Pokken Tournament Announced. New Pokemon Character?

[smashboy12]

I'm thinking that since Pokken is announced could we see a new Pokemon Character
Who? I'm thinking Sceptile or Machamp.

 

[Raijinken]

Hope not, we have far more than enough Pokemon representation already.

 

[Ffamran]

Man... Pangoro really let himself go.

Wait. Are we talking about a new Pokémon character for SSB or the Pokken game?

 

[Backgammon]

Moved this to the SSB4 Character Discussion subforum, it's more of a fitting place for it.

 

[Leafeon523]

Considering how prominent he has been in the promotional artwork, I think that Lucario has a good chance of being added. He seems like he would be such a natural fit. I can picture him now: aura sphere for a b attack, mega Lucario final smash... it almost feels like he's been added already!

 

[Ridles the Space Pirate]

A character to advertise a Japan only arcade machine that wont be out anytime soon? chances=nonexistant

 

[N3ON]

/thread

 

[Reila]

Aren't enough?

 

[YoshiandToad]

Lucario is pretty much the face of Pokken. As much as I'd like Machamp or Blaziken in Smash, there's only one face required to advertise Pokken...and it's Lucario.

Between this, being the face for Gen 4, being a movie star and being the Mega Pokemon poster boy, Lucario has now totally justified his inclusion over the 700+ other Pokemon he beat for a position in Smash.

 

[~Krystal~]

Lucario may be it. Someone like Hitmonlee would be nice though.

 

[Sabrewulf238]

At this point the only important question regarding Pokemon representation is:

Is Mewtwo playable or not playable?

That is the question.

 

[tomvoxx]

If another Pokemon is added it best be the return of Pichu Mewtwo. Nuff said.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Aren't enough?

Not if Mario's getting Rosalina, Bowser Jr., and Dr. Mario. Now there's no excuse for leaving out Mewtwo.

 

[PlayfulMushroom]

Hope not, we have far more than enough Pokemon representation already.

Do you think that a franchise as big as Pokemon deserves to have the same amount of playable characters as Fire Emblem?

 

[Raijinken]

Do you think that a franchise as big as Pokemon deserves to have the same amount of playable characters as Fire Emblem?

Frankly yes, but that is because I am a Fire Emblem fan.

We currently (presumably) have five Pokemon if Jigglypuff isn't cut. That's currently tied with The Legend of Zelda, and I don't think it needs to exceed Zelda (for that matter, I don't think Mario deserves 6/7 Mushroom-icon reps, even though it's the most iconic video game franchise in the universe).

With character additions, the less-represented series' always have the least available to draw their fans. The overwhelmingly most popular Mario characters are already on the roster. To quote someone from the Clone Engine thread for Project M, "Any more is just extra icing on an already sweet cake." Fortunately for FE fans, we finally got a third unique character and one extra clone, to give Awakening its expected representation. I'm shocked Ike returned. Metroid fans are still out of luck, they only have Samus and Samus. Anyone who is a fan of Hunters, or Ridley, or any character that isn't Samus is out of luck. Any fan of F-Zero has exactly one character in a series with a pretty large roster. Mother fans get to pick from Psychic Kid Ness or Psychic Kid Lucas, there is no option for fans who really liked Jeff or Duster.

It's not that I'm against more Mons, it's that it's already tied for second-most-represented in Smash (depending on how you count individual Mons from Pokeballs and whatnot, it actually stands to have more things in it than Mario). Honestly, if it were up to me, I'd have hard-limited the popular franchises to 4 or 5 characters at most until the less popular franchises had at least half that representation. Pokemon doesn't need MORE (especially not playable) representation while there are plenty of series' that have had much less since the beginning of Smash.

Case in point: The Big Three (Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon) take up half of Project M's playable roster. And I think that is too many.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Frankly yes, but that is because I am a Fire Emblem fan.

We currently (presumably) have five Pokemon if Jigglypuff isn't cut. That's currently tied with The Legend of Zelda, and I don't think it needs to exceed Zelda (for that matter, I don't think Mario deserves 6/7 Mushroom-icon reps, even though it's the most iconic video game franchise in the universe).

With character additions, the less-represented series' always have the least available to draw their fans. The overwhelmingly most popular Mario characters are already on the roster. To quote someone from the Clone Engine thread for Project M, "Any more is just extra icing on an already sweet cake." Fortunately for FE fans, we finally got a third unique character and one extra clone, to give Awakening its expected representation. I'm shocked Ike returned. Metroid fans are still out of luck, they only have Samus and Samus. Anyone who is a fan of Hunters, or Ridley, or any character that isn't Samus is out of luck. Any fan of F-Zero has exactly one character in a series with a pretty large roster. Mother fans get to pick from Psychic Kid Ness or Psychic Kid Lucas, there is no option for fans who really liked Jeff or Duster.

It's not that I'm against more Mons, it's that it's already tied for second-most-represented in Smash (depending on how you count individual Mons from Pokeballs and whatnot, it actually stands to have more things in it than Mario). Honestly, if it were up to me, I'd have hard-limited the popular franchises to 4 or 5 characters at most until the less popular franchises had at least half that representation. Pokemon doesn't need MORE (especially not playable) representation while there are plenty of series' that have had much less since the beginning of Smash.

Case in point: The Big Three (Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon) take up half of Project M's playable roster. And I think that is too many.

There's a strong case for having more Pokemon reps than Zelda reps, as Pokemon is a much bigger series in terms of sales and has many more viable options for reps than Zelda. As it stands, Zelda only really has 3 important recurring characters represented in Smash, with the other 2 slots taken up by variants of said characters, and the most important and iconic character not represented in Smash is Blue Pig Ganon, another variant. I have to agree that Mario really didn't need more than 5 reps, and that the main series didn't really warrant a massive expansion, but Pokemon is the one franchise I really feel has more than 5 genuinely deserving reps and don't mind it getting 6, though I'd settle for 5 if the other franchises were similarly restricted. I don't understand why obvious choices like K. Rool seem to keep getting passed over for less important Mario characters like Bowser Jr and Dr. Mario, either, so I understand where you're coming from. Also, the Kid Icarus representation is getting totally out of hand with Dark Pit and Smash Run.

 

[Raijinken]

There's a strong case for having more Pokemon reps than Zelda reps, as Pokemon is a much bigger series in terms of sales and has many more viable options for reps than Zelda. As it stands, Zelda only really has 3 important recurring characters represented in Smash, with the other 2 slots taken up by variants of said characters, and the most important and iconic character not represented in Smash is Blue Pig Ganon, another variant. I have to agree that Mario really didn't need more than 5 reps, and that the main series didn't really warrant a massive expansion, but Pokemon is the one franchise I really feel has more than 5 genuinely deserving reps and don't mind it getting 6, though I'd settle for 5 if the other franchises were similarly restricted. I don't understand why obvious choices like K. Rool seem to keep getting passed over for less important Mario characters like Bowser Jr and Dr. Mario, either, so I understand where you're coming from. Also, the Kid Icarus representation is getting totally out of hand with Dark Pit and Smash Run.

I don't think the KI representation is out of hand if Pokemon's isn't. It's a very popular and recent game, and kinda helps reinforce that adding "new" old characters or fleshing out existing rosters is a good way to draw people's attention to other franchises. Everyone (almost literally) knows Mario and Pokemon. They've got far more going for them than most of the other series' I listed above, which generally haven't had new games since around 2004-2006, despite their dedicated fandoms.

And while Pokemon has more "viable" fighters, I don't think they have many that are so iconic. Lucario, Pikachu, and Charizard are certainly mascots, but Jigglypuff's spot only seems guaranteed by its role in the Original 12 these days. I skipped Gen 6 entirely, but from what I gather, at least Greninja is popular in ways similar to Lucario and whatnot (still no love for 2nd gen, makes me sad).

But using "has more viable fighters" is a kinda tricky way to decide what gets characters. ROB and Olimar aren't really viable fighters from anything in their origin games, but were given enough versatility to get a moveset. Captain Falcon, same thing. On the other hand, we get newcomers like Ganondorf (in Melee, of course) with plenty of source material options who are inexplicably clones or semiclones of other characters. Fire Emblem has a massive roster, near-all of whom would be viable fighters, but its relative obscurity and once-pending cancellation makes it little short of a miracle that we got Robin AND Lucina and kept Ike as well. Same for Lucas and Ice Climbers. They're largely known due to and through Smash, and are under theoretical threat of being cut (one for supposed hardware issues, one for entirely no known reason).

Basically, Smash is a game for Nintendo fans. Fans of things besides the Big Three should be given their share of fan service, too. That's not even mentioning the other big Nintendo series' that don't even have a playable rep yet, like Famicom Wars and Golden Sun.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I don't think the KI representation is out of hand if Pokemon's isn't.

The bigger problem I have with KI representation is Dark Pit getting in over any number of better characters. Also, the two franchises are nowhere near comparable in terms of importance or deserved representation in Smash.

Basically, Smash is a game for Nintendo fans. Fans of things besides the Big Three should be given their share of fan service, too. That's not even mentioning the other big Nintendo series' that don't even have a playable rep yet, like Famicom Wars and Golden Sun.

I agree. However, only around 1/3 of the roster is actually coming from the Big 3, so the issues with representation are a bit more complicated than just those characters taking up too much space. There are other things going on, like certain franchises(Mother, Star Fox, Fire Emblem pre-Robin) only being represented by a certain type of character that doesn't fully represent what the series is really like. There's also the presence of characters that were never really requested.(G&W,ROB,WFT) I had no problem with the larger series being capped at 5, and was willing to give up either Mewtwo or Jigglypuff to accommodate this, until I saw Bowser Jr. What really bothers me is when chosen characters feel like they're scraping the bottom of the barrel while unique, interesting, and important reps are left out, and this applies both to larger and smaller franchises. I love FE:A and Lucina, but there is no way that she is more deserving than Mewtwo in terms of Smash representation, regardless of how many Fire Emblem or Pokemon characters there are.

 

[Raijinken]

I agree. However, only around 1/3 of the roster is actually coming from the Big 3, so the issues with representation are a bit more complicated than just those characters taking up too much space. There are other things going on, like certain franchises(Mother, Star Fox, Fire Emblem pre-Robin) only being represented by a certain type of character that doesn't fully represent what the series is really like. There's also the presence of characters that were never really requested.(G&W,ROB,WFT) I had no problem with the larger series being capped at 5, and was willing to give up either Mewtwo or Jigglypuff to accommodate this, until I saw Bowser Jr. What really bothers me is when chosen characters feel like they're scraping the bottom of the barrel while unique, interesting, and important reps are left out, and this applies both to larger and smaller franchises. I love FE:A and Lucina, but there is no way that she is more deserving than Mewtwo in terms of Smash representation, regardless of how many Fire Emblem or Pokemon characters there are.

I agree with this. That said, I'm in the group that thinks clones hardly count as representation or "getting in over others" due to the relative workload of making them (though we've also yet to see if they're entirely clones or not). I definitely agree on the barrel scraping comparison. Rosalina, as much as I didn't like adding Mario characters, at least brings something entirely new to the game. Bowser Jr, unfortunately, while he looks fine and isn't a Bowser clone like I feared, doesn't (at least apparently) bring a new mechanic like Mac's meter, Lucario's aura, Robin's durability, and Luma's puppetness.

That sort of differentiation is what I've felt should go into newcomers (Wolf, at least, fought differently from Fox and Falco. Similarly, adding Peach with her floating and variable forward smash was more unique than most predictable versions of Shadow Mario could have been) rather than simply throwing characters in for greater representation. For that matter, I'd be very fine with the underrepresented groups getting clones instead of new characters, if it meant their representation was improved.

To that extent, I really wouldn't mind more Mons and Mari's as long as they utilize unique mechanics, but at the same time, there are many ways to implement those mechanics outside of Pokemon and Mario characters. Greninja is a decent addition from a mascot standpoint (much as I hate to admit it), but he also doesn't seem to bring new mechanics to the field aside from Shadow Sneak (which might not be as useful as some theorize). Megaman, by comparison, brings the more unique projectile normals and ranged smash attack. Rosalina's just another Mario character, but bringing in Luma makes her unique in a way that only the Ice Climbers previously rivaled. Robin at long last gives us a FE character with something more than swords, and an extra mechanic on top. Those sorts of additions are the most interesting to me.

I've thought the roster was unrivaled since even the first game. Adding more for the sake of adding more without unique mechanics means players don't have to worry as much about learning new ways to play, which makes it seem similar to just cloning characters (if less severe) in my mind. While part of Smash's draw is the simplicity from every character controlling the same way, the finer things they can do with that are what draw me to characters outside of my favorite franchises.

 

[Kevandre]

I'm assuming that Ivysaur isn't playable in Pokken Tournament..