What are the worst Smash Fan Rosters you've ever seen?

[Dededekage Kira]

I generally love Thorgi's videos involving rosters but when he released that Smash video where he cut Yoshi and reduced him to the Assist Trophy or cut Diddy Kong and K. Rool and put characters like Pauline and I just dropped it

 

[Perkilator]

Generally, the kinds of fan rosters that rub me the wrong way (for lack of a more delicate way to put this) are the ones that put far too much emphasis on appealing to the Western side of the fanbase at the expense of genuine creativity.

 

[BritishGuy54]

Ones that measure each franchise the same, or have extreme bias for/against a genre rub me the wrong way.

Rosters that place more value in third parties rather than first parties also rub me the wrong way in a way. I like the third party inclusions, but Smash at its heart is still a Nintendo crossover.

I also don’t like rosters that place much more value in seniority over everything. Perhaps that just differs from my perspective of Smash being a ‘time capsule’ of more recent endeavours.

the ones that put far too much emphasis on appealing to the Western side of the fanbase at the expense of genuine creativity.

I concur. Western gaming is neat, but I think people forget Smash should appeal to Japanese fans as well, considering it’s… developed in Japan, with major partners being Japanese third parties, or characters with global influence, not just in the West.

 

[Oracle Link]

Maybe just a pet peeve but i really hate cutting toon link but keeping sheik!
One is the main character as he appears in half the series (sorta)
And the other shouldve been replaced by impa anyways!

Also giving pokemon, mario and fire emblem 3 more characters while removing kirby and zelda reps!

 

[Champion of Hyrule]

Not objectively bad, but I’ve always disliked smash fan rosters (mostly “what if smash started today” or celebration of gaming history rosters)that only give each series one character. It just doesnt feel very creative to me.

 

[Oracle Link]

Not objectively bad, but I’ve always disliked smash fan rosters (mostly “what if smash started today” or celebration of gaming history rosters)that only give each series one character. It just doesnt feel very creative to me.

Yeah multiple character per franchise allow variety in the types of characters another reason why fire emblem is bad designed in smash almost only protagonists!
I for example think we should see so many more villains! And important/ Beloved Sidecharacters!

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Rosters that do not consider the playstyles of newcomers or playstyles lost when cutting veterans. You'll see people insist their fan roster is great and would satisfy everyone but when you look at it, they remove one of the two, arguably three grapplers in the game and then have like 4 regular brawlers who are jack of all trades, but they're very unique because they are from a game I like or whatever

 

[Garteam]

My fan roster

 

[Oracle Link]

Rosters that do not consider the playstyles of newcomers or playstyles lost when cutting veterans. You'll see people insist their fan roster is great and would satisfy everyone but when you look at it, they remove one of the two, arguably three grapplers in the game and then have like 4 regular brawlers who are jack of all trades, but they're very unique because they are from a game I like or whatever

I mean thats a reason why toon link shouldnt be cut i never really jelled with "heavy" Link i dont think him being so sluggish fits yeah link cant jump but i dunno link just always felt nimble and less strong you know the david to ganons goliath!

 

[Perkilator]

Tangentially related, but I made a thread a while back about annoyances in Smash speculation.

 

[AlRex]

Not objectively bad, but I’ve always disliked smash fan rosters (mostly “what if smash started today” or celebration of gaming history rosters)that only give each series one character. It just doesnt feel very creative to me.

I tend to think the opposite, that having a ton of the same series is possibly an indicator of limited experience/knowledge, and I like reaching further into VG/Nintendo history to see what could be done. I do also try to mitigate the other issue sometimes by having a series be represented by a villain or very prominent side character. But a roster like this that has like 8 Mario characters, 9 Pokémon, 5 Kirby characters, 7 Sonic characters, 5 Street Fighters, etc. isn’t gonna be as interesting to me as being able to pull in Sukapon, Andy, Lip, Ray (Custom Robo), a Rhythm Heaven character, etc. or Peashooter, Centipede, Carmen Sandiego, Tetromino, Parappa the Rapper, etc. These are more so examples.

I feel similarly about overly focusing on just platformers and JRPGs, and to an extent, only focusing on Japanese or American preferences (admittedly biases/experiences can come into play), but it’s also a tough balancing act.

 

[Oddball]

I tend to think the opposite, that having a ton of the same series is possibly an indicator of limited experience/knowledge, and I like reaching further into VG/Nintendo history to see what could be done.

On that note, I hate when people make their rosters and none of the new comers are from games more than ten years old. It's just all the hot new things and none of the old classics.

 

[BritishGuy54]

On that note, I hate when people make their rosters and none of the new comers are from games more than ten years old. It's just all the hot new things and none of the old classics.

I dislike when it goes the other way around. A lack of new faces from more recent times just signifies someone being out of touch with what modern Nintendo is.

I think part of this is due to the current shift in nostalgia today, as NES/SNES nostalgia was dominant between 2006 and 2016, N64/PS1 had a brief boom between 2017 and 2021, and now we’re in the midst of a GC/GBA/PS2 nostalgia boom.

Much nostalgia has been spent, and has already had its time in the sun. Times are changing, and I think if we get older faces like say, Isaac, he’ll be treated more like Duck Hunt was, as a retro pick.