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Wait...is that a joke poll, or something? Because that's a really, really weird poll if it isn't. xD
So, on the subject of Shantae, what would you guys like to see for her design? I myself would prefer to see her in her Half-Genie Hero appearance, but I wouldn't mind if she came in her Pirate's Curse variation either.
I can only suspect he uses some form of ancient magic to make it happen. That, or Shovel Knight is actually a sentient suit of armor and this is the first time he's been seen wearing clothes. BOOM. PLOT TWIST.
IF Nintendo were to pick an indie for Smash, you know it'd be between Shantae, CommanderVideo, and Quote, right? At least they're relevant (or becoming relevant) in Japan!
This. I wouldn't mind SK in Smash (as long as he's not over Shantae), and even if he doesn't have a lot of history that doesn't really stop the support for him, no matter what we personally think of him.
Heck, I personally think an SK-Shantae combo would be neat, especially since Yacht Club is pretty much ex-Wayforward members, right?
New update: Shantae has gotten over 1600 votes. Let's keep them votes coming. We want Shantae to be part of the final FIVE characters for the FINAL straw poll on the 2nd of October(24 hours prior to the end of the Ballot).
Yes, they do. It's not perfect, especially with the shortness of the hair, but I guess it'll do until we get Shantae or a Shantae Mii Fighter costume. Based on her popularity alone, I'm confident we'll get one or the other.
And what is with Nintendo putting the creepiest faces possible on their Mii fighters that they advertise with? A nose on a Toad? Are they nuts?
There was supposely a 3D game possibly going to happen on the Gamecube years ago, but got scrapped. So yes, this would be her first 3D appearance, officially.
I've written way too much to counter anti-Shantae arguments in the past. Here is some random stuff I've written that you might find useful for your video:
By far the most common argument people give for thinking Shantae has no chance is that she is third party and not a giant gaming icon. Here is a slightly edited version of the explanation I always give for why this is a poor argument:
It's no secret that so far all of the third party characters in Smash are huge gaming icons. However we need to be a little more cautious when inferring things about the decision making process behind this.
Why would the dev team want to limit the number of third party characters? Presumably for three reasons: 1) because boosting third party characters isn't necessarily in Nintendo's commercial interests if it benefits their rivals, 2) because third party characters threaten to dilute the Nintendo flavor of the game, and 3) because negotiating IP rights for third party characters can be difficult and expensive.
Since third party characters generally present all three of these obstacles, they would only be worth including if they were such gaming legends that their prestige outweighs all three of those factors. However if a third party character had a near exclusive relationship with Nintendo, and the company that owned them were eager to see their character included, then the dev team might decide that those three reasons are not so applicable. Furthermore the dev team might feel that since the characters are DLC as opposed to content included in the main purchase, restrictions like those first two can be applied more loosely.
I would guess that Nintendo's thought process is something like that, especially given that Nintendo clarified that ANY videogame characters are fair game when asked specifically about third party characters.
It's also possible that instead, Nintendo just has an inviolable rule against third party characters in Smash, with special exceptions made only for the most iconic faces in all of gaming. We don't know. The point is that we can only speculate on the subject, and anyone who claims to know for sure one way or the other is full of ****. As fans all we can do is express our opinions, cast our votes, and hope for the best.
~
As for Shantae's popularity in the polls, there are no good polls right now. It just depends which ones you look at. In fact, in pretty much every poll out there from the last 2-3 months, Shantae has been doing extremely well - a top 3 or top 5 character pretty much across the board. That placement for Shantae is both extremely good and remarkably consistent. But in any case, the ballot isn't won by popular vote anyway. Shantae will definitely be popular enough that Sakurai and the dev team will at least look at and discuss her as a potential character, and at that point what matters won't be whether she scored #5 or #15 on the ballot, but the actual reasons for and against her inclusion. And that is exactly the position that Shantae wants to be in.
~
The last argument I hear against Shantae is that she isn't well-known in Japan. This is harder to argue against than the third party thing, but only because the third party character thing is obvious bs.
Lack of recognition in Japan is a drawback for Shantae, but it's very unlikely to be a fatal issue for her. We don't have any way of knowing exactly how Sakurai will weigh this factor. Ken Sugimori of Pokemon fame has expressed his support for Shantae, so clearly he doesn't think it's an impossible idea, and presumably he has more insight into how these factors are considered than any of us do. In any case, it is very hard to imagine most Japanese fans reacting negatively to Shantae's announcement - cute female characters tend to go over well there. This is the country that invented the "waifu" concept after all. Plus this argument is growing more and more outdated by the day - Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is releasing in Japan very soon in physical format. She doesn't even have a physical release here! Plus across Japanese Miiverse and twitter, Shantae buzz has started to pick up a lot over the last month or so. Especially with such initial strong buzz for a game that isn't even out there yet, Nintendo could very well see this as an opportunity to make a ton of extra sales in Japan as her games start releasing there.
~
And here's the point to be made about all these objections, which should really be brought up with all of them, especially the lack of Japanese recognition complaint. Shantae faces obstacles, sure. But she is totally viable when you consider the context of the characters she is competing with. With the exception of K. Rool, Wolf, and maybe Isaac, all of the characters she competes with also face big obstacles that when considered in isolation, could keep them out of the game. Indeed, these obstacles explain why none of these characters have made it yet. However one or more of these characters aside from K. Rool, Wolf, and Isaac is likely to make it in as DLC. Shantae has a very reasonable shot at being one of them.
As for positive arguments in favor of Shantae, TheRickyWill
has a post in here with a lot of excellent hype essays about why Shantae deserves to be in Smash, and I recommend you look at that. I've written the following:
Shantae in Smash would create a ton of buzz about Smash DLC, and would also cause a massive spike in recognition and popularity for one of the most deserving indie franchises out there. Plus Shantae would be so damn fun and unique to play as in Smash, and would feel right at home in the roster. A Smash appearance would be the perfect culmination of her and WayForward's history with Nintendo, and a special honor they both richly deserve. Furthermore, for Shantae it's now or never: she's about to go multi platform, so if she is ever getting into Smash, it pretty much has to be right now. That's not really the case for any other ballot contenders. And if Shantae does get added, it will set her up to always have a special relationship with Nintendo, whatever other consoles she appears on. On every level, this just feels like Shantae's big moment.
(written in response asking why you would want to see Shantae in Smash, aside from reasons relating to aesthetics/history, i.e. "non-gameplay" reasons)
Well if you are asking purely in terms of gameplay, the answer is that Shantae has a ton of moves to draw on. Seriously, movesets for Shantae basically write themselves. Hair whipping is her signature attack and the move I am most excited to try out in Smash: I imagine it being a low power but highly effective spacing tool on a light, agile character, which is pretty different from most of the cast. That is pretty much how I imagine her playing out. Light, agile, but with a good spacing tool, some neat tricks up her sleeve, and a few surprisingly powerful but hard to land kill moves. Sounds like a blast to play as to me.
For specials she has plenty aside from genie transformations to draw on. Her latest game, Pirate's Curse, featured no transformations whatsoever, and is loaded with moves that would translate perfectly into moves for Smash Bros. Forget coming up with four unique specials, with Shantae you have enough material to work with that most if not all of her A moves could also be taken directly from her games. That's not even true for characters like Samus and Mario - how related to their games are most of their a moves?
If you were just curious to hear arguments aside from things like character/art design/history with Nintendo, I don't blame you, since these things get stressed for Shantae a lot. However I do also want to say that factors like art/character design do and should matter - they are a big part of what make videogame characters memorable and fun to play as. Smash wouldn't be 10% as popular or fun if you replaced all the characters with generic fighting game characters. An essential ingredient to the magic of Smash bros is that the whole game is a celebration of so many memorable, colorful characters and games. This is shown by the amazing, over the top soundtrack for Smash Bros. Those don't exist for gameplay reasons, they exist because the game is meant to celebrate as fully as possible all the different games and characters it brings together. It is no minor detail that Shantae would bring a lot to the game in terms of her design and what she represents.
As for her hourglass figure, I should mention that even though I'm an avid Shantae supporter, I hate "fan service" and cringe harder than anyone when people sexualize videogame characters. I'm always the one who grumbles loudest that Samus should be a more threatening Smash character with her suit on rather than off, and should look taller and more muscular. I tend to favor big heavy characters anyways, not characters like Shantae. K Rool is more in line with the characters I typically play. It's just that there are so many good reasons for wanting Shantae in this game, I am won over.
If you look through my comment history on reddit, you will find a lot more that I have written, but what I've copied into this post is the meat of it.
You are welcome to use whatever I have. You don't even have to cite it if you don't want to - all I care about is bringing in more votes for Shantae.
Man, those Etika polls. K. Rool not even making top 5 right now? Insanity. Whatever you think of Etika, we know he's a Shantae supporter, and this is likely the last big push for her before the ballot closes in a couple days. Shantae is sitting comfortably at #4 right now on his very large polls, so let's make sure she stays there and makes his final top 5 poll. He will probably release some video about the top 5 before the ballot closes, and as long as Shantae makes the cut, Etika could be the last prominent YouTuber to show her some love before the ballot closes.
For anyone curious, if you look at vote scores across his three ballots, here is the current top 5:
The placements seem fairly stable right now, but the vote totals are constantly climbing, so definitely make sure to keep up the support for Shantae - vote on your phone too! Snake and Shovel Knight are neck and neck, but haven't ever actually swapped places for as long as I've been watching.
On a side note, I hope that Yacht Club is sending Tamaki a check in the mail, because he really gave Shovel Knight a huge revival in the ballot by going all in with his reputation on that bogus rumor. Fortunately Shantae seems to be holding her own in spite of that.
Here are the next 6-10:
6. Wolf 2072
7. Sora (?!) 1733
8. K. Rool 1681
9. Isaac 1545
10. Rayman 1521
Wolf is only about 50 votes behind BK, but he seems to be staying there. Poor K. Rool though - what happened to him?? I haven't seem him lose a poll this badly since, well, ever. Also where on earth did Sora come from? The only time I've seen him get that many votes was on one poll that didn't have IP protection, and it was a case of totally blatant vote tampering. Every other poll I've ever seen shows his support as negligible. I know this one does have IP protection, but still, it makes you wonder...
Ice Climbers get honorable mention at #11. There is a big gap between them and the next candidate, and the next candidate is Goku, so anyone not mentioned here is doing really badly in this poll.
I'm not sure what to make of these polls - the vote counts are so huge already, and the results look pretty different from most other polls. It's a testament to the strength of Shantae's popularity that her results here and elsewhere are so consistent. Whether this poll is reliable or not, it could have a pretty decent impact on last minute voting.
Wow though, GUYS THE BALLOT IS ALMOST DONE! Go vote in Etika's poll and on the ballot on literally every device you have that connects to the Internet. In just three days all the campaigning is done, so let's finish strong.
I am pretty glad that Shantae has had so many awesome supporters spreading the love for her, especially all of you here. She's a character that looked like she was going to be a total long shot, and now she's polling in the top 5 everywhere minus Japan, where she's got a rapidly growing presence. That could not have happened without you guys putting out Miiverse posts, and fan art, and supporting messages, and online votes in the poll and ballot, and everything else. Whatever else happens on October 3rd, I'm gonna be raising a drink to you guys. Rock on.
I've written way too much to counter anti-Shantae arguments in the past. Here is some random stuff I've written that you might find useful for your video:
By far the most common argument people give for thinking Shantae has no chance is that she is third party and not a giant gaming icon. Here is a slightly edited version of the explanation I always give for why this is a poor argument:
It's no secret that so far all of the third party characters in Smash are huge gaming icons. However we need to be a little more cautious when inferring things about the decision making process behind this.
Why would the dev team want to limit the number of third party characters? Presumably for three reasons: 1) because boosting third party characters isn't necessarily in Nintendo's commercial interests if it benefits their rivals, 2) because third party characters threaten to dilute the Nintendo flavor of the game, and 3) because negotiating IP rights for third party characters can be difficult and expensive.
Since third party characters generally present all three of these obstacles, they would only be worth including if they were such gaming legends that their prestige outweighs all three of those factors. However if a third party character had a near exclusive relationship with Nintendo, and the company that owned them were eager to see their character included, then the dev team might decide that those three reasons are not so applicable. Furthermore the dev team might feel that since the characters are DLC as opposed to content included in the main purchase, restrictions like those first two can be applied more loosely.
I would guess that Nintendo's thought process is something like that, especially given that Nintendo clarified that ANY videogame characters are fair game when asked specifically about third party characters.
It's also possible that instead, Nintendo just has an inviolable rule against third party characters in Smash, with special exceptions made only for the most iconic faces in all of gaming. We don't know. The point is that we can only speculate on the subject, and anyone who claims to know for sure one way or the other is full of ****. As fans all we can do is express our opinions, cast our votes, and hope for the best.
~
As for Shantae's popularity in the polls, there are no good polls right now. It just depends which ones you look at. In fact, in pretty much every poll out there from the last 2-3 months, Shantae has been doing extremely well - a top 3 or top 5 character pretty much across the board. That placement for Shantae is both extremely good and remarkably consistent. But in any case, the ballot isn't won by popular vote anyway. Shantae will definitely be popular enough that Sakurai and the dev team will at least look at and discuss her as a potential character, and at that point what matters won't be whether she scored #5 or #15 on the ballot, but the actual reasons for and against her inclusion. And that is exactly the position that Shantae wants to be in.
~
The last argument I hear against Shantae is that she isn't well-known in Japan. This is harder to argue against than the third party thing, but only because the third party character thing is obvious bs.
Lack of recognition in Japan is a drawback for Shantae, but it's very unlikely to be a fatal issue for her. We don't have any way of knowing exactly how Sakurai will weigh this factor. Ken Sugimori of Pokemon fame has expressed his support for Shantae, so clearly he doesn't think it's an impossible idea, and presumably he has more insight into how these factors are considered than any of us do. In any case, it is very hard to imagine most Japanese fans reacting negatively to Shantae's announcement - cute female characters tend to go over well there. This is the country that invented the "waifu" concept after all. Plus this argument is growing more and more outdated by the day - Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is releasing in Japan very soon in physical format. She doesn't even have a physical release here! Plus across Japanese Miiverse and twitter, Shantae buzz has started to pick up a lot over the last month or so. Especially with such initial strong buzz for a game that isn't even out there yet, Nintendo could very well see this as an opportunity to make a ton of extra sales in Japan as her games start releasing there.
~
And here's the point to be made about all these objections, which should really be brought up with all of them, especially the lack of Japanese recognition complaint. Shantae faces obstacles, sure. But she is totally viable when you consider the context of the characters she is competing with. With the exception of K. Rool, Wolf, and maybe Isaac, all of the characters she competes with also face big obstacles that when considered in isolation, could keep them out of the game. Indeed, these obstacles explain why none of these characters have made it yet. However one or more of these characters aside from K. Rool, Wolf, and Isaac is likely to make it in as DLC. Shantae has a very reasonable shot at being one of them.
As for positive arguments in favor of Shantae, TheRickyWill
has a post in here with a lot of excellent hype essays about why Shantae deserves to be in Smash, and I recommend you look at that. I've written the following:
Shantae in Smash would create a ton of buzz about Smash DLC, and would also cause a massive spike in recognition and popularity for one of the most deserving indie franchises out there. Plus Shantae would be so damn fun and unique to play as in Smash, and would feel right at home in the roster. A Smash appearance would be the perfect culmination of her and WayForward's history with Nintendo, and a special honor they both richly deserve. Furthermore, for Shantae it's now or never: she's about to go multi platform, so if she is ever getting into Smash, it pretty much has to be right now. That's not really the case for any other ballot contenders. And if Shantae does get added, it will set her up to always have a special relationship with Nintendo, whatever other consoles she appears on. On every level, this just feels like Shantae's big moment.
(written in response asking why you would want to see Shantae in Smash, aside from reasons relating to aesthetics/history, i.e. "non-gameplay" reasons)
Well if you are asking purely in terms of gameplay, the answer is that Shantae has a ton of moves to draw on. Seriously, movesets for Shantae basically write themselves. Hair whipping is her signature attack and the move I am most excited to try out in Smash: I imagine it being a low power but highly effective spacing tool on a light, agile character, which is pretty different from most of the cast. That is pretty much how I imagine her playing out. Light, agile, but with a good spacing tool, some neat tricks up her sleeve, and a few surprisingly powerful but hard to land kill moves. Sounds like a blast to play as to me.
For specials she has plenty aside from genie transformations to draw on. Her latest game, Pirate's Curse, featured no transformations whatsoever, and is loaded with moves that would translate perfectly into moves for Smash Bros. Forget coming up with four unique specials, with Shantae you have enough material to work with that most if not all of her A moves could also be taken directly from her games. That's not even true for characters like Samus and Mario - how related to their games are most of their a moves?
If you were just curious to hear arguments aside from things like character/art design/history with Nintendo, I don't blame you, since these things get stressed for Shantae a lot. However I do also want to say that factors like art/character design do and should matter - they are a big part of what make videogame characters memorable and fun to play as. Smash wouldn't be 10% as popular or fun if you replaced all the characters with generic fighting game characters. An essential ingredient to the magic of Smash bros is that the whole game is a celebration of so many memorable, colorful characters and games. This is shown by the amazing, over the top soundtrack for Smash Bros. Those don't exist for gameplay reasons, they exist because the game is meant to celebrate as fully as possible all the different games and characters it brings together. It is no minor detail that Shantae would bring a lot to the game in terms of her design and what she represents.
As for her hourglass figure, I should mention that even though I'm an avid Shantae supporter, I hate "fan service" and cringe harder than anyone when people sexualize videogame characters. I'm always the one who grumbles loudest that Samus should be a more threatening Smash character with her suit on rather than off, and should look taller and more muscular. I tend to favor big heavy characters anyways, not characters like Shantae. K Rool is more in line with the characters I typically play. It's just that there are so many good reasons for wanting Shantae in this game, I am won over.
If you look through my comment history on reddit, you will find a lot more that I have written, but what I've copied into this post is the meat of it.
You are welcome to use whatever I have. You don't even have to cite it if you don't want to - all I care about is bringing in more votes for Shantae.
Man, those Etika polls. K. Rool not even making top 5 right now? Insanity. Whatever you think of Etika, we know he's a Shantae supporter, and this is likely the last big push for her before the ballot closes in a couple days. Shantae is sitting comfortably at #4 right now on his very large polls, so let's make sure she stays there and makes his final top 5 poll. He will probably release some video about the top 5 before the ballot closes, and as long as Shantae makes the cut, Etika could be the last prominent YouTuber to show her some love before the ballot closes.
For anyone curious, if you look at vote scores across his three ballots, here is the current top 5:
The placements seem fairly stable right now, but the vote totals are constantly climbing, so definitely make sure to keep up the support for Shantae - vote on your phone too! Snake and Shovel Knight are neck and neck, but haven't ever actually swapped places for as long as I've been watching.
On a side note, I hope that Yacht Club is sending Tamaki a check in the mail, because he really gave Shovel Knight a huge revival in the ballot by going all in with his reputation on that bogus rumor. Fortunately Shantae seems to be holding her own in spite of that.
Here are the next 6-10:
6. Wolf 2072
7. Sora (?!) 1733
8. K. Rool 1681
9. Isaac 1545
10. Rayman 1521
Wolf is only about 50 votes behind BK, but he seems to be staying there. Poor K. Rool though - what happened to him?? I haven't seem him lose a poll this badly since, well, ever. Also where on earth did Sora come from? The only time I've seen him get that many votes was on one poll that didn't have IP protection, and it was a case of totally blatant vote tampering. Every other poll I've ever seen shows his support as negligible. I know this one does have IP protection, but still, it makes you wonder...
Ice Climbers get honorable mention at #11. There is a big gap between them and the next candidate, and the next candidate is Goku, so anyone not mentioned here is doing really badly in this poll.
I'm not sure what to make of these polls - the vote counts are so huge already, and the results look pretty different from most other polls. It's a testament to the strength of Shantae's popularity that her results here and elsewhere are so consistent. Whether this poll is reliable or not, it could have a pretty decent impact on last minute voting.
Wow though, GUYS THE BALLOT IS ALMOST DONE! Go vote in Etika's poll and on the ballot on literally every device you have that connects to the Internet. In just three days all the campaigning is done, so let's finish strong.
I am pretty glad that Shantae has had so many awesome supporters spreading the love for her, especially all of you here. She's a character that looked like she was going to be a total long shot, and now she's polling in the top 5 everywhere minus Japan, where she's got a rapidly growing presence. That could not have happened without you guys putting out Miiverse posts, and fan art, and supporting messages, and online votes in the poll and ballot, and everything else. Whatever else happens on October 3rd, I'm gonna be raising a drink to you guys. Rock on.
I've been eyeballing this thread for months since late summer. Finally decided to get an account here. Slap me onto that supporters list. I wanna see some belly-dancing side-taunts in the near future!
I've written way too much to counter anti-Shantae arguments in the past. Here is some random stuff I've written that you might find useful for your video:
By far the most common argument people give for thinking Shantae has no chance is that she is third party and not a giant gaming icon. Here is a slightly edited version of the explanation I always give for why this is a poor argument:
It's no secret that so far all of the third party characters in Smash are huge gaming icons. However we need to be a little more cautious when inferring things about the decision making process behind this.
Why would the dev team want to limit the number of third party characters? Presumably for three reasons: 1) because boosting third party characters isn't necessarily in Nintendo's commercial interests if it benefits their rivals, 2) because third party characters threaten to dilute the Nintendo flavor of the game, and 3) because negotiating IP rights for third party characters can be difficult and expensive.
Since third party characters generally present all three of these obstacles, they would only be worth including if they were such gaming legends that their prestige outweighs all three of those factors. However if a third party character had a near exclusive relationship with Nintendo, and the company that owned them were eager to see their character included, then the dev team might decide that those three reasons are not so applicable. Furthermore the dev team might feel that since the characters are DLC as opposed to content included in the main purchase, restrictions like those first two can be applied more loosely.
I would guess that Nintendo's thought process is something like that, especially given that Nintendo clarified that ANY videogame characters are fair game when asked specifically about third party characters.
It's also possible that instead, Nintendo just has an inviolable rule against third party characters in Smash, with special exceptions made only for the most iconic faces in all of gaming. We don't know. The point is that we can only speculate on the subject, and anyone who claims to know for sure one way or the other is full of ****. As fans all we can do is express our opinions, cast our votes, and hope for the best.
~
As for Shantae's popularity in the polls, there are no good polls right now. It just depends which ones you look at. In fact, in pretty much every poll out there from the last 2-3 months, Shantae has been doing extremely well - a top 3 or top 5 character pretty much across the board. That placement for Shantae is both extremely good and remarkably consistent. But in any case, the ballot isn't won by popular vote anyway. Shantae will definitely be popular enough that Sakurai and the dev team will at least look at and discuss her as a potential character, and at that point what matters won't be whether she scored #5 or #15 on the ballot, but the actual reasons for and against her inclusion. And that is exactly the position that Shantae wants to be in.
~
The last argument I hear against Shantae is that she isn't well-known in Japan. This is harder to argue against than the third party thing, but only because the third party character thing is obvious bs.
Lack of recognition in Japan is a drawback for Shantae, but it's very unlikely to be a fatal issue for her. We don't have any way of knowing exactly how Sakurai will weigh this factor. Ken Sugimori of Pokemon fame has expressed his support for Shantae, so clearly he doesn't think it's an impossible idea, and presumably he has more insight into how these factors are considered than any of us do. In any case, it is very hard to imagine most Japanese fans reacting negatively to Shantae's announcement - cute female characters tend to go over well there. This is the country that invented the "waifu" concept after all. Plus this argument is growing more and more outdated by the day - Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is releasing in Japan very soon in physical format. She doesn't even have a physical release here! Plus across Japanese Miiverse and twitter, Shantae buzz has started to pick up a lot over the last month or so. Especially with such initial strong buzz for a game that isn't even out there yet, Nintendo could very well see this as an opportunity to make a ton of extra sales in Japan as her games start releasing there.
~
And here's the point to be made about all these objections, which should really be brought up with all of them, especially the lack of Japanese recognition complaint. Shantae faces obstacles, sure. But she is totally viable when you consider the context of the characters she is competing with. With the exception of K. Rool, Wolf, and maybe Isaac, all of the characters she competes with also face big obstacles that when considered in isolation, could keep them out of the game. Indeed, these obstacles explain why none of these characters have made it yet. However one or more of these characters aside from K. Rool, Wolf, and Isaac is likely to make it in as DLC. Shantae has a very reasonable shot at being one of them.
As for positive arguments in favor of Shantae, TheRickyWill
has a post in here with a lot of excellent hype essays about why Shantae deserves to be in Smash, and I recommend you look at that. I've written the following:
Shantae in Smash would create a ton of buzz about Smash DLC, and would also cause a massive spike in recognition and popularity for one of the most deserving indie franchises out there. Plus Shantae would be so damn fun and unique to play as in Smash, and would feel right at home in the roster. A Smash appearance would be the perfect culmination of her and WayForward's history with Nintendo, and a special honor they both richly deserve. Furthermore, for Shantae it's now or never: she's about to go multi platform, so if she is ever getting into Smash, it pretty much has to be right now. That's not really the case for any other ballot contenders. And if Shantae does get added, it will set her up to always have a special relationship with Nintendo, whatever other consoles she appears on. On every level, this just feels like Shantae's big moment.
(written in response asking why you would want to see Shantae in Smash, aside from reasons relating to aesthetics/history, i.e. "non-gameplay" reasons)
Well if you are asking purely in terms of gameplay, the answer is that Shantae has a ton of moves to draw on. Seriously, movesets for Shantae basically write themselves. Hair whipping is her signature attack and the move I am most excited to try out in Smash: I imagine it being a low power but highly effective spacing tool on a light, agile character, which is pretty different from most of the cast. That is pretty much how I imagine her playing out. Light, agile, but with a good spacing tool, some neat tricks up her sleeve, and a few surprisingly powerful but hard to land kill moves. Sounds like a blast to play as to me.
For specials she has plenty aside from genie transformations to draw on. Her latest game, Pirate's Curse, featured no transformations whatsoever, and is loaded with moves that would translate perfectly into moves for Smash Bros. Forget coming up with four unique specials, with Shantae you have enough material to work with that most if not all of her A moves could also be taken directly from her games. That's not even true for characters like Samus and Mario - how related to their games are most of their a moves?
If you were just curious to hear arguments aside from things like character/art design/history with Nintendo, I don't blame you, since these things get stressed for Shantae a lot. However I do also want to say that factors like art/character design do and should matter - they are a big part of what make videogame characters memorable and fun to play as. Smash wouldn't be 10% as popular or fun if you replaced all the characters with generic fighting game characters. An essential ingredient to the magic of Smash bros is that the whole game is a celebration of so many memorable, colorful characters and games. This is shown by the amazing, over the top soundtrack for Smash Bros. Those don't exist for gameplay reasons, they exist because the game is meant to celebrate as fully as possible all the different games and characters it brings together. It is no minor detail that Shantae would bring a lot to the game in terms of her design and what she represents.
As for her hourglass figure, I should mention that even though I'm an avid Shantae supporter, I hate "fan service" and cringe harder than anyone when people sexualize videogame characters. I'm always the one who grumbles loudest that Samus should be a more threatening Smash character with her suit on rather than off, and should look taller and more muscular. I tend to favor big heavy characters anyways, not characters like Shantae. K Rool is more in line with the characters I typically play. It's just that there are so many good reasons for wanting Shantae in this game, I am won over.
If you look through my comment history on reddit, you will find a lot more that I have written, but what I've copied into this post is the meat of it.
You are welcome to use whatever I have. You don't even have to cite it if you don't want to - all I care about is bringing in more votes for Shantae.
Man, those Etika polls. K. Rool not even making top 5 right now? Insanity. Whatever you think of Etika, we know he's a Shantae supporter, and this is likely the last big push for her before the ballot closes in a couple days. Shantae is sitting comfortably at #4 right now on his very large polls, so let's make sure she stays there and makes his final top 5 poll. He will probably release some video about the top 5 before the ballot closes, and as long as Shantae makes the cut, Etika could be the last prominent YouTuber to show her some love before the ballot closes.
For anyone curious, if you look at vote scores across his three ballots, here is the current top 5:
The placements seem fairly stable right now, but the vote totals are constantly climbing, so definitely make sure to keep up the support for Shantae - vote on your phone too! Snake and Shovel Knight are neck and neck, but haven't ever actually swapped places for as long as I've been watching.
On a side note, I hope that Yacht Club is sending Tamaki a check in the mail, because he really gave Shovel Knight a huge revival in the ballot by going all in with his reputation on that bogus rumor. Fortunately Shantae seems to be holding her own in spite of that.
Here are the next 6-10:
6. Wolf 2072
7. Sora (?!) 1733
8. K. Rool 1681
9. Isaac 1545
10. Rayman 1521
Wolf is only about 50 votes behind BK, but he seems to be staying there. Poor K. Rool though - what happened to him?? I haven't seem him lose a poll this badly since, well, ever. Also where on earth did Sora come from? The only time I've seen him get that many votes was on one poll that didn't have IP protection, and it was a case of totally blatant vote tampering. Every other poll I've ever seen shows his support as negligible. I know this one does have IP protection, but still, it makes you wonder...
Ice Climbers get honorable mention at #11. There is a big gap between them and the next candidate, and the next candidate is Goku, so anyone not mentioned here is doing really badly in this poll.
I'm not sure what to make of these polls - the vote counts are so huge already, and the results look pretty different from most other polls. It's a testament to the strength of Shantae's popularity that her results here and elsewhere are so consistent. Whether this poll is reliable or not, it could have a pretty decent impact on last minute voting.
Wow though, GUYS THE BALLOT IS ALMOST DONE! Go vote in Etika's poll and on the ballot on literally every device you have that connects to the Internet. In just three days all the campaigning is done, so let's finish strong.
I am pretty glad that Shantae has had so many awesome supporters spreading the love for her, especially all of you here. She's a character that looked like she was going to be a total long shot, and now she's polling in the top 5 everywhere minus Japan, where she's got a rapidly growing presence. That could not have happened without you guys putting out Miiverse posts, and fan art, and supporting messages, and online votes in the poll and ballot, and everything else. Whatever else happens on October 3rd, I'm gonna be raising a drink to you guys. Rock on.
I think it'll most likely be Nintendo looking down upon Konami's recent decisions and business practices. Not to mention that Kojima was a close friend of Sakurai's, and I'm not sure he'd want to reward Konami for firing him by adding Snake in Smash just because of fan demand.
UPDATE: Shantae has over 2400 votes and counting. Also glad to hear that we have new supporter. Go to this link http://strawpoll.me/5619261 and vote for Shantae our belovable Half-Genie Hero for Etika's straw poll.
Thankfully Duck Hunt in SSB4 is much better designed in 3D than in that nightmare inducing ad (seriously, who at Nintendo passed off THAT idea for a commercial?!)
Well I did send tweets and messages to ALL the main Shantae fan sites including sending tweets to both WayForward and MrBozon himself. Both of them favored my tweet means they support me in my decision to inform them about this straw poll. Other publishers/developers have ignored me most of the time.
Anyway, people let's continue on with the support. If you know of ANY major Shantae hotspots(as in sites with lots of fans of the series) then go and send a link to her straw poll. Try and see if we can find those 20K backers to help put Shantae at #1 spot.
Well I did send tweets and messages to ALL the main Shantae fan sites including sending tweets to both WayForward and MrBozon himself. Both of them favored my tweet means they support me in my decision to inform them about this straw poll. Other publishers/developers have ignored me most of the time.
Anyway, people let's continue on with the support. If you know of ANY major Shantae hotspots(as in sites with lots of fans of the series) then go and send a link to her straw poll. Try and see if we can find those 20K backers to help put Shantae at #1 spot.
That's the spirit. Tomorrow we will find ALL and I mean ALL of the Shantae Half Genie Hero backers. WE NEED THEM FOR THE FINAL STRAW POLL that Etika will make using the top 5 characters(Shantae is currently 4th) so that we can get those 20K to vote for her.
This is a 24 hour mission. The mission starts at 7 AM EST tomorrow and end at 7 AM EST on Friday.
The mission: FIND THOSE BACKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also if ANY one here is a Half Genie Hero backer let me know so I can remind you the link to Friday's poll when it first gets posted. You can post the FINAL round poll on the official kickstarter page okay? We need those 20K backers(hate myself for not having a Mastercard at the time).
Edit: I suppose the argument of credibility of a poll with joke characters won't matter if the joke entries get weeded out. That's what I assume is what Friday holds anyway.
While Etika's poll has some joke characters in it. You can't deny the amount of voters this guy brings in. That is why Friday's poll will be the most important poll for all #Shantae4Smash supporters because that poll will ONLY and I really mean ONLY have the top 5 characters that scored the most votes(Shantae by most calculations sits at 4th place overall).
That day will be the final day that we can truly show the world WHY Shantae should be in Smash as DLC(and later as a returning veteran for Smash 5).
