That inspired me to perform a challenge I made for myself: What characters would be good for a Rareware Fighters Pass? Here's my attempt:
1) Battletoads
2) Fulgore
3) Conker
4) Joanna Dark
5) Sabreman
6) Jet Force Gemini
Anybody else interested in the challenge?
I’d include Gruntulda over Sabreman & Horsetachio from Viva Pinata over Jef Force.
I actually wanted to say that Joanna Dark could be a surprise dark horse pick. Microsoft recently opened (not bought) a
a new studio, with major talent from across the industry, to reboot Perfect Dark. So they’re definitely interested in promoting the series.
I could see Nintendo & Sakurai being interested in her because of the series’s N64 roots. There was an item from the game in Melee (renamed outside of Japan). I’ve also heard that Sakurai wanted to include Banjo & Joanna as trophies in Melee. We now got Banjo as a playable fighter, but no sign of any Joanna representation.
That shouldn't really matter anyway, I still believe that the one-per-company quota is an assumption that could crumble any minute. The more thought you put behind the mentality that Steve from Minecraft would have any bearing on Master Chief from Halo from a character / audience / profit perspective the less it makes sense that Nintendo would arbitrarily limit themselves in such a way.
That is to say, if the stars align for Chief then Steve won't stop him. There are plenty of reasons why Master Chief may not make it in the end, I'm certainly not all-in on it myself but I think it's a decent possibility. I'm just not convinced his absence would have anything to do with whether or not Steve qualifies as a "Microsoft rep" when Steve and Master Chief offer such different things from one another.
Like I dunno, regulating the mascot of the biggest game in the world and the face of modern FPS to "Microsoft reps" just rids them of all of their significance as individual characters. At this point I don't think Nintendo is just penning in companies, they just want worthwhile characters and Microsoft definitely has another one available for them if they so choose to take it.
The idea originated in FP1 with the idea that Nintendo was using the DLC to strengthen ties with other companies. I think that turned out to be true. But that’s clearly not the case for FP2, we haven’t seen a new company in a year & a half.
Y'know, whenever "repeat" third-parties are discussed, it feels like the only one we ever talk about is Master Chief. Nothing for Squeenix, like 2B or Lara Croft. It feels like the breaking of the "no third-party repeats" stigma is just for the sake of discussing Master Chief while staying within the generally agreed-upon standards of the speculative scene. Maybe we should talk about some Squeenix characters again.
I was disappointed that 2B wasn’t mentioned at all when there was a recent discussion about a pick for the Japanese audience at E3. I think 2B has way much more going for her than the likes of Reimu.
Nier: Automata is one of the most important non-Nintendo Japanese games of the last decade. The only other ones that I think can compare are Monster Hunter: World & Persona 5.
It’s a game that everyone expected to be niche. 1 million sales would’ve left everyone involved ecstatic. It’s gone on to sell
5.5 million copies as of now. That’s a lot for any game. But for this really weird action game by a creator that’s only made straight up bombs & by a studio that’s highest sales peak was 1 mil? That’s astounding. Nier: Automata saved Platinum Games.
This huge success has led to Nier potentially becoming one of Square’s pillar franchises alongside the likes of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest & Kingdom Hearts. It just depends on how future entries in the series do (they’ll probably do well). Square is letting 2B in damn near anything that asks, she’s their current crossover queen. So if “muh budget” is a concern then I don’t think she’d cost that much.
It’s a uniquely Japanese game too, you never would’ve gotten anything like this from the West. It’s also a story that greatly utilizes the video game medium too, you couldn’t have told this story outside of gaming. I feel like these are things Nintendo & especially Sakurai would see as valuable.
Nier hasn’t appeared on a Nintendo console yet (which I don’t think is that important). But if that Switch Pro is real (& it probably is with Bloomberg reporting on it), then I could see Nier: Automata being one of its big titles.
I think she’s a lot likelier than people give her credit for. But maybe that’s a good thing so she can be another “Whoah we didn’t see that coming!” pick that keeps happening lmao
- Customizable self-insert, no name, no personality
