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Little Mac Satisfaction: 88%
Amazing trailer, amazing moveset, and elite four character...but 12% off for Giga Mac and general disinterest in the character itself.
Little Mac: 90% - I admit, I didn't think I'd be hyped by him. He was always the kind of character I was waiting to get out of the way. I thought he was deserving, and I was glad that he was such a lock for other people's sake, but I never thought he'd be a fun character. But ****, he looks really ****ing awesome, he really surpassed my expectations.
First, some stats analysis of the current state of the RTC game:
As our scores stand without taking into account reveals since we started, we'd be expecting about 56.7 characters. That seems a bit on the high side to me, but not excessively so like the pre-Brawl version of this game (which implied a roster of like 75 characters).
Adjusting for our knowledge of confirmed and disconfirmed characters, we're currently expecting an additional 34.8 characters, for a total of 57.8. This increase comes from underestimating Rosalina mostly, and the fact that we need to rerate some like Bowser Jr. to account for the fact that Rosalina hurt his chances.
Here are our predictions on revealed information ranked by accuracy (how far we were off from the true value, 100% for confirmed and 0% for disconfirmed): 1. Sandbag ....... 0.63% error
2. Ashley ......... 5.85% error
3. Skull Kid ...... 7.52% error 4. Little Mac .... 11.89% error 5. Sonic .......... 15.44% error
6. Lucario ........ 18.10% error 7. Starfy .......... 30.92% error
8. Toon Link ..... 37.70% error 9. Rosalina ....... 84.23% error
I'm not giving us much credit for getting the first three right, personally I considered those obvious. Little Mac is one that we did a good job on - the casual player would not expect him, but looking into the details of the boxing stage made it clear. Sonic and Lucario were kinda obvious in retrospect, but there was some real reason to doubt, so we were not far off. Starfy and Toon Link are two where we were fairly off. While I personally was more accurate about Starfy, on Toon Link I thought the Spirit Tracks stage really hurt him (but I was open to the possibility that Sakurai might do something like remove Link from the stage when Toon Link is on it) and rated him lower. And then we saw Sakurai's statements about nobody being cut yet just a day or two later, making me regret the rating even back then.
Rosalina is one where we got it really wrong.
That said, it's probably not possible to predict Sakurai perfectly without insider knowledge, so getting a bit of an error isn't bad. But let's hope we're better than the baseline (predict all Brawl veterans return, no newcomers besides the ones from E3), because they weren't more accurate than that last time
Lastly, let's check in on what my models said. Now, these models only operate at the (first-party) series level, so they can't make predictions for individual characters. Keep in mind, my models do not take into account any information revealed about Smash 4, only previous Smash representation, sales and series genre info, so the presence of the boxing ring stage was not taken into account (i.e. the proper comparison would be what you thought about Little Mac before E3)
One is a character slot model (e.g. Zelda is one slot), the other a move set model (Pokemon Trainer is 3 move sets), with the move set model being a little more accurate (they diverge more on series with prior representation and higher sales).
Mario series: 0.6 to 1.2 (0.9 avg) newcomers (Rosalina)
Punch-Out!! series: 0.62 newcomers (Little Mac)
Animal Crossing series: 0.55 newcomers (Villager)
Wii Fit series: 0.15 newcomers (Wii Fit Trainer)
Not bad so far, I think. 15% is a lot higher than most would've given WFT. Animal Crossing and Punch-Out!! were seen as open possibilities, and a Mario newcomer was seen as very, very likely.
BTW I don't remember if I ever posted about this, but I used my model to transform the predictions from the Brawl RTC - scaling character predictions to add up to the number of characters the model predicted for their series, with one additional constraint that multiple versions of the same character couldn't add up to more than 100% (e.g. Young Link + Toon Link + Masked Link). It got the best Brier score of any of the predictions I compared.
Little Mac Satisfaction: 60%
Breakdown:
Little Mac getting into the game: 50% (indifference)
Little Mac execution (how well they made him): 75% (pretty good job)
First of all, a little damper put on it because I'd have rather seen a DK newcomer today. Secondly, he wasn't in my most wanted, and I wasn't one who thought he was one of the most deserving out there. He deserves his spot, but leaving him out would not be like, say, Diddy being left out of Melee. So while it's cool to see a newcomer, he's nowhere near the satisfaction I got from seeing Mega Man.
But as far as how Little Mac works... I thought he'd be kinda boring. No more so than Marth, mind you, who IMO has the most boring move set in Brawl. He seems about what I expected on that front. Hell, the counter makes the similarity to Marth even stronger. It's a bunch of punches... and a power meter. Which is interesting. I can at least say I was right to dismiss the idea of him having a "stance change" as part of his move set. The power meter isn't exactly the star punch, but it's a similar idea.
But it's not just about how it looks. "Punches" are just animations... mechanics are kinda independent of whether it's a punch or a kick or a tail swipe, etc. Mechanically, he has a strong ground game, counter move, quick moves, strong moves with armor, poor aerials and recovery, and the power meter causing tactics. This does make him different from what we've seen before. I can't really tell if I will enjoy playing as him, but it's possible. I do like fast characters.
The trailer was well done. I think Mega Man's was the most epic, had the best music, and gave the most info. If I were ranking the reveal vids (and only counting the parts where we see Villager), I'd rank them Mega Man > Little Mac > Rosalina > Wii Fit Trainer > Villager. WFT had the most humorous reveal though.
What does it mean?
Well, Little Mac has some properties...
1. He was already highly expected before we evaluated the other characters, with the Boxing Ring being quickly found to have Punch-Out!! design elements. This means we shouldn't adjust too much.
2. He's from a new series. Well, so were Villager, WFT and Mega Man, so it's not news that we're seeing a lot of new series.
3. He's much more popular in the West than in Japan. This I think positively affects Ridley, since he's the most prominent character who is very wanted in the US but not so much in Japan.
4. He does take a slot. Since we don't know exactly how many slots there are and he was already widely expected, this doesn't really factor in much.
Of course, as I mentioned before, the timing of his reveal relative to DKCTF is also relevant...
Having had a few hours to think about it, I'm not sure Little Mac being revealed today actually hurts the chances of any DK characters. Seems to me they wanted a newcomer to reveal for the Direct, and with Diddy not yet revealed, the stage wasn't set yet for a DK newcomer. Little Mac was ready to go and has his 30th anniversary this month, so it proved to be a fine choice for this Direct. I imagine Diddy will arrive via a daily picture relatively soon (could be as early as next Friday) and any DK newcomer will follow in the coming months.
The thing is, it's not like this was just sprung on him and he was like "Fine, show Little Mac instead of Dixie." If Sakurai wanted to reveal a DK newcomer, and he wanted to set the stage for a DK newcomer, he could've revealed Diddy at any time. He could've shown him between Luigi and Peach, or Sonic and Marth, or whenever.
Unless they're not as far along as I think, and Diddy actually just wasn't complete enough to show earlier. But I doubt that's the case.
Now, K. Rool being completely absent from Tropical Freeze? Yeah, that's a bit more worrying.
But now that I think about it, I don't totally know what to make of it.
Because revealing K Rool at this point, with him not being in Tropical Freeze, well... it wouldn't be ideal. It would only make his absence from Tropical Freeze stick out. Meanwhile, if Dixie were in, there would be a lot more motivation to set it up so that she could be revealed today. So if Sakurai wanted K Rool despite him not being in Tropical Freeze, this would actually be a more sensible way to do things...
(Or, you know, what Groose said, now that I read further.)
My most wanted character of all time getting in Smash? The character that I thought after seeing him revealed as an assist trophy in brawl I'd be grown out of video games by the time another smash came out and would never have an opportunity to play as Mac in smash?
Oh I'm satisfied.
100% satisfied...no 110%....231% actually just like Bowser when he got K.O.'d by Mac!!!
Geno is my avatar name ONLY because I thought up the clever "papa gino's" GENO pun and was pulling for the guy during the Brawl hype, but make no mistake Mac has ALWAYS been my most wanted character!!! In the exact opposite way that I will never forget the devastating day he was revealed as an assist trophy in Brawl I'll never forget this day of redemption for Little Mac!!!
In the last rating, I gave Little Mac a 30% in want because he just didn't excite me as a character. As a matter of fact, I was even a Little Mac detractor during the Brawl days (though I joined after his deconfirmation). However...
Satisfaction: 90% - He looks great and I'm actually happy with how he turned out. I might try him out once or twice, but I'm mainly hyped with him as a strong opponent. Little Mac looks like a fun character to fight if he is in the hands of a skilled player. And the Doc Louis comments add a lot fun to the matter.
Little Mac Satisfaction: 95%
I was banking on Diddy or Dixie, but Little Mac was the one of the Smashboards Elite Four I wanted most. Admittedly there was some doubt in mind how fun a moveset based entirely around punching could be...luckily, like Samus in the opening and then everyone else(bar Wii Fit Trainer...she always comes out on top in these videos and images), my concerns were blown away.
Little Mac looks a hell of a lot of fun, and Sakurai's done a decent job sneakily hiding the Punch Out!! elements in the stage until the time was right. Makes me wonder if any other stage we've seen is going to get similar treatment.
That ground game looks incredible, with a terrible aerial game to compensate, it looks like Little Mac is a glass cannon, allowing him to have a more kamikaze gameplay. Is that one of the poorest recoveries we've ever seen?
Lastly this gives me some hope. Rosalina, Wii Fit Trainer, Megaman and even Villager didn't do much for me;
Wii Fit doesn't seem that special or exciting to play as, and she sure as hell wasn't popular. Sakurai seems to have picked her just as a WTF pick, which is fine but leading with her has just irritated me.
Rosalina I still think is the weakest Mario character choice available even if it does lend to a puppeteering moveset style. She's far lower in popularity than Bowser Jr, Waluigi, Paper Mario or (yes, you knew it was coming) Toad and at most third on importance to the series overall. Feels like she jumped the queue.
I didn't play Megaman growing up(although I understand his importance, so I won't slate him, I just have no strong feelings on him)
and Villager...well he was good, but nothing too adrenaline pumping...he just got me more excited for the following newcomers which backfired immensely as the months passed by.
Little Mac on the other hand is a POPULAR NINTENDO ALL STAR which is what the ****ing game was originally about. Seeing Sakurai finally remember this gives me hope that the future newcomers won't be all in the vein of R.O.B and Game and Watch; weird obscurities that really should only be added after a bunch of popular newcomers are revealed first.
I'll change that satisfaction to a big fat 100% when it's confirmed Doc is in his victory screens...or if he has a similar thing to the Starfox crew and Snake where Doc gives him some pointers.
(Wow, that came off a lot rantier than intended. Never realised just how pissed off Wii Fit and Rosalina were making me feel prior to Little Mac's reveal...;; )
Now to see if Pac-Man DOES get in like the rumour suggests(yessss)
oh...and Mii...(boo)
Little Mac satisfaction: 80%. I like how he looks, and I like that he's in. Everything looks solid. I'm moderately hyped, but only moderately. I'm too much of an aerial person, and it sounds like Little Mac might be aerially limited. Out of all the newcomers, he is the only one I'm actually happy to see (hate Megaman, hate Rosalina, dislike Villager, and content with WFT), so seeing a good character has made me feel a little better about Smash 4. With that said, I felt he was a shoo-in, so it's not the hugest effect.
Well, Little Mac was one of my Top 5 most wanted characters, simply because I thought he was one of the most deserving characters for the Smash roster. So many people wanted him, he could fit right in, he's a sort of classic character with current relevancy, it would be weird for them NOT to add him in at this point. On top of that, I was almost completely convinced that we would see the Diddy/Dixie tag team yesterday, which I wasn't looking forward too. The timing of the Direct just seemed far too perfect to pass up a reveal like that. So when Little Mac showed up and erased that fear from my mind, I was quite happy, as I'm sure Smash fans around the world felt as well.
Really, the only thing that's keeping me from putting 100% is that I actually don't really care too much for Mac. That probably sounds weird, as I said he was on my Top 5, but that was more for feeling that he more than earned his spot on the roster rather than a desire to play as the character myself. I've never played any Punch Out game nor have I ever been fond of boxing, so as a fighter, he doesn't quite match my interests. As a character, though, I'm overjoyed to see him here, especially when I was so sure I would be disappointed this Direct. But I'll save my 100% for my Top 3.
We still have a long while until I end the day, but as of now Little Mac has the highest satisfaction score of any newcomer. By. Far. Of course, it will only increase after I make my satisfaction post, something that I am currently hard at work on.
Crud. I should have posted before supper. I don't suppose it's possible to take any ratings after the fact is it? I typed up a bit of an essay and I'm kinda sad that I didn't get the chance to post it.
Deconfirmed, Brawler! It's a Smash community tradition to say "deconfirmed!" And, no, he isn't. Sandbag supporters are probably saying featuring in this trailer helps his chances for inclusion.
The thing is, it's not like this was just sprung on him and he was like "Fine, show Little Mac instead of Dixie." If Sakurai wanted to reveal a DK newcomer, and he wanted to set the stage for a DK newcomer, he could've revealed Diddy at any time. He could've shown him between Luigi and Peach, or Sonic and Marth, or whenever.
That's not exactly what I meant. Obviously these trailer reveals for newcomers have to be prepared well in advance, so it's safe to assume the plan has been to reveal Little Mac this past Direct for a while and not Dixie or K. Rool or whomever else. In my view, that's fine: it simply means we guessed wrong on reveal order, and considering Diddy hadn't been revealed yet, we probably should have realized we wouldn't be seeing a DK newcomer yesterday after all. There's still tons of time to reveal Diddy and any DK newcomer so their chances shouldn't really be affected by this; we simply misjudged how Sakurai wants to handle reveals, which is something that has happened plenty of times already these past few months.
Here are our predictions on revealed information ranked by accuracy (how far we were off from the true value, 100% for confirmed and 0% for disconfirmed):
Whoa there! I get what you're going for with this, but it also kinda misses the point of the game. We're rating chances, not absolutes: few characters are guaranteed inclusions, nor are many characters guaranteed out, which is why we rate them in the first place. We can't assume that Rosalina in particular was 100% guaranteed to be in this game just because she got in. We rated her knowing that there were several other high-profile Mario characters to consider, something that surely came up when Sakurai and company considered the roster themselves, and it just so happens she managed to prevail despite those odds. Maybe we undershot somewhat, but we certainly shouldn't have been rating her or any other Mario newcomer at 80% or whatever, and considering she still placed in the top 4 of chance among Mario newcomers, I don't think we did too badly on her after all. Similar logic applies to the rest, but basically, having significant "error" isn't bad because it isn't truly error: at worst, we misjudged odds somewhat, and it's difficult to say if even that is true without knowing how Sakurai and company actually decided on the roster.
The one really interesting stat to analyze IMO is the number of characters our ratings call for, which right now is very high at nearly 58. Considering most seem to think the roster will cap out at 50 at most, that's overshooting by quite a significant margin. I'm guessing that's in particular because of the very large number of characters we've given appreciable odds (69 newcomers have at least 5% chance at the moment, 46 at least 10%) when many of them likely deserve harsher ratings at this point. Waluigi, as an example, probably shouldn't be enjoying 12.75% chance post-Rosalina, nor should 6 different retros each have at least 10% chance (Takamaru, Mach Rider, Lip, Daitoryo, Muddy Mole, Duck Hunt Dog), with their total chance far exceeding 100% given Takamaru's generous rating. I doubt we'll ever get all the raters to work together to bring down ratings to more realistic levels, but it's interesting to see just how far we're overrating the field of veterans/newcomers as a whole.
LITTLE MAC SATISFACTION: 100%
I had prepared myself for a DK reveal. When the Smash logo came up, I was crossing my fingers for K. Rool but expecting Dixie Kong. Suddenly I got my first glimpse of that magnificent art style. I knew right away that Mac had finally made it. I had a mix of emotions: happiness, surprise, and extreme excitement. Hearing Doc's voice only added to that thrill, the comic book visuals, Mac's badass jump-roping, all of this multiplied my hype until Mac took that awesome pink jumpsuit off and "Little Mac Punches In!" popped up. I screamed "YES!" really load, so the neighbors could probably hear me. Then it panned out to Samus, and I was confused for a second, until she made the short joke which made me laugh. When Mac's Power Gauge went up I knew Samus was in trouble! Cut to gameplay, my first glimpse of Mac, one of my favorite video game characters of all time, finally in the game. I was shaking, I couldn't stop. I couldn't stay still, the hype was shaking me from head to toe. He was as good as I could ever hope for him to be. He's fast, powerful, and overall INCREDIBLY cool. This is what I love about reveals like this: even people who weren't that interested in Mac's playstyle were impressed by the trailer, and now they want to try him out! The power gauge mechanic looked really cool, and then they cut to the chocolate cutscene, which was hilarious. Doc's commentary was incredible, it really pumped me up and assured me that this was the moment I've been waiting for for a long long time.
Overall Mac looks like tons of fun, and he's everything I hoped for and more. I've found my main for Smash 4, no contest.
Mac is finally here, and he looks incredible.
Now, automaticly, I can't give Mac a score higher than 90%. That's a baseline, Mega Man level of exitement, which Mac failed to achive. Now, personaly, I was hopeing that Little Mac would be relativly gimickless. The meter somewhat betrays that, but it's simple and so far only seems to effect one move, so it doesn't bother me too much.
Still, he is a worthy, fun-looking, and interesting additon to the roster. I can't even levy any other complaints. He's well worth it in my eyes.
Holy cow. Little Mac was always a favorite of mine ever I started speculating for Brawl's roster, yet I didn't know exactly how he was going to wow everyone by just punching. But Sakurai delivered, and he looks awesome! He's also the first newcomer that I seriously wanted for SSB4, and a great sign for what's to come for Western fan-favorites *cough* Ridley *cough*. I love how he looks, how his style is visualized in Smash's gameplay, and the idea of Doc Louis cheering Little Mac on the stage. For a long time, I wasn't 100% sure if I was going to get SSB4 or not, but now I'm seriously considering getting it for 3DS even if my fan favorites don't get in. Rock on, Little Mac.
Little Mac: 100%
I always get an amazing feeling when I see a newcomer, and Mac was no exception. Especially because I was watching the Direct live for the first time.
Great rep and fun set, best of the four newcomers we've seen. Just perfectly pulled off. Docking 5% just because I'm not completely sold on a physical meter.
With regards to Dragon Quest, Slime is an iconic symbol of the series. But the fact that tons of generic blobs appear in all sorts of games (not just JRPGs even) does not help him, if anything it hurts. It doesn't make him more iconic and interesting, it makes him generic. Cliche. It's like saying that Stalfos should be considered more likely because skeleton warriors are found in lots of games. I don't think that's how it works, I think that would make Stalfos a worse choice. When it comes to RPGs or video games generally, I have to say that the Black Mage stands out more.
I think the argument for Slime has to be based more on the argument for Dragon Quest over Final Fantasy (or Kingdom Hearts). To make it clearer... If Slimes were generic Final Fantasy enemies, do you really think a Slime would take precedence over actual protagonists, Black Mages, Moogles, or Chocobos?
I know it's the wrong day, but I've now got time to explain myself now I've finished work. Spoilers as it's off-topic for today.
I see where you're coming from, but I think you miss the point. Slime isn't a generic blob enemy, he's THE generic blob enemy that all the rest emulate. It's hard to describe this in words so I'm just gonna skip attempting and give you some examples as to why your logic falls apart.
When making a list of the most iconic children's toys LEGO (tm) is almost always in the top 5. Lego is the original, but building block toys appear everywhere. Megablox, Kre-O.. and that's just naming some of the bigger lego knockoffs... does this mean LEGO is generic? maybe... Less iconic? hell no and certainly not any less legendary.
Similar set-up for soft drinks now. Last I heard Cola is the fourth most popular beverage in the world, just behind Beer and Tea, which isn't bad going. Cola is everywhere, and everyone makes a version, from Pepsi to Wal*Mart. In the same vein as above does this doesn't make Coca-Cola any less notable.
You're working it backwards. Slime isn't Iconic because he's copied by so many others, he's copied by so many others because he's Iconic. I was using the rip-offs as evidence to this fact.
As for the last part quoted, no I don't think he would. But in return if Black Mages, Moogles or Chocobos where generic Dragon Quest enemies, would they take precedent over the series mascot Slime? no!
Let's instead look at the point you're assumedly going for: Protagonists are more important than Slime.
I'll rebuke this with smash bros logic. It took 3 games before we got the protagonist of Pokémon playable, and some people consider him a possible cut. Pikachu, a generic enemy I'd like to point out, has been in every smash bros, and moreover appeared in the first trailer and on the box-art for each of them.
Anyway, that days over, and Little Mac so yay.
I didn't put a lot of work into my rating but I absolutely loved the trailer, after the frankly shoddy work of the Rosalina trailer this truly looks professional quality again, and was super exciting with the music and art style. Sadly Lil Mac isn't the most exciting character to show off moves for visually, but they did a really good job with it, and the Doc really kept it interesting despite just being various punches. I kinda wish the smash logo didn't pop up at first so it would've been more of a surprise when the Smash Sandbag appeared, but that moment was already so clever I shouted. Really good trailer, and a great way to start a Direct... not quite as exciting as Etrain Odyssey Untold coming to Europe for me, but I love RPGs, and the Mac reveal was still really really well done. I think it was probably technically better than Megaman, though Mac is less visually, and for most people nostalgically, exciting making it seem a little weaker a trailer... oh, and the Megaman music helped him out. Still was fantastic though!
Little Mac satisfaction: 94%
Hey, a newcomer that most people were expecting for a change! And the trailer was everything I could've ever hoped it to be! Still, I was pretty surprised that the reveal itself was out of the blue; given the record so far, you'd think that his reveal would be tied to an upcoming game release or major gaming event like E3.
On the other hand, the inevitability of his reveal ultimately hurt him a bit. He lost some points for not being the most exciting part of the Nintendo Direct, for me, that award went to the announcement of a US release for Inazuma Eleven.
Mac wasn't in my Top 5, but I do love Punch-Out!! and I always considered him the most likely and second most deserving newcomer, even if I was just his fan and not on his hype train.
I am 100% satisfied with Little Mac and his inclusion, playstyle, mechanics, and aesthetics. Out of the five newcomers so far, the only one I wanted more was Villager (who WAS in my Top 5, along with Ridley, Shulk, King K. Rool, and Ghirahim).
I can say one thing about all five newcomers though; there are no Ganondorfs. All five of them are perfect representations that do their series justice. The only tweak I could want for any of them would be for Villager to have female alt costumes/an iconic selection of faces and clothes from the series, which isn't unlikely by any means.
Random aside, I don't see how people can think that Little Mac was executed better than Mega Man...
I mean, I know I'm biased in favor of Mega Man, but he was a character that truly had a ton of options and ways to go wrong, and I think they picked fitting, interesting and classic set of moves for him without it seeming as arbitrarily thrown together as Villager (who also had a multitude of options). I dunno how he will compare to play with, but what they did with Mega Man was much more impressive as far as coming up with an interesting and fitting design.
Lastly this gives me some hope. Rosalina, Wii Fit Trainer, Megaman and even Villager didn't do much for me;
Wii Fit doesn't seem that special or exciting to play as, and she sure as hell wasn't popular. Sakurai seems to have picked her just as a WTF pick, which is fine but leading with her has just irritated me.
Rosalina I still think is the weakest Mario character choice available even if it does lend to a puppeteering moveset style. She's far lower in popularity than Bowser Jr, Waluigi, Paper Mario or (yes, you knew it was coming) Toad and at most third on importance to the series overall. Feels like she jumped the queue.
I didn't play Megaman growing up(although I understand his importance, so I won't slate him, I just have no strong feelings on him)
and Villager...well he was good, but nothing too adrenaline pumping...he just got me more excited for the following newcomers which backfired immensely as the months passed by.
Little Mac on the other hand is a POPULAR NINTENDO ALL STAR which is what the ****ing game was originally about. Seeing Sakurai finally remember this gives me hope that the future newcomers won't be all in the vein of R.O.B and Game and Watch;
Well, I'd make a couple defenses of those choices...
1. Wii Fit has over 40 million in sales. It's actually the 6th highest selling series represented in Smash at the moment (and only if Mii gets in will she drop to 7th), after Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Game & Watch. And I think most people like her inclusion.
2. Rosalina is a rising star, and I think she's more popular than you give her credit for. Maybe not among hardcore fans like the members of this board (and even then she's not that far behind), but among casuals and people who only got into Mario games in the Wii era, she's very popular. Additionally, promoting another female character is good for Nintendo, since she improves the gender balance. And while you think it's all about prior popularity, Smash also increases popularity. So putting Rosalina in means that by the time the next Smash comes around she will be much more popular. This is better than just making female clones of males like Toadette to fill out their rosters.
weird obscurities that really should only be added after a bunch of popular newcomers are revealed first.
Nope. They should prefer to build hype closer to launch.
And, you know, Villager and Mega Man ARE very popular newcomers. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean that they didn't pick two extremely popular newcomers to lead off with. Mega Man reactions were huge. They needed that for E3, but after E3 they should really be revealing less important characters so that they can save the hype makers for E3 and closer to launch. Any newcomer is hype for the hardcore like us (and we're also more pleased by more obscure characters).
And I know Little Mac is popular among the Western hardcore, but he's not actually one of those "popular newcomers" you seem to be referring to when it comes to the global casual audience. Nowhere on the level of Mega Man or Villager. Probably not even as much as Rosalina, considering she's a rising star in a blockbuster series. In fact, a lot of younger gamers don't even know who he is, or see him only as the AT from Brawl. My roommate (4 years younger) was literally like "Who?" when I said that Little Mac was revealed.
Whoa there! I get what you're going for with this, but it also kinda misses the point of the game. We're rating chances, not absolutes: few characters are guaranteed inclusions, nor are many characters guaranteed out, which is why we rate them in the first place.
I'm not saying we should have rated Rosalina 100%. Because we didn't know that at the time. But if we predicted high for every confirmed character on the roster, surely that would make us better predictors than if we predicted low for every confirmed character, yes?
It still remains that we should have rated Rosalina higher. Because we were devaluing some of the features that help her: uniqueness, popularity among casuals, that she's female, and perhaps how hard Nintendo had been pushing her.
Similar logic applies to the rest, but basically, having significant "error" isn't bad because it isn't truly error: at worst, we misjudged odds somewhat, and it's difficult to say if even that is true without knowing how Sakurai and company actually decided on the roster.
Of course. That's why I brought up the idea of comparing against a baseline. And yes, I think it's bad if we don't beat the baseline of all Brawl veterans + E3 newcomers + no other newcomers. Because we can't be expected to get them all right without insider knowledge, but we should expect to be better than a naive baseline.
Getting one character wrong by the amount we got Rosalina wrong is to be expected, since we're rating so many. It will be a problem if it happens many times, since we will start to fall behind the baseline.
The one really interesting stat to analyze IMO is the number of characters our ratings call for, which right now is very high at nearly 58. Considering most seem to think the roster will cap out at 50 at most, that's overshooting by quite a significant margin.
While people are handing out ratings in the range of 10%-25% while at the same time saying things like "I just don't see it" it's not going to happen (or handing out 45% scores for things like Plasm Wraith). There's also the fact that fans of characters show up for their days but not other days.
Maybe next weekend I'll make model-adjusted scores for the Smash 4 iteration of the game. The number of characters will be significantly reduced, since my model predicts about 50 move sets (44 slots). However, I will incorporate knowledge we had from E3 (like the boxing stage).
And make one for the current iteration, incorporating knowledge about known characters.
Off-topic Slime stuff:
I see where you're coming from, but I think you miss the point. Slime isn't a generic blob enemy, he's THE generic blob enemy that all the rest emulate. It's hard to describe this in words so I'm just gonna skip attempting and give you some examples as to why your logic falls apart.
Mmmm... no. You seem to think a "blob enemy" is a much more original idea than it is. It's not. Slime is popular and iconic because of what the DQ creators have done with him. Him being a slime enemy in an RPG is in itself boring and cliche.
Dungeons & Dragons had a number of variations on the same idea over ten years earlier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooze_(Dungeons_&_Dragons) And that's directly in the RPG domain. You really think if it weren't for Dragon Quest's Slime, that fantasy-themed games wouldn't use blob-like enemies? That's ridiculous. Wizardy had slime enemies in 1981 (in fact, Yuji Horii said that was the inspiration for Slime). Dragon Buster had slime enemies in 1985. The Tower of Druaga had them in 1984. The Legend of Zelda, which came out before the first Dragon Quest, had Zols and Gels. You think the first Final Fantasy was copying Dragon Quest just a few months later, when it had an enemy called Black Pudding and localized as Slime in English? In spite of the name being directly from Dungeons and Dragons? That enemy being the predecessor for the Flans (more recent releases renamed it Black Flan), you think Flans are copying Dragon Quest instead of D&D? You think a few months later, Vampire Killer (the first Castlevania) was so inspired by Dragon Quest that they put the Slime enemy in?
I'll stop because I think I've made my point. A slime enemy is not some amazing idea that DQ came up with, and there's no reason to suppose that the many slime enemies found in fantasy/sci-fi games are emulating DQ's Slime rather than being independent copies of fantasy/sci-fi tropes or D&D. Slime is only interesting because of its role as the DQ mascot and the cutesy design. The concept of a "slime enemy" is itself cliche and generic. Sorry, it just is. Slime may transcend that, but he can't get his appeal from being the original slime enemy, because he most demonstrably was not.
As for why your other examples are invalid... LEGO is the original. Coca-Cola is the original. Slime is not the original.
You're working it backwards. Slime isn't Iconic because he's copied by so many others, he's copied by so many others because he's Iconic. I was using the rip-offs as evidence to this fact.
The problem is that they're not rip-offs of Slime. Slime copied Wizardry. Final Fantasy copied D&D.
And the Stalfos comparison was because, like Slime, Stalfos are just one more iteration of a common fantasy trope. I wasn't implying that anyone copied Stalfos.
As for the last part quoted, no I don't think he would. But in return if Black Mages, Moogles or Chocobos where generic Dragon Quest enemies, would they take precedent over the series mascot Slime? no!
The difference is that they're not generic enemies, while Slime is. Black Mages are a job class, Moogles are an allied race, and Chocobos are domestic animals used by your characters. If they were in Dragon Quest as those roles, then maybe they'd be the iconic symbols of DQ like they are in FF. My point was that taking away Slime's mascot status, and the reasons for his inclusion would poof and disappear.
Let's instead look at the point you're assumedly going for: Protagonists are more important than Slime.
I'll rebuke this with smash bros logic. It took 3 games before we got the protagonist of Pokémon playable, and some people consider him a possible cut. Pikachu, a generic enemy I'd like to point out, has been in every smash bros, and moreover appeared in the first trailer and on the box-art for each of them.
I wasn't going for that. They would be in Final Fantasy. In Dragon Quest they decided to use Slime as the first enemy in every game, making it a symbol of the series. That's why he's important, not because he's inherently interesting without being the mascot of DQ.
I'm not saying it's not clear that Slime would be the choice from Dragon Quest. I was just saying that your reasoning about why that's true was way off. He's less original than Moogles or Chocobos. And his appearance is less original than Black Mages (which conceptually, are pretty generic). If he gets in over them it will be primarily because of his status as the Dragon Quest mascot, and not at all because he's the original slime enemy.
Little Mac Satisfaction: 100% This is pretty hype worthy! He looks overpowered until you get him off stage which fits my play style both ways! I love super armor and powerful attacks which makes him good for me to play as him. And I also love to gimp as my main way of killing so I will have a good time against him.
I don't think he affects many characters chances, but he does affect some.
New series: So far four out of five newcomers have been new series. Mega Man, Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, and now Little Mac. That increases the chances of characters like Isaac, Shulk, Retro Characters, Mii, Saki, and Ray
He also hurts the chances of Harry and Urban Champion.
80% satisfaction to Little Mac
I knew he would make it but I wasn't too exited for him. He looks great and probably plays well but I was never too interested in him. Still a newcomer is a newcomer and I'll try him out when the game comes out.
Little Mac: 95%: So far, the only new characters above him in my opinion are Megaman and Rosalina. Since each of them actually bring something new with their playstyles. Little Mac does so as well, with his meter mechanic. It should make things interesting to have someone who use a One Hit K.O. move. Provided it isn't too powerful. That and he just looks cool. I'm kind of hoping he'll have the jumpsuit as an alternate costume.
If any one was wondering, I'd put Rosalina at a 96% and Megaman at a 100%. At least when it came to how much I liked the character.
People aren't saying that (or at least not the way I'm reading it). Megaman was less impressive than Little Mac to these people because they expected Megaman to be great, and where worried Mac would be a bit bland, even if not really expecting it. That is where the satisfaction comes in.
Satisfaction isn't about looking at the technical details, and deducing what's best; it's about gut feeling. Little Mac looks cooler than most people had hoped for, mega-man looked as good as we all expected. Therefore people are more satisfied with Little Mac.
Fair point on D&D, they introduced the slime enemy, but not the Slime archetype. To use the LEGO example again, the origins of LEGO is bricks, but LEGO isn't the same as bricks. Being a slime based enemy and being an expressive, cutesy, personified, vaguely ball shaped enemy are two different things (with overlap).
I guess wizardy does have a face, and zols have eyes, but expressiveness and cuteness are the defining features to me, both of these fall short in one regard or the other... I guess it's not the first, but the first to marry the concepts into what has become a standard part of many jRPGs.
Rabites (Mana), Poms (Ar Tonelico) or Puyo (Madou Monogatari) are all part of the Slime archetype to me, and only one of those comes under the slime enemy definition you use.
I'm by no means belittling Final Fantasy, as they've managed to bring about their own Chocobo archetype, but I'm arguing that Slime is interesting in his own right; at least in my opinion. You obviously disagree, but I guess that's what makes discussion important.
Little Mac: 80%
I'll be honest, seeing the final product is a lot better in person than actually trying to imagine his very limited moveset. I was pretty indifferent to him as you can tell with him not being in my sig but that trailer was the best of all of them and his style of punching is very different from anything we've seen. He's definitely unique and brings his own flavor to Smash and i harbor no bad feelings towards him unlike Rosalina as I think he deserved the spot.
Random aside, I don't see how people can think that Little Mac was executed better than Mega Man...
I mean, I know I'm biased in favor of Mega Man, but he was a character that truly had a ton of options and ways to go wrong, and I think they picked fitting, interesting and classic set of moves for him without it seeming as arbitrarily thrown together as Villager (who also had a multitude of options). I dunno how he will compare to play with, but what they did with Mega Man was much more impressive as far as coming up with an interesting and fitting design.
Well, I'd make a couple defenses of those choices...
Little Mac is the first Nintendo character with actual star power, and people were pushing for him from the get go. Most were hyped about Megaman as well, it's just when I buy a Nintendo All Star fighter(and I know I don't speak for everyone here) but I tend to buy it for the Nintendo cast and not particularly the 3rd party. I know for others Megaman is the ****, and that's fine. I just thought Little Mac blew me away more because; a.) I have a personal connection, b.) Nintendo All Star and c.) he made a moveset about something as simple as punching really flashy and cool looking.
1. Wii Fit has over 40 million in sales. It's actually the 6th highest selling series represented in Smash at the moment (and only if Mii gets in will she drop to 7th), after Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Game & Watch. And I think most people like her inclusion.
2. Rosalina is a rising star, and I think she's more popular than you give her credit for. Maybe not among hardcore fans like the members of this board (and even then she's not that far behind), but among casuals and people who only got into Mario games in the Wii era, she's very popular. Additionally, promoting another female character is good for Nintendo, since she improves the gender balance. And while you think it's all about prior popularity, Smash also increases popularity. So putting Rosalina in means that by the time the next Smash comes around she will be much more popular. This is better than just making female clones of males like Toadette to fill out their rosters.
1. Wii Fit Trainer has nice sales. So does Brain Training. Everyone has a go at Bluepikmin11 for bringing up that doctor. Wii Fit Trainer is not an All Star at all, even if the game she was in did well, she(as in the character) is not an all star.
2. Compared to Bowser Jr. she's really small potatoes, and compared to Toad she's had far less impact on the series. I maintain she jumped the queue. If you're allowed to complain that I, a person who didn't grow up with Megaman, preferred Little Mac to Megaman's reveal, I demand the same right to dislike Rosalina getting in over a character I grew up with, particularly since he's been more prominent than ever during the Wii and Wii U eras than even Rosalina.
I'll wait and see what other female characters are revealed, but I mean there are far better females than these two; Dixie, Palutena and yes...even Krystal I'd consider having slightly more star power(ha) than Rosalina and a heck of a lot more than Wii Fit Trainer. I'll agree Rosalina is better than Toadette, but it seems odd she was their go to Nintendo female.
And, you know, Villager and Mega Man ARE very popular newcomers. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean that they didn't pick two extremely popular newcomers to lead off with. Mega Man reactions were huge. They needed that for E3, but after E3 they should really be revealing less important characters so that they can save the hype makers for E3 and closer to launch. Any newcomer is hype for the hardcore like us (and we're also more pleased by more obscure characters).
Never said they weren't. I even praised Villager and said whilst I don't have any connection with Megaman I understand why he's a big frigging deal. I mean I literally stated that here;
I didn't play Megaman growing up(although I understand his importance, so I won't slate him, I just have no strong feelings on him)
andVillager...well he was good, but nothing too adrenaline pumping...he just got me more excited for the following newcomers which backfired immensely as the months passed by.
And I know Little Mac is popular among the Western hardcore, but he's not actually one of those "popular newcomers" you seem to be referring to when it comes to the global casual audience. Nowhere on the level of Mega Man or Villager. Probably not even as much as Rosalina, considering she's a rising star in a blockbuster series. In fact, a lot of younger gamers don't even know who he is, or see him only as the AT from Brawl. My roommate (4 years younger) was literally like "Who?" when I said that Little Mac was revealed.
Smash Bros. is supposedly a celebration of Nintendo history. Hence why we get really obscure characters like Ice Climbers, Game and Watch, R.O.B., Ness and Lucas(especially in the UK where we ONLY JUST got Ness's game on VC after 14 years of playing him in Smash. Poor show Nintendo).
Also it's not that surprising that the casuals don't know Little Mac but might know the likes of Rosalina. Like at all.
1.) He's mostly a retro character, who only recently had a (not that easy to find) revival, and
2.) She's from one of the few series everyone has played at least a few games of. I bet they'd know Toad, Bowser Jr. and Waluigi too. Hell; Daisy too. Maybe even the Koopalings more than Little Mac, Isaac, Shulk, Ridley, Dixie, Chrom or K. Rool.
Most casuals I know of are only familiar with Mii, Sonic the Hedgehog, the Mario/DK/Wario crew(and even Diddy gets "who'd" at times) and probably the super popular characters like Pikachu and Link(although I still hear them calling him Zelda. Drives me nuts). Just bare in mind they'll have very limited knowledge of anything outside Mario, Pokemon and maybe Zelda and DK so them not knowing a character shouldn't come off as surprising.
Younger gamers meanwhile are more likely to have played the above and may have a bit of experience with Fire Emblem, Kirby and maybe Starfox or Metroid on top of this and will be genuinely more informed, but anything outside that and they'll obviously be confused.
95%- I never was a huge supporter of Mac, but the trailer hyped me up so much that it made me love him. He looks surprisingly unique and fun to play as.
Was one of my most wanted newcomers. Just as I'd imagine him to play like. This gives me hope for Ridley, who like Mac has a stage related to him and is super popular in the U.S.
I am ecstatic, Smash finally has a character from a fighting game (subjectively) and Smash finally has a melee character that actually knows how to fight. Smash is much more diverse with Little Mac, we have some ethnic diversity, aesthetic diversity, model diversity, and play-style diversity. Little Mac was my most wanted newcomer and I was completely and utterly surprised to find him revealed on Valentine's Day. Obviously everyone was expecting a Donkey Kong character, but instead, we got one of Nintendo's most iconic boxers! It is an amazing feeling, his play-style correlates and pertains to my interests. Complete rush-down, super armor, fast dodges... what isn't to love? There is no other newcomer that can get me this excited (except for Black Shadow, which probably isn't going to happen). So this is the most satisfied I will ever be in regards to Smash 4. I have not ever been more excited for a character in a fighting game (including Melee or Brawl). He is a day one main for sure, and if he is a starter, I will break my tradition of playing as Link. I am so excited, he is the first character that I have extensively discussed (aside from Zelda, one of my mains). Yesterday was glorious.
A character I enjoy, a character I have always supported, done in a completely amazing way! I didn't give him a full score, as he wasn't one of my most wanted, but he is a very good interesting character who, even if is just a boxer, will be more unique than half of Brawl's roster.
So why would it be 100%, practically on par with Megaman who came out of nowhere?
I anticipated this so much, especially since the Punch-Out Wii revival (because really, with a revival there's no excuse for Sakurai NOT to put him in). I literally told myself that if there was a boxing stage without Little Mac, I wouldn't buy the game just because that idea would be ridiculously stupid. Thank goodness Sakurai knew it would be stupid, the trickster he is, and fooled those who thought it was a normal stage.
Detractors who said he would be a boring character made me less confident as well, even though I knew he'd fit in perfectly.
The best part (for me) was that just before the Direct, I realized that Smash was gonna have a newcomer via Sakurai retweet. So the hype was real and all I could think is that I hoped it was Lil' Mac.
The effort put into the reveal despite the lack of 3d cutscenes was awesome. The fact that there was so many nuances they got just right for a Little Mac reveal was awesome, including Doc Louis narration, the "generic boxing stage" turning into the Punch-Out ring, etc.
The cherry on top was how amazing he looked in game. The boxing animations, his moveset, and his interesting playstyle. While it's probably not my playstyle, I'm probably gonna adapt just to have him as a main.
About on par with Mega Man, perhaps not in terms of surprise factor but hype.
1. Wii Fit Trainer has nice sales. So does Brain Training. Everyone has a go at Bluepikmin11 for bringing up that doctor. Wii Fit Trainer is not an All Star at all, even if the game she was in did well, she(as in the character) is not an all star.
I've explained the difference between Dr. Kawashima and the WFT... But anyway, I think the huge sales make her fairly deserving. I don't think it's a slap in the face.
2. Compared to Bowser Jr. she's really small potatoes, and compared to Toad she's had far less impact on the series. I maintain she jumped the queue. If you're allowed to complain that I, a person who didn't grow up with Megaman, preferred Little Mac to Megaman's reveal, I demand the same right to dislike Rosalina getting in over a character I grew up with, particularly since he's been more prominent than ever during the Wii and Wii U eras than even Rosalina.
I wasn't complaining about you in particular with the comment about Mega Man.
I was just not as impressed with how they made Little Mac's move set and appearance. I mean, nobody would've expected them to literally give him punches that all look the same. So, jabs, uppercuts, a running punch, a powerful uppercut, a spinning punch attack, etc. doesn't seem that impressive of an execution. They went with the most recent appearance for his look. I don't see where they made that many surprising choices, aside from the power meter. He's pretty much what I expected him to be, except maybe a little quicker and with weaker aerials. I guess I'm just not as impressed. With Mega Man, they literally had dozens of special weapons to choose from, a long series to represent, many designs to choose from for his appearance, and some previous fighting game versions of Mega Man to compare to, etc. It seems like they had to make a lot more interesting choices for him, and I think they nailed it. That's what I meant.
I didn't mean about the excitement for seeing him in general, since that's very subjective. I mean, if you're more of a Little Mac fan than a Mega Man fan, that's understandable. I was just specifically talking about how they converted him into a Smasher.
Maybe it's just that I didn't think Little Mac would be as hard as some people did, and also that as a Mega Man fan (I've played all the main series Mega Mans and more) I was more aware of all the choices that went into that and they picked the things that would push the right buttons for a classic Mega Man fan.
Dixie, Palutena and yes...even Krystal I'd consider having slightly more star power(ha) than Rosalina and a heck of a lot more than Wii Fit Trainer.
I don't know what you're basing this on. Based on pure exposure, just Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 and Super Mario 3-D World sold about 20 million copies. And then she was in the Mario Kart games, giving her another 43 million copies of exposure. Star Fox Adventures, Assault and Command sold 3.5 million. Palutena has similar numbers.
Their fans might be more passionate, but they're many fewer in number. Rosalina is unquestionably more well-known among gamers generally. Among non-hardcore gamers I guarantee that Rosalina is more popular than Palutena. And I doubt that Krystal is more popular outside of passionate Star Fox fans (and hell, there's even a significant contingent of Star Fox fans who hate her).
Dixie is the only one of those that I'd say unambiguously has more star power, with more playable roles and more sales.
Never said they weren't. I even praised Villager and said whilst I don't have any connection with Megaman I understand why he's a big frigging deal. I mean I literally stated that here
Yeah, I was just saying that I don't get why you think they're showing things in totally the wrong order. They shouldn't use all the best character reveals right away.
Fair point on D&D, they introduced the slime enemy, but not the Slime archetype. To use the LEGO example again, the origins of LEGO is bricks, but LEGO isn't the same as bricks. Being a slime based enemy and being an expressive, cutesy, personified, vaguely ball shaped enemy are two different things (with overlap).
But the examples you quoted earlier, like Flan, do not fit that. They're ugly and not ball shaped. And as I pointed out, obviously inspired by D&D, not DQ Slime.
I guess wizardy does have a face, and zols have eyes, but expressiveness and cuteness are the defining features to me, both of these fall short in one regard or the other... I guess it's not the first, but the first to marry the concepts into what has become a standard part of many jRPGs.
Rabites (Mana), Poms (Ar Tonelico) or Puyo (Madou Monogatari) are all part of the Slime archetype to me, and only one of those comes under the slime enemy definition you use.
Rabites are clearly rabbit based. I don't see how they're inspired by Slime, at all. Unless he's now the inspiration not only for things that are blobs, but all things that are cutesy and round (despite roundness being a feature used to make things cutesy...). I don't think he originated the idea of cutesy enemies either.
And obviously I didn't think of things from Ar Tonelico or Madou Monogatari, because I've never heard of them.
I'm by no means belittling Final Fantasy, as they've managed to bring about their own Chocobo archetype, but I'm arguing that Slime is interesting in his own right; at least in my opinion. You obviously disagree, but I guess that's what makes discussion important.
I'm not saying you can't think he's interesting because of what DQ has used him for, and that he's cute and he transcends the generic slime enemy trope.
I'm just saying don't give him credit for originating something that was already an established trope in fantasy settings, and even in fantasy games.
I don't know what you're basing this on. Based on pure exposure, just Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 and Super Mario 3-D World sold about 20 million copies. And then she was in the Mario Kart games, giving her another 43 million copies of exposure. Star Fox Adventures, Assault and Command sold 3.5 million. Palutena has similar numbers.
Their fans might be more passionate, but they're many fewer in number. Rosalina is unquestionably more well-known among gamers generally. Among non-hardcore gamers I guarantee that Rosalina is more popular than Palutena. And I doubt that Krystal is more popular outside of passionate Star Fox fans (and hell, there's even a significant contingent of Star Fox fans who hate her).
Again, definitely agree that she is more well known; because Mario has more pull than any other series on the planet, just by osmosis the characters will be better known. Whilst Galaxy 1(and I guess 2 counts for Rosalina as well despite her vastly reduced role) are extremely popular I'm not sure how much that has to do with Rosalina's appeal as a character over them being really good Mario games. I mean you don't play as Rosalina in either, so...would 3D World count more, or less? She has a less active role in the plot, but is actually playble...
With the Mario Kart logic though it'd also mean fellow female karters; Toadette, Daisy, Birdo(?!?), Baby Peach and even Baby Daisy have more star power than Palutena, Krystal or maybe even Dixie Kong. Which makes me wonder; how do we define star power? Is it appearances? Is it how well known they are by the non-hardcore crowd? Is it the impact the character had on the game? The fanbases? This is a genuine topic I'd like to discuss at some point, but probably not here.
Yeah, I was just saying that I don't get why you think they're showing things in totally the wrong order. They shouldn't use all the best character reveals right away.
Oh, okay. That's a misunderstanding on my part. I wasn't saying it was the wrong order as such, but after Villager I was hoping for one more Nintendo All Star, which we didn't get, instead getting Wii Fit Trainer. Maybe I just felt Wii Fit was better off in the second batch of E3s, but again; personal opinion and you're entitled to disagree.
