The rise of third-party IP in Smash

[Boo Destroyer]

We've all known it by now already, but there's been a major influx of third-party franchises/companies working their way into Smash, particularly since 4 and even moreso in Ultimate. Sakurai even claimed in the Byleth presentation that “Smash is a celebration of gaming”. At this point, is it safe to say “Remember when Smash used to be about just Nintendo IP?”?

Now where do we, as NinDB'ers, stand on this matter? If you've been here for a while, you may know that Fry founded this site based upon the trophies in Melee. If it were to start nowadays (from the spirits in Ultimate), would it be NinDB, or would it be more of a “Video Game Database”? So do you feel that that third-party characters/franchsies are a good fit for Smash, or do you feel they're taking away from the Nintendo focus it used to have? Are the days of Obscure Nintendo Character No. 39843 joining Smash really over? Or do you think they should continue with introducing more non-Nintendo IP to the series?

Do recall that Brawl was still mostly Nintendo-focused, and that Snake and Sonic were still seen as just guests. Fast-forward to Ultimate, the whole “guest” distinction is gone with third-parties. The only parts of the game where they do get treated as such are the Training Assist Trophy menu and the music test menu. But every other part of the game has them integrated with the rest of the Nintendo IP (Mega Man would come before Wii Fit, for example). Remember the Chronicle in Brawl? I can see why they cut that from Smash 4 and Ultimate.

I do remember back then (particularly on here) there was a lot of.....resistance to third-party series getting into Smash. But now that they're here for good, what's your take on this matter?

[Shrikeswind]

For our purposes at least, Smash is absolutely a great jumping off point even now. It’s easy to joke about Sakurai’s often bizarre decisions but in a lot of ways he has been pretty good at using Smash as a celebration of gaming at large and still keeping a serious degree of focus on Nintendo. In some ways, I feel like NinDB would still be where it is if we looked at it from that perspective; we kinda already are with the third party board. And I could say more, but as I type this I’m strapped for time.

[nocturnal YL]

My take:

If we start from Ultimate, NinDB wouldn't exist at all. Not because of Smash's focus, but because it wouldn't make sense to build a traditoinal website and especially a message board in today's Internet. This place would have zero members.

Let's pretend it's 2001 and we got a game that covers multiple publishers. I suppose the goal of this place would instead be to collect data related to various series, but it's a far cry from gaming in general. Alternatively, it'd still be Nintendo-focused, since Smash is still more Nintendo than anything else. There's a reason Sutte Hakkun and Mole Mania have spirits but not other, similarly obscure games from other publishers.

As for Smash itself, I'd say I don't like its approach. Not because I don't like third party games — unlike what I'd have answered back in Brawl's days — but because now that Smash is trying to cover both Nintendo and other publishers, it ended up doing a very poor job in both. Smash doesn't cover enough Nintendo games, and most certainly doesn't cover enough non-Nintendo games. All that non-Nintendo stuff distract from the goal of being a celebration of Nintendo, and for a celebration of gaming (or "gaming on Nintendo systems"), it has too much Nintendo and ignores too many major publishers. It's a fun little action game that does a decent job showcasing the IPs that are featured in it, but it does not feel like a celebration of gaming. (And I mean exactly that; claim of being a celebration of gaming aside, Smash is still a fine, functional game as it is.)

[Nester the Lark]

I wasn't going to say anything, but remember that at one time, NinDB did have a dedicated third-party feature.

[Leon]

I just don't know how sincerely it can be said that Smash is a celebration of gaming in general. The game lacks the serious big guns like Minecraft, Fortnite, and GTA.

[Boo Destroyer]

Even when you look past what playable fighters have to offer in Ultimate, there are lots of other ways that various third-party IP have found their way into this game, by way of Assist Trophies, spirits, and Mii costumes:

-Monster Hunter
-Virtua Fighter
-Bomberman
-Shovel Knight
-Assassin's Creed
-Undertale
-Cuphead
-Goemon
-Rayman/Rabbids
-Shantae
-Tetris(?)
-Galaga
-Resident Evil
-Kunio-kun/River City
-Tales of...
-Tekken
-BIT.TRIP
-Other Namco properties
-Other SNK properties

Probably a few others. And some of these were in Smash 4 already. But you can tell that they really are shooting for milestones this time.

[Boo Destroyer]

Hah, even our own Fryguy is confused about this.

[Evie ❤✿]

It is like on one hand; it's Sakurai's game; he wanted a celebration of gaming with it, and like X Tunnel Theme, some of what gets in is from his own preference (however, the given example here, is Nintendo). On the other hand, the original direction may be lost. I empathise with him when he says deciding who gets in or doesn't is stressful; perhaps he overworks and it must be tough for him; this and his physical illness too which lead him to learn how to count in binary with one hand. So I feel here; it's a conflict between artist and expectation and given the scope of Nintendo it's hard to meet everyone's needs. Changing to third party might be a form of escape. It is true that there a lot of first party or published by Nintendo characters that still could be added but I feel we need to give him a break.

[nocturnal YL]

Given that Sakurai didn't pick everything that's included in the game (we know this is the case for DLC fighters and spirits in both the base game and post-release updates, as well as some of the fighter costumes), I don't think third party contents as "a form of escape" really is what happened.

Physical illness also wouldn't lead to one learning to count in binary. If anything, it shows that his hands are just fine.

[Evie ❤✿]

Mar 8, 2020 0:31:43 GMT -5 nocturnal YL said:

Given that Sakurai didn't pick everything that's included in the game (we know this is the case for DLC fighters and spirits in both the base game and post-release updates, as well as some of the fighter costumes), I don't think third party contents as "a form of escape" really is what happened.

Physical illness also wouldn't lead to one learning to count in binary. If anything, it shows that his hands are just fine.

Ah OK.

Well what happened in the latter case is he had calcific tendinitis in his right shoulder kotaku.com/two-years-later-smash-bros-creators-arm-is-still-bust-1696694007 , so he had to use a special mouse, and I figured since with binary you can count to 31 in one hand that was a convenient way to cope (but on hindsight I was assuming sorry).