E3 Reveal Nominations
3rd Party: Phoenix Wright
Phoenix Wright is the main character of most of the games in the Ace Attorney series, a series of murder mystery visual novels that's been going for almost two decades at this point. He's a defense attorney who not only has to prove to the court his client didn't commit the crime, but also find out who did. Don't let the legal premise of the series fool you, though - Ace Attorney is far from a serious or down-to-earth series. Over the course of the series, Phoenix finds himself involved in absurd cases involving bloodline disputes between spirit mediums, a prosecutor that drinks seventeen cups of coffee during the trial, a prosecutor that has a whip, a prosecutor that is a convicted felon that they let have a pet hawk... actually, the prosecutors in this series are crazy enough on their own.
Ace Attorney has proved itself to the general gaming populace, with some of its style - particularly the pointed "Objection!" bubble - taking off significantly and being commonly referenced. As such, Phoenix is highly recognizable to quite a few audiences, even if only as the "objection guy".
While Phoenix doesn't fight in his home games, that's nothing new for Smash considering Villager and Wii Fit Trainer's movesets. What's important is capturing the feel and flow of Ace Attorney. While Phoenix often finds himself on the back foot, by carefully considering what he knows and what's available to him, he can find a flaw in his opponent's position. Then, he can pull the thread on that until his opponent's defense unravels.
1st Party: Hanafuda Card
"I've heard of a wild card pick, but this is ridiculous!" [laugh track]
Nominally, this is a "character" from Clubhouse Games, a series of board and card game collections on the DS and Switch. As such, Hanafuda Card's series icon, stage, and associated music are all from Clubhouse Games; but that's not why I picked the character. No, I chose Hanafuda Card because of Nintendo's origins all the way back in 1889... making Hanafuda cards.
In terms of moveset... Hanafuda Card is a giant, floating card. However, for certain animations, it will spontaneously turn into a multiple smaller cards, allowing it many more points of articulation. For instance, the pose in its artwork up there could be used for shielding, as it resembles a wall. It could also change the image on its face, though it should only change it to real Hanafuda cards. Its moves involve either becoming multiple cards and attacking in formation (or shuffling themselves like a deck), or making the image on its face "real" to attack the opponent in some way.
Another 1st Party Pick: Mach Rider
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to nominate two characters (and if I'm not, I'm sticking with Hanafuda Card) but I wanted to mention Mach Rider, who seems to be in a similar position as Pit was before Brawl, as a retro character with not a lot of relevance but a not-insignificant fan following. This Smash is shaping up to be all about fulfilling fan requests, so I thought it might fit for even our unexpected character to be someone a few people wanted to see.
Anyway, Mach Rider was actually originally a toy made by Nintendo in 1972, but most people will be more familiar with the vehicular combat game for the NES. In it, Mach Rider rides a futuristic motorcycle that can reform itself from scrap metal through the wastelands of Earth, searching for survivors while fighting off evil Quadrunners with a machine gun. You might write Mach Rider off as too similar to Captain Falcon, being another extremely-ripped vehicle man, but that's not true. She's actually an extremely-ripped vehicle
woman! Or at least, there's a screen in Vs. Mach Rider showing a woman with a dagger next to Mach Rider's bike.
In terms of moveset, there's a couple directions we could go: an on-foot moveset like Falcon's, or one where Mach Rider fights on top of a motorcycle. Since the motorcycle can break apart and reform, we could potentially have on-foot animations in a motorcycle moveset, or vice versa. In either case, Mach Rider comes packing a machine gun. In addition, if we assume that woman is, in fact, Mach Rider, we get something a little more interesting from a gameplay perspective than a buff motorcycle lady in Smash - a dagger, which is only used regularly by Joker out of the playable cast and could make for more interesting melee strikes than punches or kicks.
