Well, if Sakurai has trouble with creating a Little Mac moveset, he can always look up Balrog and Steve Fox from Street Fighter and Tekken respectively. Neither of these two use kick moves at all.
As for the throws, I have an idea:
FThrow: Grabs the opponent and punches the opponent away in the stomach.
BThrow: Jumps around the opponent and punches him/her away in the back.
DThrow: Does a downward punch hitting the opponent on the head. Has no knockback, think of it like Snake's DThrow.
UThrow: Uppercut to the chin.
... I like this. Very practical and it stays true to the character. I do kind have one concern though, does it make Little Mac seem too much like a traditional fighting character? Does anyone have any good ideas for his special moves? Personally, my biggest concern for Little Mac is, if he were included, that he'd be a little cut and dry based on what he would give Sakurai to work with.
Regarding Lip, she is one of the eleven characters that Sakurai has specifically mentioned out of context since the release of Melee. The others were:
1. Lucas (Post Melee notes: said that he originally wanted him to replace Ness in Melee)
2. Sonic (interview two years after Melee's release: noted that Yugi Naka approached him like two months before Melee was released about the idea)
3. Little Mac (Post Melee notes: Punch Out is one of his favorite games.)
4. Lolo (Post Melee notes: Adventures of Lolo is one of his favorite games.)
5. Takamaru (Post Melee notes: Said Nazo No Marasume was one of his favorite games and said that he'd strongly consider making Takamaru playable if he was ever in another game)
6. Animal Crossing Boy (GDC 08: said that making him a fighter would put him too much out of character)
7. Balloon Fighter (Post Melee notes: decided to go with the Ice Climbers instead early in development)
8. Sukapon (Post Melee notes and Brawl journal: said that Sukapon offered little content and would be hard to make practical due to his "unique" body structure.)
9. Sigurd (Post Melee notes: was supposedly changed to Roy later in development and, along with Lip, used as a reference to how he wants to avoid catering to Japanese audiences *which he kind of does anyways but meh...*)
10. Muddy Mole (Brawl journal: Said that he liked Muddy so much that he was seriously considering just putting him *although he didn't specify as a cameo or playable* just for the heck of. It still confuses me why he wasn't added; did Mole Mania have any stickers in Brawl?)
Melee and Brawl had minor Panel de Pon references and Lip appeared both in the Melee and Brawl poll. Like with the Balloon Fighter, Lip/Furil (I know, two different people but they are pretty much interchangable) is pretty much a clean slate since she doesn't truly attack in her games (aside from making blocks fall). She does have the Lip Stick but there is the problem of that being an item and, like said in arguments long past, having Lip playable and the Lip Stick and item would be like having Link playable but making the Master Sword an item too, as they are both essentially trademark weapons. They could simply get rid of the lip stick I suppose so it would be a relatively quick fix.
The main concern I have with Lip though is that, despite Lip being a clean slate, would he be willing to build her from the ground up? The original Smash had two, Fox and Captain Falcon (although neither were obscure), Melee had one, the Ice Climbers, and Brawl had one, ROB. With this being said, the past has shown that Sakurai is willing to build characters completely from scratch but in limited amounts. With this being said, would Sakurai be willing to do it and by "do it", I mean put that much attention into her to make her playable?
Concerning lesser known characters, he said that if most players didn't have a clue who they were, he said that as long as people wanted to play as them after seeing their moveset, he didn't care but my question is whether or not Lip could be made interesting enough for people to care. Anybody have any good movesets I could look at?
Pieman said:
Wait, so Mac's chances are lower than BF's because it doesn't make sense for him to grapple? Shouldn't BF's problem be that it doesn't make sense for him to throw a punch? Or that Sakurai himself said he couldn't think of anything to do with him? How does ROB, Kirby, or Jiggs grab someone without hands (or in the latter two's caes, the lack of most of their arms including elbows) Its also out of character for Samus to punch or kick, because she only shoots uses screw attacks. What about Lucas and Ness borrowing attacks from other character in their series. They shouldn't be doing that, right?
Fatmanonice sez:
ROB uses clamps like how the real ROB uses them to grab gyros in Stack Up, Jigglypuff can learn moves like Seismic Toss in the actual pokemon games, and Kirby's f/d/b throws all come from his suplex ability and his uthrow comes from his ninja ability. Regarding Samus, her moves don't contradict her character: it's not "un-natural" for her to punch or kick like it would be for Little Mac using kicks because he's a professional boxer. Regarding Ness and Lucas, they are still abilities within in the game and demostrate their PSI abilities despite mostly belonging to Paula and Kumatora, respectively. It would be out of character though if Ness threw grenades, for example, or, if some weird reason, Lucas's had a biting attack. Basically, in these situations, you can look at the characters and say "I could reasonably see them doing the things they are doing in their respective games." I could see Samus throwing punches and I could see Ness using PK Fire but I can imagine Little Mac doing suplex moves without it seeming "off." Final Smashes are kind of outside this though simply because they are meant to be over-the-top in nature.
Oh yeah, one more thing, it's not the fact that the Balloon Fighter can't throw a punch but the fact that he never has. It's definately a big difference when it comes to the clean slate characters. You could say, well, Mario's never used a gun but, think about it, Mario's so established that doing such a thing would simply contradict the nature of the games themselves.
He is Japanese only, and there are several international retro characters that are more deserving.
