56. Captain Toad
Toad has been a playable character in Mario games for a long time - even back in the NES, with Super Mario Bros. 2 and Wario's Woods. While the standard Toad is apparently a permanent part of Peach's powers, Captain Toad stands out above the other Toads with multiple playable appearances (in both Mario 3D World and Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker), plus being able to draw from the playable versions of other Toads (like in the games I've already mentioned, or the home console New Super Mario Bros. games). Toad is a fairly popular choice for Nintendo's multiplayer games, so including him in Smash Bros. seems like a definite possibility.
57. Impa
I, for one, find it strange that Zelda - arguably Nintendo's second most popular franchise - has had its representation in the Smash Bros. roster virtually unchanged since Super Smash Bros. Melee in 2001. The closest that we've gotten are things like changing Young Link to Toon Link, or making Sheik her own playable character, but none of those are really new characters. While I debated including Midna or Ghirahim, I felt that if the Zelda series was going to get a new character, Impa seemed like the best choice.
She's had multiple appearances to draw from, including Ocarina of Time, Skyward Sword, and most notably Hyrule Warriors, where she was a playable character with multiple weapons and movesets. While this spot could be given to Midna or Ghirahim (both of whom would be fantastic choices), I feel like Impa has more to work with, so she'd be a more realistic choice.
58. Ridley
This may or may not be my most controversial choice (that title would either go to Ridley, given how divisive he is, or one of my third party choices), but I'm sticking with it. It is absolutely absurd that Metroid, a franchise that has been in Smash Bros. since the first game and has tripled in size since then, is only represented by different versions of Samus. Ridley is, by far, the second most prominent character in the series, after Samus herself, and his boss fights are always among the most climactic and memorable in their respective games.
The way I see it, Ridley is the Metroid equivalent to Ganondorf. They may not appear in every game in their series, but they're easily the most iconic and memorable villain in that series, heavily tied to the backstory of the setting, and are both incredibly menacing and purely malicious figures. While Ridley may not be the final boss in the Metroid games, he is easily the one that people will remember the most. As far as his size is concerned, since I know that will come up,
put him on all fours (similar to when he lands on the Pyrosphere), give him
the Super Metroid design (so his arms, legs, wings, and tail are more reasonably proportioned), and make him
about the same height as Bowser. That way, he's the size of a playable character while still being imposing and menacing. His size varies quite a bit within his own series (compare how big he is between the two boss fights in Metroid Prime 3), so it's not like it's that big of a deal.
59. King K. Rool
This could have gone to Dixie Kong, or Cranky Kong, but I went with K. Rool. The Kremling King may not be the most relevant Donkey Kong character, being left out of the Donkey Kong Country games that were made by Retro, but he has a massive amount of material to work with. Over the course of his time in the Donkey Kong series, he's taken on numerous identities - aside from being a king, he's been a mad scientist, pirate, boxer, and pharaoh, among other titles, and each time, his boss battles have been completely unique.
I'd love to see Dixie or Cranky as playable characters in Smash Bros., but if I can only pick one Donkey Kong character, I'm going with the King - based on what each of them are capable of in their original games, I feel like K. Rool would be the most unique as a playable character, having much more to offer.
60. Medusa
While I could have gone with someone like Hades or Phosphora, I felt that, as Pit's oldest nemesis, Medusa deserved a chance at the spotlight. She was quickly marginalized in Uprising, but I feel that there's a lot to work with. Her boss fight in Uprising gives her a lot of attacks, including a detachable cyclops head that could easily work as a final smash, and she'd be quite different from the other playable villains (as few of them as there are). While Hades is unquestionably the more prominent villain (at least as far as Uprising is concerned), I feel like Medusa would be the more interesting choice (plus, I could see Hades, or his insides, working well as a stage, with Hades providing snarky commentary throughout the fight).
61. Porky
This one was actually inspired by a fan project. I was debating between Porky and the Mother 1 version of Giygas - I felt that a new character from the Mother series would be a nice inclusion, but while Porky acts as a bridge between the storylines of Earthbound and Mother 3, Giygas (the alien from Mother 1, not the giant demon cloud fetus thing from Earthbound) would represent the first game in the series (which would be kind of difficult to do with its main character, seeing as Ninten is basically Ness). However, seeing some sprites of Porky in his spider robot from the end of Earthbound (the sprites were on The Spriter's Resource forums for a Smash Bros. fan-game; though the sub-forum for that game seems to be taken down,
the thread was archived, though I haven't found any images that work yet) really got me thinking about how well he would work and how different he'd be from the other playable Mother characters, which is why I chose him.
62. Mike Jones (StarTropics)
Star Tropics is an overlooked gem in the NES library. Admittedly, its exclusion from Smash Bros. up to this point makes sense to some degree - neither game in the series was released in Japan. However, the reverse (a game not being released outside of Japan) didn't seem to stop the inclusion of Marth and Roy in Melee, or Lucas in Brawl.
I figure Mike Jones would make a great retro rep akin to Mr. Game & Watch or Duck Hunt - a character who nobody really considered, but fits in seamlessly regardless of that.
63. Sukapon (Joy Mech Fight)
Joy Mech Fight is a pretty obscure NES game, but it's a Nintendo-made 2D fighting game. It takes pretty heavy inspiration from Mega Man (a mad scientist steals robots and uses them to take over the world, so a kind-hearted scientist converts a peaceful robot to a combat machine in order to stop the mad scientist), but it's got a quirky charm to it.
Given that Smash Bros. is Nintendo's major entry into the fighting game genre, it would be a nice reference to see Sukapon (the aforementioned peaceful robot) be included as a playable character. It's pretty clear that Nintendo has no problems with referring back to its roots, and much like the Ice Climbers, it would help to bring a one-off NES game out of obscurity.
64. Isaac (Golden Sun)
I'm not sure why he wasn't in Smash Bros. 4. While DLC's still an option, it seems strange to completely remove the entire Golden Sun series from Smash Bros., not even giving it a trophy, when it had a new game released between Brawl and SSB4. I've never even played a game in the Golden Sun franchise, and I know that there's a lot to work with as far as Isaac is concerned. Golden Sun definitely isn't an unpopular series - the fact that it has two sequels indicates that it must have sold fairly well, and Isaac is generally among the most requested characters that I've seen in discussions about Smash Bros.
65. Inkling (Splatoon)
Admittedly, it might be a bit early to start talking about Inkling, given that Splatoon isn't even out yet, but seeing as it's a new Nintendo-made IP, it definitely seems like they have a shot. Whether it's Olimar or Shulk, Smash Bros. not only gives more publicity to old forgotten Nintendo series, but also new ones that might not be as popular as the established franchises. Based on gameplay videos alone, there's a lot of potential as far as a character from Splatoon is concerned.
66. Ray (Custom Robo)
While there have been many versions of this robot throughout the series, Ray is the face of the Custom Robo franchise. Compared to his assist trophy appearance in Brawl, it would have to be scaled up, but that is hardly the first time that scale has been adjusted to make a character playable in Smash Bros. I'm not sure what else I have to say - it's an action-based Nintendo-owned franchise that, like Golden Sun, was completely removed from SSB4 for no apparent reason.
67. Wonder Red (The Wonderful 101)
One of the Wii U's hidden gems, The Wonderful 101 was an amazing and unique game. If anybody's going to represent it in Smash Bros., it seems most likely that it would be the team's leader, Wonder Red. Obviously, they couldn't make him exactly like his own game and have a hundred other superheroes following him around, but they could do something similar to Ness where he gets the Unite Morph abilities of his other team-mates. The game may not have sold well, but that's no excuse - Earthbound didn't sell well prior to Ness's inclusion in Smash Bros., and Fire Emblem was on the verge of cancellation before Awakening was released, so how well a series does doesn't seem to matter a whole lot as far as games like this are concerned.
68. Isa Jo (Sin & Punishment)
Much like the Wonderful 101, neither of the Sin & Punishment games have sold particularly well, but the team behind Smash Bros. is definitely aware of the series, keeping Saki as an assist trophy while other ATs have been removed. While Saki was the main character of the first game, if Sin & Punishment gets a playable character, I'd think that his son Isa would have more to work with, being able to jump and fly around in addition to having Saki's weapon and abilities. Either one of them, or Kachi from the second Sin & Punishment game, could work, but in any case, I feel that it would be great to have a character from Sin & Punishment playable in Smash Bros.; the series seemed to do well enough that it not only got a sequel, but that sequel was released overseas in spite of the first game being Japanese-exclusive prior to a Virtual Console release.
69. Bayonetta (Bayonetta) (Third Party)
I'm well aware of the complaints that people have about this character, and in another shameless bit of self-promotion,
I tried to address them by making a moveset that would work within a E10 to T rating while still staying true to how Bayonetta fights in her own games. While she might be the longest shot on my list, I feel that Bayonetta's over-the-top and light-hearted nature would work well within Smash Bros.
Honestly, Nintendo has a great thing going with Platinum Games - they've collaborated on some fantastic titles in the past few years. Ironically, despite the hard M rating, Bayonetta 2 is arguably one of the most Nintendo-like games that I've seen by a third party company. It's vibrant and colourful, filled to the brim with easter eggs and references, packed full of detail, and it never really takes itself seriously. Admittedly, I'm working under the assumption that Bayonetta would represent Platinum Games, since they seem to have free reign with the character (she was included in games that Sega had nothing to do with), but while she's much newer than the third party characters that are currently in Smash Bros., she has so much to bring to the series that it would be a missed opportunity to not consider the idea.
70. Rayman (Rayman) (Third Party)
When the picture of the day showed that there was a Rayman trophy in Smash Bros., I was annoyed. If Nintendo has the rights to use Rayman in Smash Bros., it seemed like a waste to just put him in as a trophy as opposed to going all the way any making him playable. Finding out that Nintendo had the rights to publish Rayman games in Japan (making them Nintendo exclusive over there) helped to make sense of this decision, but it hasn't stopped me from wanting to see Rayman playable.
Looking at the Rayman Origins and Legends games alone, they basically give an entire list of basic attacks, meaning that a lot of the planning has more or less already been done. Admittedly, I haven't played Rayman 1 or 3, or even much of Rayman 2 (though I did get it for the Nintendo 64 recently), but there's so much to draw from here, and the games are so vibrant and put together so well that it would be a shame to not include him if they have the chance.
) returns.
