Saikyoshi
Smash Master
Who is this guy?!
Simply put, he's a character from Nintendo's undisputed first game.
EVR Race (1975) was basically a horse racing simulator; it was an arcade setup where players would bet on a horse or a racecar.
That's when the magic happened.
You'd expect a betting simulator from that day and age to just use a mono-colored, extremely blocky sprite that's supposed to represent a horse. Or better yet, just mechanical parts, as has been the only thing Nintendo's ever worked with before this. However, this arcade cabinet would randomize and select a Full-Motion Video clip to play out the race that a player bet on. FMV. In 1975.
Now, of course it wasn't nearly as advanced as it is today - the clips were on physical film reels, a precursor to the VHS known as the Electronic Video Recording system. Let beforemario's page on the game explain:
"The EVR system is an interesting mix of film and video technology.
Where most video tape systems use magnetic tape, EVR tape was actually more simliar to regular film, with frames of visible images. In the case of EVR these frames were not developed photographically but 'written' using a technique called electron beam recording.
During playback, the tape would be projected on a light-sensitive device inside the EVR player, which then converted the image into a video signal that could be displayed on a regular TV set."
Primitive as it was, this was Nintendo's first-ever experiment with video output to screen technology. EVR Race is something officially considered by Nintendo to be their first-ever release.
Why would we want this nobody in?
Mr. Game & Watch may be a pioneer, but he's by no means Nintendo's oldest character. 1975-1979 was a time of rapid progression for game technology, and serves as a pretty big part of shaping the Nintendo we know today. Other characters from this era include Sherrif and TV Color Game 15, both repped as assist trophies.
Okay, but how would a 1975 betting simulator jockey translate into an HD fighting game made almost forty years later?
Let's see.
Excitebiker has been considered for Melee, but rejected because you can't make a bike jump without it looking ridiculous. Not the case with a horse. He would be a lower-heavyweight mounted fighter, horse and rider acting as one.
Graphically, the art style could be rather interesting. Their textures could be done in a hand-drawn style, with a grainy effect. That, or they could get a total contemporary reimagining like Duck Hunt or Mega Man did.
Obviously, as a racer on a horse, he would be fast, there's no question about that. But it's his status as a mounted unit that would make him stand out.
His moveset could easily reference Nintendo's other games from that period; he could have an eight-way aimable neutral special to represent Sheriff (who also rode a horse briefly, by the way). Even from his own game, the cabinet operator could choose to change the tapes to where the clips played would be of race cars rather than horses; do I see a ram-and-knock-away side special? And his betting origins could tie into card drawing in some fashion, which leads to a potential reference to Nintendo's ultimate origin: Hanafuda.
Let's weigh things up:
Pros
+Nintendo's undisputed oldest video game character, making him undeniably important in the company's history.
+Potential for a unique moveset in being a mounted fighter.
+Could fill the niche that Sakurai once wanted to fill with Excitebiker.
+Represents an era in Nintendo's history (he turns forty this year!) that is currently only marked by assist trophies.
+The nature of the original game's graphics could lend itself to a unique art style for the character, similar to how Mr. Game & Watch was handled.
Cons
-The game no longer exists in any known form. Presumably, the cabinets have been abandoned and the tapes have decayed.
-Very, very obscure. Not even any recorded footage exists. The developers would have to scour through the company's archived documents.
-A flat character from a betting simulator.
-Might not be unique enough to stand out from the likes of Duck Hunt and Bowser Jr.
-Generally an unlikely choice.
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, which was both a commercial and critical failure during its lifespan, into one of the most beloved RPGs of all time.
