People complain about the three clones...

[QuickRat]

Really, I believe Little Mac, Villager, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Wii Fit Trainer, Duck Hunt, Rosalina & Luma, Robin/Daraen, Greninja, Mii Fighters, Palutena, Shulk... they are great acquisitions. Really. They are new characters with new mechanics and original moves. We've never seen anything like those in the series.

In the other hand, I'd like to talk about clones. I see six clones: three are "not-so-much" clones and the other three are absolute clones. I can tolerate Ganondorf, Toon Link and Falco. I would preffer to put Black Shadow and make Canondorf and also put some WW attacks into Toon Link. But I can accept these three guys.

But I think Dr. Mario, Lucina and Dark Pit are just filler. A copy-paste in order to make people think there are more characters than you might expect. Their difference from Mario, Pit and Marth are very small and it's difficult to say which is the difference among them. In fact, there is a special corner in the character selection screen for these three absolute clones. I'm not complaining a lot. I think many people would be OK if the roster were the same but without these three clones.

The problem is how many abscences were. I mean... Squirtle, Wolf and Ivysaur had a solid moveset in Brawl, they couldn't be so difficult to put in SSB4... Lucas, with a couple of changes (see Project M Lucas), could have been a great character. So if they wanted to put some filler, why not putting again those characters? I can understand Ice Climbers are out... I hate 3DS hardware for that, but I can live with that. But putting absolute clones instead of good oldcomers... And even Snake, who was a 3rd party character, could have had his space in SSB4 if they put his moveset into an Advance Wars character.

And by the way, those who say Ryu has 10 clones... do you even played any Street Fighter game?

 

[Curious Villager]

You guy's do count their Smash, Air and Grabs right?

Eitherway, I've got little issues with adding a few clones myself. Especially if they are just squeezed in last minute bonus additions. I just don't really feel it's something worth wasting my breath over, especially when we've got 40+ other more unique characters to choose from. But I guess that's just me....

 

[DairunCates]

I'd be interested in learning about why SF has the bajillion Ryu clones, actually.

The REALLY short, not-super-off-topic answer is that it allows them to identify and brand a style for their game, gives the game accessibility to beginners without entirely losing variety, introduces players to the meta-game of the game by giving them a little bit of everything to deal with, and allows Capcom to make a LOT of characters really fast (because they do 2 fighting games a year instead of 2 a decade).

 

[ShrekItRalph]

Didn't Wolf have a similar backlash to Dark Pit when he was announced for Brawl? he was seen as"another fox clone" and he wasn't Krystal or Geno or someone else that people wanted. Skip forward to now and the majority of people wanted him back because they have become attached playing as him and I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens with Pitoo and Lucina.

 

[RetroBro]

Honestly. People don't seem to remember how in Melee we got 5 clones, which Sakurai basically said would've meant 5 clones or 1 unique character.

Well, there goes 1/5 of Melee's roster and alot of fan favorites./quote]

That may be true, but there weren't really standards set by then. We went from having 12 characters to 25, anything was a prize. Expectations start to build up after nearly 2 decades of smash bros.

 

[elliotnz]

I'm fairly impressed. In my opinion a lot of characters are breaking new ground and will be a lot of fun to play with.

Granted the leak was disappointing but look at all the awesome characters we already knew about...

 

[RedCap-BlueSpikes]

Didn't Wolf have a similar backlash to Dark Pit when he was announced for Brawl? he was seen as"another fox clone" and he wasn't Krystal or Geno or someone else that people wanted. Skip forward to now and the majority of people wanted him back because they have become attached playing as him and I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens with Pitoo and Lucina.

Oh, I remember that like it was yesterday. People were calling Sakurai all kinds of names just because Lucario, Toon Link, Wolf, and R.O.B. were in the game instead of characters like the ones you mentioned and "The Big/Hype 3". Same situation as now, really.

Hopefully things will calm down in a couple weeks or so.

 

[Serilei]

You know, I am thankful for all the hard work Sakurai did. I am sure that man developed health issues for how much he worked.

And I like many others are sad over those main three, but I will not complain and curse this hard working man for what he didn't include, because, I am still optimistic for the Wii u 3ds connection allowing extra characters or miibos, which is probably the strategic plan all along.

I am sad? Of course. But will I chastise that man? Nah. I understand he more than likely should cater to fan needs, as this seeks his products, brings in his income and keeps him at his job.

I also think that Nintendo began to pressure him to push the product out to help with poor sales and that, in turn, made him do poor decisions. It is possible.

But I also understand why fans are mad about missing characters, ice climbers, and such as I am too but some people took it a bit too far.

I am being optimistic as I said to see about future connections and what they have planned. I am sure the backlash Sakurai will receive may determine the future of these character in Smash 4

 

[SmashWolf]

Toon Link, Luigi, Ganondorf, Falco, and yes, also your precious Wolf and Lucas are both clones. Yet people find THEM precious. There is little reason to whine about characters like Dark Pit and the doctor, especially considering how little time they would've taken up. They're even more literally clones than the rest.

 

[Ursaguy]

Just remember that complaining about the 3 clones and ignoring the record 40+ original move sets is a totally fair and unbiased way to go about the game.

 

[Joe73191]

I went through the roster systematically giving points for things I liked and subtracting points for things I didn't and I came to the conclusion that the roster is a 0 sum. It broke even. I am neutral on the roster. Everything good about it was canceled by everything bad about the roster so I can neither be happy or upset about the roster.

I did the same with character's moves (how the characters play) and with gameplay (mechanics and physics). In total the character's attacks get a negative one overall. (Though I have not seen every custom move so that is still subject to change) The mechanics and physics get a negative 2 overall. Of course I could not include landing lag into my calculations because I don't have the frame data. Once I get the frame data the mechanics and physics stat could change.

 

[Dr. Corndog]

There was a much higher clone-to-original ratio in Melee. It's kind of silly to complain about clones in Smash 4 when there are over 40 wholly unique characters.

 

[Hayzie]

The clones seem pretty deserving to be in, really.

First they took out Wolf which is... yay. Then they added back in the Doc. That's 2 steps forward! There's something about having Mario vs Doc.

Dark Pit (Black Pit LOL!) plays like Old Pit. Lucina is a welcomed female addition from a recent amazing game.

Really though who else could we "clone"? Toon Link haters can take a hike to the highest ledge because he's Toon ******* Link. Ganondorf is the real problem here

 

[SmashWolf]

Just remember that complaining about the 3 clones and ignoring the record 40+ original move sets is a totally fair and unbiased way to go about the game.

That's a good point to make. Those ambitious custom movesets you can't use online anyway could've been better spend on making characters like Ganondorf, Toon Link, and maybe Falco less cloney. They had to make 4 times the special movesets for every single last character. All just to NOT allow them online too, even in "For Fun".

 

[D-idara]

I guess if clone characters make a roster terrible, then Falco's a horrible character and melee sucked more than anything else, huh? :Kappa:

No, but seriously, I think people are totally WAY overblowing this roster. I love it and I think it's great, and I'm betting the clones are going to show themselves as different enough in play style soon

Well Melee does suck horribly, but that's not Falco's fault, and he's a different character from Fox, the reason Lucina's not getting as much flak as the other two is that she's actually her own character, not the same character with different clothes/hair color.

Dr. Mario's probably the most insuting, a crappy Mario costume from a godawful spinoff.

Any mention of this roster being decent makes no sense because it lacks Ridley.

 

[Yodude57]

I went through the roster systematically giving points for things I liked and subtracting points for things I didn't and I came to the conclusion that the roster is a 0 sum. It broke even. I am neutral on the roster. Everything good about it was canceled by everything bad about the roster so I can neither be happy or upset about the roster.

I did the same with character's moves (how the characters play) and with gameplay (mechanics and physics). In total the character's attacks get a negative one overall. (Though I have not seen every custom move so that is still subject to change) The mechanics and physics get a negative 2 overall. Of course I could not include landing lag into my calculations because I don't have the frame data. Once I get the frame data the mechanics and physics stat could change.

What score would you give if you did this for melee?

 

[D-idara]

Dr. Mario and Dark apot are terrible choices, and there's nothing that can fix their existence, the sole fact that they exist taints an already mediocre, Ridley-lacking roster.

 

[Renji64]

The thing about falco him and starfox are teammates wouldn't make sense for them to have a similar fighting style. But Clones aren't that bad. I don't like dark pit but i'm not upset over the clones we got a great roster overall.

 

[Acrete]

I don't see what people are whinging about either. Dark pit looks cool as, i'm sure he plays just as well too.

 

[ChikoLad]

Didn't Wolf have a similar backlash to Dark Pit when he was announced for Brawl? he was seen as"another fox clone" and he wasn't Krystal or Geno or someone else that people wanted. Skip forward to now and the majority of people wanted him back because they have become attached playing as him and I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens with Pitoo and Lucina.

Claiming Wolf was a total clone was always ridiculous, because he isn't. He's specials are similar enough (but even then have different functions), but every other move is unique to him. It's almost as ridiculous as claiming Lucario is a clone of Mewtwo and is meant to replace him.

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Overall I love the roster but I think Dr. Mario, Dark Pit, and Lucina have absolutely no justified reason to be the way they are. Why is it that Alph and at least one of the Koopalings don't get to be clones (Alph especially could have made use of Rock Pikmin and organised his Pikmin differently) and stay as skin swaps, with voice changes and name tag changes and all, yet these three get their own spot? The differences between them are completely made up and arbitrary.

Lucina and Dark Pit ironically could have been completely unique characters in their playstyle, but instead they are clones and that poorly represents them as characters.

And Dr. Mario in Melee was a blatantly buffed version of Mario. That wasn't OK then, and it's less OK here since custom moves and custom equipment exist. Mario should be the best and only version of Mario. Dr. Mario should just be a costume for him. This isn't rocket science.

 

[L9999]

I can forgive Dr. Mario becuase he play like Melee Mario, but is a stupid idea BECAUSE THERE ARE CUSTOM MOVESETS. I totally forgive Lucina, she seems like a brute force give it all version of Marth, and I wanted to play Marth but I couldn't because I don't get a hand of all this spacing b*******. And I like brute force, and she is a girl. Totally forgive Lucina. But the one I seriously can't forgive is Dark Pit. HE IS AN EXACT COPY OF PIT WITH DIFFERENT COLOR! At least Doc has the coat, DARK PIT IS A SKIN! Why they love to do this b******? Didn't they learned from Mario Kart 8 that skin characters suck? THEY DIDN'T LEARNED FROM GOLD PEACH?! The roster is fine for me except for Dark Pit and Bowser Jr.

 

[HohnTTD]

Clones are fine, we'd either have them, or we wouldn't and the roster would be smaller. Ganondorf still has no excuse at this point though.

I see them as an excuse to add some fan favorite characters that otherwise usually wouldn't have a chance.

Lucina- Fan favorite Fire Emblem: Awakening character with actual canonical reasons for her similarities to Marth
Dark Pit- Fan favorite (though I do understand the initial backlash) from Uprising, literally a clone, yet still a different person. I know my girlfriend is especially going to be happy with him, so I can't complain.
Doctor Mario- Fan favorite from Melee basically, I already see plenty of people happy to see the return of Mario Tornado.

HOWEVER I would still rather have them all relegated to alt-costumes as originally planned if it somehow meant bringing back Mewtwo. *cries*

 

[Luigi#1]

Toon Link, Luigi, Ganondorf, Falco, and yes, also your precious Wolf and Lucas are both clones. Yet people find THEM precious. There is little reason to whine about characters like Dark Pit and the doctor, especially considering how little time they would've taken up. They're even more literally clones than the rest.

Blue= Semi clone.
Green= Barely semi clone.
Red= How the ****?

But still, 3 clones is hardly any at all, nothing to complain about.

 

[Big-Cat]

Dr. Mario and Dark apot are terrible choices, and there's nothing that can fix their existence, the sole fact that they exist taints an already mediocre, Ridley-lacking roster.

 

[ChikoLad]

Oh, and before anyone gives me the "OH BUT THEY NEEDED DR. MARIO AND DARK PIT TO PLEASE FANS OF MELEE MARIO AND BRAWL PIT":

One of Ganondorf's custom moves has him actually use his sword.

Completely different animation.

Completely different function.

Also Rosalina's Custom Down B's are actually pretty out there too, especially the one that makes Luma gigantic.

So there truly is no argument for the three clones now. They could have been alts, and Mario Tornado and what not could have been custom moves.

 

[mario123007]

Claiming Wolf was a total clone was always ridiculous, because he isn't. He's specials are similar enough (but even then have different functions), but every other move is unique to him. It's almost as ridiculous as claiming Lucario is a clone of Mewtwo and is meant to replace him.

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Overall I love the roster but I think Dr. Mario, Dark Pit, and Lucina have absolutely no justified reason to be the way they are. Why is it that Alph and at least one of the Koopalings don't get to be clones (Alph especially could have made use of Rock Pikmin and organised his Pikmin differently) and stay as skin swaps, with voice changes and name tag changes and all, yet these three get their own spot? The differences between them are completely made up and arbitrary.

Lucina and Dark Pit ironically could have been completely unique characters in their playstyle, but instead they are clones and that poorly represents them as characters.

And Dr. Mario in Melee was a blatantly buffed version of Mario. That wasn't OK then, and it's less OK here since custom moves and custom equipment exist. Mario should be the best and only version of Mario. Dr. Mario should just be a costume for him. This isn't rocket science.

Yeah, the only clones that I disappointed at was Dark Pit and Dr.Mario, the rest I think is okay,
However, I hate the idea of adding Duck Hunt Dog and Bowser Jr. I just don't like them, even worse, they cut Ice Climbers and Wolf.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

ITT: People who know nothing about game development trying to trade 3 "free" that took days or weeks of concepting, development, and testing for characters with unique movesets, models, rigging, and animations that take months and unimaginable amounts of money -- each -- to develop.

Anyone who thinks Dr. Mario or Dark Pit "replaced" Ridley or Mewtwo or Cooking Mama or whatever other stupid character they might have wanted is a fool. These characters were developed in a minute fraction of the time it might have taken to develop another character and took literally nothing away from Smash 4 (except maybe different clones, if that's your thing). They are almost entirely made of new model assets and particles and any adjustments made were almost purely to their statistics and physics.

I think Dark Pit is stupid too, but we didn't get him "instead of Wolf" or whatever. We got him for nothing. He was literally a free character added after the completion of the core cast, derived from a costume that Pit likely had at that point in development, and implemented and tested for minimal effort and cost.

A single character in a fighting game is very, very expensive, time-consuming, and labor intensive. For example, a single Street Fighter 4 character costs around a million dollars to develop. If you think they spent anywhere near that amount of money to develop one of these clones you are delusional or uneducated or both.

 

[ChikoLad]

I think Dark Pit is stupid too, but we didn't get him "instead of Wolf" or whatever. We got him for nothing. He was literally a free character added after the completion of the core cast, derived from a costume that Pit likely had at that point in development, and implemented and tested for minimal effort and cost.

Dark Pit was blatantly planned. Teased in the Palutena trailer, just like Game & Watch in the Pac-Man trailer.

 

[Moon Monkey]

I don't have problems with clones...

Dr. Mario, Falco, Ganon and Lucina are fine.

...its just Dark Pit.

I'm really not feeling it.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Dark Pit was blatantly planned. Teased in the Palutena trailer, just like Game & Watch in the Pac-Man trailer.

When was that trailer? June? Do you honestly think Sakurai and the development team were still concepting and developing new characters on June 10 when that trailer was released? The most they were doing were tweaks to animations and balance. The debug team was already hard at work by then. Smash 3DS went gold some time in July or August.

I honestly think most of you have no idea what game development is like, how timelines and deadlines work, or have ever had a real job in a creativity or software development.

 

[ChikoLad]

When was that trailer? June? Do you honestly think Sakurai and the development team were still concepting and developing new characters on June 10 when that trailer was released? The most they were doing were tweaks to animations and balance. The debug team was already hard at work by then. Smash 3DS went gold some time in July or August.

The trailer was RELEASED in June but it takes time to make a trailer, especially if it's animated like the Palutena one. Dark Pit shows up in the animated portion of the trailer. He was planned.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

The trailer was RELEASED in June but it takes time to make a trailer, especially if it's animated like the Palutena one. Dark Pit shows up in the animated portion of the trailer. He was planned.

Everything in Smash 4 was planned. I'm not saying that some time in May Sakurai said "yo wouldn't it be cool if dark pit XD?" I'm saying that clones weren't on the original design doc and were added at some point in development to pad the cast out. We actually know that this happened for sure because Sakurai has said so twice, once in response to complaints about Ganondorf in Melee and again in response to criticism about Lucina.

 

[Big-Cat]

So there truly is no argument for the three clones now. They could have been alts, and Mario Tornado and what not could have been custom moves.

Lucina is pretty justified. She's smaller than Marth and she does not have Marth's tipper. Those two alone call for a different strategy with her. At least from the looks of things, she was given the most effort.

 

[many37]

LOL but to add insult to injury:

Oh, and before anyone gives me the "OH BUT THEY NEEDED DR. MARIO AND DARK PIT TO PLEASE FANS OF MELEE MARIO AND BRAWL PIT":

One of Ganondorf's custom moves has him actually use his sword.

Completely different animation.

Completely different function.

Also Rosalina's Custom Down B's are actually pretty out there too, especially the one that makes Luma gigantic.

So there truly is no argument for the three clones now. They could have been alts, and Mario Tornado and what not could have been custom moves.

Oh so u were watching the stream too?? I told Gema that I was in cloud 9 bc of it. Now I dont care about the roster, Ganondorf is at least slightly different than C. Falcon!

His sword has more range but less power and his custom move for his side b hits multiple times instead of grabbing.

 

[Roxas215]

I really dont think people are understanding the main problem here. It's not simply the fact that clones were added. It's the combination that original playstyles were cut (IC'S) and justifable clones were cut (Wolf/Lucas) on top of highly requested characters not being added(K Rool/Ridley/Mewtwo)

IN FAVOR of Dark Pit Doc and Lucina. Everyone saying if they got rid of the clones it would just add up to one original character if that. Even if that was the case they could of easily put the time they put into Dark Pit and Lucina into bringing back Wolf and Lucas.

Anyone taking up for cutting ic's but adding dark pit pit is delusional.

 

[D-idara]

I don't have problems with clones...

Dr. Mario, Falco, Ganon and Lucina are fine.

...its just Dark Pit.

I'm really not feeling it.

No one should be OK with Dr. Mario, he's not even a clone, he's the same person.

 

[ChikoLad]

Lucina is pretty justified. She's smaller than Marth and she does not have Marth's tipper. Those two alone call for a different strategy with her. At least from the looks of things, she was given the most effort.

The tipper mechanic being gone is completely arbitrary and random, and it could potentially make her Marth's Dr. Mario (being an objectively, obviously better version of Marth). It's not like Luigi in Smash 64 (he was a clone of Mario in that game), where his differences to Mario actually didn't feel forced, since Luigi does have more slippery physics and what not in actual Mario games.

Their height difference is so tiny (heck, Lucina looked like the taller of the two when Sakurai said she was smaller. I realise that was just a case of the camera angling but still, goes to show how small the difference is) that they could have easily used the same hitboxes and therefore, Lucina could have been an alt. The various Koopalings have different sizes to Bowser. Jr too, yet their hitbox is the same.

Lucina doesn't have a different strategy, she is Marth with training wheels. Anything that works with Marth will work with Lucina, but she needs to work less for it. Much like how Dr. Mario's F-Air in Melee was a kill move from anywhere, but Mario's was a Meteor Smash, meaning Dr. Mario's version of the move was made easier to use and objectively better too.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I really dont think people are understanding the main problem here. It's not simply the fact that clones were added. It's the combination that original playstyles were cut (IC'S) and justifable clones were cut (Wolf/Lucas) on top of highly requested characters not being added(K Rool/Ridley/Mewtwo)

IN FAVOR of Dark Pit Doc and Lucina. Everyone saying if they got rid of the clones it would just add up to one original character if that. Even if that was the case they could of easily put the time they put into Dark Pit and Lucina into bringing back Wolf and Lucas.

Anyone taking up for cutting ic's but adding dark pit pit is delusional.

1. Wolf and Lucas are in no way clones. They have their own animations, their own models, their own rigs, their own particle effects, their own hitboxes, and especially their own playstyles. They have different normal moves, different specials. The only things they really share are final smashes and a few conceptual ties (for example Wolf's specials resemble Fox's but they aren't at all functionally the same).

2. If you are upset that original characters like ICs, Wolf, and Lucas were cut, then you can blame the addition of some of the newcomers for that.

3.

Even if that was the case they could of easily put the time they put into Dark Pit and Lucina into bringing back Wolf and Lucas.

No.

 

[QuickRat]

Toon Link, Luigi, Ganondorf, Falco, and yes, also your precious Wolf and Lucas are both clones. Yet people find THEM precious. There is little reason to whine about characters like Dark Pit and the doctor, especially considering how little time they would've taken up. They're even more literally clones than the rest.

Luigi and Wolf share just... Two or three attacks with Mario and Fox. This are the same number of attacks that Link and Marth have in common...

The problem here is we used to think the Attack of the Clones era was over... and it's not.

 

[DarkManGc]

We have 6 clones, 2 of them duplicate characters (Dr.Mario & Dark Pit)

Begun the clone war has .......