May as well take another crack at this, seems as it's been around 3 years! That said, I'm also going to give myself an
additional limitation - to only include characters somehow featured in
Brawl, whether through Trophies, Stickers, or otherwise. (I think this helps to give it a more grounded, realistic feel, whilst also giving an additional layer of challenge!) I'm also limiting myself to the original game's total of 39 unique characters... plus one, because I couldn't help myself, so yeah, a total of 40.
(Also, sorry if this counts as necroing! I'm gathering May isn't
too far back to revive, but if it is, I deeply apologise.)
Returning Characters
Characters marked in green are returning with some minor changes.
Characters marked in yellow are recieving significant moveset overhauls.
Characters marked in red are not returning or are being outright replaced.
Characters marked in purple are all-new characters I'm suggesting.
#01:
Mario
#02:
Donkey Kong
#03:
Link (Updated to his
Twilight Princess design.)
#04:
Samus (Updated to her
Metroid Prime design. Samus is getting an overhaul to make her more agile, in keeping with the feel of the
Metroid series.)
#05:
Yoshi
#06:
Kirby (Some of Kirby's moves are changed to more directly reference iconic Copy Abilities.)
#07:
Fox (Updated to his
Star Fox: Command design.)
#08:
Pikachu
#09:
Luigi (Further decloned from Mario, now featuring the Poltergust as a tether grab with a unique "vacuum" property.)
#10:
Ness (Paula now appears alongside him to perform PK Fire, in reference to Ness's inability to perform the move in
EarthBound. She and Poo appear alongside him during his Final Smash as well, helping him perform PK Starstorm. This is intended to represent the themes of friendship in the series.)
#11:
Captain Falcon (Updated to his
F-Zero GX design.)
#12:
Jigglypuff
#13:
Peach (Parasol is replaced with Perry the Parasol, from
Super Princess Peach. Her Toad Counter is replaced with Toadsworth, but works the same.
#14:
Bowser
#15:
Ice Climbers (A.I. has been improved slightly, desyncing is a little easier to control. Wobbling, however, has been removed.)
#16:
Sheik (Updated to their
Twilight Princess concept art design. Still shares a roster slot with Zelda. Moveset is slightly tweaked to make transformation more useful - Sheik is made faster and lighter to faciltate this.)
#17:
Zelda (Updated to her
Twilight Princess design. Still shares a roster slot with Sheik. Moveset is slightly tweaked to make transformation more useful - Zelda has more powerful tools to facilitate this.)
#XX:
Dr. Mario (A clone character doesn't really work here, even if I don't really have another puzzle game rep in mind.)
#XX:
Pichu (I have other plans for the
Pokémon series, so it doesn't really work in a roster of this size.)
#18:
Falco (Updated to his
Star Fox: Command design. Further decloned from Fox's moveset overall, though.)
#19:
Marth (Updated to his
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon remake design. Otherwise, remains pretty similar.)
#XX:
Young Link (Effectively replaced with
Toon Link.)
#20:
Ganondorf (Updated to his
Twilight Princess design, with a completely fresh moveset inspired predominantly by that game as well as
Ocarina of Time and, partially, the
Spaceworld 2000 GameCube tech demo. He would fight predominantly using the Sword of the Six Sages and his magical power of darkness.)
#21:
Mewtwo (Softened up a bit, and made a little less weird and janky in terms of moveset.)
#22:
Roy (Further decloned from Marth in terms of pretty much everything, including a slightly different skeleton. He's more of his own character now.)
#23:
Mr. Game & Watch (Has the feather removed on his Forward Smash for reasons of cultural sensitivity. Otherwise, remains the same.)
Brawl's Newcomers
#24:
Meta Knight (Nerfed a little, but still a good inclusion.)
#25:
Pit (In an all-new design, as though the
Kid Icarus series had continued to this very day.)
#XX:
Zero Suit Samus (Replaced with a different
Metroid representative.)
#26:
Wario (Predominantly based on the
WarioWare series. Also, more visual cues for his Waft and Bike specials.)
#XX:
Snake (A tough call, but I don't know if Snake is fitting for this game, even given the context behind his inclusion.)
#27:
Ike
#28:
Pokémon Trainer
-> #XX:
Squirtle (Another tough call, but I think the Pokémon Trainer as a whole uses up too many spots to reasonably justify.)]
-> #XX:
Ivysaur (Another tough call, but I think the Pokémon Trainer as a whole uses up too many spots to reasonably justify.)]
-> #28:
Charizard (Charizard sticks around but now gets a down special. It's probably Rock Smash.)]
#29:
Diddy Kong (& Dixie Kong! They now work as a duo fighter, a little like the Ice Climbers, but with their own unique abilities.)
#XX:
Lucas (Doesn't really make sense in context, given
MOTHER 3 never ended up getting localised.)
#30:
Sonic (Gets more focus and development time, with his moveset predominantly being inspired by the
Adventure,
Advance, and
Rush games, plus
Battle for the sake of visual cohesion. Callbacks to his "classic" era will be found here and there, but he's predominantly based on "current" Sonic.)
#31:
King Dedede
#32:
Olimar (He only uses three Pikmin instead of five at a time for balancing reasons.)
#XX:
Lucario (Functionally replaced with a different Pokémon.)
#33:
R.O.B. (More of a clear visual cue for his up special, or at least making it more obvious.)
#34:
Toon Link (Is effectively the replacement for Young Link - but his moveset is more closely inspired by
Wind Waker as opposed to being a clone.)
#35:
Wolf (Deliberately designed to be less similar to Fox and Falco, only having vague similarities as opposed to a near-identical conceptual moveset.)
My Newcomers
#36:
Toad (A prominent, reoccuring
Super Mario series character with plenty of appearances and potential! He'd predominantly fight using different items from the
Super Mario series, such as the Propeller Mushroom from the upcoming
New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Hence why Toadsworth is now by Peach's side!)
#37:
Piplup (A prominent Gen IV Pokémon that features heavily in the anime, also being a starter, and bringing the unique Water Type to the Smash series, Piplup works well in my mind as a potential inclusion. Imagine them being a little similar to Squirtle in that they're a lightweight water-type, but differing in terms of basic design and other such elements.)
#38:
Dark Samus (A prominent and generally well-recieved "modern" Nintendo villain, as well as a second
Metroid rep. Ridley might be seen by the developers as "too big" for the time being, but Dark Samus's Phazon abilities that we've already seen in Echoes would work well, and there could always be some invented additions. Dark Samus is, here at least, a fully unique character from Samus.)
#39:
Sami (Representing a new series - the
Wars franchise - Sami's a fan-favourite character from that series who could work pretty well in filling the basic "demolition man" concept that Snake had going on, whilst potentially also acting as a loose take on the summoner archetype by commanding different units to attack on her behalf.)
#40:
Isaac (A popular fan request of the era, plus a magic user with plenty of potential, Issac's a swordfighter who prefers to be grounded where possible and focuses mainly on his powerful smash attacks that use his elemental abilities.
Golden Sun was still in a decent state at around this time, so he makes sense to include.)
With this in mind, our roster now looks like:
Mario | Donkey Kong | Link | Pikachu | Kirby | Samus | Marth | Ice Climbers |
Luigi | Diddy & Dixie Kong | Zelda/Sheik | Jigglypuff | King Dedede | Dark Samus | Roy | Mr. Game & Watch |
Peach | Yoshi | Ganondorf | Mewtwo | Meta Knight | Fox | Ike | R.O.B. |
Toad | Wario | Toon Link | Charizard | Olimar | Falco | Isaac | Sonic |
Bowser | Ness | Pit | Piplup | Captain Falcon | Wolf | Sami | Random |
Honourable Mentions
#??:
Sukapon (I really like Sukapon, and I'd totally have added them if it weren't for the fact that Nintendo apparently misplaced their paperwork indicating that they hold the rights to the
Joy Mech Fight franchise. Or that there was literally no space for them.)
#??:
Lip (I wanted a puzzle rep of some kind, and Lip came close to being considered... before I ultimately decided she didn't really have a place in the roster.)
#??:
Midna & Wolf Link (Another one I considered, but felt to be unnecessary with the four we already have.)
#??:
Pico (I genuinely considered him as a unique character, but couldn't reasonably justify a second
F-Zero rep.)
#??:
Geno (Even if he was considered and support was there for him, his rights being entangled with Square-Enix made him difficult to justify.)
#??:
Deoxys (I considered them, but decided that the current swathe of Pokémon representation is pretty decent already.)
And quite a few more, ahaha!
I should of course make clear that this is presuming a lot of stuff goes slightly differently with
Brawl's development - for instance, SEGA immediately allowing Sonic's use, documents being finalised on time, and crucial decisions made early in development so as to avoid developing for characters that, due to time constraints, later can't be included. It'd be difficult... but I think it'd be doable. Then again, I wasn't put in charge of
Brawl's devlopment, probably with good reason. And it is about 5:30am here and I can't sleep, so if there's any mistakes... yeah, that's why.