Wintropy
Peace and love and all that jazzmatazz~! <3
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2014
- Messages
- 10,032
- Location
- Here, there, who knows?
- NNID
- Winterwhite
- 3DS FC
- 1461-6253-6301
Honestly, the way I see it, if you cherrypick characters based on this arbitrary notion of "all-star", you're intentionally narrowing down your potential roster via an incredibly strict set of criteria. Even the theory that Smash is a game for "all-stars" is, in itself, arguably fallacious: truth is that Smash has always had characters that have been chosen just because they happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Can you honestly tell me that, if Smash was a totally new series, characters like Captain Falcon and Ness would be chosen? How about Jigglypuff? Would we see Marth, Roy, Ice Climbers, R.O.B., Game & Watch, Sheik? And what happens when we dry up the well of "all-star" characters? What are we left with when we've used up Mario, Kirby, Ridley and K. Rool? Where would the sense of excitement and diversity be if Smash was to be reduced to a clinical, paint-by-numbers process?
As @
StormC
said, a lot of characters are chosen not because "this character is totally recognisable to the layman", but because "this character can do something interesting". Captain Falcon was selected from the then-popular F-Zero series because Sakurai thought his superhero-esque design would work well with a Sentai-style fighting style, and it happened to work well with the unused Dragon King fighter concept; he chose Jigglypuff because she was popular in the Pokémon anime at the time and because Kirby could be used as a convenient build for her skeleton. If rumour is to be believed, Game & Watch was chosen based on a single fan request that intrigued Sakurai, while Marth brought a more traditional fighting style to the roster that had previously not been seen (it's also interesting to note that Marth was planned to not appear in the Western release of Melee, and the fact that Sakurai was willing to keep them in for overseas fans demonstrates his willingness to take risks for the sake of creative effort).
Don't get me wrong: as far as I'm concerned, there is no good reason for K. Rool to not be present other than a lack of recent appearance and possible apathy from Sakurai. Yet decrying the roster for not being "all-star" enough is not only an utterly narrow-minded opinion, bordering on outright elitist, it's detrimental to the variety and quality of design that is Smash's hallmark. Smash is not defined by how many people can name every character in the roster (something that would be very difficult even as far back as 64 - if you dispute that, you're lying to yourself), it's defined by how fun the experience is.
And honestly? I would gladly take Rosalina, Bowser Jr, Palutena, Robin and every other character in the roster, clones and DLC characters included, rather than Total Shoo-In of the Day #69 and Muhrelevant Aaaall-Staaaar #529. That's what makes Smash so damn fun. There really is something for everyone!
Can you honestly tell me that, if Smash was a totally new series, characters like Captain Falcon and Ness would be chosen? How about Jigglypuff? Would we see Marth, Roy, Ice Climbers, R.O.B., Game & Watch, Sheik? And what happens when we dry up the well of "all-star" characters? What are we left with when we've used up Mario, Kirby, Ridley and K. Rool? Where would the sense of excitement and diversity be if Smash was to be reduced to a clinical, paint-by-numbers process?
As @
StormC
said, a lot of characters are chosen not because "this character is totally recognisable to the layman", but because "this character can do something interesting". Captain Falcon was selected from the then-popular F-Zero series because Sakurai thought his superhero-esque design would work well with a Sentai-style fighting style, and it happened to work well with the unused Dragon King fighter concept; he chose Jigglypuff because she was popular in the Pokémon anime at the time and because Kirby could be used as a convenient build for her skeleton. If rumour is to be believed, Game & Watch was chosen based on a single fan request that intrigued Sakurai, while Marth brought a more traditional fighting style to the roster that had previously not been seen (it's also interesting to note that Marth was planned to not appear in the Western release of Melee, and the fact that Sakurai was willing to keep them in for overseas fans demonstrates his willingness to take risks for the sake of creative effort).Don't get me wrong: as far as I'm concerned, there is no good reason for K. Rool to not be present other than a lack of recent appearance and possible apathy from Sakurai. Yet decrying the roster for not being "all-star" enough is not only an utterly narrow-minded opinion, bordering on outright elitist, it's detrimental to the variety and quality of design that is Smash's hallmark. Smash is not defined by how many people can name every character in the roster (something that would be very difficult even as far back as 64 - if you dispute that, you're lying to yourself), it's defined by how fun the experience is.
And honestly? I would gladly take Rosalina, Bowser Jr, Palutena, Robin and every other character in the roster, clones and DLC characters included, rather than Total Shoo-In of the Day #69 and Muhrelevant Aaaall-Staaaar #529. That's what makes Smash so damn fun. There really is something for everyone!
).
