaac, Little Mac, and Mii. It also said that Konami and Sega would each loan a second character in addition to Snake and Sonic, which tells you just how likely I think NEW third-parties ARE!