Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Laniv]

People will ask for fighters to fill some of the most arbitrary quotas and nobody batts an eye.

“We need more villain reps!”
“Where are the retro NES fighters?”
“Smash doesn’t have any FPS reps!”
“When are we getting a survival horror fighter?”
“It can’t be a celebration of games until we get more western characters!”

But as soon as you point out that in a roster of ~90 fighters, there are 0 who are explicitly black, that reason is too shallow or needs to be interrogated.

I don’t want to use some cliche line like “representation matters” but I feel like it’s obvious why some people are going to care about this and they’re absolutely entitled to.

not even calling out anyone here in particular because I see this sentiment a lot. It’s kind of mind boggling.

No but genuinely people will talk all day about how they need more Kirby characters or a grass type Pokemon or whatever, but the minute someone points out that there's no black people in Smash, suddenly there's a bunch of questions. Like you can physically feel the tone change in the room

 

[pitchfulprocessing]

That last part. Remember that about everyone. A huge population of the Western gaming market is black, wether American or European. Africa is also a rising and growing economy and will soon enter into the whole discussion too.

There's no good reason for white and Asian dominant presence. Especially considering that it doesn't represent the overall global population all that well.

It's not as much the problem that "inclusion matters" it's more so the fact that most main characters are white. You might want a Germanic main character, but "black" is as diverse as 54 whole African countries, South American countries, the Carribean, and black Americans/ Europeans.

Please be a little more considerative.

Yeah, this is a reminder that Nintendo barely supports their Brazilian division and, unlike Sony and Microsoft, still does not officially operate in India.

Beyond that everything I want to say has been said by others, having diversity and representation is a good thing lol. Blaming the industry as a whole as an excuse only goes so far.

 

[Schnee117]

Whereas in a crossover game, well...it's a crossover, so the only representation that matters is the one that best represents the series. I can't imagine people being happy if Smash finally gets an MK character, only for it to be Jax because he's black and not Scorpion or Sub-Zero because they're mascots.

It's always telling when you jump to characters no one is actually pulling for instead of acknowledging the characters people are actually talking about. No one is saying "yeah add Jax" they're saying "add Timerra, Urbosa, Octolings, Marina, Sol Badguy, Doc Louis and Barret Wallace" because you can in fact represent a diverse array of people whilst still doing a good enough job of representing a franchise in Smash.

But Jax is a funny example.
In a franchise with Ninjas, cyborg ninjas, dragons, fire elementals, zombies, demons, Mokap, revenants, gods, time constructs, centaurs, minotaurs, lizard people, 4 armed dragon people, 4 armed tiger people and so on, they still saw fit that yeah, they should probably still try and make things diverse and so we have Jax, Jacqui, Cyrax, Sheeva, Geras, Jade and Tanya. And the conceit of the series isn't world warriors or whatever excuse you want to make up for why other franchises are able to feature black people in them but Smash somehow can't.

Smash is 89 characters in, there's no excuse to not be doing better than it is.

 

[fogbadge]

No but genuinely people will talk all day about how they need more Kirby characters or a grass type Pokemon or whatever, but the minute someone points out that there's no black people in Smash, suddenly there's a bunch of questions. Like you can physically feel the tone change in the room

let’s not forget smash fans are all for diversity when it comes to sword alternatives

 

[Louie G.]

It still feels misdirected though, like somebody blaming a fish-focused restaurant for not having pizza because a pizza-focused restaurant is right next to them.

I think you may be interpreting my criticism as a little more hostile toward Nintendo than it actually is. And I fail to see the analogy here but I think it’s a bit inappropriate to compare cultural and racial diversity to a menu at a restaurant. Why is “pizza” black characters? Is it that unfitting for Smash to incorporate diverse characters where it’s equivalent to demanding a burrito at an Italian restaurant? I’ll assume this in good faith and believe I’m just not grasping your point correctly, but surely you can understand why this doesn’t really work. Nintendo HAS notable black characters now, it’s a reasonable thing to acknowledge or request.

Boiled down as simply as possible, this is my point: Smash Bros doesn’t have many black or brown characters. It’s a crossover game mainly consisting of Nintendo characters. Nintendo themselves have lacked prominent black or brown characters up until fairly recently, ergo it’s largely because of Nintendo’s own lack of representation that Smash has not had POC characters. What’s disagreeable about this?

Nintendo has made more of an effort to create POC characters in more prominent positions. The gaming industry has largely been receptive to this cultural shift as well. The more time passes, the more of these characters will present themselves and Smash will eventually have less reason to ignore them. Isn’t that what you said in your last paragraph? I’m very confused what I’m misdirecting here.

And yes, it is a failure of the industry by a large demographic of players, Nintendo included, that it took this long. Smash indirectly reflects this. We didn’t have black Villagers until Ultimate… they are clearly keeping this progress in mind.

 

[Sucumbio]

Black rep in media has always been tough everywhere so I get it but I also think it's correct to expect better especially these days and even despite Japanese history with black (and Chinese actually) representative media. That said I think Nintendo of America specifically will have a problem facing PR issues over "DEI wokeness"... Because even in 2024 as this very thread shows not everyone is able to say "we should have a black character in Smash" without apologizing for feeling that way.

 

[HyperSomari64]

Space Panic (1980) or Jumping Flash?

Update:
If Pac-Man was released B4 Space Panic, and we enter into the "Video Game Mascot" definition, Pac-Man is the first Scrimblo Bimblo (even if it was a maze game and not a platformer)

 

[pitchfulprocessing]

I'm just saying that ****ing Chad Warden was making jokes about Smash not having any black characters back in 2008 lol, it's insane things have only slightly improved since then.

 

[Schnee117]

If Guilty Gear can have Vampire Yasuke and Anime Freddie Mercury fight a robotic bed frame then there's no reason Smash can't have Timerra or Barret Wallace fight Pac-Man or ROB.

 

[ninjahmos]

People will ask for fighters to fill some of the most arbitrary quotas and nobody batts an eye.

“We need more villain reps!”
“Where are the retro NES fighters?”
“Smash doesn’t have any FPS reps!”
“When are we getting a survival horror fighter?”
“It can’t be a celebration of games until we get more western characters!”

But as soon as you point out that in a roster of ~90 fighters, there are 0 who are explicitly black, that reason is too shallow or needs to be interrogated.

I don’t want to use some cliche line like “representation matters” but I feel like it’s obvious why some people are going to care about this and they’re absolutely entitled to.

not even calling out anyone here in particular because I see this sentiment a lot. It’s kind of mind boggling.

You forgot "When are we getting a visual novel character?"

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Every old school Scrimblo is making a comeback except the one who started it all.

MARIO IS DEAD

 

[Schnee117]

**** man, FF7 Rebirth did a ****ing fantastic job with Barret, he should 1000% be in the conversation way more often. The only loss to him being in Smash is that FF chars don't have their dub VAs so we'd lose out on John Eric Bentley's phenomenal performance.

 

[fogbadge]

If Guilty Gear can have Vampire Yasuke and Anime Freddie Mercury fight a robotic bed frame then there's no reason Smash can't have Timerra or Barret Wallace fight Pac-Man or ROB.

right I’m gonna have to google that

 

[Louie G.]

I would choose Barret 100 times over Tifa, personally. I'm not totally pressed for another FF7 character but he would far and away be my pick if I had to add one.

I think he probably just doesn't get as much discussion because everyone else is such a distant fourth in popularity behind Cloud, Sephiroth and the aforementioned Tifa. Which is a shame, because his heavy gunner archetype would be a really welcome inclusion and I can't think of any other characters who play quite like he would. So consider me a supporter, even if it feels like a longshot.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Just out of curiosity I looked at the non-white characters and uh...Yeah I guess it is pretty dire. It's pretty much just Min Min, Ryu, Joker, and Kazuya...I think. I don't really know if Japanese people are considered people of color or not. This number can be expanded by a few more characters as Pokémon Trainer, Villager, and Inkling all have dark-skinned alts, and the Miis can also be whatever race you want but having every dark skinned character be an alt sends a kinda sucky message, unintentional or otherwise.

There's also Ganondorf, but he barely reads as a black person (his skin is grey, that ain't a human) and having the only dark skinned character by default be a villain is also not great.

**** man, FF7 Rebirth did a ****ing fantastic job with Barret, he should 1000% be in the conversation way more often. The only loss to him being in Smash is that FF chars don't have their dub VAs so we'd lose out on John Eric Bentley's phenomenal performance.

I think the main reason why Barret isn't talked about is because Tifa is more popular, and Barret would be a zoner, which automatically makes him a harder sell.

There's also a decent crowd who would like Final Fantasy to stop focusing so hard on VII specifically and add characters from the rest of the series.

 

[HyperSomari64]

MARIO IS DEAD

Nin10doland was right,
But i still firmly believe Space Panic was the birth of Scrimblo games.

 

[Laniv]

Just out of curiosity I looked at the non-white characters and uh...Yeah I guess it is pretty dire. It's pretty much just Min Min, Ryu, Joker, and Kazuya...I think. I don't really know if Japanese people are considered people of color or not.

They do count, by dint of they're not white. Simon and Richter are also implied to be Romani, while the Ice Climbers might be Indigenous

 

[fogbadge]

Personally I don’t like Barret

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I think it's worth noting that people asking for PoC characters aren't saying we should stop getting characters who aren't PoC.

I also think it's worth noting that Pre Smash 4, a lack of female (I use female here because not every character mentioned will be a human woman) characters was one of the biggest criticisms of Brawl's roster. Being generous, the only female characters were Peach, Zelda, Zelda again but disguised as a man, Samus and Samus again but sexualized. And no I'm not going to count Jigglypuff when they can be male or female with no determining characteristics (like Pikachu's tail). And no I'm not going to count Nana because she is half of a character team (I count Ice Climbers and Banjo and Kazooie as something else). Zero Suit Samus was even brought up as Sakurai's example of a new female fighter. Back then we didn't know it would be the only one.

There were five characters. Brawl had five female characters. And that was very bad. And people noticed back then too.

Smash 4 did a lot to help rectify that. We got Rosalina, Palutena, Lucina and Bayonetta. We got characters who could change their gender when it made perfect sense to do so, like Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, Mii, Robin, and Corrin (and technically Wendy Koopa). You more than doubled the amount of female representation and you still got characters that made lots of people happy.

Ultimate continued that trend. We got Daisy, Dark Samus, Isabelle, Min Min, Pyra, and Mythra as new fighters. Inkling, Byleth and Alex could change gender depending on their costume. Heck, Pokemon Trainer and Pikachu got female alts retroactively. And hey, we still got characters people wanted.

Asking for a PoC character isn't that different from asking for more female characters. PoC characters add to the experience. They don't detract. They don't get in the way of what people want. They're just bonuses. No one is asking for super obscure characters just because they're black. They're asking for major characters within their franchises, or at worst, characters that are technically minor, but still notable and well liked.

The only real issue I could see is that a lot of these characters aren't the main characters of their franchises. But like... Most of those are already in the game. So why not? Sure, maybe I could see an argument that Twintelle isn't the best representative of ARMS because she fights with her hair and not her arms. But Min Min is in in. She's got that covered. And sure I could see that maybe Marina doesn't represent lots of Splatoon weapons but Inkling already does that. And sure perhaps I could see that Urbosa is another Gerudo, but her pros outweigh that one minor con.

These arguments don't hold when you look at them. Arguing against new PoC characters isn't really logical.

 

[ninjahmos]

RE: Rhythm Heaven Music

I'd also love to hear other remixes from the RH series:

Remix 1 (GBA)
Remix 2 (GBA)
Remix 6 (GBA)
Remix 1 (DS)
Remix 3 (DS)
Remix 6 (DS)
Remix 8 (DS)
Remix 9 (DS)
Remix 10 (DS)
Remix 1 (Fever)
Remix 2 (Fever)
Remix 4 (Fever)
Remix 5 (Fever)
Remix 7 (Fever)
Remix 8 (Fever)
Remix 10 (Fever)
Endless Remix
Lush Remix
Honeybee Remix
Songbird Remix
Left-Hand Remix/Right-Hand Remix/Final Remix

Hey, the Rhythm Heaven series has a lot of songs to choose from.

 

[PeridotGX]

The lack of POC is absolutely a problem, but it's mostly on Nintendo/the gaming industry as a whole. Smash generally focuses on the most important characters, and there's a massive lack of important POC. When it comes to the characters mentioned in this thread

• Twintelle - at the moment, I don't think ARMS warrants two unique characters. You could probably get away with a clone, but Twintelle absolutely couldn't be a clone of Min Min. That being said, if we get an ARMS 2 I think Twintelle becomes an incredibly likely choice.
• Doc Louis - same situation. He's the obvious choice for a second punch out rep, but the series is on ice at the moment
• Marina - adding her specifically would be kind of odd. I don't think they would add just Callie, or just Shiver. Off the Hook as a duo - possibly, but they're fighting against the Squid Sisters, Deep Cut, and Generic Octoling.
• Elma - Xenoblade X kind of came and went. If we get an X2, she's probably back on the table, but as it stands she's not likely (and it's debatable if she even counts as a POC)
• Barret - he'd be cool, don't get me wrong, but three characters from FF7 in a Nintendo fighting game is kind of pushing it

To reiterate - I'm not saying any of these characters are bad. They just aren't great options for Smash at the current moment. I'm also not defending the lack of POC in Smash, i'm just more focused on the lack of notable POC in gaming. Nintendo has definitely been improving, three of the four Nintendo characters I mentioned were created in the past ten years! I hope they continue to go a little further, either expanding already existing characters or creating new ones.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

Barret is the MVP of FF7. He's the character who humanizes the story the most. I don't care for Cloud's psychic dramas. Plus he has a cool design and a machine gun arm. What's not to love?
I'd like him in Smash a lot, but yeah his chances are low to say the least :/

 

[fogbadge]

What's not to love?

his lack of interesting personality and the fact that his character arc is over before we really get going

 

[Swamp Sensei]

his lack of interesting personality and the fact that his character arc is over before we really get going

?

Did we play the same game? Barrett changes throughout the game into being more sympathetic of his enemies or reflective on his actions.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

You forgot "When are we getting a visual novel character?"

I feel called out.

 

[NotGenerico]

Regarding the lack of POC, I haven't seen him mentioned yet, but Rodin would be pretty cool.

 

[CannonStreak]

Regarding the lack of POC, I haven't seen him mentioned yet, but Rodin would be pretty cool.

I concur! I would actually love to see this guy as a playable in Smash Bros.!

 

[Kirbeh]

Potential hot take.

I would rather have Barret and/or Tifa next time over Sephiroth. I still want Sephiroth, but I'd be fine with/expect that he'd be held off for DLC again.

My ideal would be Cloud and the former two in base game for a solid 3 FF characters. Also makes a complete party of imo the most important/prominent FF7 characters (well, minus Aerith.)

As for the conversation about more PoC characters, I think we're finally at a point where there are plenty of good first party choices. Doc, Sandman, Marina, Frye, Twintelle, etc.

The problem that remains is whether they'd be chosen given the circumstances surrounding each IP.
In cases like Punch-Out, the series is both niche and dormant.

Splatoon is plenty popular, but they have lots of competition between the other idols and Octavio.

ARMS is in a somewhat similar boat to both PO and Splatoon. It's s a new franchise, but as far as we can tell, has a pretty uncertain future and while it did sell well it's got more of a niche cult following overall.

For now MinMin might be seen as sufficient for an IP only one game in. And similar to Splatoon, there's lots of competition within it's own cast.

Looking to third parties, there's less wiggle room for more niche choices and there aren't a lot of prominent series with PoC protags.

Nintendo will likely continue to mostly pull from other JP partners so there's not much to work with there (though there are still some potential choices like Barret.)

Looking to the west, I honestly don't see much of a difference here either tbh. Granted most of the games I play are from Japan or from indies so I don't have the best grasp on what's out there for big Western IP.

That said, I do have to ask, what is there?

Once again, most of the big franchises I can think of don't have PoC protags or aren't focused on human characters to begin with.

And the ones I can think of are going to be harder sells.

GTA is about as big as you can get but I just don't see Nintendo going for that one.

Assassin's Creed has multiple protagonists but I still see Ezio as probably the likeliest choice.

Prince of Persia could be a good option. Doesn't deal with the same controversies and subject matter of GTA and doesn't have lots of competition within it's cast. Aside from that though, I'm drawing blanks.

Crazy as it may sound, I honestly think the best bet we have for one (or multiple) PoC characters is still going to come from A. Nintendo's own IP or B. Other Japanese IP with diverse casts.

Still not super high chances but I do think someone like Barrett is an easier get than someone from GTA.

Tl;dr

I think we currently do have a lot of good choices but the issue at hand is that none of them are the obvious first choices for new series or definitive "next in line" for currently repped series.

Also I saw Jax mentioned. As a Jax main, I can't say I wouldn't be pleased with that outcome for MK but we all know they'd pick a ninja first. And that's on the assumption MK gets in at all.

 

[Louie G.]

Asking for a PoC character isn't that different from asking for more female characters.

I swear there was a quote where Sakurai specifically addressed wanting to, or at least being glad to bring in more female characters when discussing Lucina or something. If someone has that quote on hand I'd really appreciate it. But even without it, the active effort to bridge that gender imbalance has made it abundantly clear that representation does matter to Smash. Here's hoping in the coming sequels measures are made to diversify the cast culturally and racially as well, many Japanese studios seem to be responsive to this lately and surely Nintendo themselves are well aware of the shift.

I'm certain that back then fans were questioning the validity of female characters on a similar scale to this conversation, claiming there are not enough protagonists or major characters with sufficient potential. This is evident by the fact that to this day, in 2024, I've gotten heat multiple times for simply acknowledging it would be cool to have Chun-Li in the game in part because she's one of the most famous female video game characters of all time.

There's still work to be done too... we only have one standalone female guest character!

Marina - adding her specifically would be kind of odd. I don't think they would add just Callie, or just Shiver. Off the Hook as a duo - possibly, but they're fighting against the Squid Sisters, Deep Cut, and Generic Octoling.

In defense of Marina, who as I've said a couple times I consider to be the strongest candidate available at the moment.

I'm certain she would be included as a team with Pearl, in some way or another. Whether we want to consider that a proper, full fledged black character or not is up to the individual but I'd consider that a victory nonetheless. I agree that I don't particularly see the idols being added individually but I guess I wouldn't entirely rule it out. We used to say the same thing about starter Pokemon! Although I'd honestly sooner believe they just add Pearl and Marina both as separate characters before they add one and not the other.

Compared to Squid Sisters, they are arguably not as prominent. But I'd say they are equally popular, and in a team scenario I believe Off the Hook presents more visual clarity through their dynamic designs to swap out and convey different fighting styles. Callie and Marie don't quite exude "offense and defense" as clearly as Pearl and Marina do through their sharply contrasted designs and body language. And I love Deep Cut, but a trio of characters feels a lot less feasible to pull off like this. But hey, if it was them, Frye would be one of Smash's first standalone dark-skinned characters all the same.

And same goes for Octoling, often portrayed as darker skinned in official renders and likely for that to be its default for Smash. However I don't think Octoling is an unshakable barrier for an idol group to join the fray. If they are a clone, or an alternate costume, I believe Splatoon has been prominent enough over the last however many years to be under strong consideration to get a brand new unique character. And we've seen series double up in the past - I think Splatoon's significance as one of Nintendo's core contemporary brands justifies more than simply Octoling. That's yet to be seen, but all of this to say I staunchly disagree that Splatoon isn't offering a really great option for Smash here.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

Potential hot take.

I would rather have Barret and/or Tifa next time over Sephiroth. I still want Sephiroth, but I'd be fine with/expect that he'd be held off for DLC again.

My ideal would be Cloud and the former two in base game for a solid 3 FF characters. Also makes a complete party of imo the most important/prominent FF7 characters (well, minus Aerith.)

Honestly i would rather they put other Final fantasy games in smash if Final fantasy comes back at all.

Tidus, Zidane, Leon, Noctis. All of which would be cool picks.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Part of the circumstantial problem is that while both have a decent amount of POC characters, the West tends to make more of them as the main leads vs Japan which often has them in supporting roles. Now combine that with Smash drawing more from Nintendo plus various Eastern third parties, as well as the typical pattern of getting the main characters from franchises and you end up with a roster that probably isn't quite as diverse as it could be.

 

[chinkuru]

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

From my memory, there are a decent amount of picks.

Spoiler

The Legend of Zelda
Urbosa: Kind of a random pick at this point, but is just relevant and popular enough to make sense if you're coming from this perspective.
Pokémon
Super Smash Bros. seems allergic to adding human characters from this series, and it's a tad difficult to imagine them adding one that isn't just Pokémon Trainer, but with a different team. That being said though, Cynthia would make a lot of people happy.
Earthbound
I mean...you could add Poo I suppose. A psychic martial artist would certainly be an interesting idea to add to the Earthbound cast. Is it at all likely? No.
Fire Emblem
A character has been mentioned here already, but I don't know them so I can't say anything.
Pikmin
Pikmin 4 has an avatar so there's a possibility right there even if it's not ideal. I doubt any of the named characters will be used though.
PUNCH-OUT!!
From Doc Louis to Sandman you're not starved for choice here. My preference would be Super Macho Man or Great Tiger, but I highly doubt we'll see another character from this series.
Xenoblade Chronicles
Once again I shall state how cool Taion is. Elma's a good option too. Neither have any sort of chance though.
Street Fighter
You're not starved for choice here either. Chun-Li is a very popular option (and to be honest it's actually a tad surprising she hasn't been mentioned even despite most people focusing on specifically black rep). I think the next most likely characters are white Americans, a Russian, and whatever Akuma and Bison have going on, but going even slightly beyond surface level you could get some fun picks in this category.
Splatoon
Octoling is again a non-ideal rep, but a rep nonetheless. Off the Hook and Deep Cut are also options, but I kind of wonder how they'd handle the ink mechanics on swap/team characters. Maybe you could nix them, but then you have fighters that look like Inkling and use similar weapons, but don't have Inkling's mechanics, and that would be weird too.
Minecraft
Steve is highly likely to retroactively get a bunch of skins featuring a bunch of different ethnicities.

I didn't mention Fatal Fury or Tekken despite knowing they have a lot of diversity simply because I don't know any of their characters all that well.

 

[Arcanir]

It's easy to forget that there's a first party Nintendo game with a POC protagonist!
View attachment 393849
It's kind of disappointing that Ever Oasis released when and where it did. If it released a year or two earlier, or on the Switch, I think it would have done a whole lot better and maybe even got a character in Smash. It was made by Grezzo, the remaster maestros, so maybe it'll get a second chance one day.

Still sad this game went under the radar, it's pretty charming and I had a good amount of fun playing through it. I hope they give it another shot, even as a remake.

 

[Kirbeh]

Honestly i would rather they put other Final fantasy games in smash if Final fantasy comes back at all.

Tidus, Zidane, Leon, Noctis. All of which would be cool picks.

I would love if FF expanded beyond 7, but realistically speaking, FF is so big, it's kind of impossible to cover the whole series with any one or two entries.

My "ideal" lineup is pretty much the ideal for 7 specifically if that continues to the sole source of FF content.

I'm personally more attached to 8 and 9 (8 especially), so I'd love to see Squall or Vivi. Someone from the NES/SNES era would also be great be it Terra, Cecil or someone else. Heck, I'd be pretty ecstatic for characters like Tidus, Auron, Fran and Balthier too.

Since Smash is focused on 7 though, that's more or less what I'm expecting them to stick with.

The true "ideal" scenario for me would be for individual entries of series like Zelda* (era's rather than games in this case), FE and FF to be treated as separate entities that allows for multiple characters to be chosen from each but at that point you'd be inflating the roster to unreasonable numbers.

 

[fogbadge]

Did we play the same game?

probably not

Regarding the lack of POC, I haven't seen him mentioned yet, but Rodin would be pretty cool.

didn't somebody say he was massive sterotype?

or am I thinking of someone else?

 

[Ivander]

I think you may be interpreting my criticism as a little more hostile toward Nintendo than it actually is. And I fail to see the analogy here but I think it’s a bit inappropriate to compare cultural and racial diversity to a menu at a restaurant. Why is “pizza” black characters? Is it that unfitting for Smash to incorporate diverse characters where it’s equivalent to demanding a burrito at an Italian restaurant? I’ll assume this in good faith and believe I’m just not grasping your point correctly, but surely you can understand why this doesn’t really work. Nintendo HAS notable black characters now, it’s a reasonable thing to acknowledge or request.

And yes, it is a failure of the industry by a large demographic of players, Nintendo included, that it took this long. Smash indirectly reflects this. We didn’t have black Villagers until Ultimate… they are clearly keeping this progress in mind.

You need to slow down with the mental gymnastics if you thought I was comparing black characters to pizza when that's not what I was doing at all. Sure, I agree my analogy wasn't the best one, but....the gaming industry doesn't just consist of the companies, it also consists of the people supporting the industry. As much as people don't want to include themselves as a problem, it has to be noted when it comes to a game that is about getting existing content that the most people want in the game.

Take the Smash Ballot. We got characters because of the Ballot. We got King K. Rool, we got Chrom, we got Dark Samus, we got Banjo & Kazooie and we got Sora. All because alot of people voted for those characters. Who else was voted? Isaac, Krystal, Skull Kid. They didn't get in as characters. So obviously, it implies that the latter 3 didn't have as many voters as the former characters did. While not every character is going to get in because of "alot of people want them", that's still a very determining factor because that's the whole point of Smash Bros. It's to give the most players what they want.
The reason it feels misdirected is that most of the issues are pointed at the companies more than the people who want the characters. It feels alot like, "Can we have these characters?" "Sure, here are these characters you guys wanted." "We didn't ask for those ones." Because Smash Bros. operates very differently. It doesn't work like Tekken or Street Fighter where original content is made on the go and anything needed can be made on the go. It has to look at existing characters and decide which ones would people like the most. And there will be characters who get in over other characters because they want to hype up the most amount of people they can.
And even if Nintendo has chosen characters that people weren't talking about on a daily basis, that's ignoring the other factors those characters who were chosen instead have.

• Wii Fit Trainer - Wii Fit was a best seller.
• Robin - Still the secondary protagonist and also a popular character as well.
• Min-Min over Springman - Min-Min was still the most popular ARMS character, or however the ARMS poll went.
• Mr. Game & Watch, R.O.B. and Duck Hunt - The latter 2 were an important part of Nintendo history with the Game & Watches technically being Nintendo's first video games and R.O.B. being sold alongside the NES/Famicom. Meanwhile, Duck Hunt was bundled with Super Mario Bros.
• Incineroar - Still the final evolution of one of the Gen 7 starters.
• Piranha Plant - Still one of the most recognisable enemies from the Super Mario series.
• Byleth - Still the main protagonist of Three Houses and also a popular character, regardless of their reception.
• Sephiroth - Pretty much one of the most popular 3rd Party villains of all time, with if not the most recognisable final boss theme in video game history.
• Pyra/Mythra - The most popular Xenoblade characters and the secondary protagonists of Xenoblade 2.

The only one who can be called the "mold breaker" was Shulk, who Sakurai himself called a very unlikely character to appear in Smash Bros, back when Xenoblade was still unproven and new-ish. Otherwise, whenever Sakurai has chosen a character outside of the "focused", they are still very notable characters that people wanted to see.

Yes, Nintendo has alot more black characters than normal, which is good. Yes, I would love Barret, Elma, Claude, Riju and Shantae. But because I also know that there are still alot of other characters that other people want, that Smash Bros is a game that focuses on the characters that people want to see and that spots are not unlimited, I don't accuse Nintendo of not including enough PoC characters because Smash Bros. operates under a very different mindset compared to other non-crossover focused games and that it's just as much a very people-driven series and that we got what we did because of what the most people wanted. And at some point, the number of PoC characters in Smash Bros. will get better, just like the amount of female characters in Smash Bros. got better.

 

[Dukefire]

I can say that the ongoing drama with DEI as the current topic. This might be the new potential toxic behavior for specific character requests if another Smash Bros sequel is announced. Not to say anything bad and/or add stress, but the possible toxic fest being worse than Ultimate's DLC cycle.

In the end, I usually don't mind the selected character being a fighter.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

This might be the new potential toxic behavior for specific character requests if another Smash Bros sequel is announced. Not to say anything bad and/or add stress, but the possible toxic fest being worse than Ultimate's DLC cycle.

We're going from ~82 characters to ~50. This community won't need any help being toxic. lol

Hopefully it won't get too bad though.

 

[Wonder Smash]

It's always telling when you jump to characters no one is actually pulling for instead of acknowledging the characters people are actually talking about. No one is saying "yeah add Jax" they're saying "add Timerra, Urbosa, Octolings, Marina, Sol Badguy, Doc Louis and Barret Wallace" because you can in fact represent a diverse array of people whilst still doing a good enough job of representing a franchise in Smash.

But Jax is a funny example.
In a franchise with Ninjas, cyborg ninjas, dragons, fire elementals, zombies, demons, Mokap, revenants, gods, time constructs, centaurs, minotaurs, lizard people, 4 armed dragon people, 4 armed tiger people and so on, they still saw fit that yeah, they should probably still try and make things diverse and so we have Jax, Jacqui, Cyrax, Sheeva, Geras, Jade and Tanya. And the conceit of the series isn't world warriors or whatever excuse you want to make up for why other franchises are able to feature black people in them but Smash somehow can't.

Smash is 89 characters in, there's no excuse to not be doing better than it is.

It's not about whether or not people specifically want Jax. The point is to show why that kind of representation is not seen as a priority in Smash like it is in other fighting games. After all, you did mention Barret, a character from a series that's represented by two non-black characters already. Not once was race ever raised as an issue on that and the reason is very obvious.

Also, it's strange you went into all that about MK, another series that, like SF, FF, TK, VF, is not a crossover Smash is. Also, that theme is kind of part of MK. Many of the human characters even come different parts of Earth. They just took it at step further by featuring characters from other universes that just resembles Earth.