Pac-Man:
Let me tell you a little story about a boy named James.
When James was an itty-bitty boy of five or six, he was introduced to this mystical contraption called a computer that he had no idea how to use. It bored him at first, since he only really saw boring adult stuff being done on it, but his father, being a man who loved computers and knew practically everything to know about them, wanted to teach his son what he knew about computers. Being a little boy, though, James wasn't interested in being taught how to use a "word", as he felt his vocabulary was more than adequate, and he felt a little sorry for the explorer who got himself stuck inside a net, but failed to understand what he had to do with computers. So he made the offhand comment of wanting to go and play and his father explained to him that this miraculous thing was something to be played with. He was, of course, very confused, but he trusted that his father wasn't a lunatic and that it really could play with him...despite not being able to move. So James waited as patiently as he knew how and eagerly watched his father as he brought down a folder with a bunch of silly looking circles with holes in the center. James assumed these to be treats for the computer that would get it to do tricks or something. (An assumption that seemed more than reasonable when the machine stuck out its tongue and took the treat into its mouth.)
James' father, being a fair bit more understanding of what he was doing, was looking for a game that would entertain our young James. It had to be nonviolent, fairly simple, and still appealing for little James. Pinball would've worked...but it wasn't quite colorful enough to appeal to such a young boy...Golf was definitely out of the question...maybe...no, not that...Then he found it! Should've been perfectly obvious to him, he thought to himself as he put it in.
James' attention was pulled to the start-up screen that he saw which he, despite being unable to read, found interesting because of a certain yellow, happy-faced ball-guy that greeted him and his father with a wink and a thumb's up, seemingly telling them that playtime was beginning. The game started up and James watched, confused, as some odd circles and a person made out of string showed up. His father explained that it was an intro like you'd see on a TV show and that the real thing was starting up. James' attention snapped completely to the oddly-shaped spinning rock that he saw. It looked sort of like something he knew by the name of Saturn, but it looked like a chunk was taken out of the side for some reason. The screen flashed to two brightly-colored ghosts of blue and orange traversing a not-so-brightly-colored landscape. The orange one stops and looks around before having the blue ghost run into him clumsily (James noted that they made a funny clunk-y sound when they bumped into one-another). The screen turned to match the vision of the ghosts and zoomed in. Menacing eyes appeared and the screen showed a close up of an unpleasant-looking creature speaking some evil sounding language. The orange ghost pulled a pretty golden ball out of a brown bag and turned to give it to the creature. He shook as the thing's claws took the artifact from him. The monster looked serious as he said a few more words before closing his hand around the ball. He lifted it up and smashed the golden sphere into the ground, creating a flash.
The screen then changes to look at a sleeping image of the happy yellow ball-guy that he saw before. He snores. Again. Then a light flashed on and off on a television behind him and a sound vaguely like a telephone went off...the ball-guy turned as the sound got faster and faster and the screen of the television blinked on. A similar looking yellow ball-guy with a gray mustache and a funky black hat appeared, seeming flustered. He talked in gibberish but it was obvious that he was upset. The original yellow ball-guy gets up urgently, tightens his orange gloves, and poses toward the screen, ready to take on this obvious predicament.
This game, Pac-Man: Adventures in Time, became one of his, or, rather, my favorites. I asked my parents to buy more Pac-Man games for me and we ended up getting Pac-Man All-Stars and Ms. Pac-Man and the Golden Maze, which became a few of my other favorites. (We also branched out to other classic Namco games, including Dig-Dug and Mappy, to name a few. I was introduced to the original that way and I was terrible at it, but still enjoyed it immensely.) The prized jewel of the games we got, however, was Pac-Man World 2, a game that holds the title of my favorite game of all time even now.
Pac-Man, of course, became an absolute obsession of mine. I bought every piece of smiley face merchandise I could get a hold of since they were the closest thing to Pac-Man merchandise I could find (and they were cute and happy in their own right as well, of course). We even bought the (looking back on it, terrible) Hanna Barbara Pac-Man TV Show and I watched every episode way too many times.
Of course, life went on and James grew up and situations changed. We had to move to the mountains (right after we painted Pac-Man and the Ghosts on my bedroom walls, I might add *grumblegrumble*) and I had to find a new school and new friends and all that. But I still had Pac-Man, so I was still happy and not everything was strange and unusual. And, of course, once I got used to that, my parents divorced and made my life especially difficult...but I still had my Pac-Pillow to rest my head on and my Pac-Man plushie to hold as I slept, so it wasn't so bad in the end.
I have changed, my life has changed, my situations have changed...and I don't deal well with change. I like consistency. Always have. So, in order to survive the inconsistency that I had to deal with, I latched on to one thing in my life that I had control of and never let it go. I made sure I had one thing in life that would always be there. I made sure that I always had something to go to when I needed to escape from the relentlessly changing world. That thing was Pac-Man. I was always going to have him and no one was going to take him away from me. Ever.
So, yeah. You could say that I have a personal connection with Pac-Man and that Pac-Man and I have quite the history together. He's been with me for over two-thirds of my life, after all. I've come to cherish and adore him.
So let's just get this clear:
Want: 100%
I think it's obvious why. I love Pac-Man...
...But it's actually a little more than that too. You see, I was introduced to Super Smash Bros. Melee when I was little as well. It wasn't even close to as early as Pac-Man, but I had played Super Smash Bros. Melee for the first time when I was about 9 or 10 years old. I ended up loving it so much that I got a Gamecube for Christmas the next year with it, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, and...Pokemon Channel (which did not compare to those two masterpieces). This was the same time my brother was getting into Pokemon on the DS and I eventually ended up getting one of them so I could play with Pokemon too.
Before long, I was completely and utterly enamored with the worlds of Nintendo.
The chance to have these two incredibly influential series unite with Pac-Man's playable status in the Super Smash Bros. series would be a literal dream come true. This has been a lifelong dream that I never dared hope for...until now.
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Chance:
I'll be honest. Him not being in would be enough to make me abstain from buying the Wii U I've been saving for for Smash. I might very well get only the 3DS version at first and get a Wii U (and the Wii U version) when more games come out that interest me (since, frankly, none but a very select few have) if Pac-Man's not in. With Pac-Man, this is a system seller for me. Without, it's not.
So his not getting in would crush me.
...But, obviously, I am saving for a Wii U. I am definitely hoping for the best. It's obvious that I don't want to be crushed...but it's important to note that I don't expect to be. Just take this as my warning that I may be too optimistic about his chances. It's not my intent to be biased, and I genuinely feel this way, but I could very well be overestimating his chances because of my want for him being so high.
With that out of the way, let me list the largest points in his favor:
Point 1: Bandai-Namco is working on Smash Bros 4 with Sakurai and co.
Everyone and their mother knows this by now. Sakurai is living next to and working at a Bandai-Namco facility for this project. If it wasn't for this, I fully admit that Pac-Man's likelihood of getting in would be similar to the likelihood of his living from touching a ghost without a power pellet...null. But it puts him in a situation that's very comparable to that of Snake. While the creator of Pac-Man isn't exactly Sakurai's close friend, Sakurai's still in contact with important members of Bandai-Namco, which means negotiations for Pac-Man would already be easier for Sakurai than Sonic's and Mega Man's were. That combined with Pac-Man's far greater iconic status than Snake, lack of the potentially offensive material that Snake has, and Nintendo's familiarity with negotiating with Bandai-Namco make him the easiest potential third-party newcomer to get into Smash yet. The situation would probably be highly tempting. (Also, it'd make Miyamoto ecstatic.)
Point 2: Pac-Man has little to no competition from other third-party newcomers.
Since Sakurai stated that only "legendary" third-party characters would be getting in, Pac-Man does not have to deal with competition from other third-party characters (such competition made it impossible for Mega Man to get in Brawl, since Sonic was so highly requested). He is, by far, the most highly requested third-party character to add. His only competition is from veteran Snake (who, for the record, can coexist with Pac-Man) and a few oddball third-party candidates like Professor Layton and Dragon Quest's Slime. This means that Sakurai was very likely to at least consider him, especially considering the circumstances between him and Bandai-Namco.
Point 3: Namco has received recognition already in SSB4.
The S-Flag and Galaga enemy boosted Pac-Man's already ridiculous chances up by a ton. Sakurai has to have been in at least some negotiations with Bandai-Namco in order to get this in the game. And if he was in negotiations, it's not likely he was in negotiations only for an item, since Sakurai has mentioned that working with other companies is one of the most difficult parts about making the game before. Why would he go through such difficult stuff for anything less than a playable character? It just doesn't make sense.
Point 4: Leak
We have no idea if it's real or not, but it's at least highly probable that this guy has some legitimate inside info. If he does, Pac-Man's in 100%. I won't go too far into this, though, since the leak isn't necessarily true and might be completely irrelevant to his chances if so.
With that in mind, I'm giving Pac-Man a 94% chance. He's only behind Palutena herself in likelihood for me. I hope I justified it well and I apologize if my rating is biased, as I acknowledge it may be.
(I might get to Miis later, but this is the part I care about most.)
