Roster Discussion Thread (Closed)

[Spydr Enzo]

I feel like the majority of this recent discussion belongs in the less-than-likely Pokemon reps thread.

 

[jigglover]

I feel like the majority of this recent discussion belongs in the less-than-likely Pokemon reps thread.

I just got home after going out with this left on the computer and I honestly thought it was the unlikely pokemon rep! Honestly though, it's a general discussion for the roster, so in thory every single post on every single thread (except the impossible character thread) could go here.

 

[Deleted member]

Lugia is protrayed to be much larger than it appears in Melee and Brawl.

The only time in-game Zekrom and Reshiram have been shown to be gigantic to my knowledge is PokePark 2, but you have to rememember, Pikachu is a 1 ft mouse.

 

[jigglover]

Lugia is protrayed to be much larger than it appears in Melee and Brawl.

The only time in-game Zekrom and Reshiram have been shown to be gigantic to my knowledge is PokePark 2, but you have to rememember, Pikachu is a 1 ft mouse.

Zekrom was also giant in rumble blast although it doesn't matter, before you get Bowser and Olimar invloved.

 

[Spydr Enzo]

Basically, the point of all this is that Scizor has zero chance. ANYWAY....

What are people's thoughts on Shulk and Isaac? Are either likely?

 

[Deleted member]

In my viewpoint, I see Shulk as a 50/50 on whether Sakurai finds worth in him or not; he has yet to be judged.
For Isaac, I don't see him as likely. Sakurai mentioned that the only "newer" series he found worthy of a character were Pikmin and Animal Crossing (though felt a playable character wouldn't fit). This means during Isaac's peak, he wasn't worthy.
It's unlikely he would change his mind after Dark Dawn, and if he so happened to do so as a result of it, it would be for Matthew, the main character from that game.
Camelot would likely push for Matthew instead as well, as they are pushing Dark Dawn as the start of the "main series" while the first game and Lost Age are only "prequels".

 

[N3ON]

Basically, the point of all this is that Scizor has zero chance. ANYWAY....

What are people's thoughts on Shulk and Isaac? Are either likely?

I think getting one is likely, but getting both less so. I don't think either will be given top priority for inclusion, but one will probably make it in. They both have points for and against their inclusion, Isaac is more popular in the west, has lasting popularity, and has a more established series, but not that much popularity in Japan (though still some -- more than Little Mac or Ridley). Shulk is more popular in Japan, has decent popularity in the west, and now would be a good time to capitalize off his recent popularity to ensure his series will maintain popularity and some demand for a sequel (which Xenoblade deserves), even if it doesn't star Shulk. However Sakurai might view him as too new and unproven, and no non-retro series have got playable representation yet with only one game (though that doesn't mean it can't happen).

Personally I'm biased towards Isaac, but I honestly think he has the better chance, though only by a little. I wouldn't be surprised if Shulk got in over him, I'd just be surprised if neither was included.

In general though they're two of the more likely candidates for currently unrepresented (non-retro) series, though Little Mac and Saki also have pretty good chances, with Little Mac being the (IMO) most likely.

Spoiler

Also DG members should vote for Isaac in their roster.

 

[Spydr Enzo]

Good points on Isaac, but I'm just not confident about Shulk at all. He's only had a single game, and he'd be the first character included in Smash who has only had one game and hasn't even existed for over five years. I feel like it's just too early for him. Give him and his series time to grow, see if the hype stays with it.

Also DG members should vote for Isaac in their roster.

Hehe, that's actually why I brought it up here.

We're currently debating Isaac versus Shulk, because most agree that most likely one but not both will make the cut. I, personally, say Isaac, but the group seems to be a bit split right now.

 

[---]

^^And of course, I'll probably be the tie breaker. SO MUCH PRESSURE. :/

 

[Spydr Enzo]

You seem to be stuck in that position quite a lot Tryphen.

What are your thought on the subject anyway? Isaac or Shulk?

 

[Deleted member]

I don't even see why one would affect the other's chance.

If one gets in while another doesn't, it means that one was meant to be playable, the other was not. Simple as that. It's not a "I can only pick one..." mentality.

 

[jigglover]

Why does one affect the other's? The only thing's they've got in common in common is their sword-weilders and men!

 

[N3ON]

^^And of course, I'll probably be the tie breaker. SO MUCH PRESSURE. :/

Vote for Isaac... he has a smexy beard. That's the most important factor. Everyone knows it's the real reason Snake was included.

I don't even see why one would affect the other's chance.

If one gets in while another doesn't, it means that one was meant to be playable, the other was not. Simple as that. It's not a "I can only pick one..." mentality.

Not necessarily. If one gets in and the other doesn't it doesn't mean that only the one who got in was planned to be included, it very well could've been both, and one just didn't end up making it (like the Forbidden 7 or roster cuts in earlier drafts or pre-programming).

I didn't mean that Isaac or Shulk will directly cause the other to not be included, I just meant that (hypothetically if both were considered for Smash 4) one would get higher priority than the other for inclusion, and as neither are among the most likely or highest priority characters, it's entirely possible that while one might end up being included, the other might be cut for time constraints or some other reason, as many characters will be. I didn't mean to say that Sakurai will eliminate one from consideration once the other is chosen or that Isaac/Shulk will specifically stop the other from being included. My bad.

 

[Deleted member]

Again, neither have anything to do with each other.

They will be evaulated seperately and won't be compared. One gets in, that's it. They get in. It's not that one was "better" than the other in Sakurai's eyes; it's that they held merit in inclusion.
At this point however, I don't see Isaac even get considered due to the reasoning I said before. Nothing to do with Shulk.

 

[3Bismyname]

i dont get why the two are compared. its not the same kind of debate like a new mario rep where ppl think only one gets in. the two represent different series and the only similarities the two have is that they both have swords. not even the same kind of swords or fighting styles. i would rather have isaac over Shulk tho if it was only between the two

 

[SmasherMaster]

This is like saying we can only either have Little Mac or King K Roo. They are both males and boxers.

A similar thing can be said for Krystal and Palutena. Female who use staffs.

Anyway, I think that Issac is more likely, he was an Assist Trophy in Brawl. And everybody at least thinks that one Assist Trophy will be in the next game.
Samurai Goroh, Little Mac, Saki, Starfy, Waluigi, Tingle, Knuckle Joe, Mr. Resetti, Lyn and Ray are the more popular ones.

 

[Pichu4SSB4]

Comparing Little Mac to King K Rool is irrelevant, same for Krystal and Palutena.

And out of those Assist Trophies you mentioned, Samurai Goroh, Little Mac and Waluigi are the most likely ones. I don't really see how Mr. Resetti will be able to put up a fight rather than just having a big annoying dialogue. Tingle some people want, but most are against that idea. He's not even a good Zelda rep in my honest opinion. I'd rather have Midna or Groose (No, i don't want Ghirahim) as the newcomer from Zelda.

As for for Shulk and Isaac, do we want two new swordsmen? Isaac could use one of the axes instead or something. But since Shulk is a first party he has more advantage.

 

[Ember Reaper]

But Shulk and Isaac are my number 1 and 2 T^T

I don't see why they are compared at all.
They are both different with different attitudes, sword styles etc. Why not both?
Isaac for being one of the most wanted in the west, a popular second party game.
Shulk for being a new IP, very likable, first party, popular.

Neither may be the most known, but they're both all-stars for differing reasons.
If I had to choose then Shulk, but Isaac I'd say would deserve it more.

 

[SmashShadow]

IMO Isaac has more priority than Shulk cause Shulk has only been in one game. Not to mention the whole assist trophy thing. Sure Shulk is popular but he's still a 1-shot character right now and a recent one to boot. I doubt this fact will be ignored by Sakurai.

 

[Inawordyes]

Xenoblade was critically acclaimed, so I think that Shulk has good chances of getting in, considering it was recently. That is also the downside, in that Sakurai may be inclined not to include Shulk (or a Xenoblade rep in general) because the series is new and has had only one game so far. I really like Shulk though, and he's at the top of my most-wanted characters list (with Palutena coming in second and Krom and Muddy Mole tying for third/fourth), so I'd really like to see him in.

As for Isaac, I don't know that much about Golden Sun, so I can't say. However, anybody who thinks one getting in will stop the other because they are both males with blonde hair who wield swords is thinking wrong.

 

[Spydr Enzo]

I'm not saying that Shulk and Isaac are too similar and that's why only one and not both will get in. In fact, no one said that. The reason people believe that only one will make it and not the other is because both seem to be the least likely of the expected characters from small franchises. With other characters most likely making the cut, like Little Mac and Takamaru (who also qualifies as a retro), there may not be enough room for both to appear. It has nothing to do with similarities... And it shouldn't, considering we have characters like Marth and Ike, Ness and Lucas, and even Kirby and Jigglypuff.

Judging the characters as individuals before taking limited roster size into account, I'd still say that Shulk isn't as likely as many people believe. This is mostly due to reasons already stated (Only one game, too new and unproven, yada yada yada).

 

[Baskerville]

Japan ranks their favourite Nintendo franchises
http://news.mynavi.jp/c_cobs/enquete/realranking/2012/09/22_1e.html
http://news.mynavi.jp/c_cobs/enquete/realranking/2012/09/22_2e.html

Men:
1. Super Mario
2. Legend of Zelda
3. Pokemon
4. Kirby
5. Donkey Kong
6. Smash Bros.
7. Mother (Earthbound)
8. Fire Emblem
9. Metroid
10. F-ZERO

Women:
1. Super Mario
2. Pokemon
3. Kirby
4. Donkey Kong
5. Animal Forest
6. Legend of Zelda
7. Rhythm Heaven
8. Smash Bros.
9. Pikmin
10. Fire Emblem

I'm surprised F-Zero & Metroid were even mentioned.

 

[jigglover]

Japan ranks their favourite Nintendo franchises
http://news.mynavi.jp/c_cobs/enquete/realranking/2012/09/22_1e.html
http://news.mynavi.jp/c_cobs/enquete/realranking/2012/09/22_2e.html

Men:
1. Super Mario
2. Legend of Zelda
3. Pokemon
4. Kirby
5. Donkey Kong
6. Smash Bros.
7. Mother (Earthbound)
8. Fire Emblem
9. Metroid
10. F-ZERO

Women:
1. Super Mario
2. Pokemon
3. Kirby
4. Donkey Kong
5. Animal Forest
6. Legend of Zelda
7. Rhythm Heaven
8. Smash Bros.
9. Pikmin
10. Fire Emblem

I'm surprised F-Zero & Metroid were even in Top 10.

I find it very interesting how the men's favourite franchises are all of the franchises represented in smash 64, but because there isn't enough it has a series represented in melee in tenth. With the Women though, it has franchises like animal forest and rhythm heaven (both of which I've never heard of before) that have literally had 0 representation in smash, as well as things like Pikmin.

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

Animal Forest is Animal Crossing in Japan. It is called "Doubutsu no Mori" or, literally translated, Animal. Forest. Rhythm Heaven is a pretty acclaimed rhythm based game.

While it may not indicate popularity, I do see copies all of three Metroid Prime titles as well as Other M in video game stores here.

 

[jigglover]

Animal Forest is Animal Crossing in Japan. It is called "Doubutsu no Mori" or, literally translated, Animal. Forest. Rhythm Heaven is a pretty acclaimed rhythm based game.

While it may not indicate popularity, I do see copies all of three Metroid Prime titles as well as Other M in video game stores here.

Oh right. I think I've played a few rhythm heaven games, I just didn't get the name! As long as the metroid games make a profit then the game stores will keep on selling them, so they have to be pretty popular over there.

 

[Pichu4SSB4]

Japan ranks their favourite Nintendo franchises
http://news.mynavi.jp/c_cobs/enquete/realranking/2012/09/22_1e.html
http://news.mynavi.jp/c_cobs/enquete/realranking/2012/09/22_2e.html

Men:
1. Super Mario
2. Legend of Zelda
3. Pokemon
4. Kirby
5. Donkey Kong
6. Smash Bros.
7. Mother (Earthbound)
8. Fire Emblem
9. Metroid
10. F-ZERO

Women:
1. Super Mario
2. Pokemon
3. Kirby
4. Donkey Kong
5. Animal Forest
6. Legend of Zelda
7. Rhythm Heaven
8. Smash Bros.
9. Pikmin
10. Fire Emblem

I'm surprised F-Zero & Metroid were even mentioned.

Metroid still sees new installments to this day, so it isn't really obscure. F-Zero however has yet to see a new game, after nearly 10 years of being absent. I'm happy people still care for the series.

I didn't expect Mother to be on that list, but then again it is Japan. It's pretty popular there, and they don't neglect the series like NOA does. I remember they even got a Demo of Mother 2 on Masterpieces on the Japanese version of Brawl. While it got scrapped from the North American and PAL Brawl's.

"Animal Forest" for some reason sounds a lot cuter than "Animal Crossing".

 

[jigglover]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the first 6 in the men's votes the order of sales exactly? Mario is definitely first, I'm not sure whether pokemon or LoZ is second with the other coming third, and then it goes Kirby, DK and then smash bros. in terms of sales doesn't it? Weird if it does...

 

[Pichu4SSB4]

Pokemon has sold much more than Zelda, it's the second best selling franchise of all time below Mario. Donkey Kong has also sold more than Kirby, wish i could say the Mother games sold well... but i'd be lying. D:

 

[BKupa666]

Good to see DK is still rather beloved, even though it totally deserves more content than Kirby in Smash, and has deserved more since SSB64 due to its size.

 

[N3ON]

Japan ranks their favourite Nintendo franchises
http://news.mynavi.jp/c_cobs/enquete/realranking/2012/09/22_1e.html
http://news.mynavi.jp/c_cobs/enquete/realranking/2012/09/22_2e.html

Men:
1. Super Mario
2. Legend of Zelda
3. Pokemon
4. Kirby
5. Donkey Kong
6. Smash Bros.
7. Mother (Earthbound)
8. Fire Emblem
9. Metroid
10. F-ZERO

Women:
1. Super Mario
2. Pokemon
3. Kirby
4. Donkey Kong
5. Animal Forest
6. Legend of Zelda
7. Rhythm Heaven
8. Smash Bros.
9. Pikmin
10. Fire Emblem

I'm surprised F-Zero & Metroid were even mentioned.

For the most part, this seems about right. There are a few surprises for me though, like F-Zero still cracking the top 10 and Zelda being #2 on the male list, especially that it beat Pokemon, when apparently it's declining in sales and interest in Japan, and Pokemon is, well, Pokemon.

Not surprised Metroid is on the list (though I might've been if it was on the female list). People really exaggerate how unpopular the series is in Japan.

Disheartened at the lack of Starfox on either list (it's one of my favorite Nintendo series), but considering the state of the series and the fact that IIRC it's never been that overly popular in Japan, I guess it's not surprising. Hopefully a Wii U game might rekindle some Japanese interest.

 

[Opossum]

Been gone for a bit...

Basically, the point of all this is that Scizor has zero chance. ANYWAY....

What are people's thoughts on Shulk and Isaac? Are either likely?

I'm a bit late on this, so I'll put my input anyway.

I don't see either as extremely likely, but I would go with Isaac over Shulk, currently. The main reason for this is, barring retros, all new series added to Smash have been established. In Melee, Fire Emblem had quite a few games, Pikmin had two, and Wario had two series of his own, plus some Mario games. Shulk doesn't seem to have that, being a one-shot. Isaac has a 3 game series with decent popularity. Sure Operation Rainfall was successful, but that doesn't seem like much in the long run. It seems more like, "Oh, people in the US want this game? Okay, bring it over to make a quick buck," and not the holy "Symbol of Nintendo connecting with the fans" thing that some make it out to be.


tl;dr: Isaac > Shulk in my opinion.

Spoiler

I saw this discussion in the DG, so I was happy I got to share an input.

 

[---]

Outside of the top 3-5 on each list I'm a bit surprised. I definitely guess this is more support for DK getting 4 characters, FE getting 3 characters, while Rhythm Heaven getting the Stage that Star and SmashChu have been predicting.

 

[SmasherMaster]

i think that Dixie might end up just being a little bit of a Diddy clone because they would both the small moveable monkey character. I would like to see Dixie join Diddy an K Rool joins by himself.

Then Wario can get another rep! He has two series and his appearances in the Mario spinoffs.

 

[SmashShadow]

For some reason I doubt Wario will get another rep in Smash.

 

[SmasherMaster]

But 2 DK characters may be too much with one being similar to a veteran. And Yoshi has just been partying, kart racing doing every other sport out there and letting regular Mario ride him, nothing else.

At least Wario is getting a new game on the Wii U.

 

[SmashShadow]

What are you talking about. Do you know how many games DK has?! He is very well qualified to have 4 characters in. Secondly, Yoshi's moves came straight from his games. For Wario, there just doesn't seem to be as much demand for those characters but hey, who knows.

 

[FlareHabanero]

Wario is most likely going to fly solo regardless. It suffers from the same problem as the Yoshi series: lacking competent and popular characters.

 

[SmasherMaster]

Yoshi hasn't done anything by himself recently. Plus I think that Dixie might end up being a Diddy clone. You know with them both being the light monkey characters.

Plus Wario has a large selection of characters, Mona, Ashley, Jimmy T, Kat, Ana, Young Cricket, Captain Syrup, Rudy the Clown, Golden Diva, 9-Volt, 18-Volt, Dribble, Dr. Crygor, Fronk, Mike, Penny Crygor, Orbulon, and Pryoro.

Yoshi has Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Baby Peach, Baby Bowser, Baby DK, Baby Yoshi and Kamek. And the babies would probably be considered joke characters like Pichu leaving only Kamek.

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

And all of those characters you mention have hardly any support (the Baby Bros, Kamek, Mona, and Ashley have mediocre support at best), are fairly unimportant, and don't really deserve a character slot. Yes, Yoshi has been soloing it for a while and it looks like Wario will too. So why add characters? There are really no deserving characters since they aren't major characters within the franchise and within Nintendo.

As well, by your logic, Charizard and Ridley could be clones, King K. Rool and Bowser can could be clones, Toon Zelda and Zelda could be clones, all the sword users could be clones, Mega Man and Samus could be clones, Bowser Jr and Bowser could be clones, etc.

Just because a character is similar to another doesn't automatically mean they will be a clone. Yeah, there is a good chance Dixie would be a clone but is that a bad thing? In Melee, we saw clones in Roy, Dr. Mario, Pichu, Ganondorf, Falco, etc. However, in Brawl, most of these clones became Luigified or Semi-Clones. While they played similar to other characters, they were not direct clones. The differences were in stats, attacks, match ups, play style, etc.

In my opinion, saying a character will just be a clone is a weak arguement since many characters can be clones and, well, the era of the Melee clones are over. Brawl showed us characters can be semi-clones yet unique and this trend will, most likely, continue.

 

[SmashShadow]

Why are you bringing up Yoshi? He is a staple character in the Mario series and will be in SMBU for Wii U not to mention having his own series. Even if he's mainly just ridden by Mario he's been doing the same things he always has.
Also, most of us think she'll be a semi clone but even if she is why shouldn't she get in if she's the 4th most popular DK character?