So what do you guys think of the Wii Fit series and it's portrayal in Smash?
Do you think it's portrayal is good? Do you feel Wii Fit should even be in the game? Do you think Wii Fit Trainer is a good choice for a character?
This is gonna be a little hard for me to explain but bear with me.
I think Wii Fit does have good representation, but if I'm being 100% honest, I would not bat an eye if Wii Fit Trainer never returned.
I couldn't care less about her inclusion, and this is coming from a guy who loves oddball picks in character rosters. I like G&W, R.O.B., Duck Hunt, and Piranha Plant, but not Wii Fit... so why is that the case when they're all considered important for Nintendo as a whole? Shouldn't they be on level playing ground? Well, I think it boils down to the type of audience Smash is for.
The retro characters come from titles aimed at and marketed toward "gamers", which Smash's fanbase is. You could grow up with a Game and Watch or get Duck Hunt + Super Mario Bros for your birthday or have owned a R.O.B. as a kid and expressed joy at seeing them join Smash, because Smash is for "gamers". People who actively play games for entertainment and enjoyment of the medium. You would play those retro titles, play Smash, and go, "hey, ROB is in this?? What?? No way!"
Wii Fit on the other hand is not targeted toward "gamers". It's target was the blue ocean market that was very popular during the Wii era. This might be a stretch, but I think most people that picked up Wii Fit picked it up to get fit, not because it's a new franchise in Nintendo's legendary line up of video game series.
This isn't inherently
bad, but it does create a notable dissonance between her and the other oddball picks. The other oddballs feel like they had a fan base, an
audience of people who would like to see them in Smash Bros because they grew up with their titles and they like Smash. I'm not saying you
can't grow up with Wii Fit, but you'd be hard pressed to find a Facebook mom going "finally, they added the character for
me to Smash Bros!" because I doubt that they'd even know Smash Bros. exists beyond glancing at it on a Walmart shelf and seeing Mario on the cover.
----
Also there's a dissonance between the general "game feel" between the retro characters and WFT.
Even though G&W, R.O.B., and Duck Hunt are old, they are still video game characters and embody a lot of the uniqueness of video games from their home titles; their games have action and fantastical elements that make them feel like true video game classics, much like the games of the everlasting characters like Mario, Link, or Kirby.
Wii Fit Trainer is just a person. Which there's nothing wrong with, Mario's an everyman and Little Mac's a scrappy boxer from the Bronx, but Wii Fit never goes beyond being an avatar for a fitness title. Her attacks are all yoga poses and exercise moves, which can work... except she has no body-breaking in a game where most characters without a weapon have their limbs grow in size for attacks to give them extra oomph and make em feel real video gamey. She feels awkward and stubby and not super fun to play, for me at least.
Am I making sense? I hope you can see what I'm getting to even though it's kind of hard to articulate.
---
I think Wii Fit is perfectly suited for a stage like Wii Fit Studio. A character? Not as much. To me WFT made perfect sense for Smash 4, but beyond Ultimate I really don't think she should be prioritized over anyone else to return.