How should Smash handle redesigns?

[Janx_uwu]

When characters get redesigned, what happens to their portrayal in Smash if they return? If a character has multiple distinct designs to choose from, how does Smash choose? Questions like that are what I ask the users of SmashBoards. Sometimes it seems like they try to keep everyone updated as much as possible to represent their newest games - other times they'll pull from earlier entries' character designs, for a multitude of possible reasons. Sometimes they just up and redesign a character themselves!

How do you think Smash should handle character redesigns or having multiple iterations of a character? What designs do you want to see Smash use for certain characters?

I'm personally hoping we see a return to uniformity of the Zelda cast - variant clones are fine, but I want the main three to come from the same game. I also hope they use the awesome-looking SF6 designs for Ryu and Ken. If not, they should at least have the Focus Attack be replaced with Drive Impact, since it's just an aesthetic change.

 

[Champion of Hyrule]

Case by case basis but I generally like classic designs being used. With the Street Fighter characters I think I’d just prefer their defaults to be their standard designs with alts for SF6 since it’s their more well known design and I wouldn’t want it to feel like their design was changed just to promote a newer game.

With the Zelda characters, I feel mixed on if they should have had the same design or not. I really like the designs used for Ganondorf and Zelda but it does feel jarring to have them both be from two games. I actually liked Link using his BotW design because the other Links cover the forest elf boy with a pointy green hat niche (also I really hate how the tunic of the wild looks and I don’t know why). I don’t think it or his Tears of the Kingdom design should come back in an ultimate sequel though.

In case you couldn’t tell my take on it is pretty much really subjective

 

[jamesster445]

Just do what you're doing for Bayo, Ike or Cloud. Or better yet Link. Just have both for old and new if the change in design is significant enough. At least in terms of aesthetics. Like if Kazuya comes back let his keep his current Karate uniform, but update his suit costume to his Tekken 8 drip.

Link is doing things the right way by letting you be elf boy in green and wild champion in blue. So why not let Ganondorf be both black armored Warlock and the desert weeb.

 

[Janx_uwu]

Just do what you're doing for Bayo, Ike or Cloud. Or better yet Link. Just have both for old and new if the change in design is significant enough. At least in terms of aesthetics. Like if Kazuya comes back let his keep his current Karate uniform, but update his suit costume to his Tekken 8 drip.

Link is doing things the right way by letting you be elf boy in green and wild champion in blue. So why not let Ganondorf be both black armored Warlock and the desert weeb.

Haven't been keeping up with Tekken 8 so I didn't even know he had a new suit until now. Goes hard tbh.

 

[Quillion]

I still wish DLC costumes would extend to other characters instead of just the Miis.

In terms of Zelda though, I still wish Smash 4 Link was an echo of BotW Link in Ultimate. Wouldn't have taken much dev time. The others could still be costumes.

 

[StrangeKitten]

It depends, and fortunately, it seems like the dev team pays attention to the reception of redesigns. Or maybe they just have good taste. Either way, I'm glad we've got a lot of well-received redesigns, while avoiding bad ones like 2010s Pac Man and Nuts and Bolts Banjo & Kazooie.

 

[AAchillin]

It depends, and fortunately, it seems like the dev team pays attention to the reception of redesigns. Or maybe they just have good taste. Either way, I'm glad we've got a lot of well-received redesigns, while avoiding bad ones like 2010s Pac Man and Nuts and Bolts Banjo & Kazooie.

I still think about the hypothetical timeline where we got the Nuts & Bolts design instead of the classic one and it keeps me up at night

 

[Oracle Link]

SO when it comes to Zelda having some skins based on diffrent Zelda games would be cool heck I think they Could Include most Link Designs With Just Two Character slots but if i had to limit the Designs having OOT (cause young link would be cut and cause he was the first), TP and TOTK (Cause the Champion Tunic in the Game Looks pretty Similar) and just give link a one size fits all Moveset (With Bombflowers as the Bombs For TOTK) than have Toon Link/ and a resized "toy" Link (still dont like that Name also i mean it would be less Drastic than TOTK resize) on the other Link Slot!
For Zelda it Would be (OOT, TP, ALTTP) for Ganon it would be (OOT and TOTK)
A big Reason for toy Link and ALTTP Zelda is that 2d Zelda Needs More smash Rep

When it comes to kirby His redesign is so minor that he should have only it in Smash (Aka Pinker Shade and bigger Eyes) Dedede on the other hand should probably keep his Smash Design because for some reason 90% of the Time does Dedede Look cursed in Kirby Games!