So I've recently discovered the Gothitelle thing, and it made me think about the prospect of getting a playable Pokémon from every generation thanks to Echo fighters.
I'm sorry but I don't like the idea of playable Gothitelle in Smash, I don't have a specific grudge or dislike of this Pokémon in particular, it just... would stick like a sore thumb in the playable Pokémon roster, it really wouldn't feel like a Nintendo All-Star at all. But I have another idea for a playable Pokémon from every gen so far.
First of course bring us a unique gen VII Pokémon newcomer, then add two Echo fighters to represent Hoenn and Unova respectively. This makes me think I half-jokingly speculated a few weeks ago about Victini as an Echo of Pikachu. They roughly have the same body shape, Victini just has a thinner body between the head and legs, and they have the same Pokédex size. Here's how I imagine it:
- Thunder Jolt becomes Incinerate: Victini takes the same pose as Pikachu, but the projectile is a fireball that works like Mario's custom big fireball.
- Skull Bash becomes Zen Headbutt and is functionally the same.
- Quick Attack remains the same.
- Thunder becomes Searing Shot: Victini takes the same pose as Pikachu then powerful flames surround its body and damage anyone nearby.
- Final Smash becomes V-Create and is basically a clone of Marth's and Lucina's Final Smash except a fiery V appears instead of a hit point counter.
In addition, Pikachu's electric effects, asides from Quick Attack and the pummel, would be replaced by flame effects. When I thought about Victini as a Pikachu Echo earlier I thought it would probably not work because of the animation differences but Dark Samus suggests that they're being a bit more liberal with animation changes that I expected them to be, as Victini's animations would certainly be less intensive to differenciate from Pikachu's that Dark Samus, basically it would be giving it a different idle stance as well as walking and running animations (which would certainly be floating like DS as suggested by the datamined animations from SM).
The cons are that Victini has longer arms, which would make it a bit harder to port over Pikachu's animations. I also had a shorter tail, but this would probably only affect the up smash's range.
And for the Hoenn rep Gardevoir is good, but rather than a unique newcomer, make it an Echo of Mewtwo. They have roughly the same body shape and abilities (Gardevoir can learn all of Mewtwo's special moves from Smash), so it could work. The big con is that Gardevoir lacks a tail, although the dress-like feature could be a workable substitute, at least down tilt, up tilt and up air: I admit it would look weird on forward tilt, back air and especially down throw. For other attributes, while Mewtwo uses dark magic aesthetics, Gardevoir would instead use light magic similar to Zelda, and could have Shadow Ball replaced with Moonblast (while being functionally similar). And for the Final Smash Gardevoir uses Hyper Beam, which works as a clone of Pokémon Trainer's Final Smash. It might sound generic, but don't forget that it would be a reference to Mega Gardevoir's Pixilate ability, and it would be colored in pink as a reference to this. It can also be more functionally similar to Mewtwo's FS if you replace Hyper Beam with Hyper Voice, but it seems a bit less hype.
I said earlier that with the exception of Dark Samus all potential echo ideas I generally saw as nice bonus rather than something I want, but I think I've found new echo fighters I really want. It would be such an amazing way to have all regions get playable representation! If they get revealed in a trailer with a gen VII Pokémon newcomer and a Pokémon boss like Guzzlord I think I would be incredibly hyper hyper and it would be a Pokémon fan's wet dream when it comes to Smash.
Those who are not genwunners anyway
