Default vs. Unlockable: Roster Thought Exercise

[TheYungLink]

[Typing this before the 2/13 Nintendo Direct for reference]

While we're waiting for the rest of the DLC characters to come out, I reflected on the base roster before Nintendo added any extra, as in before Piranha Plant.

They wanted to make everyone aside from the Original 8 unlockable for nostalgic and newcomer-friendly reasons (imagine someone playing Smash for the first time and having 70+ fighters greet you upon booting up the game. It'd be pretty intimidating figuring out where to start), and I did have a lot of fun unlocking everyone even if it took a long time. That said, I think only having 8 characters to start off, and all from the very first game, was a bit much.

In Smash Ultimate, there are 3 ways of unlocking everyone. Method 1, which I did, was to play World of Light and beat every Spirit and find every character. Method 2 is the Classic Mode tree, where playing certain characters unlocks a set of other characters that loop back to Mario's set once you're done. Method 3, however, was the most interesting to me.

It's the standard "play the versus mode" method but with time spent playing rather than matches played. The interesting part to me was that everyone unlocked had a set order you unlocked them all in, in 10 minute increments, aside from the 3 Mii Fighters who you have to either get in WoL or just make your own quick fighters with the editor in game.

Spoiler: Versus order, collapsed for length

1. Ness
2. Zelda
3. Bowser
4. Pit
5. Inkling
6. Villager
7. Marth
8. Young Link
9. Wii Fit Trainer
10. Ice Climbers
11. Captain Falcon
12. Peach
13. Ryu
14. Ike
15. Jigglypuff
16. King K. Rool
17. Sonic
18. Simon
19. Zero Suit Samus
20. Little Mac
21. Isabelle
22. Shulk
23. Lucina
24. Wario
25. Ridley
26. Pokémon Trainer
27. Lucario
28. Daisy
29. Roy
30. King Dedede
31. R.O.B.
32. Falco
33. Luigi
34. Pichu
35. Richter
36. Lucas
37. Diddy Kong
38. Meta Knight
39. Snake
40. Ganondorf
41. Corrin
42. Mega Man
43. Bayonetta
44. Toon Link
45. Rosalina & Luma
46. Incineroar
47. Sheik
48. Olimar / Alph
49. PAC-MAN
50. Dark Samus
51. Wolf
52. Mr. Game & Watch
53. Robin
54. Dark Pit
55. Cloud
56. Duck Hunt
57. Ken
58. Greninja
59. Chrom
60. Mewtwo
61. Bowser Jr. / Koopalings
62. Dr. Mario
63. Palutena

(I'm going somewhere with this, bear with me~)

This order reveals what Sakurai may think should be the first and last characters unlocked in each series in Smash, as well as the order in which new series overall are unlocked. I'll list both simultaneously:

1. EarthBound
2. The Legend of Zelda
3. Super Mario Bros.
4. Kid Icarus
5. Splatoon
6. Animal Crossing
7. Fire Emblem
8. Wii Fit
9. Ice Climber
10. F-Zero
11. Street Fighter
12. Pokémon
13. Donkey Kong Country
14. Sonic the Hedgehog
15. Castlevania
16. Metroid
17. Punch Out!!
18. Xenoblade
19. Wario
20. Kirby
21. R.O.B.
22. Star Fox
23. Metal Gear
24. Mega Man
25. Bayonetta
26. Pikmin
27. PAC-MAN
28. Game & Watch
29. Final Fantasy
30. Duck Hunt

I wrote down all this information to see, if Sakurai decided against going with ONLY the Original 8, who we could surmise would be available by default.

For example, Ness is the very first character unlocked. Zelda is the second. Would this alternate Smash Ultimate make both of them default characters, or make Zelda default and keep Ness unlockable? There are fun observations to be made with this order in general, too. Marth is the first Fire Emblem character unlocked, but the last is Chrom, a character modern audiences would be more familiar with than Marth. Interestingly, Lucina is unlocked early but Robin and Chrom come after Corrin, perhaps because Fates is still the newest Fire Emblem that's a new game and not a remake or spinoff. The very last series unlocked is Duck Hunt, a retro game whose character encompasses the NES Zapper, and the last character in the entire list is Palutena, which may be because unlike everyone else in the roster she's an actual goddess. But does that mean that she'd be unlockable in alternate Smash Ultimate when she was a default character in Smash 4? I'm blowing my own mind here!

Similarly, no third-party characters are available straight away in our universe's Smash Ultimate, but what about the alternate one? Would they all remain unlockable? Would some of them be default characters? And if they WERE default, then which ones would be default and which ones would be unlockable? Would it be like Smash 4, where Sonic, Mega Man, and Pac-Man (I got tired of typing it in all caps) were the only ones available immediately? Because the answer to that has an interesting wrench thrown into it: according to the versus unlock order, Ryu is the very first third-party character unlocked, so would it be Ryu, Mega Man, Sonic, and Pac-Man? What if Pac-Man was unlockable this time instead? They're pretty far down the unlock list, only behind Cloud in terms of third-party characters.

Basically I thought this was cool info to look over and theorize upon. So I made a thread to discuss it for a little bit before we get bored and go back to actually playing Smash or something.

What kind of default roster could you come up with using all this info?

 

[Aeon_Shadow]

Regarding the Pokemon side: I find it pretty fitting that Mewtwo is the last one of them to be unlocked, which fits it being the only playable legendary and being the OG "final challenge" in the Kanto games. In a similar vein to Palutena being the overall last character due to her goddess status.

 

[MG_3989]

There was also that method where you could set the game to 1 stock and walk off the edge and get a new character everytime. You just had to reset your game

 

[TheYungLink]

I think it's interesting, too, that Sheik is the last Zelda character unlocked this time rather than someone like Toon Link or Ganondorf. It might be because Sheik has only appeared in one game.

Dark Samus is also unlocked after Ridley, which alludes to Ridley's status as the penultimate boss before the final one.

 

[Aeon_Shadow]

I think it's interesting, too, that Sheik is the last Zelda character unlocked this time rather than someone like Toon Link or Ganondorf. It might be because Sheik has only appeared in one game.

Dark Samus is also unlocked after Ridley, which alludes to Ridley's status as the penultimate boss before the final one.

Say do you mind if I add in these "findings" on the Fridge Brilliance page on TVTropes? XD

 

[JiggyNinja]

They wanted to make everyone aside from the Original 8 unlockable for nostalgic and newcomer-friendly reasons (imagine someone playing Smash for the first time and having 70+ fighters greet you upon booting up the game. It'd be pretty intimidating figuring out where to start),

That reminds me of when I bought Pokken Tournament DX. I started it up and every single character was unlocked from the very beginning. And I ****ing LOVED IT!!!!

Intimidating? I think you mean EXCITING! More options! More choices! More fun!

Unlocking everything has always been the worst part of the Smash series to me, and an unpleasant chore. Why the **** do I need to play 20 hours of Vs. Mode just to get Mewtwo? Just give him to me already! If I could have started Ultimate with an immediate full roster, it would have been perfect. Instead my sister and I had to go through a multi-hour pointless grind just to get full enjoyment out of the game. I just wanted to throw my coin and random and enjoy whatever came.

At least this game was the least obnoxious, and you could get everybody just by playing the game naturally. I hated Melee making me do a bunch of arbitrary bull**** to get everybody.

 

[TheYungLink]

Say do you mind if I add in these "findings" on the Fridge Brilliance page on TVTropes? XD

Not at all! Anything for a fellow troper!

 

[PF9]

Way too many unlockable characters.

Especially considering the unlock battles get harder as you go along. I think 3.0 needs to greatly nerf challengers for future players of Ultimate.

 

[Mogisthelioma]

Way too many unlockable characters.

Especially considering the unlock battles get harder as you go along. I think 3.0 needs to greatly nerf challengers for future players of Ultimate.

They already did that.

 

[TheYungLink]

For fun, I came up with 3 different "fan default rosters" taking the info in my first post in mind, though not in any strict sense. Like with the initial result, I'm not taking any Smash Ultimate DLC characters into account.

---

Here's the first one, with 38 initial characters (counting Pokemon Trainer as 3):

[direct link: https://i.imgur.com/MtY9KQg.png]


I prioritized "relevancy" by making it so that completely new players will see lots of characters they recognize at first, and making most of the unlockable characters are from past eras or from very old games. For example, Incineroar is available by default because they're from the newest game, but Greninja needs to be unlocked because Pokemon X and Y's time in the sun is over. I went so far as to make Corrin and the Awakening trio the default characters and made Marth, Roy, and Ike unlockable for this reason. This meant I made certain characters that are traditionally default into unlockable characters as a result, for example Zero Suit Samus has to be unlocked now because we haven't played as Zero Suit Samus in any meaningful capacity in a Metroid game since 2004's Metroid: Zero Mission. This is also why every Kid Icarus character is unlockable now, since their popularity these days mostly comes from a 2013 Nintendo 3DS game, or in Pit's case from a very old 1987 NES game.

The few exceptions to the relevancy attitude, for their own reasons, are Lucario (still up there in popularity with Pikachu and Charizard, despite the Sinnoh games being very old), Ness (EarthBound the game is now incredibly popular even if the series is finished), and Shulk (Xenoblade is an ongoing series, even though the newest games don't have a playable character yet). All the third-party characters that need to be unlocked are either owned by Konami (who aren't doing much with them), Ken (an echo fighter), or Pac-Man (somewhat arbitrary, I just like the scenario where you need to unlock the first proper video game character ever). All the default third-party characters have recent / upcoming games, or in Cloud's case an upcoming highly-advertised remake.

---

Here's the second one, with 47 characters (counting Pokemon Trainer as 3):

[direct link: https://i.imgur.com/0buraDP.png]

This one is more straightforward: every character that has ever, at some point, been a default character, is a default character in Smash Ultimate now. The strange thing, of course, is that the Smash 4 DLC characters are nowhere to be found, and neither are any of the Smash Ultimate newcomers, as you needed to buy the former and all of the latter need to be unlocked. It ends up looking like a slightly bigger version of Smash 4 Wii U's default character select screen. There are notably MORE characters available by default than my first roster up there.

---

Here's the third one, with 54 characters (counting Pokemon Trainer as 3):

[direct link: https://i.imgur.com/R8Ckedq.png]

It's basically the same as the previous roster, but I labored over which Smash 4 DLC and Smash Ultimate newcomers were available by default, and which one's would be unlockable. I decided to make all the Smash 4 DLC newcomers initially available, and made Inkling, Ridley, Simon, Isabelle, and Incineroar default as well. King K. Rool and all the brand new echo fighters need to be unlocked, the former because he's the only Nintendo non-echo newcomer that isn't currently relevant.

 

[channel_KYX]

For fun, I came up with 3 different "fan default rosters" taking the info in my first post in mind, though not in any strict sense. Like with the initial result, I'm not taking any Smash Ultimate DLC characters into account.

---

Here's the first one, with 38 initial characters (counting Pokemon Trainer as 3):

[direct link: https://i.imgur.com/MtY9KQg.png]


I prioritized "relevancy" by making it so that completely new players will see lots of characters they recognize at first, and making most of the unlockable characters are from past eras or from very old games. For example, Incineroar is available by default because they're from the newest game, but Greninja needs to be unlocked because Pokemon X and Y's time in the sun is over. I went so far as to make Corrin and the Awakening trio the default characters and made Marth, Roy, and Ike unlockable for this reason. This meant I made certain characters that are traditionally default into unlockable characters as a result, for example Zero Suit Samus has to be unlocked now because we haven't played as Zero Suit Samus in any meaningful capacity in a Metroid game since 2004's Metroid: Zero Mission. This is also why every Kid Icarus character is unlockable now, since their popularity these days mostly comes from a 2013 Nintendo 3DS game, or in Pit's case from a very old 1987 NES game.

The few exceptions to the relevancy attitude, for their own reasons, are Lucario (still up there in popularity with Pikachu and Charizard, despite the Sinnoh games being very old), Ness (EarthBound the game is now incredibly popular even if the series is finished), and Shulk (Xenoblade is an ongoing series, even though the newest games don't have a playable character yet). All the third-party characters that need to be unlocked are either owned by Konami (who aren't doing much with them), Ken (an echo fighter), or Pac-Man (somewhat arbitrary, I just like the scenario where you need to unlock the first proper video game character ever). All the default third-party characters have recent / upcoming games, or in Cloud's case an upcoming highly-advertised remake.

---

Here's the second one, with 47 characters (counting Pokemon Trainer as 3):

[direct link: https://i.imgur.com/0buraDP.png]

This one is more straightforward: every character that has ever, at some point, been a default character, is a default character in Smash Ultimate now. The strange thing, of course, is that the Smash 4 DLC characters are nowhere to be found, and neither are any of the Smash Ultimate newcomers, as you needed to buy the former and all of the latter need to be unlocked. It ends up looking like a slightly bigger version of Smash 4 Wii U's default character select screen. There are notably MORE characters available by default than my first roster up there.

---

Here's the third one, with 54 characters (counting Pokemon Trainer as 3):

[direct link: https://i.imgur.com/R8Ckedq.png]

It's basically the same as the previous roster, but I labored over which Smash 4 DLC and Smash Ultimate newcomers were available by default, and which one's would be unlockable. I decided to make all the Smash 4 DLC newcomers initially available, and made Inkling, Ridley, Simon, Isabelle, and Incineroar default as well. King K. Rool and all the brand new echo fighters need to be unlocked, the former because he's the only Nintendo non-echo newcomer that isn't currently relevant.

I like your first version. Makes the game approachable for newcomers, yet offers quite the variety for veterans. I could argue some characters here and there, but hey, you can't please everyone.