DaybreakHorizon
The guy who predicted Sora as Fighter 11
What are you talking about? We have no idea who's been a "Sakurai choice" or a "Nintendo choice." You argue that Joker is a "Nintendo choice" when I would say he's more of a "Sakurai choice" given how much Sakurai loved Persona 5 (you can tell design choices in Smash Ultimate were inspired by it, like the menu and the cut-ins when characters perform their Final Smash). How do you know Joker was a "Nintendo choice?" If there's some interview or statement the rest of us missed then please share with the class so we can all be on the same page.
Next, we do know where Nintendo's priorities lay, at least a little bit. Here's a statement from Nintendo's 2019 Investors Meeting:
So, Nintendo is shooting for a mix of characters meant to appeal to the core fans while also drawing in new ones. We shouldn't be looking solely for characters that appeal to "the casual market" but demographics without large overlap between them and the demographics of Smash Bros. players. From this perspective, let's analyze Heihachi:
- Heihachi is from the Tekken series, which is a core fighting game. Therefore, he'd primarily be appealing to the fighting game community.
- The fighting game community has significant overlap with Smash Bros., and already has characters appealing to them through Ryu and Ken. While it could be argued that Heihachi would be a play to draw in those fighting game players disenfranchised with Smash Bros., I would argue this is unlikely as Nintendo is looking to draw in new demographics, "those who had never played it before."
- More than that, your claim that Heihachi is known by casual gamers is also questionable, given that Tekken is a core fighting game. While FGC events draw in more viewers, those are more for the games themselves than the characters. Casual gamers won't know much about Heihachi other than the series he's from, similar to how you argue that they wouldn't know much about a Tales of character other than where they come from.
- Lloyd is from the Tales of series, which I will admit is a more niche series in the West. However, in Japan it has a massive fanbase. It's fanbase in the West isn't to be understated either. The interesting thing about the series' Japanese fanbase is that it has a massive female following. I hate to be the guy who says "Women can't play vidya gaems!" but it's highly likely that those fans of the Tales of series do not play a Nintendo video game seemingly oriented towards young adult males. Even those male and Western players likely wouldn't be playing Smash Bros. given that Tales of hasn't been prominently on a Nintendo console since Tales of Symphonia 2 on the Wii, which was over 11 years ago. The point is, there's a large demographic of people who likely don't play Smash Bros., and could easily be driven into playing it via the inclusion of a Tales of character.
- But what about the core fanbase? Surely this makes Lloyd a heartless, corporate shill pick!
- Speaking about Lloyd specifically, he comes from one of, if not the most popular Tales of games in the West, and the release date of his game puts him in a spot to induce nostalgia-driven hype from core Nintendo fans who played the original Tales of Symphonia on Gamecube and who play Super Smash Bros. Ultimate today. He's truly the best of both worlds, making it understandable why Sakurai would say that Lloyd is "the only appropriate choice."
- Yuri Lowell and Velvet Crowe could make up for this by appealing to core Nintendo fans similar to Joker and how he represents Shin Megami Tensei. Furthermore, they could draw in Western fans of those games via their inclusion. Either way, a Tales of character appeals to both new demographics and the core fanbase.
- This isn't even mentioning that the Tales of series shares a history with Nintendo similar to that of Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy, starting out on the Super Nintendo and being a prominent release on Nintendo systems whenever one comes around.
Just so you know, I'm not saying any of this to **** on you or Heihachi. It's completely okay to want him and I won't stop you from doing so. But if you're going to come at me with flagrantly false facts I'm going to prove them wrong.
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