I refrained from mentioning Phoenix Wright when discussing prevalent titles on Nintendo systems since it made more sense to discuss it here. Ace Attorney is the closest Capcom property to Nintendo since the original Mega Man series with the NES and SNES, with
every game in the series debuting prominently on a Nintendo handheld. While association with Nintendo isn’t as strong a reason for a character’s inclusion as it was during the Brawl or Sm4sh days, it certainly doesn’t hurt for any prospective character to have strong ties to Nintendo in some way. Even Joker and Cloud can have their inclusions justified via their connections to the
Shin Megami Tensei and
Final Fantasy series respectively, both of which have a strong history with Nintendo.
Besides having a strong tie to Nintendo systems, I would argue that Ace Attorney is Capcom’s most accessible franchise due to the number of ports it has received (While some might claim that later ports of the series detract from the series’ ties with Nintendo, the earlier ports probably helped draw people towards Nintendo consoles before other games in the series were ported to other platforms). The entire main series is available on
3DS,
iOS, and
Android* (*in Japan only), the later games in the series, 4-6, are available on
Android internationally, and the first three games are available on
Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC, with the most recent ports also receiving language patches for the French, German, Korean, and Chinese (both traditional and simplified language). The Ace Attorney franchise has a very large potential audience, and Capcom has a lot to gain by including Phoenix Wright in Smash given that
Smash is known to have an advertising effect for the franchises included. Compared to series like Monster Hunter or Resident Evil where the series is housed primarily on or scattered across other consoles that a consumer may or may not have, pretty much anyone has the entire Phoenix Wright series available for them to purchase and play at any time between PC, console, handhelds, and smartphones. There is a large potential for profit via Phoenix Wright’s inclusion, and even considering just the bottom line his inclusion is justified.
Given the Ace Attorney series’ strong ties to Nintendo, it’s not hard to believe that Phoenix Wright is a moderately popular pick for Smash Bros. speculation. While never as prominent as other speculation picks, Phoenix’s popularity has seen a surge in light of Mega Man and Ryu’s inclusions. This is most apparent during the ballot era, wherein Phoenix’s fanbase among others rallied together to vote for him. While I’m not one to cite fan polls, I do believe that the
Reddit Randomized Smash Ultimate Poll, wherein Phoenix Wright placed 8th with a total of 8,398 votes, is trustworthy enough given the large amount of votes it received. This means that we can apply the
Law of Large Numbers and say that it’s closer to the results of the real ballot than other fan polls (albeit, the “over 50,000+ votes by 20,000 unique participants” pales in comparison to the
1.8 million votes the official ballot received). What’s notable about the Reddit Randomized Smash Ultimate Poll is the influence of outside voters.
Poll organizer SmashUltimateTourny had this to say:
SmashUltimateTourny said:
The characters with the most brigaders were Sora (more than half his voters came from non-reddit referrers) and Phoenix Wright (a third of his voters came from non-reddit referrers).
What’s notable is that not only were core Smash Bros. fans voting for him, but also fans from outside of the core fanbase. I believe that a strong part of Phoenix Wright’s appeal is his capability to appeal to both core and casual fans. I’ve already laid out the Ace Attorney’s strong ties to Nintendo, which leads core fans to support him, but it’s also worth noting the large appeal of the DS and games like Ace Attorney to the casual fanbase. Puzzle and logic games such as Ace Attorney and Professor Layton were popular among casual fans due to their small, bite sized puzzles. This still holds true, and with the aforementioned accessibility of the series, I would say that there is a strong casual fanbase that would be interested in Phoenix’s inclusion dating back to the GBA/DS era. I’ve previously spoken about the power of the silent majority compared to the “Smash Bubble” (refer to
The Case for Minecraft Steve and the "Smash Bubble" Effect Section: “What is the ‘Smash Bubble?’”), but I believe that Phoenix has a strong enough presence in both to justify the claim that including him would appeal to both core and casual fans, giving Phoenix’s inclusion a universal appeal to it.
While Sakurai certainly hasn’t written about Ace Attorney as much as he wrote about
Persona 5, he actually did notably write about it in
a 2005 Famitsu column, wherein he describes the enjoyment he and others go out of
video presentation using the game’s layout at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show, which encapsulates the name of the article “Games That Make Me Want to Watch.” At the very least this shows that the Ace Attorney series is on Sakurai’s radar, and has been for over a decade now. I would be quite surprised if Sakurai weren’t acquainted with the series given its popularity in Japan.
No good defense is truly complete without addressing the common arguments against what you’re defending. Therefore, I’d like to go over the common arguments against Phoenix Wright’s inclusion and counter them accordingly.
To start, I’d like to address a common critique of Phoenix Wright, being the difficulty it would take to come up with a moveset for him. It’s not all too difficult to come up with a moveset for Phoenix Wright. One can look to
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and see how he was faithfully adapted there, or consider the fact that Sakurai and his team have come up with movesets for:
- A pilot who was never shown fighting at the time of moveset conception (
)
- A racer who was never shown except on the character select screen for his game ()
- A scattered collection of portable game players ()
- A literal children’s toy whose only function was to pick up and spin tops ()
- Multiple characters whose games weren’t even released at the time of moveset conception ()
- Multiple noncombatants ()
- A fitness trainer ()
- And a Dog that laughs at you () among other characters
The only time characters are turned down on the basis of moveset is when faithful representation of the character is incompatible with the format Smash Bros., such as in
the case of Heihachi where (
presumably) adapting the movement/controls of Tekken conflicted with the movement and controls of Smash Bros. Sakurai has previously adapted similar noncombatants to Smash, so I have no doubt he could adapt Phoenix Wright.
Another common argument leveraged against Phoenix Wright and the Ace Attorney series is a lack of relevance compared to other Capcom franchises. I believe that sentiment comes from a lack of understanding. The Ace Attorney franchise is a multimedia franchise that spans
games, manga,
an anime series (
the second season of which received a simuldub from Funimation),
drama cds,
soundtracks,
memorabilia,
a series of stage plays, and a feature-length
film. The series is still active despite what some think, with the Ace Attorney Trilogy being brought to consoles and PCs last February and a
Nazo Tomo Cafe promotion currently ongoing until December. The series has even seen references in other media, such as
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and
No Game No Life. There is also the potential of a new reveal at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, given that is where Ace Attorney information is typically revealed. A new reveal would bring the series into the limelight that some think it isn’t already in.
Alongside a lack of relevance, I sometimes see a lack of sales compared to other Capcom franchises used to justify other characters over Phoenix. To start, Phoenix Wright isn't in trouble when it comes to sales,
selling 7.1 million units over 30 games as of June 30th, 2019. While certainly not as high as other series, there is a precedent for sales being disregarded or weighed lower in favor of other factors for a character's inclusion. I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine:
In a period of speculation marked by a wave of cynicism and belief that the Fighters Pass would be full of sheer promotional picks, Banjo & Kazooie’s inclusion was a breath of fresh air; proof that Nintendo was listening to the fans even just a little. Compared to the sales giant that Minecraft is, the Banjo Kazooie sold very little, yet Banjo was included over Steve. Banjo is proof of Nintendo’s goals with Smash Bros. DLC. In their 2019 Investor’s Meeting, when discussing Smash Ultimate, it was stated that:
”Nintendo” said:
With Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, we asked 'How could we reach not only fans of the Super Smash Bros. series, but also those who had never played it before?'
Nintendo wants to reach both core fans of Smash Bros. while also bringing in new fans. Inclusions such as Joker and Hero are warranted to draw in new fans, but Nintendo seems to want to balance these characters with appeals to the core fanbase such as Banjo & Kazooie. As previously established, Phoenix Wright would both appeal to core fans and draw in new fans due to the large collective install base of the franchise spread over a large amount of platforms over the years.
I don't see any disliking, I just see indifference at worst.
