Character Discussion Thread

[ShinyRegice]

*sees over/underrepresentation debates a few pages sooner*

Geez, I wonder if people will complain about series over/underrepresentation in term of number of attractions when the Nintendo Universal amusement park will be a thing

 

[StormC]

Wolf > King K. Rool >> Snake > Dixie Kong/Isaac/Bandanna Dee/Inklings/Paper Mario

These are the only characters that I feel have a shot in order from most likely to least likely. Everyone else I would strongly bet against. If anyone I didn't mentions happens, I will switch my avatar to whatever the people here want for a month. Two month if one of Wolf or King K. Rool fails to get in alongside a character I would be shocked to see.

Snake more likely than Isaac or Bandana Dee? No way.

I can't really say I think anyone is "likely". Sakurai has consistently chose everyone I thought wouldn't make it, and left out everyone I personally wanted. I didn't think Duck Hunt would happen, and yet here we are. I didn't think Ryu would happen, and well...yeah, that happened. I seriously believe that Sakurai just does whatever he wants. Even if everyone doesn't think a certain character will ever happen, it just might actually happen. I'm not putting my bets on anyone, and am just going to sit back and be surprised. If I start expecting a certain character, I'm just setting myself up for disappointment.

Sakurai literally said everything from here on out is fanservice and opened a ballot to hear fighter suggestions.

Are we still hung up on "Sakurai is Willy Wonka?" He has made it clear many times he listens to fans and it shows with a lot of his character inclusions. This is nonsense.

 

[BKupa666]

I think the bigger point of concern is ensuring that the theme park doesn't receive a cancellation petition once the Metroid Prime Laser Tag arena is shown to have generic Federation costumes instead of Samus' suits.

 

[StormC]

Do you guys think Sakurai will reveal the most popular characters first or save them for last?

Essentially, let's say he picks three ballot characters: X, Y, and Z. X is the most popular, Y is the second most popular, and Z is the third most popular. Would he reveal them ZYX to build up hype for X or perhaps start off strong with X (particularly if he's already working on ballot characters and thus would be in a better position to pick the most wanted instead of second or third most wanted)?

 

[A Distant Demon]

3: Bandanna Dee - he'd take as much time as Dark Pit - probably a week and a half.

i have absolutely no skill in game design but i know this isnt true.

Bandana dee would need a new model, a new moveset, and just as much balancing as every other DLC character.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

People say something is "likely" but it's actually just that it's "their character" and they want it.

By popularity, only the top 5 in the ballot should be considered "likely". If we're going by only popularity. From what I've heard, at least the top 3 are apparently K.Rool, Isaac and Snake.

 

[StormC]

By popularity, only the top 5 in the ballot should be considered "likely". If we're going by only popularity. From what I've heard, at least the top 3 are apparently K.Rool, Isaac and Snake.

Most polls don't put Snake that high. If we're looking at the Wants in the Rate Your Chance thread...

Snake doesn't even crack the top ten. He's probably the most popular veteran after Wolf and ICs, though.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

Most polls don't put Snake that high. If we're looking at the Wants in the Rate Your Chance thread...

Snake doesn't even crack the top ten. He's probably the most popular veteran after Wolf and ICs, though.

The wants in the RTC thread is like .5 percent of the internet

Bigger polls, such as the one on Reddit (I forget, a few months ago?) had him as #3 after like 10,000 votes. The order was K.Rool, Wolf, Snake, then I think Isaac.

Smashboards also has a large portion of hipsters and people who create their own fanmade rules. Or, they say Snake isn't "Nintendo enough". Not to put the blame on them, but that's probably why he isn't there. People hear something on here and it catches like wildfire, as stupid as the things said around here are.

Similarly, after Mewtwo was revealed, I ran my own poll on this site. Snake was #4. The poll also excluded characters with already present roles. So no Ridley.

 

[StormC]

Bigger polls, such as the one on Reddit (I forget, a few months ago?) had him as #3 after like 10,000 votes. The order was K.Rool, Wolf, Snake, then I think Isaac.

This one? https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/320uw3/research_final_destination_a_compilation_of_all/ Because Snake is lower on that too.

As a Snake supporter, I'm finding more and more that he is a fairly polarizing character.

 

[BKupa666]

Snake is more likely than not in the IC position where his support is a foregone conclusion to the developers, it's just a matter of whether they're willing and/or able to surpass the obstacles that kept him out of the main game.

Do you guys think Sakurai will reveal the most popular characters first or save them for last?

Essentially, let's say he picks three ballot characters: X, Y, and Z. X is the most popular, Y is the second most popular, and Z is the third most popular. Would he reveal them ZYX to build up hype for X or perhaps start off strong with X (particularly if he's already working on ballot characters and thus would be in a better position to pick the most wanted instead of second or third most wanted)?

Presumably the characters would get revealed in the order they were picked, which is to say the more popular candidates would be the first ones revealed.

 

[Ura]

What I wrote in the RTC thread...

People are underestimating him. We don't know the circumstances behind him getting cut. For all we know, he could have been axed because Nintendo and Konami couldn't reach an agreement when Sm4sH came out. With his humongous support which I dare say is bigger than any third party character in the game (and most characters in general I bet), I would say the chances of him coming back are pretty good. The demand for him is clearly there and Nintendo should realize Snake = Money for them. Konami already expressed support for Snake's return in the game so I don't see why it's not feasible that the 2 parties can work together in bringing Snake back in Smash Bros.

I don't think the IC's comparison works well for Snake seeing as one wasn't in the game because of limitations while the other isn't for unknown reasons.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

Snake is more likely than not in the IC position where his support is a foregone conclusion to the developers, it's just a matter of whether they're willing and/or able to surpass the obstacles that kept him out of the main game.



Presumably the characters would get revealed in the order they were picked, which is to say the more popular candidates would be the first ones revealed.

You know, that would make a lot of sense actually. I mean, any veteran is usually a big choice when they get cut. Well...except for Young Link and Pichu.

They knew of the demand for Roy, Lucas and Mewtwo. Probably are aware of the want for Wolf too. Snake may have legal issues, but I'd agree that they might have an idea of his popularity.

This one? https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/320uw3/research_final_destination_a_compilation_of_all/ Because Snake is lower on that too.

As a Snake supporter, I'm finding more and more that he is a fairly polarizing character.

Sure, he's low there. But I don't necessarily trust a Reddit compilation like that. If they're all from Reddit, there's no way to track if the same users voted multiple times. In terms of want, yeah he's lower there. But if you add in other factors, he'll end up MUCH higher. Adding in the fact that some of those characters probably just AREN'T going to happen, and he'll jump up several spots.

coughWaluigicough.

 

[StormC]

Konami expressing interest in Snake being in Smash doesn't really mean much to me. It's free advertisement for them.

The timing is just really unfortunate, I think; the Kojima craziness at Konami right now is the main obstacle, since Kojima's friendship with Sakurai is the only reason Snake got in at all. I'd say his chances are less than half, but not abysmal.

 

[Senatiator]

I need more elaboration on this.

Cross is just second fiddle to Elma.

As the story trailer shows, Elma is the most prominent character and contributes a lot to the plot. Cross only has a few notable moments in the main storyline but besides that Cross is just a bystander who takes no direct involvment with the events happening around. Cross is no Shepard where choosing a different response sets off a different chain of events rather it just changes how the characters react and nothing else. If it wasn't for Elma humanity wouldn't have a story to tell in Xenoblade X. Cross doesn't even show up in the ending and epilogue where the focus is on Elma like always. Elma is also important in some of the Kizuna quests. She is the Ahab to Cross's Ishmael only Elma sticks around while Cross disappears in the aforementioned conclusion. Xenoblade X is NOT Xenoblade 2.0 so people shouldn't expect it to play it out as such.

 

[N3ON]

Daisy, Paper Mario, and K. Rool had botted votes on those polls. The most accurate one was this one as it removed the multiple votes.

Snake is fifth.

 

[StormC]

So to kinda go with some of these more popular/likely picks: What would their trailer music be?

Wolf: Well, there's three Star Wolf themes in the game right now (1, 2, 3), one being a new remix, one from Brawl, and one from Assault. So I guess it could be any of these, but I might lean towards the newer one, and I don't think the Assault remix would lend itself too well to a frenzied, action-packed trailer.

K. Rool: It's LITERALLY called King K. Rool.

Isaac: Either a new song or the Lost Age remix from Brawl.

Bandana Dee: I could see The Adventure Begins from RTDL (the first game where BDee had a major role) and it has that sort of whimsy you would expect from a character like Dee. On the other hand, The World To Win from Triple Deluxe would work if they wanted to make it feel more intense.

Dixie Kong: Swinger Flinger seems like the best bet, since it was used in the initial Tropical Freeze trailer. I could see the Stickerbush Symphony remix from Brawl used as well, though.

Paper Mario: There's literally only one Paper Mario song in the game, the medley remix for the 3DS stage, but it'd get the job done. Maybe Try Try Again as well since Paper Mario is now showing up in the Mario And Luigi series.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

Sakurai literally said everything from here on out is fanservice and opened a ballot to hear fighter suggestions.

Are we still hung up on "Sakurai is Willy Wonka?" He has made it clear many times he listens to fans and it shows with a lot of his character inclusions. This is nonsense.

This statement easily can be applied to any character that has a shot or doesn't have an active role in the base game. But the same can't be said for characters that are already active NPC's like Assist Trophies, Pokeball Pokemon, and bosses.

Unless that character gets a huge amount of support like Waluigi or Ridley, then their chances are extremely slim at this point. Not being a downer or anything, but I'm with @Calane on this one.

 

[DustyPumpkin]

I need more elaboration on this.

Elma is more prominent and contributes a lot to the plot, like shooting at an antagonist while they monologue while Cross takes a back seat Cross really takes a backseat in the main story-line, Cross is you and you're the audience here who takes no direct involvement with the happenings.

 

[Deleted member]

Snake more likely than Isaac or Bandana Dee? No way.

Snake has been playable in Smash before and is a highly popular veteran. Isaac and Bandana Dee have not and on top of that, Sakurai seems to have apathy towards Golden Sun and Kirby games not made by him.

 

[StormC]

Snake has been playable in Smash before and is a highly popular veteran. Isaac and Bandana Dee have not and on top of that, Sakurai seems to have apathy towards Golden Sun and Kirby games not made by him.

And Konami is a disaster right now with Kojima leaving the company and Metal Gear's future uncertain.

 

[Deleted member]

And Konami is a disaster right now with Kojima leaving the company and Metal Gear's future uncertain.

Half of the Internet said he had no chance because Capcom's poor treatment of the franchise. Yet behold, fan demand trumped a company that is a shadow of its former selves. Of course Konami is not going to reject free advertisement for their IPs. The question is, will Sakurai go after him and will Nintendo not try to block that? This could go either way for me.

 

[N3ON]

Snake has been playable in Smash before and is a highly popular veteran. Isaac and Bandana Dee have not and on top of that, Sakurai seems to have apathy towards Golden Sun and Kirby games not made by him.

And Sakurai doesn't seem to have apathy towards Snake this time around?

Snake being a popular veteran gives him an edge as far as being a pre-ballot character goes, but if he's not pre-ballot, I give the edge to the popular Nintendo characters. Because if it comes down to the ballot, there are more popular, easier to use characters than him.

Half of the Internet said he had no chance because Capcom's poor treatment of the franchise. Yet behold, fan demand trumped a company that is a shadow of its former selves. Of course Konami is not going to reject free advertisement for their IPs. The question is, will Sakurai go after him and will Nintendo not try to block that? This could go either way for me.

It was hardly half the internet. Mega Man showed up on like 90% of peoples' rosters prior to his reveal.

 

[Kenith]

Isaac's trailer theme.

This is Isaac's hype song. It will play in his trailer if he happens.

I cannot wait for when I hear nothing in my head but the mindless screaming of fans through reaction videos whenever I hear this song start up, and when I look at this video's comment section flooded with "ISAAC HYPE" and "Isaac Moves In!" comments.

 

[StormC]

The Capcom and Konami situations aren't a 1:1 comparison. Konami is restructuring the entire company and just killed the golden goose of its biggest moneymaker (who was the only reason Snake got into Brawl at all).

 

[PushDustIn]

So...it seems that Chrom was actually on the roster at some point.

 

[Sir Gengar de Èctoplasma]

So...it seems that Chrom was actually on the roster at some point.

This basically confirms that Gematsu leak wasn't fake, just outdated.

 

[PushDustIn]

This basically confirms that Gematsu leak wasn't fake, just outdated.

Exactly. Also, they might not have had the full picture.

 

[StormC]

It's strange, you think they would know about Duck Hunt if they were one of the first characters picked.

 

[N3ON]

Considering pretty much all the other aspects of Gematsu lined up I had just assumed as much about Chrom, but it's nice to see someone go more in depth with it.

 

[Deleted member]

So...it seems that Chrom was actually on the roster at some point.

I can't say I am surprised to hear this and it should confirm my suspicious that Gematsu was real, just outdated.

 

[PushDustIn]

It's strange, you think they would know about Duck Hunt if they were one of the first characters picked.

Personally, I think the leaker wasn't an administrator. Either a debugger, animator or sound person. They only knew about the characters they interacted with.

 

[josh bones]

So...it seems that Chrom was actually on the roster at some point.

Didn't we already know this?

 

[Deleted member]

The leaker listed characters in spaced out intervals.

If it weren't for Robin and Lucina being revealed in Chrom's place on the day the leaker led people to believe it would be Shulk who was revealed, we may have had the likes of Bowser Jr. and Duck Hunt in a new interval.

 

[aldelaro5]

Well, I think I was going to anyway, but I never really ENTIRELY explained my logic on how I evaluate characters and the reason is.....it's very complex.

I will spoiler tag it, but first, let me jsut explain the main purpose.

It;s like a repping definition, BUT, it;s not what you;re thinking of. I know there;s a lot of people that disagrees when we hear the word "repping", but it's not what you are disagreeing this time (in fact, I actually disagree to THAT logic too).

This time, I really tried by mostly deduction to define how the roster is represented from scratch. And the first thing that I will say to make you convinced it;s not the same logic is it doesn't have to do with quantity, it;s not necessarily series reping and it doesn't even consider proportions.

It;s actually extremely ambiguous and very open logic.

Let me now explain how I tried to define repping:

Spoiler

So, My goal was to try to figure out how the smash series works in philosophy. This would be the base of my deduction as I could try to get what smash is really trying. And this is not easy to get, but there;s several evidences in games that does gives you hints. The menus feels like global, same for the music. They really feel like you;re in the center of the universe or something and the melee menu even feels you're like inside a motherboards with its sound effect and background.

This was interesting, but it wasn;t enough so I got further, the brawl theme. You can have an English translation of the lyrics if you beat SSE and I did a full analysis of them to find out that smash is indeed a very global experience, but there's more. The song has an heavy emphasis on the relation between the characters, their roles in their world and the player who uses them as enemies or allies. What is very interesting is that the song tries to tell that these roles are characters crosses each other. It;s very ambiguous tbh.

So this was very interesting but what made me figure the rest out was the logo. I even saw a translation of Sakurai in source gamming here:

http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/0...mash-logo-lip-ice-climbers-and-balloon-fight/

that Sakurai did said the meaning of the logo. The most interesting part is the cross, it represents the characters crossing each other, this is a representation of a cross over. The 4 parts around it is the 4 players features, but the circle and the difference in thickness of the lines are unfortunately unexplained, but it wasn;t hard to fuigure out a likely theory.

The circle would represent a simple symbol that these characters are in. As Sakurai said, it was designed to be "very simple", a circle being a very simple shape, it;s very likely that it was the simplicity behind. As for the thickness of the lines, i think they would reflect the very different roles the characters come.

This is where my logic started. To me, if I was trying to build a roster around this, this is how exactly it would work. First, the characters would have to reflect diverse origin as represented by the thickness of the lines, it;s not the same line, it has differences between the characters who crosses it. As for the circle, this is when the magic happens.

Consider the roster as a circle. It;s like the whole universe of smash if you want. The simplicity of a circle are that from its center, there;s an equal distance to the borders and it;s uniform, there;s no deformation, it;s perfectly round. To me this means that the characters has a sort of uniformity when grouped together, it's "balanced" compared to what they reflect.

For the simplicity of understanding, I defined 2 terms that you maybe saw me used when I evaluate characters. The "set" for me is that circle, it represents EVERYTHING the roster tries to reflect when grouped together which is like almost gaming at this point, but let;s keep it ambiguous and just call it the universe of smash. It's pretty big, it tries to achieve globality and universality and it even tries to expand itself.

As for the "subset", it's basicalyl a part of the set that a specific characters reflects and this is why I call this repping, it technically is representation, but SUPER ambiguous. it;s like only the origin of the character that would be reflected here and because of hwo ambiguous it is, it's not absolute. If we take before rosalina, the whole mario franchise has the main 4 subsets that the franchise used to have. And this does sounds uniform, but then why adding rosalina? Rosalina has her subset being the galazy part of the franchise, completely non reflected int he roster.....or it is but it;s like not noticeable. See, because the whole franchise is divided into these 4 subsets, it;s like the ENTIRE franchise was into them. The problem comes when a certain part of this become enough distinctive to be separated and have its own character.

And this is where it becomes weird, that character has the sole purpose of being a delegate to his subset. The reason I say this is if for rosalina, her goal in the roster or her role is to reflect the galaxy part of mario.....she herself doesn't do much other than being recognizable IN HER SUBSET. In other words, she;s not there TO be rosalina, but she';s there to be the label on the package that is the subset. it;s like the whole subset it crammed into her fighting.

In the end, you have splitted the subsets of the mario franchise making it a more diverse and uniform one as well as expending the set that is the roster.

The reason it;s not neccessarly series based is some characters has no series at all. G&W has no video game series, it;s just a hardware line. It can't rep the "g&w series", it doesn;t exist, smash made one to be understandable, but the character is where it's starting to be obvious, HE DOESN'T FREAKING EXIST! This for me is showing the whole purpose of a character, he was "characterised" to form a delegate to a subset that would otherwise not exist. This subset is as you may have guessed the hardware line of the G&W.

So this is how I think repping works, but how does it help me to evaluate newcomers candidate?

it;s basically the possible effects on the set. But you will arrive to a problem rather quickly, it;s so ambiguous that it may sounds like every candidate are that worthy.

If I take KKR and Paper Mario, they both have a subset that would be interesting to see implemented on their own and would certainly contribute to the diversity of the set. But....there;s a problem, i think most people would agree that paper mario isn't on the same level as kkr in terms of who shoudl go first for multiple reasons. It like put them on the same level even if it;s not the case.

This is where you have to go deeper, how recognised the subset is? how important the subset seems to be? Is the subset seems to be supported last time ages ago or it;s still getting support now? Is the subset appreciated?

These are all question that would set the subset more appart from each other to form a sort of a priority list. KKR in this case has a more recognised and important subset, but his subset seems to be not much supported lately.

This is how my reflection would go and that;s how i compare chances of candidates with the usuall third party makes it harder consideration.

But what was the point of doing this whole reflection on soemthign that comes to the same conclusion?

It;s because it removes any form of imo too simple balancing. There;s no such things as a "mario rep", there;s a mario subset, but also a bowser one. The characters do not reflect only themselves, they reflects a whole small world inside each of them. this is how I feel the roster is constructed and evaluating the chances considering this logic helps me to figure out that paper Mario is not redundancy as well as kkr is even less and even toon link despite being a semi clone.

So, is there any form of over/underrepping possible after all?

yes, but it's much harder to achieve. The roster tries to expand itself, it might happen that at one day, so much subset would be present that adding another one will saturate it and feel that you didn;t much changed something from another subset essentially, redundancy. The roster tries to be as much diverse and uniform as possible in these subset, if you have 2 very similar subset, it might become pointless. as for underrepping, it;s hard to do it, it would have to ignore some more important subset while more specific one are reflected. The ONLY major example that you might argue imo that is underrepping is the kkr one. To me, from the subsets of the candidates, this one felt more improtant by a very large margin compared to the others, but it's not a much big issue considering how uniform the current roster is.

there, I told you it was complex, but for those who read it and potentially grasped it, this is why I disgree with "mario rep", but agree that repping exists.

Take it as you will, but this is how I work to verify how likely a character would be and a sort of priority stuff.

 

[PushDustIn]

Didn't we already know this?

At first Sakurai said he was considered, more or less. This shows that Chrom was "considered" much more than he originally let on.

 

[Doompatron3000]

It's strange, you think they would know about Duck Hunt if they were one of the first characters picked.

And Rosalina

 

[PushDustIn]

And Rosalina

I think it's kind of funny the three characters that Sakurai shows us in the slides are the only characters not in Gematsu. Almost like he was trying to prove a point.

 

[Autumn ♫]

Most polls don't put Snake that high. If we're looking at the Wants in the Rate Your Chance thread...

Snake doesn't even crack the top ten. He's probably the most popular veteran after Wolf and ICs, though.

Where's Vaati?

 

[Deleted member]

Rosalina was never a good argument against it, however.
Like I said, the leaker listed characters in separate intervals.

Rosalina wasn't in the first interval and was revealed before the second interval, making it redundant to mention her within that interval.

 

[Kenith]

Where's Vaati?

Where have you been? There has not been enough Vaati in my life.