Quillion
Smash Hero
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2014
- Messages
- 6,006
From time to time over on the Next Smash thread, there are a few debates on whether the "wait and see" approach or giving the "relevant new faces" their chance before it passes is better. So I'm making a dedicated thread for it.
I'm open about wanting Smash to pivot to the full "wait and see" approach after Ultimate, but still, I can recognize that there are benefits and drawbacks to either:
"Waiting and seeing" has been tempered by choosing fairly recent characters:
As for my own take, I've been in support of Smash cleaning up and recycling certain assets from the previous Smash game, especially since Ultimate did just that with Smash 4. It minimizes the loss of content from one game to its sequel and frees up resources that can be dedicated to more new things. And because of that, I lean towards making being a Smash fighter as "immortal" of a position as possible, give or take some cuts on the third party side due to possibly fluctuating licensing issues.
BUT because of that, I want future Smash games to take the "wait and see" approach wholesale. Leave no more room for guessing who will have a future and bring in the characters who have already earned that future remaining relevant, prominent in marketing, and/or (give or take major bias) popular. Let's have Melia over Noah and Mio; let's have Lyn over Alear; let's have Gardevoir or Garchomp over any of the Paldean starters.
May not be a perfect solution, but "wait and see" is as close to a win-win as I can see it: we get newcomers that please the neophile side of the fandom and those who want their proven stars who would otherwise "miss their chance".
I'm open about wanting Smash to pivot to the full "wait and see" approach after Ultimate, but still, I can recognize that there are benefits and drawbacks to either:
- Wait and See: Safer approach that ensures characters stay relevant even after their Smash debut for the most part. But also creates a narrower selection of characters and can make the roster feel outdated or out-of-touch.
- Relevant New Faces: Broader approach that widens the character selection and makes the roster feel more current in its time. But also gives an installment's newcomers a very "flavor-of-the-month" feel, gives no guarantee that the character stays relevant afterwards, and could make certain characters victims of poor timing.
"Waiting and seeing" has been tempered by choosing fairly recent characters:
Here's an argument that Smash makes successful, educated guesses as to which new characters will have a future, even if being wrong has happened:Smash in general has always slanted new when it comes to representation, even in the Melee days. Even for series like Mario which do take the "wait and see" approach, you can argue that when they get new characters like Rosalina or Bowser Jr they tend to trend on relevancy.
----Smash never had "excessive" amounts of characters added for the sake of recency. It always had a balance of old and new characters and the new ones had staying power in their fandoms more often than not.
The "veterans first" mentality isn't something unusual, unsustainable, or unique to Smash. Keeping a large number of established characters around is run-of-the-mill for pretty much all long-running fighting game series, both to not alienate the fans and because it's hard to come up with movesets that don't tread the old ground.
As for my own take, I've been in support of Smash cleaning up and recycling certain assets from the previous Smash game, especially since Ultimate did just that with Smash 4. It minimizes the loss of content from one game to its sequel and frees up resources that can be dedicated to more new things. And because of that, I lean towards making being a Smash fighter as "immortal" of a position as possible, give or take some cuts on the third party side due to possibly fluctuating licensing issues.
BUT because of that, I want future Smash games to take the "wait and see" approach wholesale. Leave no more room for guessing who will have a future and bring in the characters who have already earned that future remaining relevant, prominent in marketing, and/or (give or take major bias) popular. Let's have Melia over Noah and Mio; let's have Lyn over Alear; let's have Gardevoir or Garchomp over any of the Paldean starters.
May not be a perfect solution, but "wait and see" is as close to a win-win as I can see it: we get newcomers that please the neophile side of the fandom and those who want their proven stars who would otherwise "miss their chance".