"What's Poppin'?" Bloons's Dart Monkey for Smash Bros!

[GolisoPower]

DART MONKEY

Who is this cheeky monkey?​

This guy is the Dart Monkey, a simple, yet effective unit from the popular tower defense game series, Bloons Tower Defense. They're basically your entry-level tower, throwing darts at the titular Bloons to pop them before they reach the end of a track. Bloons got its start on the website of developer NinjaKiwi in a lesser-known game made in the now-defunct Flash engine, simply titled Bloons. It was a physics-based aim-and-power-meter puzzle game where you guide a monkey to aim his darts at Bloons to pop them. Since then, the Bloons Tower Defense series was made, and it garnered so much popularity it got a release on Steam of all platforms and is often considered NinjaKiwi's most successful franchise, surpassing their other game SAS Zombie Assault.

Why should he be in Smash?​

The Dart Monkey is often considered the mascot of the entire franchise, up there with the likes of Super Monkey in terms of its being recognizable. And before you ask, yes, he actually does have some appearances on Nintendo consoles. The games in question? A port of Bloons Tower Defense 3 for DSiWare, and Bloons Tower Defense 5 on the Nintendo Switch. You'd be surprised at what you'd find when looking into a franchise. Furthermore, Bloons has become rather recognized as a franchise, having developed multiple games in the mainline as well as some spinoffs, which include a top-down SHMUP, a city-building game, a PvP tower defense game, and even a crossover with Adventure Time.

So what would he bring to Smash? How would he be unique?​

Simple: towers. BTD has no shortage of towers to choose from, and using them in the Dart Monkey's set sounds like a good idea. Furthermore, there is technically some precedent with having upgradeable structures in fighting games: before her drastic toning down in the more recent game, Jack-O' from Guilty Gear had a set that involved placing houses down and spawning minions to fight alongside her, which can be upgraded! This can be applied to the Dart Monkey by allowing him to be exceptionally weak, but build towers that he can upgrade with Money that he can generate as the fight goes on.

So how about it? Should he come swinging by to Smash? What do you guys think?