I was already in a bad mood, but then I had to see a post like this that I had to rip apart to shreds.
For starters, I hate this mentality that the first party supremacists that third party characters "steal" spaces away from "deserving" first parties. Smash has trended towards adding third parties for a variety of reasons that I could go into, but the part that really angered me was this belief that these first party picks "deserve" support just by birthright. That sort of view is flat out dumb. People have the freedom to want and discuss whatever they want. You do not get to shut down people's desires just because you want Nabbit or Tarenza. People have shown there is a clear desire for third parties, even here where first party support is notably stronger than elsewhere online. Among the masses, very few first parties reach that Little Mac, Palu, Shulk, K Rool, or Ridley tier of discussion. If I wanted to be generous, I could name four. The fact is, while there are hundreds of Nintendo characters that you could choose from, not many of them are popular right now.
I also love how you try to outright explain away relevancy, when outside of the token retro and wtf picks relevancy has been king. In Smsah 4, literally the only newcomers we got that did not benefit from relevancy from the Wii/3DS/DS era outside of the retro and WTF picks were the third parties. In Ultimate, the first party picks we got, outside of our wtf character in plant, were either super popular or super relevant.
Speaking of popularity, lets go there next. Popularity matters in Smash. Tons of ultimates design decisions (Everyone is here, K Rool, Ridley, Banjo, Sora, Chom and Dark Samus, Belmonts, and Sora) got in smash due to their fan demand. You want to know why I know fan demand matters? Because Sakurai said it himself in his famitsu columns and interviews multiple times. For someone who likes to make matter of fact statements, you really do love to ignore the word of the ****ing creator of the game. The vast majority of character picks are determined by either what was relevant during the recent past and present for that smash game, and what would be popular. Notice how for our third party picks, we got the biggest JRPG release in the past 10 years, one of the cornerstones of the JRPG genre, the first and second biggest requests according to Sakurai himself, arguably the biggest villain in all of gaming not in smash, the biggest 3d fighting game series of all time, and outright the biggest video game of all time in Minecraft?
Also Smash 4's lobby system sucked so good luck trying to play with your actual friends.
First off, lets see where people got that celebration of gaming from.
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Not only did Sakurai outright say it to all of us, but he has written it multiple times in his columns. If you want any more proof he thinks of it like this, look at the third party picks. Tons of the picks like Snake, Cloud, Sephiroth, Sora, Richter, Kazuya, Joker, and to a lesser extent Mega Man and Ryu, all were massive successes on the PS1 and beyond. Minecraft is the biggest video game of all time and it grew its roots on PC. Sonic was the mascot of Sega, who for a long time was a rival company. Pac Man, Ryu, Ken, and Terry are moreso known for their arcade appearances. Out of the third parties in Smash, the vast majority of them are more relevant to gaming as a whole than just Nintendo. Given the role that Sakurai plays in making the game and the fact he said it is a celebration of gaming, I think its clear why he picked those characters in the first place. Sakurai had full veto rights on whatever characters got in as DLC, so you can't just say that Sakurai had his hands tied, especially with how much love he put into all of the third party DLC characters.
Furthermore, this might be a bitter truth to accept, but there really are not many "Nintendo All Stars" left. If you go by fan demand, maybe you can say that four first parties are truly popular right now. But lets put Waluigi, Isaac, Bandana Dee, and maybe Dixie away for a second. Most of the first parties you yourself brought up are at best tertiary characters. You can have a strong Zelda roster without Tingle or Skull Kid. You can have a strong Metroid roster without EMMI. Really, the only remotely big first party requests that are not just outright tertiary characters, outside the few I already mentioned, are characters like the Octolings and Tom Nook. Part of the reason Pokemon and Fire Emblem get new reps is at least party because due to how those franchises work, there will always be new major picks to look at. Now, there are a few new franchises you can push in Smash, such as Golden Sun, Rhythm Heaven, Astral Chain, or Ring Fit, but even then you have slim pickings because RH is dormant right now and Golden Sun has not gotten a game in over a decade. Now, compare that admittedly shallow pool to the vast pool of third parties now that the doors have been flung open. Its a no brainer why the masses have flocked to picks like Dante or Crash instead of King Boo or Magalor.
You do realize that even as early as the Smash 2 poll before Melee's development, Smash was eyeing third parties right. Even as early as Melee there were some effort in putting Sonic or Snake in the game.
But even then, if you want to use the "smash roots" argument, thing of how insane Smash Bros as a crossover was even back in the late 90s. You could have Mario fight Pikachu and the guy from Zelda? Wow, its like its a crossover game of cool characters fighting. Outside of there not being any third parties, what has changed? Not much. Smash still is about having cool video game characters fight. The only difference now is that more dream matchups can be show off
Oh I am so sorry, I did not know that the most legendary JRPG of the era, arguably of all time, that was one of the reasons the PS1 dominated over the N64 and the biggest Smash request according to the creator were too impure for you.
Show me the super popular first party pick that made it in as Smash DLC. At best you have XC2 content and Byleth being popular in Japan. Could a first party pick like Waluigi get in as DLC someday? Maybe. But you can't throw a tantrum if people speculate given what we have seen for three whole DLC cycles with FP1, FP2, and Smash 4.
Right, because this is a good look for you. Complaining about people liking posts against your argument and making obscene comments like that is how you are going to get people on your side.
No one is saying that you can't talk about Dee or Isaac or Waluigi because they are not hype. If anything, people concede they are some of the few first parties that have that big hype factor behind them left. Compare that to the venom that some of the first party supremacists threw around during Smash 4 and early ultimate, and going to be honest even now, and its clear which one is gatekeeping.
Ill be honest, the only first party character out of those three I care about is Isaac. I don't care for either of the other two, but if you would look at any of my posts talking about this, I mention how they are some of the last big first party requests left. Is it my fault fan polls and threads here present more evidence that at best, we have like what, maybe four big fan requests left that are first party?
I think this characterization of wanting characters only for "muh hype" is also just flat out dumb for both first party and third party picks. Think of how Terry, a character that had very minimal hype for him, or Kazuya, who similarly had little hype, have been so well received.
Finally, I want to reiterate that it is a bit messed up that you are acting like noticing a shift towards third parties is gatekeeping or even gaslighting. After Ultimate, it is clear that based on Sakurai's own comments and the picks chosen that the gates are far more open. People have freedom to talk about how they think it would be cool to see Doomguy or Dante fight Mario and Kirby. They have freedom to talk about whatever characters they want. We are in an environment where the Master Chief thread is a bastion of hope instead of getting locked for "trolling" by the mere crime of existing. I was there for Smash 4, and I can tell you that it is not gaslighting to say that an environment where you can suggest any character and see them blossom is better than one where your character might face a purity test of whether they are "Nintendo" enough. So many smaller fanbases grew in Ultimate, such as Reimu, Arle, Adol, Sakura, or KOS MOS just by that glimmer of hope after the door was opened. I think its honestly kind of gross to suggest that resistance to people wishing to bring us back to that dark place is gaslighting or gatekeeping.
No one is out here saying that you can't talk about Bandana Dee, Waluigi, or any first party. You have freedom to talk about whatever you want. You don't have white supremacists writing op eds about how your dream character would be sinful in smash. You can't compare people talking about third parties to a culture dominated by things like that.
