Is there such a thing as.. Too many representatives?

[Jedi]

As mentioned in an accidentally derailed Kamui support thread (sorry that was partly my bad if not all my bad.)

Is there such a thing in something like smash brothers where a series gets TOO much love in comparison to others? Considering Smash is a celebration of Nintendo's long history, at its core.

Some people have clamored for Toad despite the fact that Mario has 6 characters if you don't count Yoshi, Wario, DK, as their own things (which in smash they are considering they have their own series symbols). Of course Toad isn't the only one, I've seen requests for Daisy, Waluigi and other such characters.

Meanwhile on the Zelda side of things you have people wanting Ghirahim, Vatti, Midna, Impa, among others, I've even seen requests for Young Link to return to have Majoras Mask like powers.

On the Pokemon side of things.. Well out of 649 Pokemon, we have a grand total of 6, which to be fair is a full parties worth. Some people want to see their favorites in smash still.

Fire Emblem due to its growing popularity has seen an increase of requests for those such as Lyn, Hector, Micaiah etc, even Kamui and Azura.

Then on the other end of the spectrum we have series such as Golden Sun, which lack a character entirely but content in the game such as music, also people like Zael who'd have alot of smash potential, but The Last Story didn't do as well as Xenoblade, etc.

Then you have actual series repped that have less then some feel they should, people are aggravated that Metroid consists of 2 characters which are both the same person in different forms, despite the fact that Metroid doesn't really have much to pull from outside of Ridley, but as we've seen, Sakurai considers him to be more of a boss character.

People feel Sakurai is too bias towards Kid icarus, despite the fact that 2 characters + a quick clone aren't all that much in the long run, although his bias for Uprising is apparent, I don't think its as much as people stated.

Starfox is oddly a hot topic, some people feel Fox and Falco are all we need, and others feel Wolf would round it out again, considering the differences between the 3 and how they interacted in canon.

I could mention tons more, but this is a bit of a debate opening. How do you all feel about the roster at large? I mean we pretty much had the Nintendo All-Stars rounded out in Melee, Brawl was the finishing touches, 4 added the sprinkles of variety.

But there will always be room for debate considering who feels so-n-so should be in smash.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Jedi

[euklyd]

ヽ༼ ಠ益ಠ ༽ﾉ R A I S E P I T C H F O R K S F O R I S A A C ヽ༼ ಠ益ಠ ༽ﾉ

okay realtalk

imo it's also important to consider that some series, like Kid Icarus, have sold so few games that the three characters they have are far more overrepresentation than Pokemon's six, relatively speaking.

while I don't think pokemon needs more reps, I do think that niche franchises (FE is borderline; this does include things like Mother) shouldn't be getting third or fourth reps before more popular franchises get third or fourth or even fifth reps

that being said I think that even before looking to expand existing franchises, it would be REALLY NICE to throw fans of unrepresented franchises a bone and add newcomers from franchises that have zero characters currently.

I am obvious biased in favor of Golden Sun, but I'd like to think I'd think this anyways

re: Uprising bias - I recently read a translation of a Sakurai interview where he said that a lot of the "bias" (complete over-representation in Smash Run especially) is because he had easy access to KI:U assets that were already made for a 3DS game, and not only that, assets that he had optimized to not over-tax the 3DS' processing power.

The reason why there are many enemies from “Kid Icarus: Uprising” is because they were original models specially designed for the 3DS, had their own uniqueness, and were easy to make as a result of being used previously. Thus they fit many of the requirements and were a perfect fit. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to have that many enemies.

http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/07/09/i-answer-some-questions-sakurai-famitsu-column-vol-461-464/

[7/22/15, 3:26:02 AM] Jedi: what do you think
[7/22/15, 3:26:12 AM] Jedi: other
[7/22/15, 3:26:12 AM] Euklyd: hold on
[7/22/15, 3:26:19 AM] Jedi: than raise pitchforks for Isaac

[Garnef]

Here's the thing, of course lower franchises are going to get less representatives, they're not as popular. Fire Emblem suddenly recieved a huge popularity jolt due to Awakening. Though, with a game that has so many characters, it'd be hard to pick from so many characters.

I'm fine with all the Mario representatives because not only is Mario the most popular franchise that Nintendo has, but the amount of Mario characters they have doesn't detract from the all star feel of the game. If Waluigi were included with the Mario reps, I wouldn't mind (And would love it, but that's a different story.) since again, that's Nintendo's biggest franchise, and with things like the Mario & Luigi series, and the Paper Mario series, there could totally eventually be representatives from those games as well, and the spotlight would still be on every smash character, rather than just the Mario characters.

Now to answer your question. ^_^

I'd say the limit to me, for a game having too many reps would be 10. Not counting Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Wario, who are played off as representatives of their own franchises, Mario currently has 7 reps, that's 3 more characters, before adding any more would be pushing it, imo.

[Jedi]

I can see where you are coming from and can agree @Euk, the numbers are very odd in smash, because what constitutes for a character in smash? Sakurai had a criteria sometime ago he mentioned in an interview.

"We conduct a character popularity poll both domestically and internationally. We also research games that are currently being developed. After that, it's pretty much up to us, with a touch of convenience. There are a lot things to take into account when deciding [characters]. Does the character have something inherently unique about them? Can that be used to make Smash Bros. interesting? Is the character a representative character [for the source material]? Do they conflict at all with other characters? Was there anything about them that stood out when we began development? Characters from a series that has no future are rarely chosen. Also, fighters that switch models are a different matter.

Basically, any character is accepted if I believe it works [in the game]. On the other hand, even if a character is unique, if they overlap with other characters and aren't unique as a fighter, they are rejected. — Masahiro Sakurai"

Of course the bonus characters are a bit of a tricky thing to explain with this, other then the fact that they had some bonus development time and decided to add Lucina, Dark Pit and Doc Mario into the game along with all the others.

Edit: That's an interesting way to look at it Nexas. At the 10 rep thing

Edited July 22, 2015 by Jedi

[DodgeDusk]

Not including the clone characters, I'd say the representation in regards to playable characters is mostly fine, though the Donkey Kong franchise could definitely include another rep. King K. Rool seems pretty much guaranteed at this point, however, in the form of DLC. Metroid I'm not so sure about. I mean, one of the bigger themes about the franchise is isolation, and being a lone figure in a giant game, that rewards exploration. In that way, I think Samus being the only playable rep from the franchise is doing it some weird form of justice*. I wouldn't complain if Ridley ended up being playable in the future, though. Wolf's exclusion is kind of bizarre, and I think he (or another Star Fox character) needs to be playable. I personally see his happening at some point; Star Fox Zero could get some advertising from it

I was going to bring up the amount of Kid Icarus content in the 3DS version, but Euklyd beat me to it. I'm not fussed by it, honestly

Stages? Again, Donkey Kong got a bit of the shaft this time. For how prominent the franchise it, the fact it only got one new stage seems kind of a let down; some of the environments from Tropical Freeze would have made for some beautiful stages. I'd make a comment about music, too, but I don't remember much about it. All I know is that DK, again, got the short stick. You can't shorten the DK Rap, Sakurai!

*As a person, I mean. I know there are technically two playable Metroid characters, but they're the same person

Edited July 22, 2015 by DodgeDusk

[Terrador]

I honestly like the representative spread, though if anything I think the chance to promote up-and-coming games was rather undertapped--in particular, the lack of Inklings in Smash 4 surprised me. That said, Splatoon sells more than well enough on its own, but who knows what the inclusion of Dillon or some other up-and-coming character could do. I mean, Roy and Marth in Melee literally brought FE to these shores, and I don't think we've seen anything near that sort of franchise-relaunching power from Smash Bros. since Melee.

[Jedi]

I honestly like the representative spread, though if anything I think the chance to promote up-and-coming games was rather undertapped--in particular, the lack of Inklings in Smash 4 surprised me. That said, Splatoon sells more than well enough on its own, but who knows what the inclusion of Dillon or some other up-and-coming character could do. I mean, Roy and Marth in Melee literally brought FE to these shores, and I don't think we've seen anything near that sort of franchise-relaunching power from Smash Bros. since Melee.

Kid Icarus got a revival thanks to Brawl, but yeah it doesn't compare really to the surge of FE that happened.

[Tragonight]

IMO, the max amount of representatives should always belong to the Mario series, excluding Yoshi, DK, and all. They are the face of Nintendo, so no other series should get more recognition than them.

However, I like the recent surge of newcomers FE is getting. It's just enough to make it as popular as other big series, like Zelda, but not enough to be overkill. You can argue that Lucina is a clone of Marth, but Sakurai himself said Chrom would be a clone of Ike. Roy's return rounds everything out nicely, they might get one or two more reps but FE should be represented no more than that (not like I'd complain if it were).

I don't mind the favoritism that Kid Icarus gets, considering Sakurai is the head of Sora and it shows little in Smash anyway. Honestly, I wanted Magnus as a character more than Dark Pit. Magnus has personality, is unique and has his own attacks and backstory in Kid Icarus Uprising. Dark Pit is literally a clone of Pit with a different personality, even if I like him.

King K. Rool seems pretty much guaranteed at this point, however, in the form of DLC.

What makes you say that?

[DodgeDusk]

What makes you say that?

There was an article posted roughly a month ago that said any future work that was going to be done on Smash 4 is going to be mainly fan service. King K. Rool is one of, if not the most requested character in Smash right now. Now, Sakurai has said that the characters with the highest votes in the Smash Ballot would be considered, not guaranteed. But I really can't see Sakurai not including him. Maybe "guaranteed" wasn't the best word. "High chance", maybe

To keep it slightly on-topic, I would love the DK franchise to get a third rep, since I believe it deserves it. I'd prefer Rool, just because of the variety, but I wouldn't object to Dixie. Bashmaster, on the other hand... Oh, it won't happen

Edited July 22, 2015 by DodgeDusk

[Jave]

I think one problem that always shows up in this type of discussion is that people normally think of raw numbers rather than actual proportions. For future entries in the Smash series, the roster will continue to grow, and it's expected that the more popular series will grow with it. Sure, Fire Emblem with six reps would feel bloated on Smash Wii U/3DS as it is now, but what about in the next entry where we'll likely have a 60-65 character roster? Probably even 70 with DLC? It probably won't.

I also wonder if no new FE reps means we're stuck with the same five FE characters in every future Smash entry. Sure, it's easy to say "Cut this character and add a new one", but Sakurai has stated many times that he tries to not cut any characters because he's aware all of them have a fanbase he doesn't want to disappoint. I kinda feel sorry for him, since no matter what he does he seems to end at a crossroad.

You know what I would love to see in a future Smash game regarding FE? Add a new character, but give said character the Koopaling treatment and make every alt a different character. It's not like FE doesn't have enough characters to pull this off, and it could add representation to every FE universe. Example: Make Micaiah a Smash newcomer, and the alts are Celica, Linde, Julia, Lilina, Lute, Tharja and Nyx. Female mage archtype basically, using all types of magic and even add in staffs for melee attacks. It'll require some extra manwork to make the eight models work as alts, but hey, it COULD work.

[euklyd]

You know what I would love to see in a future Smash game regarding FE? Add a new character, but give said character the Koopaling treatment and make every alt a different character. It's not like FE doesn't have enough characters to pull this off, and it could add representation to every FE universe. Example: Make Micaiah a Smash newcomer, and the alts are Celica, Linde, Julia, Lilina, Lute, Tharja and Nyx. Female mage archtype basically, using all types of magic and even add in staffs for melee attacks. It'll require some extra manwork to make the eight models work as alts, but hey, it COULD work.

...and then watch them all get spun off into clone characters due to trivial differences à la Lucina.

And then watch people bitch and moan about FE having like 20 characters.

I approve of this future.

[Sentacotus]

First things first. There is no set amount of character "slots" or quotas to fill I think Sakurai even said this himself so I'll have to find it and link it later. The only thing limiting them is memory space and how many resources they want to put in to the game development for more characters.

That being said I do think bigger franchises like Mario and Zelda are fine to have more characters than say F-zero given that they have a longer line of games and hence more characters.

The other thing that needs to be taken into account is that even if a franchise has a long running history like Metroid or Fire Emblem is how practical it is to include certain characters into Smash. Take the cavaliers or wyvern riders in Fire Emblem for example or even the manaketes. How in the hell are you supposed to put them into a fighter? As far as Metroid goes theres the ever hot topic of Ridley being too big in smash (and I agree with this part of what makes him awesome is how menacingly big he is when you face him). In all honesty I don't know anyone aside from Dark Samus that could be added from Metroid.

Plus look at it this way if they just add every single iconic character that people want in the current iteration of Smash what other incentive are you going to have to get the next one they make? Part of what makes Smash so hype and why people get so excited for it so much so that guys like Phil Spencer from Microsoft want Banjo Kazooie added is the addition of new characters. It gives both that game publicity and marketing and gives a reason to get the game.

[Tsunami922]

...and then watch them all get spun off into clone characters due to trivial differences à la Lucina.And then watch people bitch and moan about FE having like 20 characters.I approve of this future.

20 FE characters? I'm all for it. One of them is Lyn, right? ....TBH, I'd really just like to see a female FE character that isn't a clone (Lucina) and isn't an avatar (Robin).

[Ragnell]

Larger, more popular series should logically always have the most representation, but there are other factors that influence which series have the most representation in Smash. For instance, some series are just better suited for more reps, like Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem has a brand new cast of 40-70 playable characters in every title. Meanwhile the main Mario franchise has only ever let you play as a handful of characters. Even the supporting casts in these types of titles are light, since there is not an emphasis on story or characters. Zelda has a wider supporting cast and a more elaborate story, but even there the main cast is honestly no larger than the Mario series, leaving us to look at B-list characters like Skull Kid and Ghirahim for further representation. Series like FE, Pokemon, and KI just naturally have more prominent "all-star" characters to bring to the table.

Furthermore, certain series have more characters with obvious fighting abilities or unique playstyles for SSB. Virtually every FE character is a soldier, so designing movesets is relatively easy. Likewise, the Pokemon each have dozens, if not hundreds, of canonical attacks and abilities to pick from. But when you start looking at characters like Toad or Waluigi, the most prominent remaining Mario stars... it's not super obvious how to fill their 50+ attack moveset in SSB. That's not to say they couldn't be fun, and I'm not trying to pick on the Mario series (it should definitely be amongst the most-represented series), but these challenges highlight why we have the so-called overrepresentation of certain series.

In the end, I think a series can certainly be overrepresented (FE is close right now, though 3/5 reps beings clones makes things less objectionable). However, despite fan grumblings, I don't think reps should necessarily be determined solely by sales or popularity. This is one area where Sakurai is sort of the secret sauce of the SSB franchise; he does a great job of balancing popularity, uniqueness, and gameplay considerations to give us casts of lovable characters that we also love to play.

[Deviddo]

Honestly I do think FE has too much representation, not to mention we didn't need two Marth clones. If there would be a Smash 5 and they had to cut characters or something, then Lucina and Roy could be Marth skins. Not that I think any character really needs to be cut, why cut characters when you can just round it out by adding more to other franchises?

If Donkey Kong can't get King K. Rool for whatever reason, then Cranky or Dixie could be additions that would please fans.

Metroid is in a bit of an awkward situation in the sense that Sakurai doesn't seem to think Ridley can be a character, and there's not much else in terms of who they can seriously add.

Mario is fine, doesn't need anything else.

If Kid Icarus were to get more reps -- which I don't think it needs, having 3 games, Magnus or Hades or Medusa are characters individuals say they wish to see often.

I often hear people crying out for a Ganondorf who isn't a clone, which I also want, and Ghirahim is a common requested character.

If we get another Star Fox rep I'd rather it be someone who doesn't fight incredibly similarly to Fox and Falco, but at the same time I feel like Wolf is probably going to be announced soon due to high fan request.

At the same time I'm not sure if Pokemon needs anything else, if it does, we could use a grass type again.

Honestly I'd like to see Snake back.

Kirby fans commonly request Waddle Dee for a spear user, I don't see why not, it would work.

And I'm probably forgetting some other things, sorry.

I don't really think Fire Emblem NEEDS anyone else but seeing as how FE is my favorite I'll always have that bias, and I'm hoping for alternate skin DLC at the very least, seems easy to implement and that's all I'd want is for Chrom to be a skin of Ike. If they were to ever seriously add another Fire Emblem character, I'd say it should be a mage of some sort, but I'm not sure if most fans would really want say Micaiah or something, I hear she's a good character, but do FE fans seriously want her in Smash? I know there's quite a bit of wanting for Lyn, Ephraim, Hector, and Eliwood though. I'm not sure if a character on horseback would work well though.

[Jedi]

Are people seriously calling Roy a Marth clone in Smash 4, first of all we need to get that out of our systems now considering his major changes.

The term clone in Smash 4 can only truly be applied to Lucina and Dark Pit. Every other character you hear called a "clone" is misinformation and just proves that they haven't actually played with all the characters. Just a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

I know Ragnell and Deviddo just said Roy, but I need to get this out there now, before this goes any further with a nonsensical clone discussion.

I don't mean that as an insult and I may have worded it poorly, but Roy has a different jab, different tilts for the most part, different smashes for the most part, new aerials (one is borrowed from Ike funnily enough.) Flare Blade and Shield Breaker have 0 in common, and theres more I could say, but these are the main things that show Roy isn't a clone anymore.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Jedi

[Jave]

20 FE characters? I'm all for it. One of them is Lyn, right?

Lyn could also get the Koopaling treatment. The alts could be Ayra, Mareeta, Fir, Marisa, Mia, Athena and Say'ri.

[Ragnell]

Are people seriously calling Roy a Marth clone in Smash 4, first of all we need to get that out of our systems now considering his major changes.

The term clone in Smash 4 can only truly be applied to Lucina and Dark Pit. Every other character you hear called a "clone" is misinformation and just proves that they haven't actually played with all the characters. Just a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

I know Ragnell and Deviddo just said Roy, but I need to get this out there now, before this goes any further with a nonsensical clone discussion.

I don't mean that as an insult and I may have worded it poorly, but Roy has a different jab, different tilts for the most part, different smashes for the most part, new aerials (one is borrowed from Ike funnily enough.) Flare Blade and Shield Breaker have 0 in common, and theres more I could say, but these are the main things that show Roy isn't a clone anymore.

I fully understand that Roy is heavily Luigified (I play Marth and Roy quite often); I just used the word clone to save space in my already long post (rather than saying there is one source character, one clone, and one semiclone). All I meant to imply is that Roy and Lucina require much less dev time due to shared animations and the relative ease of balancing the characters. So the FE series probably didn't get as much development time as the number of characters would suggest.

[Jedi]

I fully understand that Roy is heavily Luigified (I play Marth and Roy quite often); I just used the word clone to save space in my already long post (rather than saying there is one source character, one clone, and one semiclone). All I meant to imply is that Roy and Lucina require much less dev time due to shared animations and the relative ease of balancing the characters. So the FE series probably didn't get as much development time as the number of characters would suggest.

But the amount of love Sakurai showed Roy is so apparent for dev time, he got the old VA back, he altered his moves (when some people wouldn't have cared if he was a full on clone), he got a whole new redesign which incorporates his Awakening design.

I'm not seeing the less dev time thing here except for Lucina.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

Yeah Roy is no longer a clone at this point

Lyn could also get the Koopaling treatment. The alts could be Ayra, Mareeta, Fir, Marisa, Mia, Athena and Say'ri.

now this wouldn't be too bad of an idea actually

also about Bias, this is pretty funny, take it with a grain of salt, but it should provide afew laughs.

http://gfaqssb.wikia.com/wiki/Bias

[Sentacotus]

Yeah Roy is no longer a clone at this point

now this wouldn't be too bad of an idea actually

also about Bias, this is pretty funny, take it with a grain of salt, but it should provide afew laughs.

http://gfaqssb.wikia.com/wiki/Bias

You made my day this is gold.

My attitude to the whole Kid Icarus/Kirby thing is that Smash is when you get down to it his game and he is the one thats putting in the hours to work on it and ultimately responsible for if it suceeds or fails so why the hell can he not put what he wants in the game?

The question as to whether he should is different altogether but I always kinda chuckle when people act shocked when there are elements in the game of him showing bias toward the franchises he developed himself or helped develop. Its almost as if they make it sound that if they were in his place that they wouldn't dare do the same thing and would represent all franchises equally.

[Anacybele]

How is Roy not a clone? As far as I can see, the only differences between him and Marth are power and range... And fire, but that's aesthetic.

And anyway, I don't think there's really a such thing as too many reps, but I do think there's a such thing as overpresentation compared to other franchises. Like, I do not think KI should have three reps before, say, Donkey Kong. DK needs a new rep, imo, as one of Nintendo's oldest and still running franchises. It's not unpopular either.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Anacybele

[Kiseki]

his bias for Uprising is apparent

Well, he did work on that game. Nothing wrong with taking a liking for your own creations, right?

also about Bias, this is pretty funny, take it with a grain of salt, but it should provide afew laughs.

http://gfaqssb.wikia.com/wiki/Bias

This is surprisingly accurate. Then again, Pit has been on a good majority of every newcomer poster to date.

How is Roy not a clone? As far as I can see, the only differences between him and Marth are power and range... And fire, but that's aesthetic.

Here's an answer:

I don't mean that as an insult and I may have worded it poorly, but Roy has a different jab, different tilts for the most part, different smashes for the most part, new aerials (one is borrowed from Ike funnily enough.) Flare Blade and Shield Breaker have 0 in common, and theres more I could say, but these are the main things that show Roy isn't a clone anymore.

[Anacybele]

Oh, I guess I haven't seen enough of Roy in action. I never bought him and I don't want to, so...

[Florete]

Roy is more similar to Marth than Ike is, but I would sooner call him a semi-clone.

I think it's possible for a series to be over-repped, though I'm not sure we've hit that yet if we discount the clones. To be honest, though, I'm much less worried about a series being over-repped and more worried about the characters chosen just being...good. Good and prominent in their own series as well as good in Smash.