Is Smash Ultimate’s Roster Too Big for its Own Good?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author's and not of Smashboards as a whole.
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Ever since Brawl, the Super Smash Bros. franchise has been known for its huge rosters. With the game being a celebration of all things Nintendo, it makes sense that Sakurai and his team do their best to stuff each title with more fighters than the last. However, with the release of Smash Ultimate and the announcement of 11 DLC fighters in total, there comes an issue that needs to be considered. Is the huge roster of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate a good thing, a bad thing, or something in between for the game’s competitive scene?

To establish how big Ultimate’s roster is, let’s look at some of the games featured at Evo this year to draw comparisons with other popular fighting games. On the smaller side, you have anime fighters like Granblue Fantasy Versus with 16 characters and Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r] with 21 characters. But looking at more well-known fighting games, Street Fighter V: Champion Edition and Tekken 7 have roster sizes of 40 and 49 respectively. Meanwhile, Ultimate entirely dwarves these rosters with 81 characters (75 as of now).

Puts things into perspective​

Ultimate’s roster size does have some positive effects on the competitive scene. With so many characters, most people can find a character that’s just right for them. The roster accommodates a wide range of playstyles, while providing multiple options for each playstyle. The larger roster also allows the game to have more variety at top level. Since the larger roster size has a proportional effect on tier sizes, there are more top and high tiers that spectators get to see in Top 8s of huge tourneys.

"I'm not just your regular zoner, I'm actually a trapper!"
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However, this leads to the game having a ridiculous number of matchups to learn. Knowing your opponent’s tools and options and how to combat them with your own is essential to winning in any fighting game. So, people who don't want to lose to matchup unfamiliarity must spend hours grinding against 81 characters (no, not 80, dittos are harder than you’d think) that they may only ever meet once in bracket. The amount of work required to deal with an unlikely scenario doesn’t seem worth it, so most people don’t go out of their way to learn matchups against uncommon characters. But when they inevitably come face-to-face with a mid or low tier, or even a rarely played high tier like Pac-Man, they might lack essential knowledge on how to play against them and are forced to adapt on the fly or lose in a high stakes setting. And eventually, this can lead to a loss to that leaves quite a sour taste in one’s mouth.

How it Feels Like in Bracket
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However, all coins have two sides, and so does this debate. Due to having so many matchups, mid and low tiers now have a better shot at winning a match. Sure, their advantage is nothing like the top tier and high tiers who have the luxury of being consistently good no matter how many times they have been played against. But that element of surprise and confusion a worse character may possess can put them on equal footing, giving them a fighting chance. Also, while it is true that matches against these characters can only be won by adapting to them in time, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Adaptation is a cornerstone of fighting games, and while it can be difficult to adapt to a character in tourney, it certainly isn’t impossible. A good player will be able to learn the tools of a character through playing safe and picking opportunities, and while they may not learn how to best play the matchup, they’ll be able to learn enough about both the character and their player to come out on top.

In conclusion, Ultimate’s insane roster size isn’t likely to go anywhere. In fact, based on how the Smash series has progressed up till now, there’s a fair chance it’ll only get larger. But that isn’t really an objectively good or bad thing, it’s just an aspect of the game we must accept in order to keep enjoying it. Whether there can be too many characters in Smash is a question I plan to consider another day. But for now, I’ll be hitting up the Kirby discord to learn how to deal with his insufferable crouch.

This Probably Counts as Too Many​

 

More characters the better ! Ultimate is also the best balanced smash game to date every character feels fun & viable against all others. I have NEVER gotten bored with this roster (unlike past smash games were it felt like I have already played everyone after a hour or 2 of playing) Plus with all the stages (stage switching as well) & squad strike keeps the game fresh too (Why is Squad Strike not an online mode yet?)

That has come at a bit of a cost, though -- many universal changes have been made that homogenize the roster, and make each chracter function more similarly. I'm on the camp that a huge roster is fine, but I also hope that in the next Smash game they trim the roster to 30-40 characters and make each of them mechanically unique and diverse.

 

I feel makes it hard as **** to learn the mu's

 

"You see this franchise which is all about fanservice? Wouldn't it be better if there was less fanservice?"

What a stupid question. Smash was never meant to be a competitive game, and even so it's still the most competitively balanced roster in the series (outside of PM/PM+ of course).

 

All I know is that aren't needed in smash, sorry if I insulted your main.

I downright refuse to add the Puff to this list.

 

Smash was never meant to be a competitive game

Smash was meant to also be suited for competitive play at least since For Glory. And Smash Ultimate goes further with catering to competitive players. I'm not saying everything they do for competitive players is a success (though I like a lot of it), but they're clearly trying to make Smash fun for competitive players as well.

But I agree that Smash seems to be more about fanservice than about competitive play. I also think they should let the roster be really big.

 

619 are not enough we need more!!!!!

 

Having a large roster embodies the mantra "Easy to learn, hard to master." New players have a lot of choices on who to start playing. One obscure character might excite someone enough to keep playing and get good.

Plus, you can't tell me it's not hype as hell seeing a low tier come out of nowhere and dominate a tournament.

 

At least from a competitive standpoint, yes it has gotten too large for its own good. I appreciate the variety of characters you're able to play in Ultimate just as much as anyone else, but the balance patches that have happened so far in many ways haven't made a lot of sense or aren't too meaningful in the long run. Not that all changes to characters should necessarily be something groundbreaking for their competitive meta, but the fact that, for example, they made some of 's moves even faster/stronger in patch 7.0 when he already has great frame data and kill power and what he really needs is better mobility stats or at least a workable recovery, tells me the dev team's priorities are a bit mixed up when it comes to fighter adjustments. Overall, I think I'd like to see the roster come down to 50-60 characters, so that characters are not so easily overlooked and forgotten in order to be given greater chances of getting any changes they need. Nintendo certainly doesn't have to explicitly endorse its competitive smash scene and cater exclusively to that playerbase, but they have a ways to go before reaching that ideal balance of sufficiently appealing to both the casual and competitive crowds (even if they are trying to make an effort to appeal to the latter) and it would probably be a good idea for them to do this in order to expand their fanbase, but that's just my opinion I guess. It would also be nice to have a marginally reduced roster in the next game so that some of the charm that single player modes used to have in Smash can be brought back to life. I loved events, all-star mode and break the targets; a better adventure mode would be great to have again as well.

 

Do you what does the word "meta" means? It is the state of the competitive landscape, what strategies and players are relevant at the present, and more importantly it always evolves, as players discover or revaluate their strategies. The meta is not made by keyboard warriors who complain about nothing all day, it is made by the people who play at tournament and top. The meta cannot be ignored, it exists whether you like it or not. The only way the meta dies is if the tournament scene dies.

A meta is a gathering of information posted here and there about which players play which characters, and the positions they get in tournaments, plus their opinion on other characters through tier lists. If people online stopped copy-pasting what others are doing because they are winning or think some characters are stronger, the "meta" would be non-existent. You'd see a much more random distribution of characters being played.

And I say that having worked as a playtester for a board game company where the "meta" was very strongly implemented by the other playtesters, and had to prove them wrong by playing the so called underdogs. And it wasn't actually difficult to play differently and pull a ton of wins, actually dethroning the dominating strategies, because I ignored the conventional methods and managed to convince some others to do the same. And that gave back so much life to the game. So yeah, "meta" or not, I always suggest people ignore online content and influencers to actually master any given game in their own way.

 

My issue with the large roster is that with so many new characters being added, a lot of old, important ones are neglected. Every newcomer tends to be more fun and complex than the older characters as well as better represented. Sonic is missing a lot of things that make him Sonic and Mario's last major change was to do with Sunshine, 18 years ago. Competitively, it definitely keeps things interesting since Ultimate did a pretty good job of having most characters be viable.

The superbig roster fits Ultimate's goal, but I hope future games will have a more reasonable one at launch, so that each character can get an equal amount of attention in balance and representation. The selection would still be able to grow with updates and DLC.

 

All I know is that aren't needed in smash, sorry if I insulted your main.

I downright refuse to add the Puff to this list.

You obviously don't know what you just said. Some of these characters make sense to be gone, but most of them (Dedede, Ridley, R.O.B, Byleth, Robin, Falcon, etc.) have many reasons for staying, whether it be history to Nintendo, (Game and Watch, R.O.B, and Duck Hunt have a long history and if you bothered with a couple google searches you should see why) are important to their respective series' franchises (Dedede, Ridley, Robin, Byleth, Wolf, Isabelle, Ken) are the main characters of their series/game (Lucas, Little Mac, Corrin, Wii Fit Trainer (Yes I'm counting that) Lucina, Young Link, Richter, Dr. Mario, Bayonetta, and a few aforementioned characters) are fan favorites (Plant, Pichu, Game and Watch, Sheik, etc) or are original and fun to play(Corrin, Byleth, Plant, Dedede, Isabelle, Duck Hunt, Game and Watch, literally everybody) Sure these characters don't need to be here but that dosen't mean they never should've. These guys are here for a reason and-
I just realized I probably am overthinking this again, move along.

 

You obviously don't know what you just said. Some of these characters make sense to be gone, but most of them (Dedede, Ridley, R.O.B, Byleth, Robin, Falcon, etc.) have many reasons for staying, whether it be history to Nintendo, (Game and Watch, R.O.B, and Duck Hunt have a long history and if you bothered with a couple google searches you should see why) are important to their respective series' franchises (Dedede, Ridley, Robin, Byleth, Wolf, Isabelle, Ken) are the main characters of their series/game (Lucas, Little Mac, Corrin, Wii Fit Trainer (Yes I'm counting that) Lucina, Young Link, Richter, Dr. Mario, Bayonetta, and a few aforementioned characters) are fan favorites (Plant, Pichu, Game and Watch, Sheik, etc) or are original and fun to play(Corrin, Byleth, Plant, Dedede, Isabelle, Duck Hunt, Game and Watch, literally everybody) Sure these characters don't need to be here but that dosen't mean they never should've. These guys are here for a reason and-
I just realized I probably am overthinking this again, move along.

Yea I'm not sure where they're getting the idea that all of those characters should get the axe, especially and . D3 is the main villain of the Kirby series, Wolf is the rival of the main protagonist of a now-dormant series but very heavily requested to return as a veteran, and Falcon is pretty much a smash icon and part of the O12 now that F-Zero is dead. People would want to kill Nintendo for cutting Ridley after all this time it took for him to get playable status in Smash as well, haha. All the others that were listed are either unique (lol @ and being cut when they're the only two truly unique FE reps we have), have long histories with Nintnedo like you said, or both. If there are any "cuts", I'd say just make certain characters into alts like doc, lucina, daisy, and some of the other echos as well except for maybe Ken.

 

R.O.B. is the only representative of his series, plays an important part in Nintendo history, has a lot of cameo's in many Nintendo franchises, has a unique playstyle, and is the superior character. Anyone who thinks that he should be removed is crazy.

 

There is a point where we needed to stop and we have clearly passed it
but let's keep going and see what happens,
WE'RE GOING TO 100 BABY.

 

Also, the big roster is great, but it neglects things. Older characters like Mario, Kirby, Sonic and more don't have up to date movesets that could be much more original.

Yea I'm not sure where they're getting the idea that all of those characters should get the axe, especially and . D3 is the main villain of the Kirby series, Wolf is the rival of the main protagonist of a now-dormant series but very heavily requested to return as a veteran, and Falcon is pretty much a smash icon and part of the O12 now that F-Zero is dead. People would want to kill Nintendo for cutting Ridley after all this time it took for him to get playable status in Smash as well, haha. All the others that were listed are either unique (lol @ and being cut when they're the only two truly unique FE reps we have), have long histories with Nintnedo like you said, or both. If there are any "cuts", I'd say just make certain characters into alts like doc, lucina, daisy, and some of the other echos as well except for maybe Ken.

somebody finally gets me on the fe characters. Finally.

 

Yea I'm not sure where they're getting the idea that all of those characters should get the axe, especially and . D3 is the main villain of the Kirby series, Wolf is the rival of the main protagonist of a now-dormant series but very heavily requested to return as a veteran, and Falcon is pretty much a smash icon and part of the O12 now that F-Zero is dead. People would want to kill Nintendo for cutting Ridley after all this time it took for him to get playable status in Smash as well, haha. All the others that were listed are either unique (lol @ and being cut when they're the only two truly unique FE reps we have), have long histories with Nintnedo like you said, or both. If there are any "cuts", I'd say just make certain characters into alts like doc, lucina, daisy, and some of the other echos as well except for maybe Ken.

I'm not saying any characters should be REMOVED, what I am saying is they shouldn't have been added in the first place.

Also yeah, I regret adding D3.

 

I'm not saying any characters should be REMOVED, what I am saying is they shouldn't have been added in the first place.

Also yeah, I regret adding D3.

It's fine that you may not like any of the characters you mentioned in your original post (in which you said "aren't needed", which does imply a sentiment that you'd like them all to be removed), but semantics aside, don't mistake your dislike for these characters as some measure of whether or not they're "deserving" or "worthy" of being playable in smash bros. All of them have clearly proven their merit to Sakurai and Nintendo as a whole, and frankly, that's good enough for me at the end of the day (piranha plant may be the exception to this, but there's always a WTF joke character introduced in every iteration of the series, so Idc). I HATE jigglypuff with a purple passion in Smash, but you don't see me using that as a flawed way of trying to justify why she shouldn't be in the game even though she's pretty much irrelevant in this day and age.

 

All I know is that aren't needed in smash, sorry if I insulted your main.

I'm not saying any characters should be REMOVED, what I am saying is they shouldn't have been added in the first place.

Also yeah, I regret adding D3.

I just can't understand how you believe some of those characters shouldn't have been added. As someone else already pointed out DDD and Wolf are the main villains/rivals of the games they come from. Lucas is the star of one of 3 Mother games (and one of the 2 that have become classics). Isabelle is a fan favorite character from animal crossing who is quickly becoming an icon of the series.

Some of them I can kind of understand like Dr. Mario, G&W, Plant, and Dark Pit, but there are a good number of characters in that list that are iconic and are one of few reps for beloved games. It's like saying Meta Knight shouldn't have been added because we already have Kirby.

 

I just can't understand how you believe some of those characters shouldn't have been added. As someone else already pointed out DDD and Wolf are the main villains/rivals of the games they come from. Lucas is the star of one of 3 Mother games (and one of the 2 that have become classics). Isabelle is a fan favorite character from animal crossing who is quickly becoming an icon of the series.

Some of them I can kind of understand like Dr. Mario, G&W, Plant, and Dark Pit, but there are a good number of characters in that list that are iconic and are one of few reps for beloved games. It's like saying Meta Knight shouldn't have been added because we already have Kirby.

Lucas was added in smash before his game game out, smarts

 

It's fine that you may not like any of the characters you mentioned in your original post (in which you said "aren't needed", which does imply a sentiment that you'd like them all to be removed), but semantics aside, don't mistake your dislike for these characters as some measure of whether or not they're "deserving" or "worthy" of being playable in smash bros. All of them have clearly proven their merit to Sakurai and Nintendo as a whole, and frankly, that's good enough for me at the end of the day (piranha plant may be the exception to this, but there's always a WTF joke character introduced in every iteration of the series, so Idc). I HATE jigglypuff with a purple passion in Smash, but you don't see me using that as a flawed way of trying to justify why she shouldn't be in the game even though she's pretty much irrelevant in this day and age.

Oh, lol I understand Puff never deserved Smash and was added from recycled Kirby models, I only like Puff because of her playstyle. And no, I hate none of those charcters.

 

Lucas was added in smash before his game game out, smarts

I'm not sure I understand...
Mother 3 was released in 2006
Brawl was released in 2008

Was there some kind of secret playable Lucas in melee that I'm not aware of?

 

okey i was given fake/liberal news my bad
oh shhhh no polititcs

 

And no, I hate none of those charcters.

Not really sure why you seem to feel so strongly about those characters' inclusions and implying they shouldn't have added in the first place if you don't have a dislike for them, but you do you. I homestly think we'll probably just have to agree to disagree on this topic, lol.

 

I don’t think smash has too many characters and in theory it can’t have too many so long as they are balanced and are varied enough to be unique and useful.

 

I don’t think smash has too many characters and in theory it can’t have too many so long as they are balanced and are varied enough to be unique and useful.

I agree with this guy, argument over
that actually still boots a couple of marths....

 

I agree with this guy, argument over
that actually still boots a couple of marths....

R.I.P Lucina Roy and Chrom.

 

Obviously when you look at corrin next to mario you're going to have to think that maybe the publishers have too much control over the roster
that being said, you can still play most the characters you like still. I think the major problems with overpopulation is the following three things:

1. Important characters may not have enough depth
- Mario is a good example of a character that hasn't had enough attention given to him. without padding characters like dark pit it stands to reason that there could have been a customization direction, especially since they started dipping their toes into moveset alterations in sm4sh.
2. Alternate modes falling flat
- Subspace 2 would've been a dream come true for many smash fans. It's good they managed to bring back stage creator in an update though.
3. Random character selection pollution
- You're guaranteed to dislike a character or two, both for fighting with and against. Without the option to set groups of characters to randomly select from playing random is at times a chore.

While it's not my personally ideal roster, I really liked the roster from the e3 demo of ultimate. There were very few grievances many people could have with it and it had everything you needed.

 

- Subspace 2 would've been a dream come true for many smash fans..

Yeah, a Subspace with Jigglypuff in it.

 

Obviously when you look at corrin next to mario you're going to have to think that maybe the publishers have too much control over the roster
that being said, you can still play most the characters you like still. I think the major problems with overpopulation is the following three things:

1. Important characters may not have enough depth
- Mario is a good example of a character that hasn't had enough attention given to him. without padding characters like dark pit it stands to reason that there could have been a customization direction, especially since they started dipping their toes into moveset alterations in sm4sh.
2. Alternate modes falling flat
- Subspace 2 would've been a dream come true for many smash fans. It's good they managed to bring back stage creator in an update though.
3. Random character selection pollution
- You're guaranteed to dislike a character or two, both for fighting with and against. Without the option to set groups of characters to randomly select from playing random is at times a chore.

While it's not my personally ideal roster, I really liked the roster from the e3 demo of ultimate. There were very few grievances many people could have with it and it had everything you needed.

Just went and googled, the Demo Roster consisted of
Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Ness, Bowser, Ice Climbers, Shiek, Marth, Zelda, Ganondorf, Mewtwo, Pit, Snake, Ike, Pokemon Trainer, Sonic, Villager, Little Mac, Mega Man, Pac Man, Ryu, Cloud, Corrin, Bayonetta, Inkling, and Ridley,
Not too bad, though it lacks some major characters. I'd be happy with this honestly,

 

Just went and googled, the Demo Roster consisted of
Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Ness, Bowser, Ice Climbers, Shiek, Marth, Zelda, Ganondorf, Mewtwo, Pit, Snake, Ike, Pokemon Trainer, Sonic, Villager, Little Mac, Mega Man, Pac Man, Ryu, Cloud, Corrin, Bayonetta, Inkling, and Ridley,
Not too bad, though it lacks some major characters. I'd be happy with this honestly,

This is the minimum roster more or less

 

Just went and googled, the Demo Roster consisted of
Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Ness, Bowser, Ice Climbers, Shiek, Marth, Zelda, Ganondorf, Mewtwo, Pit, Snake, Ike, Pokemon Trainer, Sonic, Villager, Little Mac, Mega Man, Pac Man, Ryu, Cloud, Corrin, Bayonetta, Inkling, and Ridley,
Not too bad, though it lacks some major characters. I'd be happy with this honestly,

If anyone else wants to look it up, the way I figure out whether it's real or not is by the Mario picture. For some reason it looks terrible but that's the real e3 roster.

 

If anyone else wants to look it up, the way I figure out whether it's real or not is by the Mario picture. For some reason it looks terrible but that's the real e3 roster.

Mario and Villager for some reason used Models instead of artworks. Makes no sense as to why.

 

Yeah, a Subspace with Jigglypuff in it.

They already have Pikachu which is a Pokemon and Kirby which is a pink ball that can fly. There is no need for Jigglypuff. The Subspace 2 should probably focus on R.O.B. and his origins since the first did a poor job at that and did not even reference Professor Hector.

 

They already have Pikachu which is a Pokemon and Kirby which is a pink ball that can fly. There is no need for Jigglypuff. The Subspace 2 should probably focus on R.O.B. and his origins since the first did a poor job at that and did not even reference Professor Hector.

Not my point. The Subspace on the Wii left out Puff, Wolf, and Toon Link, and you couldn't use Sonic until the final battle with Tabuu. I am saying it should include all fighters.

 

I agree with this guy, argument over
that actually still boots a couple of marths....

That’s fine, i don’t think Lucina should’ve been added since she is literally the exact same character as Marth. Roy is fine i guess, but we don’t need Roy and chrom even though i do like them both, it’s one or the other.

 

That’s fine, i don’t think Lucina should’ve been added since she is literally the exact same character as Marth. Roy is fine i guess, but we don’t need Roy and chrom even though i do like them both, it’s one or the other.

Agreed.

 

Just went and googled, the Demo Roster consisted of
Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Ness, Bowser, Ice Climbers, Shiek, Marth, Zelda, Ganondorf, Mewtwo, Pit, Snake, Ike, Pokemon Trainer, Sonic, Villager, Little Mac, Mega Man, Pac Man, Ryu, Cloud, Corrin, Bayonetta, Inkling, and Ridley,
Not too bad, though it lacks some major characters. I'd be happy with this honestly,

Outside if the lack of Mario characters (), and other original 12 fighters (), this would be a decent reboot roster since it does already have most of the major picks along with fun 3rd parties.

 

Not my point. The Subspace on the Wii left out Puff, Wolf, and Toon Link, and you couldn't use Sonic until the final battle with Tabuu. I am saying it should include all fighters.

The SSE already had Pikachu, which is a Pokemon, and Kirby, which is a pink puffball that can fly. So there was no need need for Jigglypuff. The SSE mostly needed to focus on R.O.B. and his origins since Gyromite and Stack-Up did a poor job at that and barely referenced Professor Vector.

 

The SSE already had Pikachu, which is a Pokemon, and Kirby, which is a pink puffball that can fly. So there was no need need for Jigglypuff. The SSE mostly needed to focus on R.O.B. and his origins since Gyromite and Stack-Up did a poor job at that and barely referenced Professor Vector.

That's like saying "We already have a human, let's not include any others"

 

That's like saying "We already have a human, let's not include any others"

Except I used criteria that are relevant thus making a good argument. Though I admit that it would be cool to have the obligatory FE representative of pass 2 be nonhuman. I guess it could be something like Marth's horse.