Again...characters shouldn’t be added on the basis of what they “represent”. Representation can come in the form of non-playable functions. Playable roles should be reserved for characters that have distinct characteristics that make them unique from anybody else.
Therefore, to me, the hypothetical of a shared space for Waluigi and Daisy immediately shows the flaw in both of them being based on sports games...either one could do those things, and despite the fact that they have some requests that alone makes them kinda...eh?
It should be noted that despite not being playable, Waluigi has a sports based attack as an AT.
Back to the main point. We play Super Smash Bros. Playable characters are given heavy consideration because there’s a lot of thought put into the movesets. Sakurai does mention how they effectively speak to him in a way, but there’s certainly a lot of thought put into this stuff aside from that.
I don’t think Sakurai has once indicated that he picks characters to “represent things”. Sure, he looks into older games, but that’s just it...he looks at older games. He doesn’t look at it to explicitly “represent” the game. He looks at older games, for example, because there’s potential for an older character to bring something new to the table.
On the other hand, I see literally no reason why Mario spin-off games need a playable character to be properly “represented”. To me, saying particular games need to be “represented” with a playable character is a gross misrepresentation of what playable characters are about. Was Shulk chosen to represent Xenoblade? No, he was chosen because of what he can do. He represents Xenoblade by default.
Playable characters by default represent aspects of their series. Their reason for being there isn’t to represent it. That’s like saying that even if characters don’t have anything unique or fun about them, they should be added just to “rep” it.
It’s a video game, my dudes. We play video games to have fun, not to stare at the CSS and say, “WOAH LOOK AT HOW MANY GAMES ARE REPRESENTED”.
Discussing the history of the characters is fine. All characters in Smash have history to them in one way or another. I’m fairly certain that, to be honest, 3rd parties have to carry this gaming history with them to be considered, which Sakurai has said. This may be up to interpretation to some, however.
Really not trying to criticize anybody, but this makes for some of the most uninteresting conversations EVER. I CRINGE when I see this information because (it may just be me but) I really just...don’t care.
There are already almost 60 characters in Smash. I play a good number of them because they’re fun to play, not because of the game they come from.
If a user is explaining what makes the character important, that’s great. But if it’s not going to convince me to drop another character or take time to play them, i’m not interested.
It could be being burnt out and waiting for E3, and it could be because the same topics keep cycling in and out. But all I see are people rejecting character ideas because “muh representation” and “muh favorite” and nothing about “MUH GAMEPLAY”. It makes me sad. It’s the same vice versa, as in people argue characters should be in for those reasons, and not gameplay.
