Smash bros needs more girls? Why

[Burigu]

I honestly hope there are more female characters yesterday on miiverse a girl said that she can't play smash a fighting game because she is a girl, which to me don't make anysense at all, maybe more females will cause some parents to change their views, plus smash is not that kind of game where every woman is hyper sexualized, so I hope that girl can convince her parents.

 

[SirCamp]

I'd never have expected an angry samus selfie. Never.

Let's be honest, that is a constipation face more than anything.

 

[Erotic&Heretic]

Let's be honest, that is a constipation face more than anything.

I'd be angry if I was constipated

 

[Guybrush20X6]

I'd be angry if I was constipated

Nothing but hatred directed at past you for skimping on the fiber.

 

[Dark Phazon]

Noooo.......
.
.
Smash bros needs more Villians (-_-)

 

[DustyPumpkin]

Noooo.......
.
.
Smash bros needs more Villians (-_-)

Uh have you like, seen Smash Brothers?
Most of these outfits are criminal.

 

[SirCamp]

Noooo.......
.
.
Smash bros needs more Villians (-_-)

Like Medusa!

 

[Erimir]

Honestly, I'm not sure we need another female stereotype (Savvy Stylist) to be included.

I'm all for females being included, but I'd prefer one that's not just like "Like, girls love fashion and shopping!". The moveset I saw reads like a caricature of teenage girls as being vapid, self-absorbed and fashion-obsessed.

Much more interested in more fully fleshed out, non-stereotypical female characters. It's too bad there's no way Alexandra Roivas is happening, because she's exactly the kind of character I'm talking about.

 

[andimidna]

Honestly, I'm not sure we need another female stereotype (Savvy Stylist) to be included.

I'm all for females being included, but I'd prefer one that's not just like "Like, girls love fashion and shopping!". The moveset I saw reads like a caricature of teenage girls as being vapid, self-absorbed and fashion-obsessed.

Much more interested in more fully fleshed out, non-stereotypical female characters. It's too bad there's no way Alexandra Roivas is happening, because she's exactly the kind of character I'm talking about.

I wish she was possible too.
From what I've seen, seems like a good game.
I'd be interested to try it out if they brought it back on the Wii U.

 

[Brother AJ]

My pipe dream female character would be Vertigo from Primal Rage.

Sexiest female fighter in any game by far.

Whoa! That took me back, and gave me another pipe dream...

Lizzie... From the Rampage games!

Attacks... Well she could just eat everyone...

 

[ES. Dinah]

Smash bros is already dominated by males. I welcome more females for this game and it looks like Sakurai is answering my wish. Female characters have potential also. The only thing I hope they do not do is bring back Mewtwo with a female voice just like the 16th movie of pokemon.

 

[DustyPumpkin]

I'm all for females being included, but I'd prefer one that's not just like "Like, girls love fashion and shopping!". The moveset I saw reads like a caricature of teenage girls as being vapid, self-absorbed and fashion-obsessed.

Are... are you talking about my moveset?

 

[Neanderthal]

We've already got 2 new female characters out of the 6 newcomers.
Plus Sheik and Zamus earned their own slots.
Plus Palutena is virtually guaranteed even without the leak.
That means that 5 out of 9 of the new slots we know of so far are female.

Ontop of that, two of the most likely unannounced newcomers are Dixie and Robin (half female).

There will be absolutely no shortage of female playables in this game. If anything they may have overdone it.

 

[SirCamp]

We've already got 2 new female characters out of the 6 newcomers.
Plus Sheik and Zamus earned their own slots.
Plus Palutena is virtually guaranteed even without the leak.
That means that 5 out of 9 of the new slots we know of so far are female.

Ontop of that, two of the most likely unannounced newcomers are Dixie and Robin (half female).

There will be absolutely no shortage of female playables in this game. If anything they may have overdone it.

Overdoing it? Really?

Let's assume that the Sal leak is 100% true, for the sake of argument. It likely is, but I prefer to harbor a healthy amount of skepticism until full roster reveal. Given that we have Peach, Zelda, Sheik, Samus, ZSS, Rosaluma, Palutena, WFT. I don't think I'm missing anyone, but correct me if I'm wrong. All this out of a roster that is assumed to be around 48-50 characters. I'll go for the lower number, just to give you a bit of an edge here.

That brings a to a grand total of 8 females in a cast of 48. 17% of the roster. I don't see how that could ever be considered overdoing it. Especially when one considers that 4 of them are actually just 2 characters and one of them has a male version included. Hardly seems like overdoing it to me.

EDIT - I chose not to include the IC for what I think are fairly obvious reasons. However if you factor them in, it really doesn't change much.

 

[Neanderthal]

Overdoing it? Really?

Let's assume that the Sal leak is 100% true, for the sake of argument. It likely is, but I prefer to harbor a healthy amount of skepticism until full roster reveal. Given that we have Peach, Zelda, Sheik, Samus, ZSS, Rosaluma, Palutena, WFT. I don't think I'm missing anyone, but correct me if I'm wrong. All this out of a roster that is assumed to be around 48-50 characters. I'll go for the lower number, just to give you a bit of an edge here.

That brings a to a grand total of 8 females in a cast of 48. 17% of the roster. I don't see how that could ever be considered overdoing it. Especially when one considers that 4 of them are actually just 2 characters and one of them has a male version included. Hardly seems like overdoing it to me.

EDIT - I chose not to include the IC for what I think are fairly obvious reasons. However if you factor them in, it really doesn't change much.

You're just forgetting Jigglypuff. And I would regard Ice Climbers as 50/50.

That gives us a 20% female cast... If and ONLY if you assume that every remaining unknown newcomers will be male (unfair assumption).
I'm not sure if Sal claims to have revealed everyone, but if there's more, then Dixie/Robin/other? might come into the equation too.

20% is more than enough females IMO.
Let's face it, females make up less than a 20% portion of the market.
Not only that, but feminine girls are very often attracted to cute male characters like Pikachu and Kirby. While other female gamers largely go for male characters they know like Link, Mario or Pikachu over a female they know little about.

Roster selection should be more about catering characters to the market.
Not just forcing in female characters for the sake of balance, even when female gamers may not even be interested in them.

 

[SirCamp]

You're just forgetting Jigglypuff. And I would regard Ice Climbers as 50/50.

That gives us a 20% female cast... only IF you assume that every remaining unknown newcomers will be male (unfair assumption).
I'm not sure if Sal claims to have revealed everyone, but if there's more, then Dixie or Robin might come into the equation too.

20% is more than enough females IMO.
Let's face it, females make up less than 20% portion of gamers.
Not only that, but feminine girls are very often attracted to cute male characters like Pikachu and Kirby. While other female gamers largely go for male characters they know like Link, Mario or Pikachu over a female they know little about.

No, Jiggly does not count as female. They can be either. So really to be more accurate all of the ambiguous or nongendered characters should just be taken out. Which would leave us with 8 female characters like I said before and (I will take out IC because there is one female and one male, disregarding the fact that Nana is clearly overshadowed in terms of importance) I think 30 explicitly male characters? That is still heavily favoring the male gender in terms of representation.

Also, please don't argue that women make up less that 20% of gamers, especially without any kind of evidence to back that up. I am extremely hard pressed to believe that and even if it were true, the only relevance that has is based on the assumption that male gamers are somehow averse to playing as female characters in games. This is also not defensible and something I know to be untrue. I mean look at me.

EDIT - Oh and to your last point, I think that largely speaks to a greater problem, more than anything else. Which is to say that video games as a whole tend to be lacking in interesting and fully developed female characters, whether playable or not.

 

[Burigu]

You're just forgetting Jigglypuff. And I would regard Ice Climbers as 50/50.

That gives us a 20% female cast... IF and only if you assume that every remaining unknown newcomers will be male (unfair assumption).
I'm not sure if Sal claims to have revealed everyone, but if there's more, then Dixie or Robin might come into the equation too.

20% is more than enough females IMO.
Let's face it, females make up less than a 20% portion of gamers.
Not only that, but feminine girls are very often attracted to cute male characters like Pikachu and Kirby. While other female gamers largely go for male characters they know like Link, Mario or Pikachu over a female they know little about.

Characters selection should be more about catering characters to the market.
Not just forcing in female characters for the sake of balance, even when female gamers may not even be interested in them.

Is Jigglypuff ACTUALLY FEMALE?In any place in the game they refer to it as female I thought that fans like to fit it in that gender only because they like it better that way, like in pokemon analisis in smogon often people put especific gender to refer to them only because they look more masculine or femenine, like Gardevoir etc.

I think that female characters have earned their place, female character aren't there just to appeal to female gamers you know that

 

[SirCamp]

Is Jigglypuff ACTUALLY FEMALE?In any place in the game they refer to it as female I thought that fans like to fit it in that gender only because they like it better that way, like in pokemon analisis in smogon often people put especific gender to refer to them only because they look more masculine or femenine, like Gardevoir etc

Honestly I find it highly irrelevant to this discussion whether a pokemon is deemed to male or female. They aren't even humanoid.

 

[DustyPumpkin]

Pokemon get their own category and do not add to gender debates.

 

[Burigu]

Honestly I find it highly irrelevant to this discussion whether a pokemon is deemed to male or female. They aren't even humanoid.

You missed my point enterely and I was defending you, the other guy count jigglypuff as FEMALE without questions, so I reply to that, I agree with what you said.

 

[Neanderthal]

You missed my point enterely and I was defending you, the other guy count jigglypuff as FEMALE without questions, so I reply to that, I agree that you

I had heard that that Jigglypuff and Ivysaur are officially female while the other Pokemon are male.

I recall people on this board saying that Sakurai would refer to these two as "she" on the DOJO.

 

[SirCamp]

You missed me point enterely and I was defending you, the other guy count jigglypuff as FEMALE without questions, so I reply to that

Sorry if it came off like I was arguing against you. I was really just trying to take your point another step further so I quote you instead of him. But yes I believe we are in agreement.

 

[Burigu]

It's pretty official that Jigglypuff and Ivysaur were female while the other Pokemon are male.

I had heard that that Jigglypuff and Ivysaur are officially female while the other Pokemon are male.

If you show me proof of that then I will belive you otherwise it's merely especulation, in any part in the game Jigglypuff or Ivysaur are labelled as female

 

[SirCamp]

I had heard that that Jigglypuff and Ivysaur are officially female while the other Pokemon are male.

I recall people on this board saying that Sakurai would refer to these two as "she" on the DOJO.

Honestly even if that is in fact true, it doesn't change anything for me. When someone looks at a pokemon, they are generally not going to read into it's gender. Because it is a pokemon and like I said before not humanoid, so not particularly relevant. As such, Jigglypuff or Ivysaur being "officially" female does nothing for female representation in anything but the strictest literal sense.

 

[Burigu]

Here Ivysaur trophy description:

A Seed Pokémon that is the evolved form of Bulbasaur. It has a flower bulb on its back, the weight of which has made it develop strong legs and hips. If the blossom gets too big, the Pokémon can't stand on two legs alone. At a certain level, it evolves into Venusaur. When this happens, the bulb absorbs nutrients and blossoms into a large-petaled flower.
No mention of being female or male by the way

 

[Neanderthal]

Honestly even if that is in fact true, it doesn't change anything for me. When someone looks at a pokemon, they are generally not going to read into it's gender. Because it is a pokemon and like I said before not humanoid, so not particularly relevant. As such, Jigglypuff or Ivysaur being "officially" female does nothing for female representation in anything but the strictest literal sense.

In that case you have to take out all of the Pokemon from that gender percentage equation. Otherwise, for the equations sake you would be counting them all as male.
I'll assume 5 pokemon characters in SSB4.
8.5 / (48 - 5 = 43) = 20% still. The ratio hasn't changed, meaning my point still stands equally.

Otherwise refer to my other points to see why there is no need for more females just for the sake of having more females.


P.S. I'm still hoping for Dixie and Robin. So in the end I would like more females, but only because I think these individual female characters warrant inclusion.
I just don't think there is a need to unnaturally push the gender ratio beyond what it already is.

 

[SirCamp]

I did do that actually if you read my second reply. Regardless, my overall point is that I don't see how they could be overdoing at approximately 20% representation. Again this speaks to larger issues, but that doesn't really make it any more okay.

 

[Neanderthal]

I did do that actually if you read my second reply. Regardless, my overall point is that I don't see how they could be overdoing at approximately 20% representation. Again this speaks to larger issues, but that doesn't really make it any more okay.

They would only be overdoing it if they included a female character who isn't necessarily going to be used by many players over other available characters (be they male or female) and was just included to balance the ratio.

That's getting lost in political correctness while ignoring that the vast majority of Smash players are male and will play male characters. While a very large portion of female players might be more interested in male characters too.

 

[SirCamp]

Like I have said, that speaks to the larger issue of there not being as many female characters, and good ones at that, to draw from. However I don't think that you should shortchange the ones that we do have. We certainly have not reached the point of adding characters that no one likes to reach some sort of diversity quota and I highly doubt that the development team would do that anyway.

And regarding your last statement. I will repeat that there is nothing other than anecdotal evidence here that can use to judge the veracity off your statement. However I will say that I don't believe it to be true. Certainly gaming landscape is changing and part of that is an increase in gamers, male AND female. However, a continued lack of strong female characters likely has a lot to do with the fact that there are likely fewer female smash gamers. People are generally not going to want to partake in any activity that they feel has not created a space for them. So if we take a game that has a large majority male characters, and female characters who are mostly just side characters (or god forbid damsels), and then advertize largely towards a male audience, OF COURSE there will be fewer women playing that game. Adding female characters, and really just diversity in general goes a good way towards fixing that.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

Are... are you talking about my moveset?

Just ignore him, he's just an obvious troll and possibly closet feminist that thinks it's forbidden for women to have a feminine side.

 

[Burigu]

I had heard that that Jigglypuff and Ivysaur are officially female while the other Pokemon are male.

I recall people on this board saying that Sakurai would refer to these two as "she" on the DOJO.

Sorry to quote you again but I found the Dojo page: they are all called "IT" http://www.smashbros.com/wii/en_us/characters/pokemon_trainer.html just for clarification sake

 

[Neanderthal]

Sorry to quote you again but I found the Dojo page: they are all called "IT" http://www.smashbros.com/wii/en_us/characters/pokemon_trainer.html just for clarification sake

Possibly was the Japanese version or Sakurai talking in an interview. I just remember someone on these boards being adamant that Sakurai referred to Jigglypuff and Ivy as she's at some point.
P.S. Jigglypuff's alternate costumes are things like a hair bows which you would imagine Sakurai would not put on a male
Also, 75% of Jigglypuff are female.

 

[Burigu]

Possibly was the Japanese version or Sakurai talking in an interview. I just remember someone on these boards being adamant that Sakurai referred to Jigglypuff and Ivy as she's at some point.
P.S. Jigglypuff's alternate costumes are things like a hair bows which you would imagine Sakurai would not put on a male
Also, 75% of Jigglypuff are female.

Yeah I know but it you open up the posibility of pokemon mechanics then maybe jigglypuff is male but it's trainer is female and dress him like that, I know it's a really dumb idea. In the end the game refers to them as it, so neither gender is oficial to them in these game, well if you found about what Sakurai said then I am willing to read that

 

[Homelessvagrant]

I don't really see the Style Savvy franchise getting that much representation outside of some trophy references.

Well of course not. Even if the series was way super popular, the characters themselves aren't iconic in design. There's no way to distinguish the main character from any average run of the mill young woman. At least with the miis and the villager they're design leads credence to their historical background. Still the idea is funny enough.

 

[Neanderthal]

Like I have said, that speaks to the larger issue of there not being as many female characters, and good ones at that, to draw from. However I don't think that you should shortchange the ones that we do have. We certainly have not reached the point of adding characters that no one likes to reach some sort of diversity quota and I highly doubt that the development team would do that anyway.

And regarding your last statement. I will repeat that there is nothing other than anecdotal evidence here that can use to judge the veracity off your statement. However I will say that I don't believe it to be true. Certainly gaming landscape is changing and part of that is an increase in gamers, male AND female. However, a continued lack of strong female characters likely has a lot to do with the fact that there are likely fewer female smash gamers. People are generally not going to want to partake in any activity that they feel has not created a space for them. So if we take a game that has a large majority male characters, and female characters who are mostly just side characters (or god forbid damsels), and then advertize largely towards a male audience, OF COURSE there will be fewer women playing that game. Adding female characters, and really just diversity in general goes a good way towards fixing that.

Fair points, but my bottom line is that it should be about having alot characters that female gamers will want to play as (regardless of characters gender). Rather than just having alot of female characters PERIOD.

For example Pikachu is an excellent character to attract alot of female gamers without actually being female (P'chu is very widely regarded as male).
The same can be said for Kirby and several others.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Looks like Brittany is no loner in the running. Or more accurately wasn't for a while and we only just found out about it.

I wonder what E3 will bring.

 

[Starcutter]

I feel more male gamers would play as ZSS than female gamers.

Unrelated, my one female friend I was playing with played as sheik.

 

[negativeX]

Male, female, who cares as long as they have a fun and unique move set?

 

[jigglover]

Dude, this isn't a smash thing, this is just the fact that Nintendo as a whole is very male-orientated with its protagonists, and actually characters as a whole. Why was it such a big deal that Samus was female all those years ago? It was practically revolutionary at the time for a main protagonist to be female. I already disagree with Rosalina being put in; the deciding factor between her and other prominent Mario characters such as Bowser Jr. or Toad would have been "just because she is female and kinda recurring". I mean, if you needed a female Mario representative for whatever reason - Peach is already there! I agree with Neanderthal actually - they've overdone it with the female characters. Samus makes a lot of sense, as do Peach and Zelda. WFT has a male costume, and by that logic I think it's safe to assume that Villager will have a female one. There you go, another female character. It also has to be said, most of the younger players will think that Marth is a female as well, so you can count him if you want!

 

[Morbi]

Dude, this isn't a smash thing, this is just the fact that Nintendo as a whole is very male-orientated with its protagonists, and actually characters as a whole. Why was it such a big deal that Samus was female all those years ago? It was practically revolutionary at the time for a main protagonist to be female. I already disagree with Rosalina being put in "just because she is female" because Peach is already there for the Mario franchise, and let's be honest, we all know that that would have been the deciding factor between Rosalina and another representative like Bowser Jr. or Toad. I agree with Neanderthal actually - they've overdone it with the female characters. Samus makes a lot of sense, as do Peach and Zelda. WFT has a male costume, and by that logic I think it's safe to assume that Villager will have a female one. There you go, another female character. It also has to be said, most of the younger players will think that Marth is a female as well, so you can count him if you want!

I am not necessarily understanding the point you are trying to convey; you believe that there are too many female characters, but you don't believe that Rosalina's inclusion was based on her gender, but if she was compared to Bowser Jr. or Toad, her gender was the deciding factor? Or did I misinterpret something?