Artsy Omni
Smashified Creator
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2011
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- artsyomni
This is a long read. If you don't want to read it all, scroll down to the last 2 paragraphs.
Brawl introduced Assist Trophies essentially as the logical next-step from Pokéballs. They were a way to pay homage to the various franchises and interest to item battles, but more importantly, they were a way to give a select few characters a level of representation that is greater than a trophy but not as great as a playable character.
There were 27 assist trophies total, with characters ranging from consensual-never-should-be-playables like Polygon Andross and Metroid to could-be-playables like Little Mac, Samurai Goroh, Starfy, Ray MK, etc. We won't argue over who falls where on that scale, because it's quite literally impossible to make such calls and remain consistent.
But what was the basis for this selection of Assists? Was it that these characters are important, but not deserving of a playable slot? I don't think that's the case at all. Was it that these characters don't have moveset potential? Once again, no. Some of these characters could very easily be made into playable characters—I don't think anyone would argue with that. In fact, in the eyes of many, some of these characters' moveset potential is palpable.
So let's first talk about playable character selection. Now I am a firm believer in the notion that ANYTHING could be made to work in Smash, but that whether a character is worth the time to make it work is based on a fluctuating combination of three factors: Time, Roster Saturation, and Relevance.
Now I'm not saying that every assist trophy was first considered for playable inclusion before they decided to make them an assist (I'm sure many of them were). But character consideration requires two things: open-mindedness and decisiveness. You have to be open-minded enough to think outside the box. A lot of us are good at that. But we don't have to deal with the stress of having to be decisive over which characters should make the cut, despite the fact that they aren't necessarily more deserving than characters who don't. And that's the reality of the matter.
And while moveset potential is an important factor, it's not a driving factor. By now, that should be abundantly clear.
So what conclusions can be drawn from this?
Brawl introduced Assist Trophies essentially as the logical next-step from Pokéballs. They were a way to pay homage to the various franchises and interest to item battles, but more importantly, they were a way to give a select few characters a level of representation that is greater than a trophy but not as great as a playable character.
There were 27 assist trophies total, with characters ranging from consensual-never-should-be-playables like Polygon Andross and Metroid to could-be-playables like Little Mac, Samurai Goroh, Starfy, Ray MK, etc. We won't argue over who falls where on that scale, because it's quite literally impossible to make such calls and remain consistent.
But what was the basis for this selection of Assists? Was it that these characters are important, but not deserving of a playable slot? I don't think that's the case at all. Was it that these characters don't have moveset potential? Once again, no. Some of these characters could very easily be made into playable characters—I don't think anyone would argue with that. In fact, in the eyes of many, some of these characters' moveset potential is palpable.
So let's first talk about playable character selection. Now I am a firm believer in the notion that ANYTHING could be made to work in Smash, but that whether a character is worth the time to make it work is based on a fluctuating combination of three factors: Time, Roster Saturation, and Relevance.
Time
This is an obvious factor because there was a limited amount of development time. In a perfect world where developers could work in time capsule and spend 6 years creating Smash Bros. only to have spent seconds of time away from home, I have absolutely no doubt that many of these characters could have been playable. But the reality of the matter is that there's only so much time, and certain characters get priority over others.
While I do believe everything can be given a moveset, I do believe characters have varying levels of appropriateness. Frankly, the characters that have already made it into Smash don't have equal levels of appropriateness. Which is why I'm saying that it's largely a matter of whether or not they have the time to make it work when other characters wouldn't take as long to design.
Roster Saturation
Roster Saturation and Time go hand-in-hand. When you have a limited amount of time, you have to think about the big picture and filter character selection through a series of criteria. Would a character bring a unique playstyle? Does this character's franchise need more representation? And if those two questions are a yes, there's still the question of whether or not there would be time to make it work. And it's not like you can just take these cases in isolation: you have to weigh such decisions against all other potential characters. That's one thing this community often fails to do: see the big picture. We're masters at rationalizing a single character with moveset propositions, articles, and all sorts of arguments, but we almost never look at whether or not a character is one of the puzzle piece needed to fit between all the other pieces of a very complex puzzle. Because there isn't enough time to invent more of the puzzle to make room.
Frankly, Sakurai himself isn't perfect, and I'm VERY sure that even he has a degree of dissatisfaction with the rosters he creates because he KNOWS they can be so much more if he just had the time. But he takes what he's given and makes the best of it. The puzzle always ends up having holes in the end, but at least we know what the picture is.
Relevance
This is by far the most telling of the three factors. Before a character is even considered to be playable, he has to be relevant in SOME way, right? Whether or not the community agrees with the way in which a character is relevant, every character in Smash Bros. is relevant. I would dare say that the characters they chose as assist trophies are also very relevant—Some are as relevant as playable characters. When considering all of these factors in conjunction, they often have to say "We, and many gamers, love this character, but we simply can't take time to figure out how he would fit into the roster, and we want to spend the time it would take to create this character to create someone else. But we want this character to be represented in SOME way."
Enter Assist Trophies.Now I'm not saying that every assist trophy was first considered for playable inclusion before they decided to make them an assist (I'm sure many of them were). But character consideration requires two things: open-mindedness and decisiveness. You have to be open-minded enough to think outside the box. A lot of us are good at that. But we don't have to deal with the stress of having to be decisive over which characters should make the cut, despite the fact that they aren't necessarily more deserving than characters who don't. And that's the reality of the matter.
And while moveset potential is an important factor, it's not a driving factor. By now, that should be abundantly clear.
So what conclusions can be drawn from this?
Characters that have been Assist Trophies don't have less of a chance of being playable in Smash 4 just because they've already been Assist Trophies. That logic is made invalid by the inclusion of Charizard as a playable character, even if it was through the vehicle of Pokemon Trainer.
But on the other hand, inclusion as an Assist Trophy does not increase a character's chance of being playable. But what it DOES do is tell us what franchises they're paying attention to. And that should give some of us hope.
