Short version: tears of joy... feelings of happiness, vindication, and nostalgia... hoping this is 100% real and all my efforts were not in vain
Long version: When I first saw the leak last night, I was literally crying tears of joy for about 10 minutes or so... I never expected this to actually happen for real. I knew it was a dream... a long shot... and I was stubborn to listen to the haters and I had to read all the venom they spewed about me and about Duck Hunt Dog for years. I read them so I'd come up with counter arguments and they all said it's never happening and whatever I had to say to defend Duck Hunt Dog will be in vain.
People told me he had no moves because all he does is laugh and point. I scrapped my original moveset I had on Nsider and NinDB and I spitefully made a new moveset where he literally laughs and points to fight. That's when I had an eureka moment... so I refined that spiteful moveset into the current one where Duck Hunt Dog's moveset is a parody of the gameplay mechanics of Duck Hunt itself. With the hunter shooting from the fourth wall concept, it's almost as if you're playing Duck Hunt itself to fight.
I knew I had to do something to get Sakurai's attention... I realized I was barking up the wrong tree... that I shouldn't have to work so hard to sell the Duck Hunt Dog idea to anonymous forum members since they aren't the ones making the game... I should sell the idea to Sakurai because he's the one making the game. I created a Twitter account just so I could try to contact Sakurai directly. I wrote messages in English and then I looked through the Japanese websites for Melee and Brawl AND the Japanese Wikipedia articles on Duck Hunt, NES Zapper, hunting dogs, clay shooting, ducks, and fourth wall just so I could string together a bunch of Japanese words and phrases into what I wanted to tell Sakurai... and I used Google Translate to ensure the Japanese paragraphs were very close to what I wanted to say.
Next, I looked through custom NES sprite sheets and I found a huge sprite sheet for Duck Hunt Dog in Crusade. I copied and pasted them over and over... I cropped and pieced them over and over... all on MS Paint. I placed the Japanese text on these pictures... yes, I made the Duck Hunt Dog pictures in English and Japanese. I posted the English ones here on June 2012 but I sent the Japanese ones to Sakurai's Twitter on May 2012. I knew this was around the time Sakurai was deciding the roster and I had to try and plant the idea in Sakurai's mind.
This is one of the first pictures I sent to Sakurai's Twitter...
I also sent links to YouTube videos of Duck Hunt Dog in Crusade to Sakurai's Twitter because I was trying to nurture that idea I hopefully planted in Sakurai's mind. I stopped using Twitter on January 2013 because I have done everything I could do throughout 2012. I was spamming Sakurai's Twitter during the summer of 2012 because I knew it was the crucial time period where Sakurai was deciding the roster. I was desperate and I wanted to show Sakurai how interesting Duck Hunt Dog could be as a playable character in Smash.
Fast forward to August 2014, I was not expecting Duck Hunt Dog to be in Smash... I expected nothing like always... just like in Melee and Brawl where only the ducks got a trophy and a sticker. I was honestly expecting Takamaru to be the retro newcomer of SSB4 but I was surprised to see that he was an Assist Trophy! I lamented about who could be the retro newcomer if there's one. I didn't want to accept that Mega Man, Little Mac, and Pac-Man could be the retro newcomers of SSB4 even though they were some of my most wanted characters for SSB4. But then I heard about the Ninka/Vaanrose leak which claimed that Duck Hunt Dog is a newcomer...!
I was pleasantly surprised to see that people were starting to jump on the Duck Hunt Dog bandwagon and I thought it was because they really wanted a retro newcomer after Takamaru was deconfirmed. I was hesitant to believe in the leak 100% because it was too good to be true. Last night when I first saw the leaked picture of Duck Hunt Dog, I jokingly said that I was glad to see someone finally making a decent looking fake picture. But then I saw the duck!!! I was flabbergasted and confused... but then I saw the dog and the duck together and they looked so adorable together, I started to weep. I couldn't believe that this could actually be real! That it could be finally happening after 12 long years of flame wars and hard work... the feelings of happiness, vindication, and nostalgia... and now I'm hoping this is not a cruel hoax... I don't want to have false hope again, especially after what's happened to Toad... my body is not ready for the feels!
