StormC
Smash Hero
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2014
- Messages
- 8,182
I agree that it's a crime how little love Wario Land gets in Smash - a stage and AT wouldn't be asking for the world - but I think Captain Syrup would be hard to swing because she really just doesn't have much to work with. Her boss battle in the first game relies on a genie she summons, and her battles in the second game are still fairly limited. In terms of relevance and recognizability, her weaknesses there are like K. Rool on steroids - what she really needs is a new and successful Wario Land title that puts her front and center as the main villain again, gives her a lot of material as a fighter, and leaves an impression among the general Nintendo fandom. Right now, she's not much more than Tatanga to most people.
WarioWare has the issue of none of the secondary characters standing out significantly. There isn't a Diddy Kong or Luigi or Zelda. Ashley comes closest thanks to her showing up in other games as cameos, but it didn't seem to help her much.
This is a long but well-written post. So I'll respond with my own! I sympathize with your frustration on not feeling like you were getting characters you want. With Brawl, I got Meta Knight, King Dedede, and Diddy Kong as my "big wins." Wario solely referenced a subseries of games I was not yet familiar with, and initially I was against Sonic being in Smash (I was super anti-third party during Brawl speculation and the state of Sonic's series at the time was embarrassing), but his trailer won me over. Snake's inclusion initially irritated me, but once again, the codecs and portrayal of his character/series won me over and got me to play his games. Solid Snake would later become my all time favorite video game character and Metal Gear Solid my all time favorite game. Wolf and Pokemon Trainer fell into the "pleasant surprise" category. Overall, I considered Brawl a big success for myself.I guess that's the hard part for me here. Seeing as I personally didn't care for K.Rool back in the day, (even if I went all my way to send votes for him too to help out the Kutthroats). Yet here I am again, feeling like all the characters I longed for from my childhood or other personal parts of gaming to speculate about, got constantly shafted for over 10 years by now.
There's been claimings that imply "2nd-rate Nintendo-series" will always be irrelevant enough to be AT-material or just outright removed (Golden Sun between 4 and Ultimate). I'd be fine with that if so -- yet even then, some characters that might be all eligible aren't even considered because I guess they just weren't "interesting enough". Ergo how Piranha Plant was picked over Toad after all these years, perhaps. Dixie's absence meanwhile is very strange still, but I'll be just chalking it to her not being enough on Sakurai's eyes to be made over a character on her own right despite her signature traits, and coupled with K.Rool taking more priority, she got passed over while fans get a hat as a consolation.
It's gonna make this installment and it's DLC feels weird to me quite a bit- I do like getting Richter definitely, he was really a big unexpected throw-in of a "newcomer" for me - but I personally never expected the guy in Smash over these years since seeing how he was in obscurity-land back when I played RoB and around 2015 (while the Castlevania Pachinko-crap reared its head about with it's wacky redesigns on the characters). Daisy and Chrom are nice inclusions for my personal end too, but again, Daisy feels more an Alt.character at times when you take away her unique animations, and Chrom's become so pathetic of a meme material that I wasn't feeling exactly cathartic at his inclusion.
Then I'm reminded of the times I just had to settle on Lemmy Koopa out of all the characters as the one that felt anything close to me out of all characters in 4, at least if talking about characters I very much enjoyed back the day. Greninja I didn't expect to be in Smash, and didn't exactly bother using despite having picked Froakie right back in January 2013 when X&Y was shown first time with it's starters. Palutena I think fell off for me after I found her characterization little too iffy for my tastes, and how the fans twisted it too far. (And she wasn't entirely well-implemented due the custom moves junk, that is). Robin and Pac-Man felt good, but I had to be real, that's merely what they were going for, and I just didn't feel much personal investment with them prior to Smash, compared to likes of Dixie, Toad, Starfy, Tingle, Lip, etc - all which I liked to play games of and was very invested on the characters beyond Smash prior.
On that side, it then makes makes me think of the absence of Wario Land-Wario in Smash, the version of Wario I grew up with since child - how he could have been my go-to main in Smash-games all the time and I'd been happy to pitch against K.Rool or other "new rivals in town" as that personal Smasher for me to compete with. But he never will be - like, there's the Shoulder Bash, but apparently it was brought back by "demand" after we got interviews like this regarding why didn't have it in 4.
In general, Ware-Wario just never struck chord with me, which is made even worse when technically, WL-games died away since Wario was portrayed "more accurately" since Brawl. I wrote a whole thing on that here, if you want to see more.
It'd probably go back to appreciating Diddy Kong after all these years, even if I've not been coming back on the guy since Brawl much as a main. But again, I feel like Brawl added ton of characters that made sense to expand the roster with. Like, imagine if Dedede constantly was missing, and then they add Knuckle Joe instead into Smash, just because he'd be more interesting fighter-wise that Dedede was.
Does this make Ultimate "bad", for me? Far from it - the roster's just phenomenal by it's own end, believe me. But in means of personal character investments that weren't "forced" on me, I feel very left-out since Brawl. And it's more apparent than ever, now that we've all reasonings and deconfirmations laid out, and DLC's gonna be on the horizon anyway. I'd be just fine with Dixie this time, and I'd call Smash's roster as good as it can get for me.
I don't think it's gonna ruin the game much, but it makes me wish that things went other ways at times. I can only take in so many 3rd Parties that I'm not personally invested in, while ones that I am into get shafted about, like Rayman, Banjo-Kazooie (uh?) or Bomberman to a lesser degree. I'll just be glad I got Richter in that case, but it feels at times the act of desperation, like I really don't have the best luck with this kinda stuff. And that's before the Nintendo-centric characters that I talked above some while.
I think the big problem when it comes to why I've been invested more on the character inclusions is because so far is, I feel like Smash-series hasn't been innovating much with it's current cast or gameplay concepts itself successfully until this game with it's slew of competitive-friendly balancing, options and modes to make things feel fresh again - but I wish they'd concentrate on that in the future to keep me invested in this series, incase character-wise I don't see myself getting excited ever again. If they say, brought in Smash Run but retooled to have 4 players in the map and all the enemies inside, it would have been an amazing time sink on top of the fights themselves. They'd have to do more stuff like that instead of the whole equipment/spirits-thing that not many want to bother with over time due the insane amounts of variables included.
So yeah, IDK what to feel on Ultimate due this - on the other hand, it's probably best Smash could ever be with all what Sakurai wanted to possibly achieve with it by what all we've come to see him state, and it's very much satisfied ton of people with it in this wide globe. But since it's a billion-seller franchise, it still HAS to go on under Nintendo's eye, and IDK what it could possibly do with itself to even go higher by this point with what it already established itself with - unless we get more wacky additions and more marketing-based characters, and not very well-furbished game content beyond music and multiplayer.
I mean, knowing how this will most likely be a huge bane to a lot of characters I wanted to see, I can't entirely get excited about the series in the future if it means more "Piranha Plants"/"Marketing Reps" instead of "K.Rools" without a doubt - and they don't refurbish much the core game after this installment that makes me want to come back to it again with the already-existing characters in tow.
In some ways, I'll be happy for everyone else, but to me, it would feel a bit anticlimactic - like there could have been so much more to be achieved, if they went other directions that they are doing right now, like what rosters of Smash Flash 2 or Smash Bros Crusade (anime-chars be damned), were able to show me.
Smash 4 on the other hand was missing a "big win" for me besides Mega Man. More pleasant surprises like Rosalina, Greninja, and Koopalings, and Palutena was a character I wanted to see, as someone who loved Uprising, but behind K. Rool/Mega Man/Ridley for sure (and slightly ahead of Dixie). I had to rely mostly on Mega Man and Palutena to keep myself hype after getting virtually no new DK content or Ridley. So from a Nintendo newcomer perspective I felt underwhelmed (I was very happy to see Mewtwo return, though, even if I wasn't actively hoping for it at the time, having him come back with all of his buffs was one of the best things about Smash 4 for me). This intensified during DLC when the only Nintendo newcomer was Corrin, but Cloud helped since he was a genuine S tier "pleasant surprise." He was a character I always passively wanted but assumed it would probably never happen. FF7 is in my top ten favorite games and his reveal took the crown for the most shocking Smash inclusion ever for me, while also being the first "jump out of your seat" reveal since Mega Man (despite the fact that I was on a treadmill while watching the Direct...). I was still bitter over the last reveals and K. Rool costume, along with Wolf not coming back as DLC, so I was mostly left Smash 4 speculation annoyed and disappointed.
My last two major newcomer requests going into Ultimate were, you guessed it, K. Rool and Ridley. Then the only two cut veterans I really wanted to see were Snake and Wolf. After the amazing E3 show, I told myself that if K. Rool got in, I would never complain about the roster again. After an emotional rollercoaster of leaks and anticipation, the August Direct delivered, and I broke down in tears at seeing the fat croc king return after a decade. In that moment, the DK franchise scored a huge win for itself that virtually any other series/character couldn't compare to - reviving a character that higher-ups deliberately tried to bury. We fought city hall and won. Heck, after initial skepticism, the inclusion of Simon (and Richter) Belmont got me hyped just because their presentation was incredible and got me to play their games.
Seeing K. Rool get in got my interest going for Banjo-Kazooie, and they became my new white whale, although not so much that I would feel the game was missing something without them. I always treat third parties as a pleasant surprise if they make it, since between the wide pool + limited inclusion of them, licensing issues, and any other barriers, outright expecting them can lead to easy disappointment.
Dixie has always been a character I have wanted to see and has been in my top 5 newcomers since Smash 4, but was never a personal priority for me despite my love of the character. I did think K. Rool should be in first, in part because of seniority and uniqueness (not just moveset, but character design, personality, etc.), but also because there was a very real risk of K. Rool falling into the abyss forever that wasn't present at the time for Dixie. Nintendo-wise, basically everyone else ahead of her on my list is in. She is indeed, the last Nintendo All-Star.
To put my own hype scale in perspective, my general emotional reaction upon seeing certain character reveals:
S Tier
King K. Rool
(Banjo-Kazooie)
Cloud
Mega Man
Diddy Kong
A Tier
King Dedede
Ridley
[Solid Snake]
[Mewtwo]
Meta Knight
(Dixie Kong)
B Tier
Palutena
[Wolf]
(Bandana Dee)
(Ganon)
Rosalina
[Brackets] indicating a character that was once cut returning, (parentheses) indicating how I would feel if that character was announced. A character being denied constantly can raise the hype for me; if Ridley and K. Rool were in Smash 4 or even Brawl, I doubt I would have been anywhere near as excited as I was to finally see them in Ultimate. The same has happened for Dixie; after waiting for all of Smash 4 and Ultimate up to this point, finally seeing her would be a point of genuine excitement that she might not have been if revealed earlier. I also expected Cloud to be cut before Everyone Is Here, so his return might be a genuine A tier hype point in its own right, lol.
Hopefully this post offered a little insight to my history with Smash requests and personal hype. I hope it doesn't feel like K. Rool fans have been rubbing their victory in anyone's faces here or anything like that; we might have had different priorities before, but now all DK fans are on board with the same goal. I've gotten more than enough hype to carry me through the DLC period at this point, and even as someone who was initially underwhelmed by the November Direct, thinking back on how far I've come roster-wise has made me incredibly thankful that I've gotten so many great characters over the years. I feel lucky knowing how many characters I've wanted to see enter the battle have done just that, when I know many others are not as fortunate.
I hope for your sake, Dixie can make it so you and others can get the character you've been ride-or-die for after all this time.
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