Fluid Cast games vs Static Cast games

[Guybrush20X6]

In constructing any roster there's two franchises in particular I and possibly you have had trouble with Pokemon and Fire Emblem. To see why this is let's look first at the cast of Mario Games

Donkey Kong: Mario, DK, Pauline
Donkey Kong Jr.: Mario, DKJr, DK
Mario Bros: Mario, Luigi
Super Mario Bros & Lost Levels: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Toad
Super Mario Bros 2: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Wart, Birdo
Super Mario Bros 3: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Koopalings
Super Mario World: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Bowser, Koopalings
Super Mario 64: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Toad

And the Heroes of Fire Emblem

1: Marth
2: Alm
3: Marth (again)
4: Sigurd/Seliph
5: Leif
6: Roy
7: Lyn/Eliwood/Hector
8: Erika/Ephraim
9: Ike
10: Soothe/Michica (Ike appears though)
10.5: Bunch of Marth related remakes
11: Chrom/Lucina/YOU... kinda

The entire casts of Mario games have less heads than just a skim of Fire Emblem.

Mario has a "Static Cast" that won't change a great deal from one to the next. Fire Emblem has a "Fluid Cast" as it starts from scratch near every time, much like Final Fantasy before they got fixated on Lightning. This makes for great storytelling but for Smash bros Representation, it gets confusing.

Other series with Fluid casts are Pokemon, Earthbound and Metal Gear. Earthbound has only 3 game so most debate comes down to if the missing hero Ninten can hold his own and Metal Gear has 3 protagonists, one of which is a literal clone of the other and third of which is in Playstation All Stars.

Pokemon has one of the biggest casts in any game even if you take the humans out. Pokemon trainer was a way to cheat and get 3 in at once.

The Zelda series is an interesting case because it has a static main cast but a fluid supporting cast. Link Zelda and Ganon(dorf) make up the main cast with some supporting characters returning like Tingle and Impa. Certain one off characters like Midna, Skull Kid and Ghiram have gained followings but most agree they don't warrant a spot.

TLDR: Choosing Fire Emblem reps is HARD!!!

 

[Tetra's Tracker]

This comes up a lot in Pokemon discussions. Some people argue that each generation needs a rep, but my opinion is that only the newest gen really needs a rep. It made sense that we had Pichu in Melee to rep Gen II and for Lucario to replace him in Brawl to rep Gen IV. Now Gen IV and Lucario have fallen from relevance it'd make sense to bring Mewtwo and his new form in to possibly replace Lucario to rep Gen VI.

All 6 Pokemon generations can be represented perfectly well through the Pokeballs, I don't think there's any need for a generations II-V to have a playable Pokemon just for the sake of having the generation repped.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

As if to prove my point, in the time this board was off it's revealed that Mewtwo has a second Mega Forme. The cast choices have changed again.

 

[Speculator]

I think with these situations, the series with fluid casts have to be looked at individually. Mother is in a good position with its two most notable games having their protagonists on the SSB roster. While Mother 1 is important I don't think the series could realistically have three slots, because even with a fluid roster it's still a very small franchise. Mother 1 would be best relegated to stage and music duty.

Fire Emblem on the other hand is much larger, and also has a wider variety of main protagonists. The mascot character is Marth so his position is pretty solid. A lot of people assume Ike will follow Roy and take his leave after Brawl, but I'm not so sure. I think Fire Emblem could muster three character slots and Ike has an established, unique appearance in a Super Smash Bros game already. Intelligent Systems might push for the most recent game to see representation, so the third slot could be taken by Chrom or MU. If we see Marth, Ike and an Awakening character all included in SSB4, then deciding the slots for SSB5 becomes a whole lot harder because I don't think Fire Emblem could go to the same number of slots as Mario and Pokemon (unless the four-slot franchises all increased to five, in which case Fire Emblem might be able to get away with four while still maintaining proportion).

Metal Gear I think is pretty easy. In the same way Marth is the mascot of Fire Emblem, Snake is the mascot of Metal Gear. There might be newer protagonists, but Solid was the original and I think it makes the most sense to keep him in as opposed to replacing him with Big Boss or someone.

Pokemon is definitely the most difficult. Not every generation needs a rep and it's not realistic to expect that. I think Pokemon Trainer and Jigglypuff will maintain their appearances despite not being "relevant". Jigglypuff obviously has the security of being a 64 veteran, and Pokemon Trainer has three unique movesets under his belt and I don't think any of them could be taken by newer Pokemon. Lucario's (and formerly Mewtwo's) spot is the real wildcard, but to confuse things it seems like Mewtwo is the most likely gen 6 candidate to take over. But is Mewtwo really a gen 6 rep? Before last week I could have assumed Mewtwo's new form could take over, but now he has two new forms and who's to say which is more important?

So I don't really know with Pokemon. At a guess I'd say we'll see Pikachu/Red/Jigglypuff/Mewtwo take the spots. Mewtwo does have a previous SSB appearance behind him, and they might well be able to use Melee Mewtwo and still have it count as a "gen 6" rep even if he doesn't take one of his new appearances. He could still use a Mega Evolution as a Final Smash.