Isn't he essentially
with
's ladder combos and Witch Time,
's pressure game and waveshine,
's stupidly good invincible up B and ability to set up a jab grab
(yes) as well as Joker's Up Air loops and Arsene?
(Oh god, Arsene-empowered Witch Time and Shine...)
This answer's going to be detailed and hardcore focused for the smaller regions:
LoL would also be incredibly hype for
South Korea generally - South Korea also has significant Tekken, StarCraft and Overwatch fanbases. Nintendo's been regaining their foothold there with the Switch - New Horizons did surprisingly well there. Internet cafés (PC Bangs) are still very much a thing in South Korea, and many of the most popular games have had surprising staying power in the cafés. Korea's Smash scene is rather small - but
Uprising 2019 in Seoul attracted quite a lot of Asia's best (incl. a lot of Japan's) to Korea... and MKLeo, who of course won it all.
China's other big fan favorite would be Steve, although there's a surprisingly long list due to how the Chinese hardcore generally prefers importing games. There's a massive casual fanbase that generally follows what's officially released, but Reimu's another fan favorite despite seeing no official release there (China also has an incredibly large anime fanbase) - as well as Dynasty Warriors, which isn't surprising really. The Chinese Switch base is
3 million+ strong and growing, so that might already be a factor. The Smash scene is niché, but has attracted the attention of some large Chinese streaming services who have run Smash tournaments in conjunction with Splatoon 2 and Monster Hunter Iceborne.
SouthEast Asia is heavily computer / mobile. MOBAs and BRs are incredibly popular there, partly due to the presence of internet cafés. However, there is a notable console fanbase there too. There are smaller Smash scenes in the Phillipines and other countries close by, and the Switch performs pretty well in the region (sure, rather low numbers, but still a foothold). SEA is composed of a lot of countries, so certain games might be more popular in certain countries (Vietnam as an example, the PlayStation and LoL's big there). I wrote a bit about the region
here. Madame Lesley is a Phillipine, so she has first-hand knowledge that I admittedly lack.
As for other regions... I'm not really that well-versed with
LatAm / Brazil.
3BitSaurus
is probably more knowledgeable than I on this region since he's Brazillian. Nintendo has - AFAIK - started to focus more on LatAm and Brazil recently, and Mexico in particular is a Smash hotspot. That country's home to a number of top level pros: MKLeo and Maister in particular.
Likewise, I'm not familiar with
Australia and surrounding areas, but I'll leave that up to the Aussies like
PSIGuy.
Russia / CiS is an interesting case - that country / region is generally computer / PlayStation because of sheer versatility (again, one can use PlayStations to watch movies). Mobiles also have a foothold there obviously. CS:GO, Dota 2 and World of Tanks are the kings there, and Valve has a strong foothold as a result. Nintendo doesn't have a strong tradition there at all - the DS and Wii really struggled there. And Nintendo of Russia's
recenty been accused of severe mismanagement - that debacle forced NoR to turn around and try to re-establish itself. That said, according to a
Russian games agency (data from 2018):
Ultimate does have a small presence there, and apparently: Kratos, Steve and Jonesy would also appeal to a large portion of Russians.
AFAIK there's a
small but active Smash scene in the
Middle East already - although the somewhat small console fanbase leans PlayStation, That said, the Saudi PlayStation fanbase vocally complained when Fall Guys was not released there, and ZhugeEx reported about it
here. Like China, the hardcore Middle Eastern console fanbase leans hardcore because the official censorship is seen as too harsh. One particular snapshot from
2018 by Red Bull named Fortnite, FIFA, God of War (PS4), CS:GO and LoL / Dota 2 as the most popular games in the region. So yeah, Kratos would have that region as a bonus. Which might be a surprise to quite a lot of people.
Kotaku's 2018 snapshot on
Iran's small but slowly growing Nintendo fanbase goes into further detail:
Those hampering factors are a consistent theme outside of the major regions really. And in a previous (2017) article
by the same author:
I don't expect
India to become a major factor for Nintendo for a while, but that country is heavily mobile. The mobile stuff has become a political hot topic when the Indian government banned numerous apps with connections to Chinese companies (as retaliation towards the recent border skirmish). PUBG Mobile was one of the casualities - and it was dominant there for a long time. Thing is, India's games industry is not really ready to fill the void, as
I wrote about here. Ubisoft operates two studios in India, developing games like the Prince of Persia remake.
I don't expect
Africa to become a major factor for Nintendo for a while either, but mobile games have gotten a foothold there. As far as console games go, it's very small - but it appears to be that console tournaments have been held in places like Abidjan (Ivory Coast, West Africa) with games like
Street Fighter, Fortnite and Candy Crush featured. South Africa does already have a small console fandom, but I'm not well-versed there either.
This is an incomplete picture, but hope it gave a reasonable picture of the other smaller regions.
I'll refer you to
my Western Europe post. Specifically:
And that's how EA's able to make boatloads of money selling player cards on FIFA Ultimate Team - and in game currency - for
ridicolous prices (as well as Madden Ultimate Team in America). FIFA's hardcore fanbase generally
loathes the practice (I'd imagine Madden's hardcore fanbase loathes it too, especially given how poorly recieved Madden 21 is), but EA's profits keep on rising.
