My most cherished Smash memory, if that is still the topic of discussion, was Ganondorf's reveal. In the pre-Melee era, I was quite immature; in fact, I was only approximately seven years of age. Clearly, I lacked essential cognitive functions and the ability to use the internet; however, I never thought that Ganondorf was a possibility. I did not believe that essential characters such as Bowser, Zelda or Peach would be playable either, given their roles in within their own franchise, especially at the time. People take their inclusions for granted when they assert that Brawl's newcomer roster was superior. I was not as surprised to see Young Link, as he is one of the main characters of Legend of Zelda. Before the introduction of Melee, only the most prominent characters within each series were added, the only exception being Jigglypuff, I suppose. Essentially, Melee is one of my favorite titles as I was able to go into the experience "blind." I had no knowledge of the content within the game prior to actually earning everything there was to earn.
Ganondorf is my favorite video-game character. I believe that he is one of the first video-game characters that I adored and he was my first taste of Legend of Zelda as I "started" the series at his boss battle. My mother had taken my sister to a Gameforce whilst I was attending elementary school, there she decided to purchase Ocarina of Time. There was a file already complete, I suppose. So my sister started with that file, it was something that we did when we were younger, we would examine the previous owners progress for whatever reason. I digress, upon my return, she was in his castle, already in the battle. She needed some help to defeat him. I vaguely recall falling off the edge multiple times before deflecting deadman's volley properly. As an advocate of antagonists, Ganondorf was one of the first that I became attached to, therefore he means a lot to me personally.
This leads us back to Smash. I was already quite pleased with everything the game had to offer, the unlock-able characters were great; however, after being exposed to characters such as Dr. Mario, Young Link, Pichu or Falco, personal favorites, that only reaffirmed that that game would focus on variations of main characters. So I was not expecting anything on par with the King of Darkness, or even Mewtwo. Marth was the biggest disappointment from Melee as I was not aware of who he was. The same could be said about Captain Falcon and Ness, that is relevant later. After playing Classic mode to get a feel for him, Roy was unlocked. I was utterly disturbed to say the least. Two (repugnant) anime swordsmen?! Honestly, Roy was my favorite and I interpreted him as compensation for what Marth offered. As many our age, we believed that Marth was a woman and once we learned the truth, we felt betrayed. Roy had fire and explosions, how could he not be the better character? The better man, even? In fact, to this day, I adamantly believe that Roy is better for free-for-all. Regardless, that is not the point, the point is that I condemned my favorite character without being aware of it. The precedent established a pattern of clone characters, secondary characters even. Characters that I did not even realize existed.
At this point in my file, I had unlocked everyone aside from Ganondorf, Mewtwo, and Game & Watch. The last two unlocks we were "graced" with were Marth and Roy, at the time, I was not overly fond of them. Obviously that has changed drastically over time. Something was amiss... It happened, everything changed. After playing versus for awhile, the ever so coveted "Challenger Approaching" screen loomed in the distance. This was what my sister and I had been working towards, the next character! The excitement was palpable, it saturated ever fiber of our beings. At each "Challenger Approaching" banner, my sister and I would attempt to discern the character that was masked in a silhouette. Obviously our overt lack of Nintendo knowledge influenced our detrimental accuracy. For instance, Dr. Mario's silhouette was reminiscent of a "tiger man" from our perspective, we thought that perhaps he was a wrestling-esque character. Quite incorrect we were, indeed.
This silhouette was different than the rest. It was easy to establish that it was a man... with a sword... he seemed as though he was positioned in an action pose. By the gods! It was yet another generic anime swordsmen. I was not pleased in the slightest. For a moment, I even wished that that character was not in the game. I still regret that do this day even though it was not pertinent to his fate. Yes, I was as petty back then as I currently am. Nothing has changed in that regard. So, before starting the match, I made my disdain extremely apparent by letting out the most exasperated sigh that I could muster, the game began to load, the seconds felt like years (not really though). It was... no. How could this be? Was I mislead? Was it a trap?!
Ganondorf.
He deserves his own paragraph. So I left it at that. I was trembling in fear as the King of Darkness instantly dropped me with very little effort. I could hardly focus. I could hardly believe what my eyes had the luxury of witnessing! I theorize that some endorphin that was not supposed to be present in my system was excreted. I forgot to mention it earlier; however, Link was my main. So there were some role-playing implications as well. After a quick break to allow my body to recover, after the hyperventilating ceased, after I cleaned the piss off of myself (that did not really happen, to clarify), I had issued the King of Darkness one last challenge. I had never been as determined to win a match as I was at that very moment. I am not a very competitive person either, but this, this was about pride (and earning the honor of playing as Ganon). It meant everything to me at the time. And as you probably guessed, I won that **** and gained Ganondorf's respect. He, in turn, allowed me to use him with dignity and elegance.
Honestly, this was my most cherished memory in Smash history. Nothing will ever usurp the King of Darkness' inclusion. I would also like to interject something fairly important. We were mislead. Ganon did not even use his sword, that silhouette was a thirst trap. I was not even aware that he was a clone as the others were. Obviously his specials were reminiscent of Captain Falcon's specials; however, I had not used Captain Falcon at all in Melee. I barely used him in Smash 64 either. But I was used to his Smash 64 iteration in conjunction with Ganondorf being a heavy weight and utilizing some of his own moves such as the U-tilt... he felt vastly original and unique. I learned Captain Falcon through Ganondorf. Deal with it, punk!
With that, I have one more notion that I would be privileged to assert before the release. If you do not use Ganon because you are a whiny, pretentious, self-entitled, spoiled little brat that believes that Ganondorf "deserves" better because he is not reminiscent of his Legend of Zelda form... **** you. If you do not enjoy playing as him, do not play as him.