If the Next Smash only had 30 Characters

[AlRex]

STARTING ROSTER
Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus Aran, Kirby, Yoshi, Fox, Pikachu
Marth, Pit, Captain Olimar
Little Mac, Villager, Shulk
Peach, Zelda, Lucario, Meta Knight OR King Dedede
Andy*, Inkling*

UNLOCKABLE
Captain Falcon, Ness, Wario, ROB, Luigi
Bowser, Ganondorf, Marshal*, Meowth*, Sonic

* = Newcomer/hasn't been in Smash before.

I’ll only be explaining the choices I think are more debatable.
MARIO HAVING 4 REPS: It’s the flagship series, pretty much, and I don’t think any of the other 3 are less iconic than each other. Yes, this also means I count DK, Yoshi, and Wario separately still.

CAPTAIN FALCON AND NESS: F-Zero is still a very long-running Nintendo series, spanning multiple iterations and console generations, and still gets referenced fairly regularly, despite not having had a new installment in a while. And while Ness’s series doesn’t have as many games, its highly vocal cult-following, and recent releases, and continuing demand for the 3rd game to come out officially in English, and even a fan-made 4th game proves to me that the series is fairly major in many people’s eyes.

ANDY: The “Wars” series is a long neglected Nintendo series that’s been around since the Famicom era, and Andy from “Advance Wars” is basically the best face I can think of for it, rather than a generic soldier or someone from a lesser known game.

ROB: ROB feels like a general Nintendo/NES mascot to me, and one that people have a certain affinity for, even if they didn’t particularly like the functionality of the ROB peripheral. It helped Nintendo out partially in making the NES marketable, and to this day, it gets referenced consistently in both Nintendo’s games and their fandoms. And yea, ROB’s an “it”. I dunno why, but that’s how I think of it.

MARSHAL: Represents Rhythm Heaven, another neglected, yet very prominent, Nintendo series, adding to the diversity of genres represented, as well as basically this game’s other “WTF” character besides ROB. I pick him over Chorus Men due to their more complicated nature, and sadly, over Rhythm Girl because he feels more like an overall Rhythm Heaven mascot.

MEOWTH: I wanted Pokémon to have equal-or-close-to the same representation as Mario and Zelda, being part of Nintendo’s big 3, and I deliberated for a bit on whether to include Mewtwo, Charizard, or another non-Gen. 1 Pokémon. One of my sentimental favorites won out in the end, though, but that’s not the only reason why. Meowth is still a fairly visible Pokémon, due to his continued appearances in the anime, and is almost as mascot-worthy as Pikachu or Charizard…I said almost… Nevertheless, I feel like he could be an interesting new addition whether you base him on the games or partially on the anime, maybe with some Team Rocket assists, a la Doronjo from Tatsunoko VS CAPCOM. Still, I’ll admit, this is probably the least justifiable choice on my roster.

SONIC: I had one slot left, so I decided to add a “guest character”. I almost picked Mega Man, Banjo & Kazooie, or even a Tetris brick, but in the end, picked Sonic. He’s practically synonymous with Mario at this point, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was always their number one idea for a guest character if they ever thought about it before putting in Snake. Still, I’d probably make some changes to his moveset to make him less of “just a ball”.

 

[Ura]

ANDY: The “Wars” series is a long neglected Nintendo series that’s been around since the Famicom era, and Andy from “Advance Wars” is basically the best face I can think of for it, rather than a generic soldier or someone from a lesser known game.

Good to see someone other than me has Andy is their list lol. AW (Wars as a whole) is a huge series that's really unappreciated by a lot of people for it's history.

 

[Dan]

This is good; sometimes I feel like they should stop overdoing it with the roster because someone always ends up feeling butthurt. Just gives us the necessities and no one will be upset.

Ridley needs to work; I don't care how big he is.

I could really stand to cut , , , and , but since you said 30...

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

If I had to limit the roster down to 30 characters, the following characters could be the outcome.

 

[LoZ00]

I'd rather consider this challenge as "What if the Smash Bros. series had a reboot?", so I'll work following this route. Let's begin!
So, if Smash Bros. had a reboot with 30 characters, who would be chosen? Would there be third party characters? Would the original 12 be kept? How would Yoshi and Wario considered: part of the Mario series or of their own? And most importantly, would Ganondorf still be a semi-clone of Falcon, even though they're two completely different characters, one being the king of evil and the other being a pilot of space cars?
Here's my list and the my reasoning (under spoiler).

Spoiler: Character roster

Super Mario Bros. series
Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Bowser and Wario.
Pretty much self explanatory. Mario characters are among the most famous characters in the history of gaming and the face of Nintendo. I consider Wario and Yoshi as part of the Mario franchise because because I feel they're more well known as part of this franchise than part of their own series.

Donkey Kong series
Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong
More than enough for a game with 30 characters. DK and Diddy are part of their own series because the DK Country games have traditionally been very well received and with very few ties with the Mario series, unlike Yoshi's Island, which is quite involved with Super Mario.

The Legend of Zelda series
Link, Zelda, Toon Link, Ganon.
Zelda is arguably the most acclaimed series in the history of gaming, so it felt quite natural to give it four spots in this roster. If Link and Zelda were quite obvious, the same can't be said about Toon Link and Ganon. Toon Link was chosen as a representative of the cartoonish branch of the Zelda series, while Ganon was chosen instead of Ganondorf for two main reasons: first of all he's appeared in way more titles than Ganondorf, and he's more unique than his human counterpart.

Kirby series
Kirby, King Dedede
Some of you might already be typing something like "WHY NO META KNGITH?" and here's why. I decided that adding three Kirby characters was too high, while only Kirby was too low. So it was a tie between Meta Knight and King Dedede, who eventually got in because of its importance (more than MK's) and its style, more in line with the Kirby franchise.

Metroid series
Samus, Ridley
Ridley finally got in. That was my first thought. Then, I thought that Metroid was going to become a more prominent series than in the past few years so, as a bet, I decided to give Metroid two characters: Samus of course and her greatest rival, Ridley, who, with his (its?) unique characteristics and abilities is going to be a very unique choice.

Fire Emblem series
Lucina, Corrin
Lucina and Corrin represent two important concepts (at least, important to me) in the FE series: Lucina is a very standard lord (lady in this case), without any outstanding abilities except for her skills in swordsmanship. Corrin on the other hand is very gimmicky, being a water dragon. They're both relevant and they play pretty differently.

Pokémon series
Pikachu, Pokémon Trainer and Mewtwo
Maybe I'm cheating, but I added Pokémon Trainer to this list, with his three Pokémon, like in Brawl. However, the main problem was: which Pokémon do I give him? Should I give him Kanto Pokémon? Or Alola Pokémon? Or Pokémon hailing from different regions? At the end, I went for the Alolan Trainer (sadly, I couldn't add Piplup). He uses Popplio, Torracat and Decidueye. Pikachu and Mewtwo were chosen because they're arguably the most famous Pokémon, along with Charizard. However, Pokémon Trainer already has three starters, so adding another one was unnecessary.

Other characters
Isabelle, Inkling, Elma, Little Mac, Pit, Alph, Fox, Duck Hunt Dog, Mii.
Self explanatory, the only characters that deserve a small description IMO are Dog, who was added without the duck because I'm not Sakurai and as a representative of retro games, and Elma, who was chosen instead of Shulk because she's more current, but Rex from Xeno 2 could be in instead.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Please use this thread for your own personal rosters; https://smashboards.com/threads/early-smash-5-fan-made-rosters.435513/

To clarify, a lot of threads have been merged or locked since the new forum covers many things better. While this topic was fine on its own in the past, it's now redundant. Things change, respectively.

Have a nice day.