SamuraiPanda, I'm am very disappointed. I expect this from Nsiders but not you. So it's come to this.......
1. This is the same character selection screen from the demo. Its obviously for demonstration purposes only.
First of all, we aren’t “supposed” to have known about the character selection screen. The Dojo is NOT tailored for people who broke down and analyzsed everything in the E4All demo, it is tailored for everyone else. So the normal response to that screenshot would be “Oh, that’s the starting roster.” Not, “Oh, that’s from the demo so it can’t be real.” Also, it isn’t strange at all for the demo to use the starting roster. They aren’t going to change up the character select screen all of a sudden.
Yes, Dojo is catered to all Smash fan, BUT that doesn't change the fact that Hardcore smash fans look at the site.
So why show the real roster. Sakurai is trying to keep things hidden. We all know that. We have tried to look for leaks and what not but to no avail. So why start with the starting roster. Wouldn't it be logical that he just use the one from the demo instead as not to release any secrets.
2. There is a blatant lack of Kirby...
This is really where the logic takes a tail spin if it wasn't bad enough already.
The best thing I can say is why have Meta-Knight be a starting character and not Kirby, the star of the franchise, who is also on the game's box. Why make him hidden. It makes no sense.
And this is just why it's a demo screen. You see, Kirby is the only original 8 not in that roster. Why? Doesn't that seem odd. The answer is Sonic. Sonic was added to soften the delay. Sakurai wanted to make him playable so people wouldn't feel bad he delayed the game. Thus, no Kirby (as Japanese customs would have him take his own character out rather then others, and Meta0Knight stays as he is a newcomer).
What is the very first battle in the Subspace Emissary? Mario vs Kirby. You unlock him in the very beginning of the mode. Next match? Petey Piranha with Zelda and Peach in a cage. Save Zelda to unlock her. Sakurai is making the subspace emissary much more enjoyable for people to play by letting you rapidly unlock characters. Don’t you think its more fun if you unlock a bunch of characters while playing through it, instead of one every 2 hours? It’ll really make you want to play that mode, probably before you do anything else in the game. Also, think of the event mode. The very first event, which was already revealed, is DeDeDe and Bowser vs Mario. Beat that and you unlock DeDeDe. Sakurai is encouraging people to play all these different single player modes by having you unlock characters really easy/early/frequently, so that you play the whole thing through. In Melee, there were really obscure ways to unlock a lot of characters that most people would, and should, have taken a long time to figure out. But, because of the internet, we unlocked them all as soon as humanly possible, so there is no point in making unlockable characters so hard to obtain anymore (although there will invariably be a few that are very difficult to unlock).
This is one of the major problems with the theory is it assumes more then bring hard facts.
So Kirby is the first character. Doesn't it seem like coincidence rather then fact, looking for something that isn't there. It's no better then the cloud theory. So what about Wario. Oh, you unlock him in event match 5. Where are the ICs? Where is Snake? Where are all these characters. Dedede, Wario, Kirby and Zelda are all coincidences. Just becuase these characters appear early and were not in the demo doesn't mean that this is how you unlock them. It's also strange that you play as them so early in the game. You can play as Kirby in the first SE level. You fight Dedede in the first event match.
Edit: This point is where most people have trouble, so I figured I would expand it a bit. By the way, keep in mind that Kirby COULD be on the final starting roster. When Melee's "starting roster" was revealed (via demo), it didn't have Kirby or Zelda, which became starters when the game was released. So this point could be moot.
Exactly. So couldn't this just be the demo roster that left some characters out.
[/B]As others have already pointed out, this game is not 64, nor is it Melee. This is 6 years after the originals were made. So why do you assume you have to battle against the person you're about to unlock? I could easily see you having to win this battle with either Mario or Kirby (who could go on to fight Petey?) to unlock Kirby. Can you imagine fighting against Pokemon Trainer? How could they twist the story to do that? I find it much more plausible that when you get to a certain part in the story, you see a cutscene with PT fighting, say, Bowser or something, and then you have to play WITH PT to beat Bowser. PT could be unlocked as soon as you play with him, or he could be unlocked when you beat that match.
Now it becomes a more covering your tracks. It may have been 6 yrs. since Melee, but Sakurai has been making games between then. He has two styles of unlocking
A)Start with a fair amount and proceed where things are harder to unlock
B)Start with very little and get more just though playing the game
But with the demo roster, neither A or B works. The Smashes are always A. You start with a good chunk of the roster and get it as you complete certain requirements. With B, you get very little, but will unlock just by playing. Meteos is a good example. You star with only 4 planets, but you can fuse more as you play the game. You get thye fusion meterials by launching meteos. So, you can play straight multiplayer and get almost everything. BUT that is not how it works here. You assume it's like Melee where you still have to do certain requirements to get stuff, but you have very little. This doesn't coincide with how Sakurai has developed any of his games.
3. No Kirby, but Metaknight? Yeah right.
There is no way you can have only veterans in the starting roster, that’s ridiculous. You have to include newcomers. So who do you include? Well, if I were Sakurai, I would try to include at least one really cool, fun to play, unique, and noob-friendly character. One person that fits this perfectly is Metaknight. He is freaking awesome. How many people, who didn’t know/care about Metaknight before SSBB have fallen in love with how cool he is? Including him in the starting roster would make sense. Especially since its so easy to unlock Kirby anyways. Plus, you may meet him much later in the emissary, which is a good reason to have him unlocked from the start since he is so appealing to new players.
But you never address the issue of why Kirby isn't there. You just said why Meta-Knight is there. So where is the Kirby SamuraiPanda. You said there would be Kirby.
4. Sonic? Sakurai said he’ll be an unlockable! And why is there no Snake?!?
Yes, I know. I did the translation where he said 3rd party characters will be unlockable. But probably one of the reasons they never officially translated the blog into English was because everything he said is subject to change. Whenever I talk to casual smashers (and many hardcore ones too) about SSBB, and I mention Sonic is in the game, you know what they say? “Oh man, that is the FIRST character I’m playing with.” I’ve gotten that response incredibly often. Plus, having Sonic in the game is a HUGE selling and advertising point. It only makes sense that he’s playable from the very beginning. Snake, on the other hand, is not nearly as “huge” to the SSBB series, or to fans worldwide as Sonic. Comparing the two would be silly.
But it never answers why Snake isn't there. I've said Snake is in SmashBros and every one wants to play as him. So the same could be said about Snake for what you said of Sonic, or any other third party character for that matter.
The arguments was very clunky and didn't hit a lot of points.. What does this theory do. Assume. It assumes every last thing, and not only that, tries to tie things together that have no real relation. It's just so messy. Even looking though it, a lot of the points made no sense and didn't help your overall argument, and were kind of just.......there.
I think the best counter argument is this: just becuase it is on the site doesn't mean it's the final roster. Sakurai is tight lipped. He wouldn't reveal the final roster like that. And we know he's not done revealing characters. He will show the roster in the future, but him showing a demo instead is to keep it under wraps.
But also look at it. There is a lot of holes. Why is Kirby not there. Why is Sonic there but not Snake. Why are there no ? Boxes. Why does it not have Wario. Why does it have no Earthbound stuff when there is a lot of representation for it? Why are the characters with similar franchises split from each other. Why was Rumble Falls not a selectable course on the next demo screen? Why is there no Sonic stage? Why are all the newcomers clumped together? Why is there not enough room for more them 5 more character blocks?
The answer? This is the demo screen. He just added the wifi stuff as not to show us the true starting roster which, for all we know, could still be incomplete.
