For what it's worth I can understand where y'all are coming from.
It's predominantly a Japanese-centric franchise that only recently started to resurge and make it's way over to the West and as a result with most people on Smashboards being from the west it's easy for us to look past these things and have holes in our info due to the lack of apparent concrete info relating to it and it not being promenent in the places we're from. Our attachment and familiarity with these things also plays a role in how we make inferences.
However, this is why it's important we do more research on these things and listen to what other people have to say on them before making ill-informed statements, and this goes for anything, I saw this happen a lot before Hero was announced where people would write off the idea of a Dragon Quest rep either because they wanted someone like Sora more or because they weren't well-informed on the impact of Dragon Quest. Bubble arguments and echo chambers are a VERY dangerous trap we can fall into, so it's good to be mindful of these things when collecting information on things we aren't familiar with. Just wanted to preface that.
In the instance of Sakura Wars, this is a good video to watch if you want to be informed on it's history and impact:
I also recommend reading this blog post meant for educational purposes for information on Sakura Shinguji and her cultural impact in Japan as a character, it's a really good read especially if you're looking to learn more about Japanese cultural values:
https://jp.learnoutlive.com/japanese-culture-sakura-shinguji/
I guess I can also contribute to the rating as well, have some music to listen to while I do it:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvKh0hEoFp5T-f6gow7YQBDcEMD3AcT7i
Chance: 50%
It really depends honestly, Nintendo has had a relationship with the series in the past (They distributed the Game Boy game and released a special Sakura Wars Game Boy model, this was before SEGA dropped out of the console business and predates Sonic Advance by a year making it the first game they entirely owned to be released on a Nintendo system. Plus there was a DS dungeon crawler called Dramatic Dungeon: Sakura Wars that was released back in 2008 but I'm unsure if Nintendo was as involved with it as the GB game), SEGA also has expressed interest in continuing the series after the 2019 game and has continued to push it with it getting a new mobile game quite soon and them expressing interest on bringing the rest of the series to more platforms. (On a side-note, I also just want to point out not all of the games are inaccessible overseas, the original games have been localized in Chinese and Russian, So Long My Love and 2019 were localized in English territories and South Korea, and all of the anime including the OVAs, TV series, film, and the new series are available worldwide and fully translated in English, so while not prominent overseas, it's not outright inaccessible) In addition the characters have continued to make appearances in various other games via crossovers, such as Star Ocean Anamnesis, Langrisser, Granblue Fantasy, and Phantasy Star Online 2 among others with the 2019 characters being the most recent characters to crossover to them. I personally think her inclusion depends on what SEGA's plans are for the future of her series and what Nintendo's stake in that relationship for the series is, so imo it's a coin flip. I do think a SEGA character is likely due to their current business strategy involving them wanting to bring their IPs to a larger audience in wake of their 60th anniversary and Sakura may be good for that since they have attempted for years to bring it to worldwide recognition (Sans the Sakura Wars World project and the ports of Sakura Wars PS2 and Thou Shalt Not Die which had to be put on ice because of the licensing issues regarding translation and importation costs at the time). I just want to quickly bring up, SEGA of America's marketing at launch was admittedly abysmal and it gave off the impression they sent it out to die over here, I fully acknowledge that lmao, but this would be more of a SEGA Japan decision which SOA wouldn't really have any stake in. And after launch they admittedly did improve with marketing it but it was most certainly a rocky start, not really relevant to my point though. I also personally want to judge her on her own merits and not her competition with other SEGA characters, I think it's more fair to judge her by herself (This really goes for any company, imo competition doesn't really exist it's more individualized on a case-by-case basis on what Nintendo or Sakurai find best). I also think that if she were to be included, Sakura Amamiya, the protagonist of the new game, would be included with her, whether it be as an alt, an Echo, idk, I just think SEGA would push to include her as well since they've been marketing her as a new face of the series with her getting a lot of merchandise recently and her overall being the more recent character. Really it depends on what Nintendo and SEGA have in mind for future marketing, and it also depends on if any Sakura Wars projects will be headed to the Switch, though with the staff's comments on the matter and SEGA's statement on multi-platform releases after the very successful release of Persona 4 Golden on PC, it's possible at the very least it could happen in the foreseeable future.
Want: 100%
This actually has a bit of a story. I admit, at first I was pretty skeptical of Sakura. For many years I was a pretty big supporter of fellow SEGA character Arle Nadja from Puyo Puyo (And still am) and the thought of Sakura getting in before her quite frankly mortified me as I didn't really know as much about her series and was a huge Puyo Puyo fan lol. Come the end of November I started to actively predict Sakura since there were some interesting things pointing towards her I found around the time the Game Awards was going on (Don't really remember what they were at the time but ah well). It was actually the same feeling I felt for Terry Bogard over the summer of 2019, who eventually got in. Eventually I started looking more into the series for research purposes regarding Smash predictions, I became very interested at the series' rich history, interesting characters, fantastic music, and very unique gameplay. I decided I'd play the 2019 game when it released. When I played it in April I fell in love with the series. From Kohei Tanaka's beautiful score, the lush production values, interesting story with admittedly heart-wrenching moments, and the wonderful characters you really felt for. It was a really great time and throughout I thought of ways it could be included in Smash. Looking at some of the things Sakura could do from research I felt she could make for a really interesting character, we also don't really have a katana user and I felt she'd be a good fit for that. The fact that she isn't just a typical katana user, combining elemental properties with her moves, made her all the more interesting. Her rich history coming from a legacy SRPG/dating sim franchise thats' impact reaches even Western games despite it only being from Japan made me feel all the more reason why it could be a good inclusion. The music she would also bring is quite frankly ear-melting, Kohei Tanaka is a very famous Japanese composer who has done other projects you might know such as One Piece and Gravity Rush, seeing another legendary Japanese composer's songs joining the ranks of Smash would be really cool to see. Overall would be pretty on-board, quite the turnaround for me honestly.
I must say it was actually a lot more fun to do this than I expected! I hope I was able to be insightful with my stance on her!
Nominations:
Any Xenoblade Character: x5
I want to be nice here...........but i don't see how this helps Sakura in the slightlest...
It's hard for people to know and care for a series that was japan exclsusive for literally 4 games in a row. It only takes just a quick search to realize that only the 5th game and the recent Reboot got localized (apparently SOME Sakura games also got locazlied in Russia.............just Russia) and no getting the adaptations localized don't really help her chances in the slightlest. When your most notable role in the rest of the world is beign one of the Project X Zone characters, and almost a literal anime character due to your animated adaptations (because that's the only point of reference the american and eurpoean and latin american audiences will be mostly given), a lot of people aren't gonna talk about you when it comes to beign a Smash contender. I mean i don't think people would entertain the idea of a CV character in Smash if the only things the rest of the world got only 1 or 2 games and the Netflix adaptation. and don't go "MUH FIRE EMBLEM" or "MUH LUCAS", one stopped beign Japan exclusive after Melee Released and the other got in because Sakurai couldn't be arsed to see if Mother 3 was gonna be localized, plus these 2 examples are exception to the norm and happened over a decade ago. (and also are first party)
I will concide that Sakura Wars is among the most notable examples of a Dating Sim and a very early example of a Action/Dating Sim Hybrid. But even if it was a pioneer in a genre, that does not garantee a spot in Smash. Akira is one of the pioneers of 3D Fighers, and all he got was an AT and a Mii Costume, and Heihachi, a character that popularized it on Consoles, only got a Mii Costume. What about Pitfall Harry who is probably one of the earliest platformers of its era?
Here's a western equivalent. Most people here, myself included do not think that Master Chief, Doomguy, or even B.J Blazkowicz are likely. Despite all of them beign absurdly influential. B.J Blazkowicz is the main hero of Wolfenstien 3D, a game that was HEAVILY influential for future First Person Shooters, and its designer John Romero would help with Doom, another game that further popularized the Genre, culminating with Master Chief whose game, Halo only made it super mainstream, beign of the first examples of a huge FPS on a console. Why do people rate them so low if their influence is massive? For the same reasons me and many others are rating Sakura so low. Nobody cares about Wolfenstein in Japan, and wasn't their games weren't released there for a while. Halo 3 was the first Halo game to be released in Japan and sold like crap. and i don't have to tell you that Doomguy scares the japanese. Why is Sakura except from this when the case could be made the she is not different from them?
In my eyes don't see any of these as likely due to their success not translating to other regions to the point of not even beign acessible there. Sakura, influential to a genre, is just not the most likely one out there. Compare this to Arle. She is popular in Japan as much as Sakura (up to the point that when Pushdustin made that "Smash DLC in Japan" poll, Arle showed up) her games got localized no longer reliying on Robotnik and Kirby to do the marketing so much so she crossed over with the now Second Best Selling game in the world, Tetris, and her games are Puzzle Genre games, a genre that she was influencial as well, and is also far more mainstream in its reach compare to dating-sims. (remember, Japan is JUST a country, compare that to multiple countries across the world from different countries, and suddenly, big in japan is not so big after all) and don't get me started on Yakuaza's Kiryu, who has become a phenomenon worldwide (Baka Mitai anyone?) before Sakura Wars could even get its feet onto Worldwide stores (the 5th game So Long My Love was localized....................but the US got the PS2 version and Europe got the Wii version so it was still half-assed, the PS4 game was when they finally got their act together)
Maybe in the future Sakura Wars could see a new high success like Fire Emblem. That game also had romancing elements starting with Awakening and that game happened to be the lucky one where they got popular, so i can see a a bright future for this franchise, but now? Too early to say, and at the same time, too late to influence Ultimate's roster in my eyes. (if Steve is any indication, never underestimate how long negotiations start, im not sayin every character takes half a ****ing decade, but it's clear plans for DLC were and are done far in advance, and by that time Sakura Wars was till very niche here, and mostly still is)
I appreciate you for being civil in this response Phoenix.
I think you actually said this really well and I can definitely understand where you're coming from, not only did you give some constructive points you also gave good acknowledgement and understanding of the subject-matter while also providing good arguments to back your perspective.
I will say, I do think Sakura and Doomslayer are very similar at opposite ends of the spectrum which has been something on my mind for awhile. Both are characters from games that are highly influential in their genre, went on hiatus and resurged with a reboot, and are legendary characters in their own countries, but in their opposite regions don't fare as well with people. It's pretty interesting to think how they're kind of equivalents of each other.
I agree this is a wait-and-see thing but I still wanted to contribute to this by providing some information relevant to it, hopefully I gave a good idea of my perspective. For me personally it's honestly really up to what Nintendo and SEGA have in mind in terms of long-term marketing. Not saying it's guaranteed of course, hell not even saying it's particularly likely lol, just that it's a possibility is all.
(I would like to correct however that both versions of So Long My Love made it over to North America at least but I don't know about PAL, I know this because So Long My Love is rather notorious for going up for high prices online which includes both versions of it, just wanted to correct that)
BlueEyedGrimmbat
Marisa doesn't have a support thread, anyone else you'd like to nominate in her stead?
