Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[DarthEnderX]

So I'm the only one who liked Pokémon Trainer, huh?

No. That's why the opinion is unpopular.

 

[IAmGiles]

Counterpoint, Sakurai has done a pretty good job listening requests from pretty much everyone especially in Ultimate with giving the 3 most popular characters in the western fandom.

Agreed, Ultimate is the Ultimate fan service game. It's incredible!

Those people would just pick 5 more picks to whine about.

Agreed, but the key is they wouldn't be the SAME five characters the original poster was complaining about. The semantics were key to my smarmy response lol

 

[KatKit]

Agitha from Twilight Princess.

She has the bugs...

If we never get a TP sequel, I think they should make Agitha a recurring character like Beetle. Finding the Golden Bugs was a fun little sidequest.

Everybody loves Midna and Agitha, but I think the breakout star of that whole game was the descendant of the legendary fisherman from Ocarina of Time: Hena. She had some of the funniest one-liners and visual gags in the series, she made fishing less boring, and Rollgoal felt like its own game; for a Zelda minigame, it was overly fleshed out. I was a little disappointed she didn't make it in Hyrule Warriors lol. Her older siblings were cool, too.

 

[lady_sky skipper]

Now that I think about it, Lloyd may not really have the best chance after all, unless Sakurai's view on characters have changed which they usually do.
https://sourcegaming.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/800/
Interviewer: "Between Bandai and Namco, were there any other strong candidates for inclusion as a fighter?"
Sakurai: "There were none. We basically thought of all the characters at the start of development. We decided on characters we knew we could make. However, there were a few in consideration, such as Heihachi from “Tekken.” "

That's weird, even back in the 80s Namco had memorable characters such as Wonder Momo, Bravoman, Taizo Hori from Dig Dug, and Albatross from Rolling Thunder. Heck, even a Time Crisis character such as Richard or Keith would have been a cool inclusion in Smash. (Hopefully, Sakurai will change his mind and put in a 2nd Bandai Namco rep. )

 

[Ace C.R.O.S.S.]

That's weird, even back in the 80s Namco had memorable characters such as Wonder Momo, Bravoman, Taizo Hori from Dig Dug, and Albatross from Rolling Thunder. Heck, even a Time Crisis character such as Richard or Keith would have been a cool inclusion in Smash. (Hopefully, Sakurai will change his mind and put in a 2nd Bandai Namco rep. )

In that case, i'd like to request Taira Kagekiyo, from Genpei Toumaden

 

[Sysreq]

Unpopular opinion from me: I really dislike the trifecta of Doomguy, Dark Souls, and Dovahkiin. I just have a hard time imagining them in Smash Bros.

Other opinion (though it's more an observation): people will go to extreme lengths to try and convince themselves that their character of choice has a shot at making it in. Browsing character threads is sometimes sad

 

[KatKit]

In that case, i'd like to request Taira Kagekiyo, from Genpei Toumaden

See that? Now this is a WTF character.

I hope I'm not the only person he who had to Google that, haha. Thanks for teaching me something though.

 

[DrifloonEmpire]

Unpopular opinion from me: I really dislike the trifecta of Doomguy, Dark Souls, and Dovahkiin. I just have a hard time imagining them in Smash Bros.

Other opinion (though it's more an observation): people will go to extreme lengths to try and convince themselves that their character of choice has a shot at making it in. Browsing character threads is sometimes sad

*Nordic Chanting Stops* O_u

 

[lady_sky skipper]

In that case, i'd like to request Taira Kagekiyo, from Genpei Toumaden

Gotta admit he'd be pretty cool in Smash. I also think Dr. Yuichiro Tomari from Ordyne would be an interesting choice for a Namco rep as well.

 

[DevaAshera]

Unpopular Opinions of my own.
- Zelda is well enough represented, Mario too.
- Waluigi, as a side character, isn't that needed.
- Fire Emblem doesn't have 'too many' characters.
- We don't have too many Anime Swordsmen.
- I hate, hate, hate the idea of Minecraft Steve in Smash Bros.
- Not Smash, but Female Byleth's design is not only good but its better than Male Byleth's design..and he constantly looks angry..

Unpopular opinions:
the Smash fanbase will justify any of Sakurai's decisions, no matter how dumb or how they might have felt before they knew about it

If Sakurai wanted to make the ultimate gaming crossover he's doing a terrible job at it

Ultimate relies too much on past content for it to have its own identity beyond character reveals and WoL

Probably popular opinion: as far as I've seen everyone's been very civil about this very inflammatory topic and I'd like to par everyone on the back for that.

1) Yeah.
2) I disagree..more companies and series have crossed over in this title than any other game in history.
3) True, but that's essentially every entry in the Super Smash Bros. series..

Unpopular opinion from me: I really dislike the trifecta of Doomguy, Dark Souls, and Dovahkiin. I just have a hard time imagining them in Smash Bros.

Other opinion (though it's more an observation): people will go to extreme lengths to try and convince themselves that their character of choice has a shot at making it in. Browsing character threads is sometimes sad

Yeah, I agree on both of these things..also, I feel like our avatars should be staring at each other lol

 

[Sour Supreme]

Wish there was an argument to be made for Joanna Dark.

There really isn't an argument. I'll take the Perfect Dark bomb sneaking into Melee for the rest of eternity.

 

[Nquoid]

Unpopular opinion:

- The way we talk about indie characters here makes me think that a lot of people here don't actually play a lot of indie games, especially if we continually gravitate towards Reimu and Shantae as the "obvious" picks

- Focusing on genre representation rather than franchise impact is definitely not a good way to pick characters to speculate on.

- Smash needs more Western characters

- Smash needs to ignore the vast majority of Western characters because Western game development prioritises generic customisation over interesting characters.

- World of Light was great and if it had an actual plot like Subspace would have been the perfect Smash single player mode.

 

[DarthEnderX]

- World of Light was great and if it had an actual plot like Subspace would have been the perfect Smash single player mode.

...I agree.

 

[SirCamp]

Unpopular opinion:

- The way we talk about indie characters here makes me think that a lot of people here don't actually play a lot of indie games, especially if we continually gravitate towards Reimu and Shantae as the "obvious" picks

- Focusing on genre representation rather than franchise impact is definitely not a good way to pick characters to speculate on.

- Smash needs more Western characters

- Smash needs to ignore the vast majority of Western characters because Western game development prioritises generic customisation over interesting characters.

- World of Light was great and if it had an actual plot like Subspace would have been the perfect Smash single player mode.

Your second to last point perfectly encapsulates why a lot of Western picks don't really speak to me, even when I like the games. I love Skyrim for example but Dovahkiin is just not it for smash imo. Not for me anyway. Though conversely, this is the same reason a Monster Hunter character doesn't really sound that interesting to me. So it can go both ways.


On an unrelated note, if we were to get another Sega rep, has anyone talked about or considered Phantasy Star Online as a possibility? Does that game even have characters that would work or make sense? I actually don't know much about it lol. But it's super big in Japan right? And I know PSO 2 got released on Switch last year as well right? For that matter did that end up getting a Western release?

Randomly thought about it because I remember a couple of my friends were obsessed with the first PSO game at one point when it was on the Gamecube.

 

[Godzillathewonderdog]

You know, I think Kirby representation isn’t as bad as some people say it is. It at least is not as bad as Donkey Kong Country where every stage is a stinkin jungle (two of which weren’t even brought back for Ultimate), and with like half of the songs just being different variations of the main theme. And Kirby at least has a boss and several assist trophies; it also has more music and stages in Ultimate despite DK being the bigger franchise.

Sure, Bandana Dee isn’t playable yet, but that is a bit more understating, because he didn’t really cement himself as a Kirby mainstay until somewhat more recently plus he’s just a generic enemy with a bandana anyway . Dixie Kong has been a major character since the SNES days (even getting her own hit game that sold millions) and still has yet to make her playable debut in Smash. Even though she was originally going to be a tag team with Diddy, Sakurai seemingly never felt inclined to include her as her own character. It also didn’t take 5 games for Kirby to get its main antagonist.

People also say Sakurai doesn’t care about representing Kirby games he didn’t make, but he at least adds a lot of the music from various Kirby games he didn’t work on, including some awesome remixes like this one.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Unpopular opinions eh?
People who scream that the DK crew having realistic animal sounds is bad obviously never played the SNES DKC trilogy and people who whine about anime swordsmen are suspiciously silent when the 15848058th cartoony punchy dude from a platformer gets in

 

[osby]

Unpopular opinion? If we're going to get a JRPG character from now on, it should be from Yakuza.


...I'll see myself out.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Unpopular opinion? If we're going to get a JRPG character from now on, it should be from Yakuza.


...I'll see myself out.

Wouldn't that mean no Kiryu? I don't know how ok I'd be without that

 

[osby]

Wouldn't that mean no Kiryu? I don't know how ok I'd be without that

It's mostly a joke.

I just really liked what we've seen of Ichiban, but agreed that Kiryu should come first.

 

[Nquoid]

Unpopular opinions eh?
People who scream that the DK crew having realistic animal sounds is bad obviously never played the SNES DKC trilogy and people who whine about anime swordsmen are suspiciously silent when the 15848058th cartoony punchy dude from a platformer gets in

I mean it'd nice if most anime aesthetic characters in the game didn't just use swords.

 

[Ramen Tengoku]

Unpopular opinion?

I wouldn't mind a Fortnite character

You could do a whole lotta stuff with building (assuming you can somehow make that viable, of course) and the multitude of weapons. Seens like prime Smash material to me

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I mean it'd nice if most anime aesthetic characters in the game didn't just use swords.

The issue isn't swords at all, if there's an issue it's the lack of variety between them as most sword users in Smash are either Link or Marth, no flashy sword swings, wild styles, iaijutsu, etc. Besides, Terry is the newest anime style character yet people just complained he was too similar to a non-cartoony punchy dude

 

[ErenJager]

Unpopular Opinions:
1) Assist Trophies, Mii Costumes, Spirits, etc. won't be "promoted" to playable through DLC. How they are currently represented is adequate enough.
2) Geno, Lloyd, and Heihachi will more then likely return as Mii Costumes just as all the other missing Mii's have slowly returned through DLC. Allowing for a steady stream of revenue for involved companies.
3) Koei Tecmo will more then likely get a playable character.
4) The highly requested characters on this forum are often obscure, niche, or impractical and video game juggernauts get very little attention by comparison.
5) Crash, Doom, and Mortal Kombat are the only respectable Western character requests. Everything else is pipe dreams, personal desire, wishful thinking, or just simple cringe posting... shout out to EWJ & Conker (My pipe dreams).
6) A playable Sony character would be the pinnacle of hype.
7) Mobile, PC, Gatcha, anime, and loli character requests are cringey cancer posts.

 

[Nquoid]

most sword users in Smash are either Link or Marth

I mean this is my issue as well, so we agree. (even if I think the aesthetic differences between the platformer punch-y people is a lot more palatable than 7 characters based on 2 movesets)

 

[Evil Trapezium]

Alright, generic question time: who would you love to see as a WTF fighter, and not as a joke. Like one you want to see and would make no sense at all. Mine would be Cooking Mama. That would give us a Taito rep, and Taito is another classic game company who deserves to be in Smash.

Sgt. Cortez from the TimeSplitters series. Nintendo has no reason to ask for this character considering that he's from a pretty obscure franchise that has a cult following. I'd be so happy to see Sgt. Cortez' entrance be to come out from a time portal and have Ice Station play in the background of the Space Station over looking the time portal.

What better way to get THQ Nordic into the spot light by giving them a character in Smash Bros? I think they're on their way to deserving their time after doing their best to revive dead franchises like Destroy all Humans.

It's time to split!

Different question: what is the most unpopular opinion you have about characters (who should be added, who should be cut, who is b******t, etc.)?

I think that we shouldn't get any more fighting game characters. And, any character we get should have their classic/most used design (like if Raiden from MGS was in, have him be a Snake echo so he can keep the classic look.).

Oh unpopular opinions about character speculation? Am I too late? Yes? But can I still try though? No? Well too bad, here I go!

Unpopular opinion:
1. Reimu should not be a fighter in Smash Ultimate
2. All Indie characters should only be represented with a Mii costume. Playable characters should be saved for big name companies like Sega, Capcom, Namco, SNK, Konami, Square Enix, Microsoft, Bethesda, etc.
3. Terry's inclusion was more hype for me than the Sans Mii costume and I think Terry is a completely different character to Ken.
4. Steve would not make a great fighter for Smash Ultimate and I don't think he'll make it for DLC. I could make a list of things why I don't think Steve is possible in Smash Bros but that's for another time.
5. I think having Echo fighters in DLC would be a bad idea and for the record, I dislike echo fighters greatly (Except Ken) and think the amount of time spent on all of them together could have made one whole character.
6. DLC should only include third party characters while first party characters should be saved for the next game.
7. Ninten does not need to be a character. He is Ness with his baseball cap turned the other way.

 

[osby]

I dislike echo fighters greatly (Except Ken) and think the amount of time spent on all of them together could have made one whole character.

What you personally think doesn't change how game development works.

Not making a few models won't magically give you time to design and animate a brand new character.

 

[Ninjaed]

Unpopular Opinions:
1) Assist Trophies, Mii Costumes, Spirits, etc. won't be "promoted" to playable through DLC. How they are currently represented is adequate enough.
2) Geno, Lloyd, and Heihachi will more then likely return as Mii Costumes just as all the other missing Mii's have slowly returned through DLC. Allowing for a steady stream of revenue for involved companies.
3) Koei Tecmo will more then likely get a playable character.
4) The highly requested characters on this forum are often obscure, niche, or impractical and video game juggernauts get very little attention by comparison.
5) Crash, Doom, and Mortal Kombat are the only respectable Western character requests. Everything else is pipe dreams, personal desire, wishful thinking, or just simple cringe posting... shout out to EWJ & Conker (My pipe dreams).
6) A playable Sony character would be the pinnacle of hype.
7) Mobile, PC, Gatcha, anime, and loli character requests are cringey cancer posts.

Unpopular though they may be, these opinions are mostly coated in truth. (Makes me sad for Isaac but what we want is a revival of the series anyway so doesn't matter that much.)

I'm just not sure about Doom and Mortal Kombat. A bit too focused on violence and gore without enough goofiness to compensate. The rest I'm pretty much forced to agree.

Alright, generic question time: who would you love to see as a WTF fighter, and not as a joke. Like one you want to see and would make no sense at all.

Riesz, from Trials of Mana (aka Seiken Densetsu 3). Beloved character no one had even thought about despite being stupidly popular even today.

 

[NoOtherPersona]

Unpopular though they may be, these opinions are mostly coated in truth. (Makes me sad for Isaac but what we want is a revival of the series anyway so doesn't matter that much.)

I'm just not sure about Doom and Mortal Kombat. A bit too focused on violence and gore without enough goofiness to compensate. The rest I'm pretty much forced to agree.


Riesz, from Trials of Mana (aka Seiken Densetsu 3). Beloved character no one had even thought about despite being stupidly popular even today.

I mean Square Enix needs to treat there other rpgs that aren't Final and Quest better to be I'm not surprised no one considers a mana character although I bet people would love one but If we get a new Square character Mana has big competitors

 

[Evil Trapezium]

What you personally think doesn't change how game development works.

Not making a few models won't magically give you time to design and animate a brand new character.

Well with the amount of new character models that are made with new animations, voices and artwork, I see no reason to believe why seven echo fighters would be quicker to make than one unique character.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

You know, I think Kirby representation isn’t as bad as some people say it is. It at least is not as bad as Donkey Kong Country where every stage is a stinkin jungle (two of which weren’t even brought back for Ultimate), and with like half of the songs just being different variations of the main theme. And Kirby at least has a boss and several assist trophies; it also has more music and stages in Ultimate despite DK being the bigger franchise.

Sure, Bandana Dee isn’t playable yet, but that is a bit more understating, because he didn’t really cement himself as a Kirby mainstay until somewhat more recently plus he’s just a generic enemy with a bandana anyway . Dixie Kong has been a major character since the SNES days (even getting her own hit game that sold millions) and still has yet to make her playable debut in Smash. Even though she was originally going to be a tag team with Diddy, Sakurai seemingly never felt inclined to include her as her own character. It also didn’t take 5 games for Kirby to get its main antagonist.

People also say Sakurai doesn’t care about representing Kirby games he didn’t make, but he at least adds a lot of the music from various Kirby games he didn’t work on, including some awesome remixes like this one.

I think the issue is more that barely anything Kirby related comes from anything after Kirby Superstar Ultra. It's like if you only added things from the Donkey Kong original trilogy...Which I suppose is kinda what happened though to be fair there was a Donkey Kong Country Returns stage that likely got cut due to technical reasons and there are way more DKCR and DKCTF songs than there are modern Kirby songs (though I do realize that this could be because DKCR & DKCTF reuses a lot of the original trilogy songs).

Also, Donkey Kong as a whole may dwarf Kirby (because it's attached to Mario) but Donkey Kong as a series is absolutely not bigger than the Kirby series.

7. Ninten does not need to be a character. He is Ness with his baseball cap turned the other way.

Ninten would has different abilities and could make for a decent semi-clone same as Lucas, but he's too visually similar to Ness for this to be a thing. And there's also that the series is dead.

I was going too say that I'd love to see the series repainted or remade, but I don't think Earthbound & Mother 3 actually need a visual upgrade.

...If we get a new Square character Mana has big competitors

Chrono Trigger and Tomb Raider just to name a few.

 

[Ramen Tengoku]

Well with the amount of new character models that are made with new animations, voices and artwork, I see no reason to believe why seven echo fighters would be quicker to make than one unique character.

You'd be surprised exactly how much actually goes into developing a fully new character

Iirc, Sakurai has actually said that the development time of the 6 Melee clones would still not have been enough to make another entirely new character

 

[Ninjaed]

I mean Square Enix needs to treat there other rpgs that aren't Final and Quest better to be I'm not surprised no one considers a mana character although I bet people would love one but If we get a new Square character Mana has big competitors

Hence why it'd be WTF
Sakurai seems to like old-school classics though, so that gives her an edge.

Well with the amount of new character models that are made with new animations, voices and artwork, I see no reason to believe why seven echo fighters would be quicker to make than one unique character.

What takes the most time is coming up with the moveset. It needs to fit a plethora of criteria. First and foremost, it needs to be fun. Then it needs to be in line with the character or their game. At the same time, it needs to fit in Smash. It should also be unique, bringing something fresh and new. In addition, characters usually don't just represent themselves and you get references to other stuff - usually, most if not all moves have a history somewhere or easter eggs, like B&K's rapid jab having the same rhythm as their theme. Finally, this needs approval by both Nintendo and the company represented.

All of that then needs to be properly tested and balanced. Some ideas might sound cool but aren't that feasible in reality - see Diddy Kong & Dixie Kong as a duo, an idea that had to be scrapped. But they don't have a lot of time for trial and error. Because of that, most of the work is done before anything is even coded. Everything that comes afterwards has to be somewhat smooth sailing as they can't afford to lose time there. That means thinking ahead to avoid degenerative movesets while still having strong points yet being balanced.

An echo fighter bypasses almost all of that design work. They have enough cash to hire 3D artists, etc. Not much of an issue, that time can be compressed by hiring more people. What they can't compress is the time spent designing the movesets.

 

[NoOtherPersona]

I think the issue is more that barely anything Kirby related comes from anything after Kirby Superstar Ultra. It's like if you only added things from the Donkey Kong original trilogy...Which I suppose is kinda what happened though to be fair there was a Donkey Kong Country Returns stage that likely got cut due to technical reasons and there are way more DKCR and DKCTF songs than there are modern Kirby songs (though I do realize that this could be because DKCR & DKCTF reuses a lot of the original trilogy songs).

Also, Donkey Kong as a whole may dwarf Kirby (because it's attached to Mario) but Donkey Kong as a series is absolutely not bigger than the Kirby series.


Ninten would has different abilities and could make for a decent semi-clone same as Lucas, but he's too visually similar to Ness for this to be a thing. And there's also that the series is dead.

I was going too say that I'd love to see the series repainted or remade, but I don't think Earthbound & Mother 3 actually need a visual upgrade.


Chrono Trigger and Tomb Raider just to name a few.

Chrono is one of the characters where yeah he's another swordsman but he's so cool and his game is so cool who cares while I know nothing about Lara which design would they go with if they picked her I feel the old school look has a lot more personality while the new one gives me Nathan Drake vibes

 

[Heoj]

Reading some of these unpopular opinions has been quite interesting so I guess i might throw in my 2 cents.

-Im fine with the amount of Fire Emblem characters in smash, however I do feel like if they do add in Edelgard or Byleth they need to have a unique moveset, like give Edelgard an axe or Byleth the chain/whip word thing (and hopefully something else than a down b counter).
-I like playing as Corrin, I think shes a fun character to play as.
-I don't want Toad to get in as a playable character, however I obviously wouldn't be upset, just if I had to choose I wouldn't add him.
-I don't hate Cloud, but I'm definitely not a fan.
-Thats kind of all I can think of really.

 

[RoboFist]

Unpopular Opinion: Ever since I've started actively participating with this site, I've started hating the Smash Bros. fandom more and more. I think we all complain and speculate in a very small bubble of misplaced superiority, and the amount of selfishness I've seen on here lately has been downright depressing. Call me naive, but another unpopular opinion I have is that I think the roster is kind of spectacularly unprecedented, even before the "more DLC after the Fighters Pass" announcement.

I can't tell when you people are complaining as a joke or when it's sincere, but man the overall negative vibes on this site are sucking the enjoyment I had for this game right out of me. So for what will no doubt be my first popular opinion, I'll be peacing out until the next character is revealed. Y'all can be too damn toxic with your crazed demands and goalposts sometimes.

 

[Evil Trapezium]

You'd be surprised exactly how much actually goes into developing a fully new character

Iirc, Sakurai has actually said that the development time of the 6 Melee clones would still not have been enough to make another entirely new character

I heard the complete opposite. There was an old Geocities post that explained how clone characters came to be. I can't find it at the moment but It said that all the time took to make those 6 clones could have added up to make King Dedede for Melee but decided to prioritise roster size which seemed like a Sakurai thing to do. It might have just been a false rumour though.

I'll get back to Ninjaed 's post in a minute. I gotta head out for a bit.

 

[Ramen Tengoku]

I heard the complete opposite. There was an old Geocities post that explained how clone characters came to be. I can't find it at the moment but It said that all the time took to make those 6 clones could have added up to make King Dedede for Melee but decided to prioritise roster size which seemed like a Sakurai thing to do. It might have just been a false rumour though.

I'll get back to Ninjaed 's post in a minute. I gotta head out for a bit.

Pretty sure that was false...

Actually, I don't believe Dedede was even planned.

Iirc, Sakurai has said that if were to add one more fully unique character to Melee, it would've be been Wario

The reason he wasn't added? Limited time and resources.

 

[Curious Villager]

I don't know if I really have any unpopular opinions myself. I just want Layton and Phoenix to at least finally get acknowledged in some way so I can finally close my book as well as Sakurai continues to do his stuff I guess....

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Unpopular opinion from me: I really dislike the trifecta of Doomguy, Dark Souls, and Dovahkiin. I just have a hard time imagining them in Smash Bros.

Other opinion (though it's more an observation): people will go to extreme lengths to try and convince themselves that their character of choice has a shot at making it in. Browsing character threads is sometimes sad

Replace Dark Souls and Dovahkiin with Ryu Hayabusa and to a lesser extent Nightmare and that’s basically how I feel

I guess I’m tired of the “edgy” aesthetic in general

Another unpopular opinion: I quite enjoyed WoL. That relied more on imagination and your own interpretation than what is explicitly shown and you know what? I like that

 

[SKX31]

There were a decent number of threads that popped up fairly soon after Everyone is Here! was announced in the general forums. I just think cut talk doesn't work super well because it's even harder to figure out how Sakurai would prioritize actually cutting a significant part of the roster as opposed to the more situational stuff that has led to previous cuts. We only have two games to pull from, and Brawl was largely intended to retain Melee's roster sans Pichu, and Smash 4 had technical issues, rights issues (presumably that was the issue with Snake), and dropped the low priority semi-clones (and immediately returned part of them via DLC).

Also, you mentioning Dr. Mario for some reason reminds me how damn much I want a cool Dr. Mario stage in Smash. ROB always gets highlighted as the one without a stage, but Dr. Mario needs his too!

That ties into my unpopular opinion actually: that Smash 6 will be a more important, maybe even more hype game than most here think. Despite - or even crazily enough because of the cuts.

Okay, that's truly speculative and far off into the future as of now, but how Sakurai (or the next director) cuts a significant chunk of the roster will have major repercussions on Smash's future. Not just as a source of controversy, but also which characters benefit from the mass cuts.

And to revisit this:

But then again, if Furukawa saw value in appealing to the LatAm crowd, you'd think, given he's the president, that would actually extend into Nintendo's overall practices, and not just one instance of DLC in one game with a character that conveniently also has appeal elsewhere. When I say that Nintendo doesn't prioritize LatAm, I do mean Nintendo, not Sakurai. I mean, I don't think Sakurai does either, but Furukawa's reach is much greater than his.

If Furukawa took over and you saw a boom in trying to court that market, I'd be putting two and two together, but clearly that's never been a region of the utmost importance to them. Like I said, if they're going for any atypical market with Terry (and I'm not convinced they are), it'd be China - because you can actively witness them gearing up to go after that region, like you mentioned.

I think Terry appealing to the Latin American crowd is undeniable, but ultimately incidental. As I said, even if he wasn't endeared among that demographic, I still think he'd be in the game. At the end of the day he's not devoid of Japanese popularity. Were he, I'd be putting him in a different category, but I still think, of all the regions, Japan was as big a factor as any in his inclusion.

I should admit myself that I dove into this without researching Nintendo's efforts in LatAM first. Crud, that's on me. And I do agree on your points. Still:

While there's not a lot of direct evidence, the strongest piece is Nintendo recently having created a LatAm operation. It apparently didn't have it as recently as 2014 - despite them doing quite a lot with Pokemon and other franchises there. It's difficult to tell either way because Nintendo counts the Americas as one in its data and statements.

One of Furukawa's points is important. He did say in that Q&A last year - to paraphrase: "Yes, we know that building a fanbase takes time: the fanbases in Japan, the Americas and EU were built over 30 years. A fanbase in China etc. is not gonna plop up all of a sudden and automatically stay with us. That's why we want to have a consistent presence with our hardware (consoles) and software (games, both console and mobile)".

For what it's worth, Nintendo counts LatAm with NA as a unified region. Yes, Terry would still be in the game without the LatAm fanbase; but it's a very positive incidental factor for him that he's a major character in two big regions (Japan, the Americas) and in an emerging region (China).