Which Smash game has the best roster in your opinion?

[Vintage Creep]

There's no need to be an a-hole about a simple discussion man.

Oh yes it's needed

 

[Snagrio]

Oh yes it's needed

Alrighty then. *prepares for inevitable thread shutdown*

 

[Autumn ♫]

It's really a hard decision for me, since I love all of the roster's. (Although 64's lags behind quite a bit, but that should be obvious why) Each roster has something special and different that I really enjoy.

Smash 4 has the huge roster size, with a fair amount of new characters that I really love, like Rosalina, Palutena, Robin, Lucina, Dark Pit, and the return of Dr.Mario. But, it also lacks a fair amount of character choices I wanted to see, and the cuts absolutely kill me, especially Snake's. (Although I am the one person who doesn't care anything for the IC's cut.)

Brawl also has many things going for it, the inclusion of Diddy Kong, a DK character that we really needed, and several other really fun characters, like Wolf, Lucas, Wario, ROB, and Snake. Along with giving us some Kirby characters (which I still question why they waited that long to add them). However, the cuts were painful, although not near as painful as 4's, since after I got Melee, I got Brawl really quickly, so I already knew about the cuts (although Roy and Mewtwo still hurt some)

Melee also had a really fun roster, greatly improving the size of the original roster too. It introduced Bowser and Peach, the other 2 core Mario characters. It gave us Dr.Mario, who I believe is one of the most important clones just because of what franchise he hails from. It gave us Zelda, Young Link, and Ganondorf, who I believe is perfect representation at the time, with Zelda having a very interesting new gimmick, as a transforming character. It gave us Mewtwo, who I still find extremely fun to play as. And it also gave us Game and Watch, who I believe is the best WTF character in existence. And it gave us Marth and Roy, introducing Fire Emblem to the West and giving me one of my favorite clones.

Overall though, I believe Melee's my favorite. It gave me everything that I would want at the time if I speculated back then.

 

[SpeedBoost]

Brawl has the best roster by far, that was the one thing Brawl did right.

Brawl had the most rounded out roster of all time and all the newcomers were well deserved characters (Yes including ROB). Diddy Kong, King DDD, Meta Knight, Sonic, Wolf, Wario shall I say more. They were all wanted and well deserved characters.
There was also hardly any clones. The only real complete clone being Toon Link, and a couple semi clones. It makes the roster feel unique unlike Melee and 64. Now I know people really like Smash4 roster, that the characters are all unique, but to me Smash4 has a unbalanced in representation 7 Mario characters!!! No zelda newcomers etc. Brawl on the other hand balanced it out and had 4 Mario characters 4 Zelda characters 4 Pokemon characters. It just felt right. Not hating on Smash4 I like the roster but it just has flaws and it has more clones then brawl. So to be honest Brawl is the best roster to me.

 

[SunnyDust]

Brawl on the other hand balanced it out and had 4 Mario characters 4 Zelda characters and 4 Pokemon characters.

Brawl had 5 Zelda reps and 6 Pokémon reps. That's not really ''balanced'' compared to the 4 Mario characters.

 

[Mav485]

Nostalgia makes me want to vote for SSB64 or Melee. Brawl was great with the newcomers and rep it gave to so many series. It is hard to pick any over Smash 4 though. It offers a little bit of everything. Sheer quantity, great newcomers, customization, the splitting of Sheik/Zelda and Samus/ZSS, and more. The possibility of DLC that could appease people over missing/cut characters will only make it better.

 

[Shin F.]

Project M, but since that's not an option, I put Brawl. Smash 4 can change my opinion if Ice Climbers or Lucas ever come back via DLC, but unless that happens, PM has more of my personal favorites than Smash 4 does.

 

[ThePhantomFox]

While Smash4 did have great newcomers like Villager, Rosalina, Robin, Shulk, Duck Hunt etc. The absence of Snake and Wolf is too much. So I pick Brawl.

 

[GlitchyFireEmblem]

Smash 4.

64 is just the Original 12.
Melee is full of clones.
Brawl comes close.

 

[LoveGame]

Maaaan, I didn't know this thread would get so hostile over such minor disagreements. Allow me to restructure my earlier post. I already made a similar one in the Unpopular Opinions thread and didn't deem it necessary to do so again, but if it'll stifle some of the unrest...

Looking at it purely objectively, yes, Sm4sh has the best roster. It's not only the biggest, but it has the most variety in playstyles and brought in some fan requests such as Pac-Man and Shulk.

However, that's not what OP asked. The thread title is "Which Smash game has the best roster in your opinion". Meaning we have a right to think otherwise, and if I didn't make it clear already, I sure as hell do. I believe @Farorae said it best when they mentioned that you have a right to like a different roster over Sm4sh if you were particularly attached to a cut character. All it takes is a quick glance at my mains that appear on the left of every post I make to see why I might be a little less than satisfied with the final roster.

I know I'm probably the only one that feels this way, but I'm 100% uninterested in every Sm4sh newcomer, barring Lucina and Robin (unless one counts Charizard). Mewtwo and Wolf are my dedicated mains in their respective Smash games. Beyond them, even a good chunk of my secondaries (namely Roy and Snake) didn't return. If a character doesn't "click" well with me, I won't main them no matter how diverse their playstyle is (of course, my top 2 mains actually cater well to how I play in addition to being favorites of mine overall).

Sm4sh just happens to have a lot of my least favorite characters. I disliked Lucario in his home series, I disliked him in Brawl, and having him return didn't make me dislike him any less. I never cared for Rosalina (least favorite Mario rep tbh) but I knew she'd be in because she's in everything Mario touches. Greninja is just overall boring to me and I never understood the hype behind him. And that's just to name a few. I'm so bored of hero characters and wish they'd give more love to the villains or at least anti-heroes. The point I'm trying to make is, saying Sm4sh is better due to a large variety of newcomers and general playstyles is irrelevant if you don't care for any of them and have no intention of using them.

Look, I'm not saying that I dislike Sm4sh. I still play it and enjoy it almost every day. But some of y'all are sounding like Dark Souls fans, saying the game is a flawless masterpiece and if you complain about any aspect of it, then you shouldn't be allowed to play it and how dare you enjoy another entry in the series. Even though I dedicate more of my time to PM, I have no intention of getting rid of Sm4sh or not playing it anymore. My current mains just feel like secondaries, that's all.

If you honestly think that someone can't have a personal preference over rosters, then, to quote the lovable George Wood,

"You are stupid. Yeah, I know it's offensive, but it's also the truth."

Now can we please be civil here? The mods have already warned us twice and I don't think OP would appreciate a lock.

 

[Trickerhere]

No doubt the best roster is Smash 4. i just wish and were in the roster.

 

[Arcadenik]

Brawl by far. People who say SSB4 usually do so because of it's size, not it's relevant content. SSb4 should be bigger seeing as the last game came out 6 years ago. But even then, if you ignore the clones and Mii Fighters (cant use them online), the roster only grew by 6 characters. They also cut a lot of characters, most notably Wolf and the Ice Climbers. Brawl just had more memorable faces.

If this games get DLC, I may reconsider.

I think you like Brawl more than SSB4 because the latter made you look like a fool. You said Mega Man, Pac-Man, Mii, and especially Duck Hunt Dog (I will never let you live this down for this one) will never happen.

Also Brawl had more memorable faces than SSB4??? Ummm... how so? I mean both games have the following faces:





So really, you are saying that these faces...


...are more memorable than these faces...



...and these faces as well...


Yeah, right... I declare prima facie. It's pretty clear SSB4 simply has more memorable faces than Brawl ever did.

 

[SmashChu]

Yeah, Lucas, Wolf and Ivysaur were so much more memorable than Pac-Man, Little Mac, Mega Man and Duck Hunt Duo!


ahahahahah my god you people always destroy me

I think you like Brawl more than SSB4 because the latter made you look like a fool. You said Mega Man, Pac-Man, Mii, and especially Duck Hunt Dog (I will never let you live this down for this one) will never happen.

Also Brawl had more memorable faces than SSB4??? Ummm... how so? I mean both games have the following faces:





So really, you are saying that these faces...


...are more memorable than these faces...



...and these faces as well...


Yeah, right... I declare prima facie. It's pretty clear SSB4 simply has more memorable faces than Brawl ever did.

I like how people got upset about my opinion.

The SSB4 roster is basically new faces, third parties, Mac and Duck Hunt, so it's more a flavor of the month roster. That's fine to a degree, but it's not better to do that and ignore some other characters. See, Brawl had a good mix. You had new characters like Ike, Lucas, Lucario, Olimar and ZSS. But you also had Diddy, Dedede, Wario, Wolf, Pit and Pokemon Trainer including three starter Pokemon. Duck Hunt and Mac are the only characters who had a life before Brawl (or 2006 if you want to be specific), but even Mac had a new game since then.

SSB4 missed the boat on a lot of things. Ridley being the biggest one. He was by far one of the most memorable and popular characters people were asking for. He'd be the Diddy or Dedede of this game: a character people wanted, but wasn't able to get in till now. He's a major character (as much as Arcedenik wants to think otherwise) and a cool one at that. There is also the lack of a DK character which makes no sense because DKCR outsold Awakening and Uprising. Plus it's not like there weren't characters there: Dixie and K Rool would have both worked. Characters like Robin are nice, but I'd rather have Ridley and Robin than just Robin. There is also the fact that the game cut 6 characters. If you removes the Miis and the clones then the roster only increased by 6 which is pretty pathetic especially as they had more time and staff than Brawl. The clones are also lazy. Brawl has a better roster because all of the characters were well thought out. Clones got some new attacks. Even Lucas and Wolf, who shared specials, had totally different attacks and ways of fighting. Dark Pit and Lucina are last minute thoughts and kind of cheapen the game in a way. It's a less is more mindset.

People bring up Pac-Man as "Oh look, Pac-Man is in the game. He's memorable. See. See." Pac-Man, at the end of the day, feels like a poor choice because he feels forced. It feels like they did it JUST because Namco was helping with the game. Really, thats how all the Namco stuff feels. The special flag is an annoying item and the Galaga is just a crappy beetle. Pac-Man doesn't feel special like Snake was. Snake blew our minds. Pac-Man a cheap gimmick. I like what they didn with him in the game, just I feel like he's in not by merit (a lot of people hated the idea), but because Namco made it. I also don't like the Miis. They will never fit in. They'll also seem kind of weird next to the other Smash characters. They really don't feel like All Stars.

 

[ProjectAngel]

No roster is ever going to be the best.

 

[Aurafox1]

I'd definitely say SB4. Even though the one character I was specifically hoping for, Mewtwo, didn't return along with the loss of some of the characters I really wanted to see, the effort to keep as many characters as possible clearly shows. Out of all Smash Bros. games, only Young Link, Ice Climbers, Pichu, Mewtwo, Roy, Snake, Ivysaur, Squirtle, Wolf, and Lucas were cut. That's only 10 and 4 of them are clones! There are a few franchises I would have liked to see get represented better *coughcoughmetroidcough* But who knows? Maybe DLC for some of those characters will come along. Until then, though, I'll be perfectly happy with all the amazing newcomers we already have!

 

[Syrek]

Personally, I feel Smash 4 has the best roster by far. I mean, you've basically got most of the Brawl roster along with the 14 newcomers characters, not including the various Mii classes and one returning Melee veteran. I'll admit, it sucks that we lost a few very popular characters but that was to be expected unfortunately. And with the potential of DLC characters on the horizon, it will just continue to get better and better. I get that many are attached to Melee and Brawl in terms of the roster and certain characters as well as balance but given the amount of diversity, variety and uniqueness of SSB4's character roster, it's the clear winner by a wide margin, for me at least. Of course, this is simply my opinion and nothing more than but I strongly feel this way because the roster has SO much going for it in terms of popular newcomers, many returning veterans and the rebalance of many veterans.

And holy crap, is there a lot of salty individuals in this thread! Everyone needs to calm down and realize everyone is going to have a different opinion on the matter and there is no right answer, it's merely subjective to each individual, as it should be. I made my points as to why I think it's fairly obvious as to which Smash game has the best roster but really it's my opinion and anyone is free to disagree with it. Please respect the opinions and thoughts of others instead of creating arguments and debates when there doesn't need to be one.

 

[Vintage Creep]

I think you like Brawl more than SSB4 because the latter made you look like a fool. You said Mega Man, Pac-Man, Mii, and especially Duck Hunt Dog (I will never let you live this down for this one) will never happen.

Also Brawl had more memorable faces than SSB4??? Ummm... how so? I mean both games have the following faces:





So really, you are saying that these faces...


...are more memorable than these faces...



...and these faces as well...


Yeah, right... I declare prima facie. It's pretty clear SSB4 simply has more memorable faces than Brawl ever did.

Read his post after yours, he's basically salty because he didn't get Ridley. I don't understand why Ridley missing from Brawl is OK while him missing from Sm4sh is pathetic but hey, poor dude is suffering.
He's also bad at counting: if you count out the Miis and the clones, there are only six newcomers? LMAO what.
I also love the fact that he says that Little Mac and Duck Hunt Duo are flavor of the month, while Wolf and Lucas aren't.

 

[[Obnoxshush/Dasshizer]]

Read his post after yours, he's basically salty because he didn't get Ridley. I don't understand why Ridley missing from Brawl is OK while him missing from Sm4sh is pathetic but hey, poor dude is suffering.
He's also bad at counting: if you count out the Miis and the clones, there are only six newcomers? LMAO what.
I also love the fact that he says that Little Mac and Duck Hunt Duo are flavor of the month, while Wolf and Lucas aren't.

I think he means net gain of six newcomers. We got 12 but lost 6 from brawl so 12-6=6. From Melee to brawl 26-5=21 39-21=18. 18-5=13.We lost 5 from Melee, but got a net gain of 13 in brawl. From brawl to this game we got less than half of that. making it the lowest net gain in smash history. 64:12 Melee:13 Brawl:13 WiiU/3DS:6(10if you include clones and Mii, 12 if you count each Mii fighter type as a character) Its only equal to 64 if you count the other two Mii classes as separate characters which isn't good. Miis easily took up a huge chunk of development time and you can't even play as them online with anyone. Should've added in Wolf,Lucas, and Mewtwo first then worked on the Mii's custom moves or added them in later as DLC. Brawl by far has the more desirable characters. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

 

[Da Man]

Project M, because its Brawl plus 2!

But seriously...Smash 4

 

[Vintage Creep]

I think he means net gain of six newcomers. We got 12 but lost 6 from brawl so 12-6=6. From Melee to brawl 26-5=21 39-21=18. 18-5=13.We lost 5 from Melee, but got a net gain of 13 in brawl. From brawl to this game we got less than half of that. making it the lowest net gain in smash history. 64:12 Melee:13 Brawl:13 WiiU/3DS:6(10if you include clones and Mii, 12 if you count each Mii fighter type as a character) Its only equal to 64 if you count the other two Mii classes as separate characters which isn't good. Miis easily took up a huge chunk of development time and you can't even play as them online with anyone. Should've added in Wolf,Lucas, and Mewtwo first then worked on the Mii's custom moves or added them in later as DLC. Brawl by far has the more desirable characters. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

ahahahahahah what the **** wolf more desirable than all these people
and I'm the biggest fan of StarFox mind you, I liked Adventures, Assault and even freaking Command
stop this bull**** seriously, you guys are embarassing yourself.

 

[Brickbuild101]

PM has more viable characters and more fulfilling gameplay with more characters, so I'll go with PM.

Yuck, that isn't canon.

 

[Hitzel]

Yuck, that isn't canon.

A very wise man once said:

So what?

 

[Brickbuild101]

A very wise man once said:

So what?

Me and my modding virginity that I plan to keep.

 

[Arcadenik]

I think he means net gain of six newcomers. We got 12 but lost 6 from brawl so 12-6=6. From Melee to brawl 26-5=21 39-21=18. 18-5=13.We lost 5 from Melee, but got a net gain of 13 in brawl. From brawl to this game we got less than half of that. making it the lowest net gain in smash history. 64:12 Melee:13 Brawl:13 WiiU/3DS:6(10if you include clones and Mii, 12 if you count each Mii fighter type as a character) Its only equal to 64 if you count the other two Mii classes as separate characters which isn't good. Miis easily took up a huge chunk of development time and you can't even play as them online with anyone. Should've added in Wolf,Lucas, and Mewtwo first then worked on the Mii's custom moves or added them in later as DLC. Brawl by far has the more desirable characters. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

Net gain? At least it's a net gain and not a net loss.

They should have added Mewtwo, Wolf, and Lucas first before adding the Miis? They did... in Brawl. But this is SSB4 and things are different now than they were 10 years ago. See, it's almost always about prioritizing what's currently relevant and gaining popularity and making Nintendo money over what's currently not relevant and losing popularity and not printing enough money for Nintendo.

Also, Sakurai usually adds characters he considered or planned to be in the previous games... but they were out prioritized by the characters who were added in the previous games. But this time around, those rejected characters out prioritized the veterans who didn't return.

Spoiler

He added the Ice Climbers because they looked more unique compared to other NES characters like Balloon Fighter, Excitebiker, Urban Champion, and Bubbles from Clu Clu Land... but had to cut them because the one thing that got them in in the first place was not working in the 3DS... how ironic.

Star Fox and Mother had new games between Melee and Brawl... so Wolf and Lucas were added as semi-clones... but then Star Fox and Mother didn't get any new games besides a remake and a Virtual Console release, respectively, between Brawl and SSB4 so they got cut while Falco and Ness stayed. At least Toon Link stayed relevant despite being a semi-clone because he had a new game and a remake between Brawl and SSB4 and that made him higher priority over Wolf and Lucas. Dr. Mario was cut in Brawl because his series didn't really have any new games between Melee and Brawl and that made him low priority... but his series had two new games between Brawl and SSB4 so he was added as an alternate costume before being promoted as semi-clone.

He rejected Balloon Fighter and Animal Crossing characters in Melee and Brawl, respectively, but then added Villager. He considered a Duck Hunt Assist Trophy in Melee and rejected Nintendogs in Brawl but then added a playable dog. He rejected Pac-Man and the Miis in Brawl but then added them in SSB4. Little Mac was an Assist Trophy in Brawl because he didn't have a new game since 1994 and when he got a new game in 2009, it made him currently relevant, more popular than before, and he was printing money for Nintendo again... of course he gets rewarded with a roster slot.

Also, Dixie and K. Rool weren't in Donkey Kong Country Returns... so they didn't get in. They weren't currently relevant nor making money for Nintendo at the time (now Dixie is but it was too late). Ridley may have been in Metroid Other M but feminists and fanboys got so butthurt that they hurt the bottom line so that game didn't sell as much as Nintendo expected... so why would Nintendo want to reward Metroid with a third character for that? Xenoblade Chronicles might have not made more sales than MOM and DKCR but that's because Nintendo didn't intend to sell the game outside Japan... and Operation Rainfall showed Nintendo that Xenoblade can sell in the West... and they did sell pretty well despite being sold exclusively in select few stores... of course they will want to reward it with a character. If you want a character to get in the game, you better hope their games sell well... they have to earn their keep (the same reason Sakurai publicly used to reject the Ice Climbers but I suspect this is just sour grapes talking since he couldn't get them to work properly on the 3DS).

 

[MasterOfKnees]

Well, Smash 4 technically has the best roster as it has brought back most of the important characters from past installments, but as far as what game introduced the best newcomers Brawl wins it so easily. Brawl just about wiped the slate clean to the point where I feel Smash can't thrive off of newcomers anymore, its the veterans that make the game now. Sure, there are still a few newcomers that could bring in that all-star factor that Brawl did en-masse, like Ridley, King K. Rool and perhaps Toad, but let's get real here, if Sakurai ever wanted those in his game they'd already be in. The newcomer picks have enitrely turned into a flavor of the month feat retro characters thing because of this, even the 3rd parties are retro, and I'm personally not too happy with that. I mean, ask me in 10 years if Wii Fit Trainer, Palutena and Shulk are Nintendo all-stars and I'll probably say no, ask me the same question with Dedede, Diddy Kong and Wolf and I'll say yes.

 

[Naoshi]

I like how people got upset about my opinion.

The SSB4 roster is basically new faces, third parties, Mac and Duck Hunt, so it's more a flavor of the month roster. That's fine to a degree, but it's not better to do that and ignore some other characters. See, Brawl had a good mix. You had new characters like Ike, Lucas, Lucario, Olimar and ZSS. But you also had Diddy, Dedede, Wario, Wolf, Pit and Pokemon Trainer including three starter Pokemon. Duck Hunt and Mac are the only characters who had a life before Brawl (or 2006 if you want to be specific), but even Mac had a new game since then.

SSB4 missed the boat on a lot of things. Ridley being the biggest one. He was by far one of the most memorable and popular characters people were asking for. He'd be the Diddy or Dedede of this game: a character people wanted, but wasn't able to get in till now. He's a major character (as much as Arcedenik wants to think otherwise) and a cool one at that. There is also the lack of a DK character which makes no sense because DKCR outsold Awakening and Uprising. Plus it's not like there weren't characters there: Dixie and K Rool would have both worked. Characters like Robin are nice, but I'd rather have Ridley and Robin than just Robin. There is also the fact that the game cut 6 characters. If you removes the Miis and the clones then the roster only increased by 6 which is pretty pathetic especially as they had more time and staff than Brawl. The clones are also lazy. Brawl has a better roster because all of the characters were well thought out. Clones got some new attacks. Even Lucas and Wolf, who shared specials, had totally different attacks and ways of fighting. Dark Pit and Lucina are last minute thoughts and kind of cheapen the game in a way. It's a less is more mindset.

People bring up Pac-Man as "Oh look, Pac-Man is in the game. He's memorable. See. See." Pac-Man, at the end of the day, feels like a poor choice because he feels forced. It feels like they did it JUST because Namco was helping with the game. Really, thats how all the Namco stuff feels. The special flag is an annoying item and the Galaga is just a crappy beetle. Pac-Man doesn't feel special like Snake was. Snake blew our minds. Pac-Man a cheap gimmick. I like what they didn with him in the game, just I feel like he's in not by merit (a lot of people hated the idea), but because Namco made it. I also don't like the Miis. They will never fit in. They'll also seem kind of weird next to the other Smash characters. They really don't feel like All Stars.

1) I'm a Ridley supporter myself but Ridley is not more memorable and popular than half of the newcomers. You're getting confused with the vocal minority that represents a few hundred of people on the internet. People recognizes the likes of Pac-Man, Mega Man, Little Mac, Miis, Wii Fit Trainer, Villager (Wild World sold 11 million alone), Rosalina and even Bowser Jr much more than Ridley.

2) I agree about DKC. It's weird that there isn't a newcomer for Donkey Kong considering his series is much more relevant than it was in Brawl. Who knows though? Maybe Dixie might make it.

3)Character cuts happens because of limited development time. They didn't just go "hahhaha I'm cutting this character", they just ran out of time to implement every single veteran. Certain veterans are low priority, and some were cut due to technical issues (Ice Climbers and Pokemon Trainer). If they were to focus too hard on implementing veterans, we would be getting less newcomers, which wouldn't honestly be exciting.

4) The clones happened because they were originally alt costumes. They decided to make them their own slot due to the slight differences. They COULD maybe have more time to make them differently just like Wolf and Lucas, but alas it didn't. I agree that it sucks they don't have a lot of differences to their counterpart, but I don't think it's lazy at the same time. Game development is a complicated thing, you can't expect the results to be perfect.

5) This game did not have that much of a longer development time than Brawl did. We gotten 49 characters with customizable movesets each, with 2 separate versions (meaning more work) in a span of 2 years. This project started in Spring 2012 and it's near the end of 2014. Brawl started somewhere in 2005 and finished at early 2008 (originally suppose to release on late 2007).

6) How is Pac-Man forced? He IS the mascot of Namco and perfectly represents their arcade history. He is among the most recognizable gaming character alongside Mario. I think he's a better choice than Snake (as much as I love the MGS series much more) because he actually fits and has a more Nintendo-esque history than Metal Gear. Yes, I am aware MG was on the NES, but those games weren't really well received and even Kojima wants to forget it exists. Pac-Man just makes so much more sense.

 

[Tino]

I would have to say Super Smash Bros. 4 has the best roster not because it has more characters than all of the past Smash Bros. games but because it has the best newcomers in the series, such as Rosalina (my most wanted newcomer), Mega Man, Lucina, Robin and Little Mac.

 

[QuickRat]

Smash 4 had the best roster in my opinion. A majority of the characters are actually fun to play as.

I agree. But I have to say I don't like those three absolute clones.

 

[Wintropy]

I think it's kind of arbitrary to say who will and won't be popular and memorable in the years to come. Pit and Palutena debuted alongside Metroid, so they predate a sizable portion of the current roster, yet they lay dormant for years until Brawl brought them back again. Hell, even Duck Hunt has been brought back to the public eye because of Smash.

To say "X characters won't get in / doesn't deserve to be in because they're not an all-star" is a redundant argument. The term "all-star" is a terminally subjective and nebulous concept at the best of times. That seems to be the inevitable crux of the debates in these kinds of threads, and honestly, it's a bit ridiculous to see the same arguments emerging from the woodwork every time this subject is brought up. Surely there's some sort of common ground we can all just agree to stand on, rather than tearing at each-other's throats because "your character is inferior to mine / my character got in and yours didn't"?

 

[SpeedBoost]

Brawl had 5 Zelda reps and 6 Pokémon reps. That's not really ''balanced'' compared to the 4 Mario characters.

Nope 4, in Brawl Pokemon Trainer and Zelda/Sheik were counted as ONE character.

 

[Arcadenik]

Nope 4, in Brawl Pokemon Trainer and Zelda/Sheik were counted as ONE character.

Slot =/= Character

Zelda/Sheik and Samus/ZSS were two characters who occupied single slots and Pokemon Trainer was three characters that occupied one slot.

I agree. But I have to say I don't like those three absolute clones.

Dr. Mario is not an absolute clone. He still has the same moves from Melee while regular Mario's moves changed in Brawl and remained like that in SSB4. He's about as unique as Toon Link is.

Well, Smash 4 technically has the best roster as it has brought back most of the important characters from past installments, but as far as what game introduced the best newcomers Brawl wins it so easily. Brawl just about wiped the slate clean to the point where I feel Smash can't thrive off of newcomers anymore, its the veterans that make the game now. Sure, there are still a few newcomers that could bring in that all-star factor that Brawl did en-masse, like Ridley, King K. Rool and perhaps Toad, but let's get real here, if Sakurai ever wanted those in his game they'd already be in. The newcomer picks have enitrely turned into a flavor of the month feat retro characters thing because of this, even the 3rd parties are retro, and I'm personally not too happy with that. I mean, ask me in 10 years if Wii Fit Trainer, Palutena and Shulk are Nintendo all-stars and I'll probably say no, ask me the same question with Dedede, Diddy Kong and Wolf and I'll say yes.

I think that it's because we are running out of popular characters from veteran franchises that the next best thing to do is to start adding popular characters from unrepresented franchises, whether they are retro, revived, or new, as long as those franchises are currently popular or were popular during their heyday. I think the SSB4 newcomers are just as balanced as the Brawl newcomers...

Spoiler

Retro

Duck Hunt

Revived


Dr. Mario Online Rx / Dr. Luigi
Punch-Out!! (Wii)
Mega Man series (9 and 10)
Pac-Man series (Championship Edition) / Namco Museum series
Kid Icarus Uprising
New Super Mario Bros. series / Mario Kart 8

New

Wii Sports / Wii Party / Tomodachi Life
Xenoblade Chronicles
Animal Crossing series
Wii Fit series

New (veteran franchises)


New Super Mario Bros. series
Kid Icarus Uprising
Pokemon X & Y
Fire Emblem Awakening
Super Mario Galaxy series / Mario Kart series / Super Mario 3D World
Pikmin 3

Retro

Kid Icarus series
Robot series

Revived

Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen
Metroid Zero Mission

New

Pikmin series
Metal Gear series
Sonic series
Wario series

New (veteran franchises)

Kirby series
Donkey Kong series
Fire Emblem Path of Radiance
Pokemon Diamond & Pearl
Mother 3
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Star Fox series

 

[Wanderer from Roseyard]

Besides the groundwork of twelve heroes in the first game, Melee had a lot of supporting characters that I liked. Bowser, Peach, Zelda, Sheik, Mewtwo, Falco, Ganondorf; and some I didn't recognize at the time like G&W, Ice Climbers, and Marth. I'll give Melee my vote for my favorite roster additions.

Brawl also had a nice boost to supporting characters, but because of the Internet—or my then-full-on Nintendo nerddom—it didn't introduce any characters that I didn't already know about.

SSB4's characters, while fun to play as (and that's all that matters), simply weren't as exciting for me at face value. There were no triumphant character returns like Pit in Brawl, or super-surprising guest characters like Snake. Pokémon's newcomer was yet another of that basic phenotype, while Zelda was left out again.

 

[LunarWingCloud]

Smash 4 because the first two Smash games were primitive in their rosters and Brawl is outdated and missing some greats. Smash 4 is somewhat sad in the fact that Ice Climbers are the only thing missing that would complete their cast of "pretty much any decently popular NES character in a Smash game all at the same time" thing, but otherwise the roster is just outstanding.

 

[SmashChu]

1) I'm a Ridley supporter myself but Ridley is not more memorable and popular than half of the newcomers. You're getting confused with the vocal minority that represents a few hundred of people on the internet. People recognizes the likes of Pac-Man, Mega Man, Little Mac, Miis, Wii Fit Trainer, Villager (Wild World sold 11 million alone), Rosalina and even Bowser Jr much more than Ridley.

2) I agree about DKC. It's weird that there isn't a newcomer for Donkey Kong considering his series is much more relevant than it was in Brawl. Who knows though? Maybe Dixie might make it.

3)Character cuts happens because of limited development time. They didn't just go "hahhaha I'm cutting this character", they just ran out of time to implement every single veteran. Certain veterans are low priority, and some were cut due to technical issues (Ice Climbers and Pokemon Trainer). If they were to focus too hard on implementing veterans, we would be getting less newcomers, which wouldn't honestly be exciting.

4) The clones happened because they were originally alt costumes. They decided to make them their own slot due to the slight differences. They COULD maybe have more time to make them differently just like Wolf and Lucas, but alas it didn't. I agree that it sucks they don't have a lot of differences to their counterpart, but I don't think it's lazy at the same time. Game development is a complicated thing, you can't expect the results to be perfect.

5) This game did not have that much of a longer development time than Brawl did. We gotten 49 characters with customizable movesets each, with 2 separate versions (meaning more work) in a span of 2 years. This project started in Spring 2012 and it's near the end of 2014. Brawl started somewhere in 2005 and finished at early 2008 (originally suppose to release on late 2007).

6) How is Pac-Man forced? He IS the mascot of Namco and perfectly represents their arcade history. He is among the most recognizable gaming character alongside Mario. I think he's a better choice than Snake (as much as I love the MGS series much more) because he actually fits and has a more Nintendo-esque history than Metal Gear. Yes, I am aware MG was on the NES, but those games weren't really well received and even Kojima wants to forget it exists. Pac-Man just makes so much more sense.

1)Ok, so, one thing you have to remember is that it's relative. See, Mario characters are always going to be bigger and "more iconic" because it's freaking Mario. His games always sell well, so this means more people will recognize Bowser Jr and Rosalina over Rdiley. Does that means Smash needs to be Mario and Pokemon? Of course not and I'm sure you would agree with me. The point is that the roster should be diverse in terms of series and why relevance to that series is improtaint. Bowser Jr is recognizable, but I would say he is less relevant than Dedede, Ridley, Wolf and even Palutena. He's the main villian's bratty son.

What Brawl did really well is it did a great job of spreading out the series. We got characters from series like Pokemon, which has a ton of characters to chose from, popular series, but not as big, like Kirby and Donkey Kong, Fire Emblem, which always seems to get characters, and Mother. SSB4 pumped and dumbped Pokemon, Kid Icarus, Mario and Fire Emblem. Outside of Kid Icarus, none of those series were hurting for characters. Like wise, Donkey Kong and Metroid get left out in the cold and we loss and Mother and Starfox character. The roster for SSB4 feels a lot less diverse than Brawl's did, and I think that's a big problem.

2)Defiantly. Again, if this game got some DLC, I could say it's the best roster.

3)I disagree. This game had far more time (Brawl had about 2 years and this one was 2 and a half), and a much larger staff (Brawl was Game Arts plus a mercenary team. This game had a large development staff from the get go). I don't think bringing back old characters should have been a problem, especially when they did rip a lot from the returning veterans (most of the even have the same voice from Brawl). Brawl also really pushed it and added 18 characters. This game added a lot, but a lot of those are Miis, which aren't really characters since you can't use them online, and the clones. So they added about 12 new characters. I feel this game just had a lot of misdirection in general, and I feel we would have had a better game had the 3DS version never existed, but I digress.

4)I know they were alt costumes, but it doesn't change the fact they were lazy. Take Melee. The clones in that game were done specifically to pad the roster out, but there was a lot of thought put into how they played. He have Roy who plays way different than Marth and Falco who is different as well, even having new properties like his shine launching players up and his down air being a meteor. There is more, but these are the most obvious examples. Lucina just seems like a poor man's Roy and I still don't know what the difference is with Dark Pit.

5)Brawl started on October 2005, but, again, they didn't have a lot of staff. Nintendo even rented an office space just for this game which they had to set up with computers and what not. This game had everything ready to go. There are special moves, but outside of the Miis and Palutena, they are just variations of other moves.

6)I say he was forced because his reason for inclusion was soley because Namco was making it. No one even considered him until then (during Brawl, he was never taken seriously). And Pac-Man doesn't feel anymore Nintendo than Snake save for he's cartoony and Snake isn't. See, Sonic and Megaman work a lot better because they have a deeper history with Nintendo. Sonic was always seen as Mario's rival, and when Sonic games started popping up on Nintendo hardware, that is when people thought it would be awesome to have them go toe to toe. Megaman started on the NES (and had 6 games plus the X series) and a lot of people see him as a Nintendo character just as much as anyone else. Pac-Man doesn't have that. His claim to fame was the arcade and since then, Namco has drug him as a mascot. He never had any more or less success with Nintendo and his games were on everyone's systems. He's an iconic character for sure, but not an iconic character for Nintendo, like Megaman and Sonic are.

In defense of Snake, Snake was always designed to be different. His moves are totally different from the norm, such as his up and down smash which fire a projectile and place a mine. His second jump is also greater than his first jump and the Codec were really about him not getting Nintendo. One problem I feel with third party characters is they are become less and less the "special guest" and breaking into the roster. They aren't Nintendo and they made that very clear with Snake. Pac-Man I feel shouldn't have happened because it's going a bit too far. No longer is it "Characters with a rich history with Nintendo so they make sense in a Nintendo fighting game," but "Hey, let's add this non Nintendo character because they are special." People will cry "But what about Snake," but there is a reason he isn't back.

 

[QuickRat]

Dr. Mario is not an absolute clone. He still has the same moves from Melee while regular Mario's moves changed in Brawl and remained like that in SSB4. He's about as unique as Toon Link is.

Well, I hate Toon Link moveset being Link's one with some changes, if you ask me. Deku Leaf, Hero's Hammer or even a canon could have been good options. I could understand this in Melee as it was just a "cool add" as a clone (such as Lucina is), but I could not understand Toon Link's moveset in Brawl and neither could I in Smash 4.

 

[[Obnoxshush/Dasshizer]]

Wii U direct Thursday If Sakurai announces at least and Ridley than smash 4 gets the best roster for having all the veteran villains back and for adding a new one. The characters I like in smash 4 are. >>>, >>>>>>>>>, >>>>>>, >>>, >? I like how all my veteran mains play in smash 4 better than brawl. not being in is a sour taste because he could have been really good in this game. His exclusion feels really unjustified now vs the beginning of speculation. People wanted him cut because they thought he was a clone ( which he's not) however they wanted Krystal as a replacement. No replacements at all bringing Star Fox back down to 2 reps, and to make matters worse the popular semi clone is badly nerfed losing his competitive charm and unjustified 's cut even more. Even if was playable (or does become playable in the near future) I might have still said brawl in a sense that it gave me more characters I wanted like . I didn't get any of my requested newcomers ( well maybe just and) however I'm not fully sure if I'll main the two. Probably before. I like and has good game play that fits my play style. So I currently got a gain of two mains since isn't in yet. If they instead counted as 3, that would be nice since I would have all the characters I loved in brawl smashing on final destination mode listening to all the cool music tracks. I still say brawl for now, but maybe the return of and possibly more newcomers could sway me over to Smash 4.

 

[Naoshi]

1)Ok, so, one thing you have to remember is that it's relative. See, Mario characters are always going to be bigger and "more iconic" because it's freaking Mario. His games always sell well, so this means more people will recognize Bowser Jr and Rosalina over Rdiley. Does that means Smash needs to be Mario and Pokemon? Of course not and I'm sure you would agree with me. The point is that the roster should be diverse in terms of series and why relevance to that series is improtaint. Bowser Jr is recognizable, but I would say he is less relevant than Dedede, Ridley, Wolf and even Palutena. He's the main villian's bratty son.

What Brawl did really well is it did a great job of spreading out the series. We got characters from series like Pokemon, which has a ton of characters to chose from, popular series, but not as big, like Kirby and Donkey Kong, Fire Emblem, which always seems to get characters, and Mother. SSB4 pumped and dumbped Pokemon, Kid Icarus, Mario and Fire Emblem. Outside of Kid Icarus, none of those series were hurting for characters. Like wise, Donkey Kong and Metroid get left out in the cold and we loss and Mother and Starfox character. The roster for SSB4 feels a lot less diverse than Brawl's did, and I think that's a big problem.

2)Defiantly. Again, if this game got some DLC, I could say it's the best roster.

3)I disagree. This game had far more time (Brawl had about 2 years and this one was 2 and a half), and a much larger staff (Brawl was Game Arts plus a mercenary team. This game had a large development staff from the get go). I don't think bringing back old characters should have been a problem, especially when they did rip a lot from the returning veterans (most of the even have the same voice from Brawl). Brawl also really pushed it and added 18 characters. This game added a lot, but a lot of those are Miis, which aren't really characters since you can't use them online, and the clones. So they added about 12 new characters. I feel this game just had a lot of misdirection in general, and I feel we would have had a better game had the 3DS version never existed, but I digress.

4)I know they were alt costumes, but it doesn't change the fact they were lazy. Take Melee. The clones in that game were done specifically to pad the roster out, but there was a lot of thought put into how they played. He have Roy who plays way different than Marth and Falco who is different as well, even having new properties like his shine launching players up and his down air being a meteor. There is more, but these are the most obvious examples. Lucina just seems like a poor man's Roy and I still don't know what the difference is with Dark Pit.

5)Brawl started on October 2005, but, again, they didn't have a lot of staff. Nintendo even rented an office space just for this game which they had to set up with computers and what not. This game had everything ready to go. There are special moves, but outside of the Miis and Palutena, they are just variations of other moves.

6)I say he was forced because his reason for inclusion was soley because Namco was making it. No one even considered him until then (during Brawl, he was never taken seriously). And Pac-Man doesn't feel anymore Nintendo than Snake save for he's cartoony and Snake isn't. See, Sonic and Megaman work a lot better because they have a deeper history with Nintendo. Sonic was always seen as Mario's rival, and when Sonic games started popping up on Nintendo hardware, that is when people thought it would be awesome to have them go toe to toe. Megaman started on the NES (and had 6 games plus the X series) and a lot of people see him as a Nintendo character just as much as anyone else. Pac-Man doesn't have that. His claim to fame was the arcade and since then, Namco has drug him as a mascot. He never had any more or less success with Nintendo and his games were on everyone's systems. He's an iconic character for sure, but not an iconic character for Nintendo, like Megaman and Sonic are.

In defense of Snake, Snake was always designed to be different. His moves are totally different from the norm, such as his up and down smash which fire a projectile and place a mine. His second jump is also greater than his first jump and the Codec were really about him not getting Nintendo. One problem I feel with third party characters is they are become less and less the "special guest" and breaking into the roster. They aren't Nintendo and they made that very clear with Snake. Pac-Man I feel shouldn't have happened because it's going a bit too far. No longer is it "Characters with a rich history with Nintendo so they make sense in a Nintendo fighting game," but "Hey, let's add this non Nintendo character because they are special." People will cry "But what about Snake," but there is a reason he isn't back.

1) Bowser Jr was a major villain in some of the most popular Mario titles, including NSMB DS. I feel he's more recognizable than Wolf, Ridley and Palutena. Maybe even Dedede. You'll have a better chance to ask a random person on the street who Bowser Jr is than those other 4. He's pretty relevant, and I'm not even a fan of the character.

3) True this game had a longer dev time, but not by a lot. Although, game development is very complicated and has several factors. They didn't just complete the roster as is and sat on it. Sakurai had admitted that the veterans were recreated from scratch (dunno how MUCH of it was done from scratch, but it sounded like a lot), so that adds a factor into a lot of development time. Recall that he also said that the game development gets more complex the more characters added, the team would have to balance the characters, and with a roster with 49 characters? That's A LOT. And you are right that the 3DS version likely factored into this. Having to make sure all characters works as intended on both systems can be a lot of work. He hired Namco, which are much more experienced with fighting games than Game Arts (which never made fighting games before). There is a ton of factor that greatly affects the development of the game.

4) I agree that the clones could've been more than what they ended up being. But development for SSB4 is different than of Melee and even Brawl. They likely didn't have enough time to implement them to their full potential. Honestly, we don't know what has happened here. It's hard to chalk it up as "laziness" when we, ourselves, have not seen what exactly went on.

5) See: 3

6) I'm going to agree to just disagree here. I feel Pac Man strongly fitted in this game, much more than Snake.

 

[Luggy]

What if I like all of them ? *Run away*
Seriously, I think Brawl is the best in terms "synergy". You know, everyone felt like they were in the good place. Even clones were good here. Maybe there wasn't Mewtwo or Little Mac in it, but for me, this roster feels like the "best looking" and balanced (except Metaknight).

In terms of numbers, of course SSB4 is the best. But does the number really counts ? Sure, I love having some variety with a big roster, but for me, this big number feels empty. Why ? Maybe because there's too many guests. Shulk, Pac-Man, even Sonic feels weird here. They don't feel like "Nintendo characters", but more like "Werid Guests" to me. Or maybe this roster feels weird because of how much people expected it. I mean, everyone was thinking about "epic and original characters" or "long waited newcomers". For some, those promises were completed. For some not. And you can sometimes understand why. I would love to see Waluigi playable in a Smash (even though he's not been in a lot of "big games" for having a good moveset) or other obscure characters. This roster feels like a mixed bag of joy (Little Mac, Mega Man, Palutena...) and deception (No Wolf, No Lucas, No Ice Climbers due to the 3DS, Clones that aren't unique, Weird choices ect...), not like Melee or Brawl who felt "good". It's just my opinion, but this is how I feel about this roster : weird.

Don't shoot me please, I've maybe put one foot in my grave by doing this.

 

[Frostwraith]

@ SmashChu @ Naoshi

Sakurai stated that the clones weren't altered so much from the originals because they didn't want to spend much time and manpower on them. He also stated they didn't want to alter them so much to avoid balancing issues, something that gets increasingly difficult the more characters are added.

He went on to say they were just freebies that would have been alt costumes otherwise, doing that free dessert analogy.

As it stands, they're more like glorified alts with their own personal twists. Since said twists alter the gameplay (even if slightly), they were given their own slots, as not to mess with fighter records, which makes sense as it would have caused statistical flukes otherwise.

 

[[Obnoxshush/Dasshizer]]

1) Bowser Jr was a major villain in some of the most popular Mario titles, including NSMB DS. I feel he's more recognizable than Wolf, Ridley and Palutena. Maybe even Dedede. You'll have a better chance to ask a random person on the street who Bowser Jr is than those other 4. He's pretty relevant, and I'm not even a fan of the character.

Yes he's a villain, but not very menacing. Jr.'s always struck me as an annoying evil brat who just gets in your way. This is much more prominent in the latter games mainly Sticker Star. That was the game that made me hate Jr. because he only appeared three times and just annoyed me. He could have just been left out and the story wouldn't have been affected at all. Sure he's more recognizable than Wolf and Ridley, but not more menacing. The only reason I'm OK with him now is because of the Koopaling alts. He is a good addition and I'm glad he brought all the Koopalings with him, but I like playing as the dog more.() He was well thought out and highly requested, its just and ruined his thunder with their "giving Mario way more reps than the others" This doesn't bother me too much, but I can see why it bothers some. Brawl had the better balance of 4. Here we went crazy with 7. If Pokemon had 7 or 6 people probably wouldn't be as bugged by this. Brawl also had no franchises lose reps except for Mario which just lost but thankfully didn't cut. All the other franchises that lost reps got replenished with new ones. In this game Star Fox and Earthbound get the shaft which is a bit upsetting. Now this decision is sort of negatively affecting veterans like whom now seems like he got in over solely for seniority. Hyrule Warriors however negatively affected for obvious reasons. ( DLC costume please). Well that's it for now.