Except there's literally no reason whatsoever to believe SE isn't the reason Geno isn't playable. Sakurai has no issue with it. The only people who can say no is SE at this point. Sakurai decided the characters in most of the games too. For the record, Smash Ultimate is the only time where Nintendo is fully involved with the DLC. They might've had some slight involvement with 4's, being Bayonetta and Corrin at best. Rest? No reason to believe that whatsoever. We know how important Bayo is to them, so it could be why she was chosen. They actually were the ones who wanted to push a promotional pick from a recent game, which became Corrin. Not the full reason he got in, but it's what brought him to attention to Sakurai regardless.
He's not base game playable in Ultimate either. That means SE pretty clearly said no. Sakurai still wants the character used, so had to go with a deal that got him in as a spirit. The main reason, as noted by many before, that he's a MIi costume is that it's something of a consolation prize. SE is the only logical reason he isn't playable otherwise. Nintendo might be the reason he's not Smash Ultimate DLC, but Sakurai sure as hell is trying to get him in. There's no denying that whatsoever. That leaves one other party to determine it. SE. Nintendo has shown absolutely no reason to believe they'd be against him, so there's zero reason to believe they are part of the reason.
Them saying no to him being playable is not the same thing as them saying no to him being a Mii Costume or Spirit. They're not equivalent. Sakurai couldn't make him playable(most likely cause SE said no), but was able to get something close with the MIi Costume instead. All it proves is they're willing to allow Sakurai to use the character, but it doesn't prove that they'd be okay with him being playable. It seems more likely they aren't, as nothing has changed since Brawl in reality. The point was him being playable, something Sakurai made quite clear. Not a costume. Or a trophy. Or a sticker. Or a spirit. But playable. Nothing else matters in that regard. You're given absolutely zero reasons to believe Square-Enix isn't the one saying No that makes any clear sense. You make it sound like he didn't try to get Geno playable in 4 as well. We don't know. He made it clear he still wanted him playable since Brawl. The only known barrier has pretty clearly been Square-Enix at this point, the only logical explanation that makes some remote sense. They may not be a barrier forever, but since he must go to them for licensing, the fact he isn't playable points to the sole logical explanation; Square-Enix simply said no. It is actually that plain and simple. There's no reason to make up silly conspiracy theories when nothing about his situation of being playable has changed. Looks pretty much like the same thing as earlier since Brawl, SE said no to that particular usage of the character. You are aware there was a ton of negotiation required just to get SMRPG on the VC, right? They have proven to be clearly difficult to work with as is. Let's not pretend it has severely changed. Look at how little we have in Ultimate still.
Indeed. There's so many damn good choices for costumes~
I'm going to have to agree with
ForsakenM
and say that there's nothing to indicate Square Enix has directly turned down Geno as a playable character at any point. Hell, I'd argue all the objective evidence points to Square being very willing to lend the Super Mario RPG content to Sakurai and Nintendo with how often both the game gets re-released and how much content from the game has been seen in Smash from those games.
There's no evidence or way of proving anything beyond those releases. Sakurai didn't go into detail about why Geno didn't make it into Brawl, he says that, "Geno was actually a character I wanted to include as a fighter... I was hoping I'd be able to put him in as far back as Brawl, but unfortunately that never ended up materializing." (
https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2016...ans-one-most-requested-smash-bros-characters/). That doesn't tell us anything or that Sakurai even actually went forward with any of his plans for his inclusion on Geno. Saying, "I wanted to include [Geno] as a fighter" doesn't tell us anything other than Sakurai considered him at some point. And that's the issue I take with anyone pushing Square as the bad guy. Sakurai has considered lots of characters and has many recorded instances of mentioning a character in some capacity. Banjo, James Bond, Ayumi Tachibana, Mach Rider, etc. Expressing an interest in these characters or the idea of wanting to put them in, does not really indicate
anything about how far they went in the process. Characters don't happen for all kinds of reasons.
Take the Brawl era for instance. There's a few things worth noting before we start saying that Square Enix definitively turned down Geno specifically. First off, Brawl was a hugely ambitious game that already struggled to include characters in the finished product. The Forbidden Seven are well known at this point and highlight a reality with Brawl: The project was too ambitious. Subspace, all of those modes, the number of characters in the game, etc. It all came at a price of not everything making into the final product. It's also probably the most horrendously balanced game of the series too. And that's entirely focusing on how the finished product didn't manage to adhere to what seems to have been the original plans. It's possible many potential characters were left on the cutting room floor of determining who to include. It's possible Geno never made it into the original product plan or went forward in any way as Sakurai prioritized other ideas. And Brawl was definitely a game that had a LOT of other more notable characters going into it at the time.
Let's also consider the fact that third parties were in Smash were in their genesis with Brawl. Snake was the ONLY third party originally planned for Brawl as Sonic came much later in the process. And we already know Snake was largely included due to special circumstances from Kojima's request to Sakurai. This is an era in which third party characters in Smash weren't an expectation and we had a less experienced Sakurai (with regards to third parties) directing those inclusions. It's possible Sakurai didn't want to go too far in including third parties or didn't want to expend the effort negotiating with several third parties for characters. He may not have had the power he now wields with regards to third parties, and it's possible third parties in Smash was still an unproven concept to other developers as well. The situation with third parties was very different back then as opposed to now. So, again, it's possible Geno didn't make it just because Sakurai didn't want too much focus on third parties or didn't feel as confident in his ability to negotiate with certain other companies since he was just starting to incorporate them in this period.
Then, there's the other elephant in the room. The project plan would have been created in late 2005/early 2006 and any third party inclusions would have been decided during that time frame. Square Enix had just returned to Nintendo consoles in the early 2000s after their rocky split in the 90s (
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/20...e_back_after_losing_final_fantasy_vii_to_sony) and was focusing their Nintendo content on spin-offs and remakes, particularly with an eye to portable games. They were still rebuilding much of that relationship and there's also some evidence that Square needed a way out after their failure with that early 2000s period (
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/7103/nintendo-and-square-settlement-details). So, their relationship wasn't exactly stellar or close at the time either. That may have been a huge barrier to Geno in multiple ways that prevented his inclusion without anything being said specifically on Geno. Maybe Sakurai thought Square Enix would be completely to impossible to negotiate with and abandoned the idea of including him. Maybe Square Enix just straight up refused to have anything to do with Smash and Sakurai. Maybe Sakurai pitched an idea for a character in Smash and they decided against it all together.
I'm using a lot of "maybe" and "possibly" because we just don't know any specifics or have any evidence. Almost anything could have happened and I completely disagree that there is anything resembling a clear way to read this situation and Sakurai's brief comments on Geno.
And once you get past Brawl, things get more difficult to make some sort of clear idea of Geno being turned down specifically. In his interviews regarding Square and Cloud in Smash, Sakurai expressed one primary idea: fulfilling the requests with regards to Final Fantasy and choosing to represent that series (
https://www.gamnesia.com/news/sakur...ve-used-terra-or-bartz-as-the-final-fantasy-c ). He went in for a Final Fantasy character and came out with Cloud. That's what we know definitively and he also came with a Geno Mii costume (one of
two Mii costumes from Square Enix). I'll also argue that his statements on Geno that I sourced above appear as a way to celebrate fan demand for the character and make sure they get something despite ascribing a priority status to Final Fantasy as he cast his net wider on third parties for Smash 4 and its DLC cycle. He could have been considered for base game, but Smash 4 also seemed to entirely prioritize characters with recent appearances and Geno sure as hell didn't fit that. Not to mention, we lost a third party and only picked up two new ones (one of whom was helping make the game). There's not really evidence for or against the idea of him being considered for base, but I'd wager it unlikely.
Once we get to Ultimate, there are other issues too. Ultimate only managed to have seven newcomers intended for the game, so "slots" were already extremely contested for those. We also run into the potential issues of scope of the project again as Piranha Plant seems to pretty clearly have been planned for base game and just shifted when the timing wasn't working out. And to be fair, they included four of the unique newcomers off of fan demand already, so it's not like he didn't make a lot of active effort already in that area. He also made getting Konami back one of the priorities and we only saw expanded content really with Capcom and Ken. Third parties take time and money to make it into Smash, and it's again entirely possible that the constraints of Smash Ultimate meant that adding a newcomer like Geno as fairly unfeasible or that he just simply didn't prioritize him for base game. And we even see Square Enix willing to go further with Super Mario RPG content in Smash as they've allowed references to Megasmilax and also let them include Geno and Mallow spirits in the game. Not to mention, maybe just getting Cloud back in base game was the real priority that Sakurai made with regards to Smash.
Both the most recent Smash games have seen Geno appear in some form, so the evidence points to Square not really caring too much about things. Yes, they do have to agree to a character that Nintendo requests and work with them, but they don't seem to have had a problem with allowing Geno based upon what we've physically seen. There are SEVERAL different points where Geno may have run into issues as an inclusion that had nothing to do with Square Enix turning him down specifically.
I could be wrong, of course. If something comes out tomorrow from Sakurai that says Square turned down his request to include Geno in Smash, I'll eat my words and own up to believing too much in them while also mourning such a devastating statement. But I don't agree with any of the vilification of Square that I ever see with regards to Geno. And I'm a firm believer that if Sakurai wanted to make Geno a priority and see his inclusion in the series, we'd see him as playable just as soon as he could be developed and that Square would have no problem making money off of a character they don't even really care about in the first place.
Ovaltine
