This is just a fun little exercise. This is not based on what Sakurai says but also not what you want. Who are the most deserving doable potential newcomers based on relevance, amount of appearances, series sales, iconicness, critical acclaim, memorability, etc. A little philosophy I think is that flavor of the week characters like Decidueye and even Corrin are less of a priority because they will be forgotten by fans of the series and technically only appear in one game. EDIT: I reccomend not going entirely with what Sakurai says, but still staying logical.
1. Inkling
2. Captain Toad - Will eventually appear in Mario Kart and get a sequel to Treasure Tracker, making him the next Rosalina. As in, a new Mario All Star that appears in all the games from now on.
3. Impa
4. Bandana Dee
5. Ridley
6. Tom Nook from Animal Crossing - Animal Crossing rivals Metroid in sales. Tom Nook appears in all the series, the Marth to Isabelle's Lucina. Whereas Isabelle has NO moveset potential, Tom Nook does. He would fight with a certain move where he takes money from his putting the opponent in debt. The debt causes them slow damage. After putting people in debt, he puts a bag of money behind him. To get out of debt, you have to destroy the bag of money, but Tom Nook can defend it. He can also place down furniture that the opponent cannot move through.
7. King K Rool
8. Dixie Kong
9. Fire Emblem Switch's hero
10. Ashley from WarioWare
11. Ice Cllmbers - He's part of a new grouping called Veterans. These are characters that wouldn't be famous without Smash Bros.
12. Wolf
13. Rex and Pyra
14. Isaac from Golden Sun - His series could be revived through Smash similar to Kid Icarus. For people who don't know, Golden Sun is a fantasy rpg series whose sales rival Punch Out.
15. Rayman
16. Crash Bandicoot
Feel free to critique my choices.
EDIT: New stuff
Honorable Mentions - Going over the characters I did not add. Wow, pat myself on the back. This is a genius idea, because now people can argue about characters that otherwise would be added to their roster.
Takamaru- Not as important historically as Game and Watch or ROB, and also not as deserving as Little Mac or Duck Hunt. Ice Climbers sold better than this game.
Excitebiker - He’s not requested for a reason: he isn’t a character, just an MS Paint biker with no name. This matters because he wouldn’t feel distinct to any intelligent person that doesn’t overthink it, making him a bad choice. I’m designing for the most normal, true, and unavoidable responses from the audience, so I have to respect that
Bomberman - He’s well known, but a strong amount of people don’t play his games. That’s bad. Look at the sales: Star Fox outsells Bomberman. There are simply a handful of characters who are a higher priority for me.
Geno - Not as big as you'd think in terms of requests even in the past (he's like the 25th most wanted character), and that really bogs his importance down given it's all he has going for him.
Andy from Advance Wars - Too schismistic for a relatively small series. Has no protagonist, and the older games have no characters at all. Sure, Andy is the series’ Marth, but he wouldn’t rep the older games that when added with the Advance era make the games notable.
Toad - More of a species than a character. Would be like making Koopa Troopa playable.
Baby Mario - You’d have to punch him to win the game. Yes, punch an actual small baby in diapers beyond the point of crying.
Tingle - Had his own series, yes, but they are Japan only and nobody played them.
King Boo and Kamek - Adding any of them in would be like adding a Goomba. They are one step from being generic enemies.
Rhythm Heaven character - I really wanted to believe in this one, but they are all generic indistinct nothings of characters. They are the artwork of a pretentious webcomic where the author makes a joke of not putting any work into the story, doing a panel a week or something like that. This is proven by the fact that nobody asked for them before the Gematsu leak.
F Zero character - The stars of the game are the cars and the characters riding the cars are an afterthought. F Zero hasn’t gotten games anymore anyways.
Kid Icarus - People forget that we won’t be getting another Kid Icarus until 25 YEARS. Sakurai DIRECTLY stated this. Plus, it’s still ONE game making the series notable.
Eevee - He’s a starter in the upcoming Pokemon Switch, and a fan favorite from the biggest and first gen that always gets new forms, keeping him relevant. My idea for how he would work is that he can transform into either Flareon, Jolteon, or Vaporeon, but it would up the dev time for four characters.
WarioWare series - The star of the show is the microgames, not the characters.
Isabelle from Animal Crossing - No moveset potential whatsoever.
Meowth - Nobody watches or likes the anime anymore, and that’s all this guy has going for him.
Decidueye - Flavor of the week Pokemon everyone will forget about.
Rest are self explanatory. Look at my roster, compare them to your characters, then try to argue.
1. Inkling
2. Captain Toad - Will eventually appear in Mario Kart and get a sequel to Treasure Tracker, making him the next Rosalina. As in, a new Mario All Star that appears in all the games from now on.
3. Impa
4. Bandana Dee
5. Ridley
6. Tom Nook from Animal Crossing - Animal Crossing rivals Metroid in sales. Tom Nook appears in all the series, the Marth to Isabelle's Lucina. Whereas Isabelle has NO moveset potential, Tom Nook does. He would fight with a certain move where he takes money from his putting the opponent in debt. The debt causes them slow damage. After putting people in debt, he puts a bag of money behind him. To get out of debt, you have to destroy the bag of money, but Tom Nook can defend it. He can also place down furniture that the opponent cannot move through.
7. King K Rool
8. Dixie Kong
9. Fire Emblem Switch's hero
10. Ashley from WarioWare
11. Ice Cllmbers - He's part of a new grouping called Veterans. These are characters that wouldn't be famous without Smash Bros.
12. Wolf
13. Rex and Pyra
14. Isaac from Golden Sun - His series could be revived through Smash similar to Kid Icarus. For people who don't know, Golden Sun is a fantasy rpg series whose sales rival Punch Out.
15. Rayman
16. Crash Bandicoot
Feel free to critique my choices.
EDIT: New stuff
Honorable Mentions - Going over the characters I did not add. Wow, pat myself on the back. This is a genius idea, because now people can argue about characters that otherwise would be added to their roster.
Takamaru- Not as important historically as Game and Watch or ROB, and also not as deserving as Little Mac or Duck Hunt. Ice Climbers sold better than this game.
Excitebiker - He’s not requested for a reason: he isn’t a character, just an MS Paint biker with no name. This matters because he wouldn’t feel distinct to any intelligent person that doesn’t overthink it, making him a bad choice. I’m designing for the most normal, true, and unavoidable responses from the audience, so I have to respect that
Bomberman - He’s well known, but a strong amount of people don’t play his games. That’s bad. Look at the sales: Star Fox outsells Bomberman. There are simply a handful of characters who are a higher priority for me.
Geno - Not as big as you'd think in terms of requests even in the past (he's like the 25th most wanted character), and that really bogs his importance down given it's all he has going for him.
Andy from Advance Wars - Too schismistic for a relatively small series. Has no protagonist, and the older games have no characters at all. Sure, Andy is the series’ Marth, but he wouldn’t rep the older games that when added with the Advance era make the games notable.
Toad - More of a species than a character. Would be like making Koopa Troopa playable.
Baby Mario - You’d have to punch him to win the game. Yes, punch an actual small baby in diapers beyond the point of crying.
Tingle - Had his own series, yes, but they are Japan only and nobody played them.
King Boo and Kamek - Adding any of them in would be like adding a Goomba. They are one step from being generic enemies.
Rhythm Heaven character - I really wanted to believe in this one, but they are all generic indistinct nothings of characters. They are the artwork of a pretentious webcomic where the author makes a joke of not putting any work into the story, doing a panel a week or something like that. This is proven by the fact that nobody asked for them before the Gematsu leak.
F Zero character - The stars of the game are the cars and the characters riding the cars are an afterthought. F Zero hasn’t gotten games anymore anyways.
Kid Icarus - People forget that we won’t be getting another Kid Icarus until 25 YEARS. Sakurai DIRECTLY stated this. Plus, it’s still ONE game making the series notable.
Eevee - He’s a starter in the upcoming Pokemon Switch, and a fan favorite from the biggest and first gen that always gets new forms, keeping him relevant. My idea for how he would work is that he can transform into either Flareon, Jolteon, or Vaporeon, but it would up the dev time for four characters.
WarioWare series - The star of the show is the microgames, not the characters.
Isabelle from Animal Crossing - No moveset potential whatsoever.
Meowth - Nobody watches or likes the anime anymore, and that’s all this guy has going for him.
Decidueye - Flavor of the week Pokemon everyone will forget about.
Rest are self explanatory. Look at my roster, compare them to your characters, then try to argue.
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