Part 3: The True Battle May Be Just Beginning. No Matter What Hardships Are To Come... We Won't Give Up.
We are about half a week away from Smash 4 finally being unveiled. We have already seen a whole bunch of new posters emerge on this site. Surprisingly, there has not been a whole lot of new activity for the Roy thread.
Roy still remains among the Top 5 most wanted characters for that comprehensive Smash 4 poll, and on this site, there has not been a whole lot of Roy detractors lately.
I think while many people see Roy as a better alternative to Chrom, I want a lot more people to support Roy on the principle of actually wanting him, and not only that for him to be among their most wanted characters for Smash 4, basically a second Mewtwo. A character whom made a powerful impression on what their franchise was about in an earlier epoch, a beloved character in Melee, and overall a character whom many eagerly await the return to.
However, although things seem well and good here, things can easily go wrong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpgHRknUO6g
Many times when we have received a deluge of new information, fanaticism and delusion fanboy waves sweep the discourse of Smash Bros. forums and topics.
Many people often misinterpret or take wildly out of context statements made by Sakurai. Examples of this include Sakurai's statement for adding Zero Suit Samus. Sakurai said he added Zero Suit Samus because he wanted to give the popular Metroid series another characters, and that it was good to add another female fighter to Smash Bros. Nearly every major female newcomer fanbase wildly misinterpreted that this meant that if a male and female character were in competition for a spot on the roster, he would go with the female character.
Another example of this would be when Sakurai confirmed cuts for Brawl. While many people thought Pichu, Young Link, and Dr. Mario were obvious cuts. They expanded it to much less obvious characters like practicallly half of Melee's roster. Many people thought characters like Mr. Game & Watch or Ice Climbers would be cut because they were "gimmicks nobody liked".
The radical hyperbole interpretations of both of these statements gave supporters for newcomers (particularly the fanbases of Wolf, Ike, and Toon Link) and various veterans a hard time.
However, the reason why I am writing this last essay in the final days before Smash 4's unveil, is that there has been a multitude of times where some sort of development happened where some new information or unveil happened, and a large part to a character's fanbase lost hope.
The first example is perhaps the most well known. In Lucas's update, Sakurai said, "up until now, there was a character named Ness in Smash Bros." which made a very large portion of Smash Bros. fans believe Ness had been cut from Smash Bros. Further proof that this may have really been the case is that in Ness's Japanese Melee update, he mentioned that he would have replaced Ness with the protagonist of Mother 3 had it been released. Even myself was doubtful about Ness returning for Brawl after hearing of those two pieces of information. Yet a small core of Ness fans continued to fight on, and it turned out that not only Ness returned for Brawl, but he was also among the first hidden characters unlocked for that game.
Another example is Lucario. Many people thought his chances for Brawl were shot after Pokemon Trainer was unveiled on the Dojo, and that he was basically three characters in one. People thought that adding a fourth Pokemon newcomer would have been overkill and was definitely unneeded. Lucario ended up losing a large amount of his support due to many people thinking he was out of the running. Yet as things got closer to the release of Brawl, the vindicated leakers and a legitimate accidental leak (one of the stickers in a Japanese Brawl commercial showed Lucario's head icon), made the Lucario fans that managed to stay true to Lucario feel vindicated.
Perhaps the most profound example and turnabout was with Wolf. Wolf has been a character that was very popularly requested since the pre-Melee days. During much of pre-Brawl (prior to the Brawl unveil), he was definitely far more preferred Star Fox newcomer. However, due to Sakurai's statement on ZSS, Krystal became very competitive with Wolf in terms of requests (in Japan though, Wolf was still by far the favorite).
Wolf fans endured a lot of abuse and attacks for the next 1.5 years by the Krystal fanbase. They attacked him for being a possible clone, and for not not being "female". However, the Wolf fanbase continued to fight valiantly in the face of endless assaults and drooling horny adolescents. The Krystal fanbase during pre-Brawl was one of the most aggressive and loudest fanbases ever seen with Smash Bros. (the only other one I think matched them was Geno's), which makes the resilience of the Wolf fans even more impressive.Wolf still even had a slight edge in requests than Krystal.
However, towards the last few months of the pre-Brawl period, the Krystal fanbase finally felt they had the upperhand over their hated rival. The first thing was Fox having a "dark" color-pallette. Krystal fans jumped on this and said this was Sakurai's way of referencing Wolf, and that is showed that Sakurai believed Wolf not a good enough addition for Smash Bros., especially in comparison to Krystal. Wolf fans were distraught and there were quite a few that abandoned hope for the characters, however, the rest bit their lips and hunkered down for the inevitable new galvanized weaponry (Dark Fox) that the Krystal fans and other Smash Bros. fans would use against Wolf.
Things would turn even uglier for Wolf fans with the voice actress leak. Krystal's voice actress for Assault confirmed that not only was she voicing Zero Suit Samus, but also that she would be reprising the role of Krystal in Brawl. This automatically made the rest of the Smash Bros. fanbase view her as a shoe-in. Many Wolf fans at this point had lost hope, and instead thought the best way for Wolf to get in would be for Falco to get out. However, a dedicated few still believed that Wolf would be the one to come out on top, and there was an even smaller few that hung onto the life raft that was the statements made by the increasingly vindicated leakers, that Wolf truly would be in Brawl.
It turned out of course, that Wolf did get into Brawl as a playable character.
As can be seen by these previous three examples, there were times to which character fanbases lost a lot of support (and especially confidence) due to new statements, information, or unveils. I have absolutely no reason to believe that we won't be seeing the same with Smash 4.
Moreover, I think there is a decent chance that there could very well be something Sakurai says or unveils that could impact us Roy supporters.
For example, if Sakurai includes Palutena, and says again "it was good to add Palutena because there were so few female characters in Smash Bros." people will again assume Sakurai wants more females and will give spots to female characters over their male counterparts.
Or another example. If Sakurai were to include Shulk (or possibly an unconventional third-party newcomer like Bayonetta), Sakurai could say something like, "I like to include newer characters with Smash Bros. games." Obviously, Chrom fans and Smash Bros. fans in general will interpret this as Sakurai wanting to put in a newer character over an older one, which particularly affects Roy since one of the arguments used against him is "relevancy".
Or if Sakurai makes a comment about having "fewer, but more unique" new characters this time, again this could hurt confidence among Roy fans (though it could also hurt Chrom).
I am just trying to imagine some of the things that Sakurai could possibly say in which for Roy fans to lose confidence or face further adversity.
However, there is also the fact that with the unveil, we will be deluged with legions of idiots, who no doubt will use the same tired and dusty arguments against Roy that we have seen in the past, and the that the babbles of idiocy will drown out the tenor of reason.
However, as with the examples of Wolf, Ness, and Lucario, we must not lose hope. We must continue to fight until the release of Smash 4. Its going to be a long 1.5 years, and we still have a lot of work to do to convince others on the merits for Roy's return.
The true battle may be just beginning.
However, no matter what hardships are to come... we won't give up!
). So if Sakurai knows that say, Roy is much more popular now than Dr.Mario, he'll pick adding Roy back before Dr.Mario.
