I'm surprised they pulled the plug on DLC when they did. Honestly, Big N could have milked us for another two DLC characters (Bringing the number to an even 60) and avoided one hell of a fanboy ****storm. 58 is just such an odd number to end at, especially given the extra character slots present in the game.
So let's say Corrin, Cloud, and Bayo were non-negotiable. We've got our obligatory FE advertising rep, FF7 rep, and Europe's top Smash ballot request.
So let's say they added two more characters. If Big N picked two from this list: The ballot winner from North America. The ballot winner from Japan (or Asia as a whole). A returning character (Wolf, Snake, IC's, even Pichu), another 3rd party character.
They could have completely avoided the backlash and Smash fans would still throw their wallets in support. With the NX around the corner and an inevitable Smash 5 coming, I get that they don't want to dump too much time into this game, but a lot of the assets could be ported over to the new game. Add a blockbuster character now, get the money from the DLC sales, use the model and moveset in new game.
The way it stands now, Bayo is cool. . . but the fact that they kept having to add asterisks to justify her inclusion should have been a sign. * - The most realizable . * - Top in Europe * - Top 5 in the World of characters who were negotiable. At least her moveset looks super cool, and I'm praying that the background monsters in her stage are just visual effects because it looks like it could potentially be a cool counterpick stage. I may sound salty about her, but I'm not. I'm salty about the ballot in general.
It just . . . to me, it feels like my ballot vote was completely wasted because Sakurai / Nintendo just cherry picked who they wanted out of the results. The "realizable" and "negotiable" part rub me the wrong way. . . Really, any character could be dismissed given the criteria given.
Geno? Non negotiable, we already picked our Square Enix rep.
K.Rool? Not realizable. We don't like him, or the DK franchise.
Banjo Kazooie? Non negotiable. We'd have to ask big daddy Microsoft, and despite the fact that Wii U is getting Minecraft, which is owned by Microsoft, they clearly couldn't be bothered to negotiate.
Ridley? Too big, not realizable.
Simon Belmont? Non negotiable. Despite the fact we've worked with Konami before, and he's not only a classic character from a longstanding franchise, but had such close ties with Nintendo that he was part of the main roster of that ****ty Nintendo based 80's cartoon Captain N.
Captain Toad? Shovel Knight? Shantae? Sceptile? Inkling? Nope nope nope.
Isaac? Not, not realizable. We have too many sword characters.
Speaking of, here's Corrin.
Corrin, as cool as her moveset is, is ANOTHER advertising character for FE. One that spoiled that Corrin is a Manakete for all of us in the west who were waiting for Fates, like myself and my wife. Not only did Corrin spoil my Smash hype, Corrin managed to spoil my Fire Emblem hype.
Good job Nintendo. Good job.
Geno? Cloud is the square rep and is the most iconic square character they could get their hands on. They aren't going to waste time on some random no name character nobody knows other than the whiny hardcore. From the looks of it cloud set them back a lot with licensing as Square seemed reluctant to give anything: only two songs on his stage? just cloud? one costume and one hat? check what other companies were willing to offer.
K.Rool? Irrelevant character. Not trending in any way whatsoever. Any smart director would have passed over this character as it doesn't add anything to the roster, not in the form of being an icon, being an interesting character nor being relevant or trending.
Banjo Kazooie?We just dumped a ton of money on Cloud from FF7. Do you know how much licensing Banjo might have sent them back? Banjo is also irrelevant, and not trending and also isn't a gaming icon so that leaves his moveset being interesting up for debate.
Ridley? Boss characters won't be made playable, same goes for assist trophies.
Simon Belmont? Ok, here's a decent choice. Gaming Icon, same as Snake, even though Snake is trending. Snake would sadly be the first choice. Problem lies with Konami somewhere. Kojima and Sakurai are friends and would not have minded, the problem is with Konami and Kojima :they were not getting along well to the point that Kojima finally got to leave the konami basement prison a few days ago and form a new Kojima productions working with Sony. This falls unders "adult circumstances."
Captain Toad? Shovel Knight? Shantae? Sceptile? Inkling? Al of the above are not trending or relevant other than the Inklings. So for the sake of Inklings I will give you that. As much as I love shantae, just like the rest: they aren't gaming icons, trending or controlled by nintendo in some shape, way or form (which naturally adds complications and if these can't be solved, what is Sakurai supposed to do? dig into his own pockets and pay other corporations for their mascots?)
Isaac? irrelevant and not trending. A lot of characters getting in or not is dependent on luck as well. It's as if you haven't spend time reading source gaming's interviews with Sakurai at all.
He does a fairly good job explaining varying factors that go into character decisions.
Once characters make it in, it becomes more difficult for them to be removed and are probably done so for a multitude of circumstantial reasons, as Sakurai (if he could) would want to include all characters if he could. He is on record saying that in one of his earlier interviews.
I remember Brawl Hype.
I remember ROB hate.
I remember most of all Wolf hate as he was the LAST unlockable character and was another starfox space animal with similar specials. Everyone called him a clone. Everyone was salty and hated him.
Everyone remembered how Melees last secret character was Mewtwo.
Look at this ****storm. Damn. I'm thoroughly disappointed in this community. I hope Sakurai does well and comes back for the next installment. He seems like a capable man with an eye for detail who has a strong vision and isn't bullied by rabid fanboys.
A lesser designer would have caved and given us a game akin to Playstation All Stars and it would have bombed completely.