Super Smash Sis. (N64)
This was the easiest. For one, it has very few characters, and with how long they've been in the series it's easy to find comparisons. Also, this is pretty early on in gaming history, female characters, especially as protagonists, weren't widespread as they are now, and with third-parties being off-limits, the pool was pretty reduced.
I tried to keep the series selection as similar as I could, including the amount of characters per series. Peach being the Mario of this Smash makes all the sense, and Daisy being her Luigi is pretty fitting. Pikachu and Jigglypuff get to stay, as does Samus, obviously. We get Zelda instead of Link, Dixie Kong instead of Donkey Kong, and that's already half the roster. Now the fun part begins.
Yoshi as a series has to be completely cut from Smash, as it has no feasible candidates. In its place is another platforming spin-off of Mario: Wario Land, with Captain Syrup.
Kirby will get Adeleine down the line, but Kirby 64 isn't out yet, so we need a replacement. And what better replacement than another series that Sakurai would get his hands on down the line? Palutena takes the place of the pink puffball.
Mach Rider is the Captain Falcon, as the super rad futuristic biker person, and Ayumi Tachibana takes Ness' place as the rep for an obscure trilogy (I guess in this universe Famicom Detective becomes recognized as a masterpiece and people in 2020 are still calling for a re-release of the Satellaview game).
1080° for Star Fox might seem like a weird match, but they're both series with linear gameplay (an on-rails shooter and a racing game), an emphasis placed on 3D graphics, and a more Western focus. Plus it also requires a moveset to be made up completely. Maybe 1080° works better as the F-Zero analogue and Mach Rider as the Star Fox analogue, but whatever.
Super Smash Sis. Melee
I had a problem with Melee. Since Melee came out so soon after 64, I ran out of characters that had actually debuted before Melee. Pretty much every potential candidate for 64 got in, plus the new characters created in the 2 years between the two, and still I was short of Melee's newcomer count (and it's the one with the least newcomers!). I had to choose between breaking the no-third parties rule and to pick from Nintendo characters with games in development (inspired by the Villager trophy in Melee, before Animal Crossing's Western release, and also Roy). It was one character, but I really didn't know who to choose, as the third party characters we know we're considered for Melee were Sonic and Snake (which both got into Brawl), Banjo-Kazooie (who got into Ultimate) and James Bond (obviously a no-go), so in the end I went with a first party.
While Mario got 3 newcomers in Melee, only one of its characters gets in here, Wendy Koopa (its fighter count gets compensated in Brawl). I figure her moveset would probably be based more on her boss fights in SMB3 and SMW, with the abilities of the other Koopalings being used to round out the moveset, but I guess the Clown Car isn't that out of the question as Bowser's did exist at the time.
Zelda got 4 newcomers in Melee, but only 2 in this Melee. Sheik joins the fray as Zelda's transformation, and Tetra gets in to promote the upcoming Wind Waker. As the game isn't out, they don't spoil that she's Zelda yet.
Medusa gets in because I needed someone to get in, but she fits well with Melee's focus on semiclones to fill gaps in the roster. Star Fox and Kirby get their first (and only) characters with Krystal and Adeleine. Krystal is there to promote Star Fox Adventures, and also as a sort of farewell to Rare, I guess.
Pokémon gets three newcomers, one from Gen 1 and two from the current Gen. Pichu still gets in, along with Eevee and Gardevoir. I wanted to keep Gardevoir for Brawl, but again, I needed newcomers.
Fire Emblem still gets in Melee, but this time it's Lyn instead of Roy who's promoting a future game. Interest in Lyn sparks demand for her game to be localized, it does, and history is preserved. As Lyn's moveset never gets cloned and her hair is green, Smash fans never hate Fire Emblem. The galaxy is at peace.
Bubbles and Lip fill the Ice Climbers and Mr. Game & Watch's roles of retro-ish characters. Honestly, you could swap these two for the Ness and Falcon stand-ins and it'd fit as well. Bubbles I chose because she's also from the NES and would have slippery movement like the Icies, plus she was in consideration for that spot in real life. In all honesty, Lip might fit better as the Ness and Ayumi as the G&W, given how Lip is SNES like Ness and how Ayumi was actually considered for Melee. That one could go either way.
Villager and Alexandra round out the roster as representatives of the Gamecube's future and its variety in tone and gameplay. Yeah, this is a fancy way to say that they're there because I needed characters. In this alternate universe Nintendo re-released Eternal Darkness on the Wii and it got a sequel that flopped, Sin & Punishment style.
Instead of Star Fox, Smash fans accuse Pokemon of favoritism.
Super Smash Sis. Brawl
Brawl is kind of a divergence in time, you can see that a lot of characters that got into 4 get into Brawl this time around, plus another bunch of characters that are still demanded and speculated about to this day. While nobody gets in that couldn't have, getting so many characters the first time around will have the effect of me running out of first party characters come Ultimate.
I said that Mario's roster would get compensated. While it didn't get newcomers and in fact lost a fighter in real Brawl, this Brawl sees Toadette and Rosalina get in. Rosalina plays pretty much the same, and Toadette is the spin-off rep, using stuff from the Kart and Party games. Much like Rosalina, Wii Fit Trainer also gets in a game early. Think of her as the ROB stand-in.
Zelda gets the one-two punch of Toon Zelda and Midna. Since Phantom Hourglass is already out, Toon Zelda plays like an expanded version of our Zelda's down B, and isn't a transformation for Tetra.
Pokémon Trainer still gets in, it's just Leaf, maybe with alts of other female trainers like Dawn, and don't ask me what Pokemon she uses because I don't know.
WarioWare gets its first reps in this game as well, but it gets two: Mona and Ashley. I originally put Ashley as debuting in Smash 4 when she was at the top of her game, but Brawl had a lot of newcomers and I had to use everything I had.
Zero Suit Samus is the same, nothing to comment there.
Third parties make their debut! I wanted to keep the same two franchises, as their getting into Brawl was very much because of special circumstances (Sakurai and Kojima's friendship and Sonic being, well, Sonic). When it came to a Sonic character it was super easy to pick Amy, but as you can see there's no Metal Gear character. I considered the likes of The Boss and EVA, but since you never play as them they felt like suboptimal representatives of the series. As I wanted to keep the "character with guns" motif, I went with Resident Evil and Jill Valentine. With all that happens with Konami afterwards and without Snake's demand to get them a foot in the door for Ultimate, Konami never gets a playable character in Smash.
The biggest difference is that Mii Fighters get into Brawl. I know, that technically makes Brawl have two more newcomers and Smash 4 have two less than in real life. I got nothing to say in my defense, I needed Brawl characters and the Miis were just too good.
Starly, Barbara, Ashley Robbins and Jill round out the roster and are consistent with Brawl's additions of new franchises. The Ashleys and the Jills ensure that there's never a fanrule that characters can't share a name. Sami was added after the entire roster was complete when I realized I was still missing a Brawl character, so I moved her from 4. In this alternate universe Advance Wars is also a cash cow for Intelligent Systems because it's my timeline and I can do what I want with it.
Instead of Kirby, Smash fans accuse WarioWare of favoritism.
Super Smash Sis. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U
This was super easy, mostly because I had more or less the amount of first party characters I needed. The timeline's kind of wonky with this one, though, so some characters for base roster are now promotional picks for future games.
Isabelle gets in a game early, and so does Inkling. Inkling was originally being saved for Ultimate, but when I moved Sami to Brawl I needed someone to move here, and Inkling was the obvious choice. Brittany gets in as the first Pikmin character, Viridi joins Kid Icarus' roster (this making it two uniques and one clone, just like the actual one), Fiora gets in instead of Shulk (and spoils Xenoblade to everyone).
The Fire Emblem additions are the same, but they're much better received, as Lucina isn't a clone of anyone, she's the first regular swordfighter and the first blue-haired Lord, and Chrom being skipped is perfectly understandable with the focus of this game. Corrin doesn't get in as I could never make a roster with Corrin on it; in her place, the DLC promotional first party character is Elma.
Fatal Frame, Fossil Fighters and Style Savvy get characters. Fossil Fighter isn't a Pokemon Trainer thing with multiple characters but rather a Joker-like thing. Nikki also gets in, as does Qucy as a kind of early bird rep for BoxBoy (I really thought she should go, but my need for a last first party character and my love for the series won out in the end). This keeps the real Smash 4's focus on current series and modern characters.
The third parties are kept intact. In lieu of Mega Man and Pac-Man, Roll and Ms. Pac-Man get in the base roster. It was hard to pick between Roll and Tron Bonne, but I figured Roll would make a better first choice being from the vanilla series. I wanted to include Tron later, but she was out-prioritized (Capcom as a whole got the shaft, despite having one more unique character, as you will see Monster Hunter and Amaterasu didn't get in either - me overcompensating for my Capcom bias, perhaps). Likewise, the DLC sees Ryu swapped for Chun-Li, Cloud for Terra, and Bayo stays.
Instead of Fire Emblem, Smash fans are pissed off at Xenoblade. This marks the true point of divergence between timelines, clearly.
Super Smash Sis. Ultimate
With Ultimate I went all out with third parties. Even if all of Fighter Pass 2 is third party save for ARMS, there'd still be a couple more third parties in this roster. Like I said, it was either that, having Twintelle and Dr. Coyle, or characters like Aisya from ASH and Freya from Zangeki no Reginleiv. I added enough of my obscure first party picks in the previous games, so for balance's sake I went with third parties, and even then I had to forego some characters I really wanted like Ivy Valentine and Chell. Characters this time around don't really fill in that directly for others, but rather different characters fit their roles.
Inkling got into Smash 4, so her role as the Splatoon newcomer is filled by Octoling, who also fills Ken's role as the Echo in name only. Her appearance is based on the Octo Expansion Octoling, but I was too lazy to make a new icon for the roster maker.
Shantae fills Ridley's role as the popular character with a mostly Western appeal. It fits pretty well, given both characters appear in Metroidvanias and are associated with the color purple.
Castlevania's place as the series introduced with two characters is filled by ARMS, which gets in the base roster this time around.
Chrom and Dark Samus being Eastern and Western picks is kinda what I was going for with Arle and Lara, but YMMV on if I succeeded. Their roles as Echoes, along with Richter as the first third party Echo, are covered by Jeanne.
Tethi and Musashi are sort of stand-ins for Isabelle and Incineroar, being reps for very recent games. Kasumi is there because... Well, I don't know. Dead or Alive was originally the Castlevania replacement before I decided ARMS fit it better, and she just stayed there.
Kissy might seem like a really random choice, and I think many might not even know who she is. She's the first female protagonist in a videogame! Tell me she doesn't belong in this roster.
DLC is more structured about what characters replace which.
Carmen is Piranha Plant, as the character few had considered and yet people agree is famous enough to make sense.
Instead of Joker, we get a character from a different old school Sega series, Blaze from Streets of Rage. Instead of DQ, we get another Square Enix traditional RPG franchise, Bravely Default, with Agnes as the rep.
Rare's character was hard to choose, as Gruntilda was the obvious choice for a female Banjo-Kazooie rep, but it makes sense that in a universe where Smash is for female characters only, Perfect Dark would build massive support instead of B-K. I really wanted to include Joanna or Grunty in Smash 64, but the decades of wishing for a Rare character are such a big part of the Smash mythos that I thought I should try to keep that.
Instead of SNK, the Japanese series with very local appeal and yet widespread influence, that people decry for being obscure and unknown, is Touhou. And rounding out Pass 1 is Byleth, much like in real life.
To start the second Pass, instead of ARMS, the modern first party that not many expected is Astral Chain. After that, I just included the characters I felt were the best fit in order of "hype" they'd create. Marina was a last minute addition, and I thought about replacing her with someone else, but in the end she was the perfect combination of Nintendo presence and being the kind of weird and potentially disappointing choice that characterizes the last character in a given Smash game.
I considered having Aloy or Ellie for a Sony rep, but at this point that's still wishful thinking so I went back on it.
So that's it! Took a long time to type and even longer to make, but it sure as hell was entertaining. If you read all the way here, damn, I must have done something right. Thanks a bunch.
Now I wonder what Lesley would think of this roster...
Heracross is deconfirmed! My favourite fighting type!
