ARLE
Chance: 40%
Honestly, these two have quite a bit in common. Both Arle and Reimu are icons in Japan, but lesser know here in the west. There's a key difference here though, and it's that Puyo Puyo has been getting pushed far more toward a worldwide presence than Touhou ever has. I just wanted to clear the air before I speak relatively positive of Arle, that's the big contrast between these situations.
Unfortunately, Puyo (and Monogatari)
does have a number of games that were not formally brought to the west... and instead given a brand new coat of paint. As we all know, Kirby's Avalanche is infamously a reskin of Super Puyo Puyo, an odd trend during the 90s of homogenizing cutesy puzzle game IPs into spinoffs of already massively successful IPs. If this does prove anything though, it's that Nintendo and Puyo have a history dating back to the SNES... and furthermore has seen consistent releases on Nintendo consoles ever since. It turns out that a significant chunk of Puyo's library has been on Nintendo consoles actually.
Going back to what I said before, Reimu's problem was accessibility. What I find interesting is that, although Arle runs into similar issues at face value, it appears that there's an active effort to
fix this problem. The fact that an untranslated Puyo Puyo Tsu was chosen to feature through SNES online over Kirby's Avalanche speaks volumes to me. Clearly there's an effort to introduce more people to Puyo, one which Nintendo themselves seems to have a hand in. Beyond this, you also have Puyo Puyo Tetris which in my eyes is a particularly ingenious way to get western audiences into Puyo. Slap it together with the most famous puzzle game franchise in the world, and you're set. Since then we've also seen the localization of Puyo Puyo Champions, revealing to me that this was likely a successful endeavor.
I believe that if Sega gets a new character, it will almost certainly be Arle. Kiryu is her main competition, but to me Arle's addition would be less about adding a Sega character and more about adding a Puyo character. Puyo has a notable presence on Switch, Yakuza does not. Joker comes to mind as a counterpoint to this mindset, but his inclusion was likely driven more by the opposite. Let's add an Atlus character, we've been working with them a lot... Persona 5 is popular, Joker would generate a lot of hype, let's do that. Out of the potential Sega characters Nintendo could go with moving forward, nobody makes as much sense as Arle.
That's a big
if, though. I believe Arle has a slightly above average chance of being playable, and my score being under 50% should tell you that doesn't exactly mean I consider her guaranteed either. I would have put her at 50% exactly, but I hesitate for a couple reasons. I acknowledge the statement made about a Puyo fighting game, but this doesn't mean very much to me. It's an area of concern, but recognizing the full history of the series with regards to Madou Monogatari, a darker game than you would expect from the cast of Puyo but where several of its characters originated from. As I addressed in a prior post, Arle is not really a stranger to violence. Spoilered the image mostly to save room but also because it's a little bit gruesome.
There's also Madou Monogatari for the Sega Saturn, an RPG in which
Arle flings spells at her opponents alongside her friends. Granted Arle is under new management nowadays - Madou Monogatari does not belong to them, just Puyo and its characters. But the history of Arle fighting leads me to believe that the concern about a fighting game has less to do with Arle being inherently violent, but moreso not wanting to create a fighting game under the Puyo Puyo brand. If Nintendo came to Sega asking them for Arle in Smash Bros, I have a very difficult time believing they would turn that down.
The other concern I have is simply that Nintendo's choices have been kind of... safe. I question whether or not Nintendo would take the chance on a character associated with puzzle games, over someone from a platformer / RPG / fighting game who has way more obvious potential to pull from. Sakurai is willing to take more chances on oddball picks from different genres, but when it comes to Nintendo execs making these decisions I have a little bit less faith. But that's just a negative gut feeling more than it is anything proven or even reasonable to believe. I just haven't seen anything that convinces me otherwise just yet.
Overall? Arle has a good shot, I've been flip flopping on her for a long time now. Back last summer I got this gut feeling that Arle would make a lot of sense for Smash, and it's a sentiment that I see many more people have latched onto over time. That whole debacle before Byleth definitely brought her to more people's attention, but funny enough my faith in her took a bit of a nosedive after that. Slowly but surely though, I'm starting to feel like her chances relatively very very solid. 40% is better than I would give like 95% of other characters.
Want: 100%
Arle represents a lot of what I want to see from Smash moving forward: Representation of a genre with no playable representation in Smash (no, Dr. Mario doesn't count), a fun character with a striking and colorful design who looks nothing like anyone we've been getting thus far, very unique moveset potential... plus Puyo is super super fun and has great music and characters... there's really no downside at all. She would be a fantastic addition.
Just watch
this and tell me you don't want Puyo represented in Smash. It's an insanely charming series and would have a very fun and unique presence on the roster. She's absolutely one of my most wanted.
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Predictions:
Rayman - 11.5%
Hayabusa - 40.75%
Nominations: Travis Touchdown x10
Almost there!
