SSB4: SSB for Wii U and 3DS, maybe the NX and also your toaster!

[TheWill]

Seven? I only count five females. o.O Zelda, Rosalina, Samus, Wii Fit Trainer, and Peach.

EDIT: Oh wait, yeah, Female Villager counts too. But that's still just six.

I think she counted Zero Suit and Sheik as female as well.

Edit: I lose.

Edited June 9, 2014 by SlipperySlippy

[Anacybele]

Oh. I personally consider Sheik to be male and I count Samus and ZSS as the same person.

[HK Motendra]

Sakurai himself, depicts her as female though

[Anacybele]

Sakurai himself, depicts her as female though

Except Smash doesn't always follow canon. It's even been known to have typos in trophy descriptions and inaccurate translations. Sakurai also didn't make the game Sheik appears in.

In actual canon, Sheik is a man. In Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Ruto states in the Water Temple that a young man named Sheik rescued her from under the ice. Meaning Zelda created the Sheik persona to be a male and disguised herself as such.

[Lord of Gabriel Knight]

as if characters can't lie or be mistaken

[Kyea]

Oh. I personally consider Sheik to be male and I count Samus and ZSS as the same person.

Hey it's someone else who considers Sheik male. Most people definitely go with female for obvious reasons. But it is a magical transformation, so it could go either way. It's a personal choice.

[Dai]

I prefer to think of Shiek as female, since it's still Zelda in disguise.

[Anacybele]

Sakurai can be mistaken too. He didn't know Adult Link couldn't use the boomerang back when the first Smash was made. And look at Sheik's build. Flat, masculine chest, no curves. Obviously a man's body. Zelda uses magic, so she transformed herself into a man. This is why I consider Sheik to be male.

But each to their own. I personally am surprised at how many people call Sheik a woman though.

[Florete]

Though I really want a complete female avatar as another FE rep, I do have to agree that they'd throw the hood on to make him/her genderless to players.

What about voice? Even if they don't have specific quotes, there are still battle grunts.

Oh. I personally consider Sheik to be male and I count Samus and ZSS as the same person.

SSB Sheik is female.

Except Smash doesn't always follow canon. It's even been known to have typos in trophy descriptions and inaccurate translations. Sakurai also didn't make the game Sheik appears in.

In actual canon, Sheik is a man. In Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Ruto states in the Water Temple that a young man named Sheik rescued her from under the ice. Meaning Zelda created the Sheik persona to be a male and disguised herself as such.

The Sheik of Brawl and SSB4 doesn't even technically appear in any game outside of SSB (she's Twilight Princess themed and didn't appear in that game). This Sheik is essentially an SSB-original character, so Sakurai can decide the gender, and he stated that Sheik is female.

In actual canon, Sheik's gender is not defined and heavily debated.

[Kyea]

Maybe they'll have hoods up, but have one male build and one female build. They would still be the same height/size. I was actually hoping if the avatar gets in we could have some of their critical/skill activation quotes as taunts; "It's time to tip the scales!" and whatnot.

I also count Jiggs as a female, although it could easily be either.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Kyea

[BANRYU]

Sheik's gender and the concept of fictional gender-disguised personas VS the magic of transexualism is pretty dicey territory... I'd... rather just avoid that topic, personally.

If the avatar is in the game they'll throw the hood up on him/her to not be specific on gender or looks

I wouldn't be too sure about that given Sakurai's treatment of the AC Villager.

Incidentally, this is one of the several problems that results from trying to make the Tactician playable.

[spoiler=Rant/Essay below the cut.]Yeah, the fact that the Tactician (which is what (s)he is bound to be called, since 'avatar' is a fan term and Robin is only a default name, which as Red/Pokemon Trainer proves, means nothing for SSB) have no canon appearance is kind of a big problem. (And no, the stock white hair/base features doesn't count; default appearance =|= canon.)

Awakening's artists go out of their way to avoid portraying any of the FE13 avatar's facial features, y'all might notice, and this again has to do with the whole 'Tactician as a self-insert shpeal' that I keep going on about. IS deliberately created the character for players to put themselves into, and they deliberately avoid giving him/her any distinct hair/facial features for exactly that reason.

So, if we want to make this character playable, what's the solution? An Awakening-esque character customization system would be too complex to add for just one charcter, and Sakurai has already said that they're NOT doing cosmetic character customization. Technically they could just do a couple of random hair style/color combinations for each gender if they WERE going to have the character in, but whatever combination they choose, that sort of distances the character from any players who didn't have any of the appearances that are put into the game. (Besides, there's not just the issue of male/female, but each gender has three distinct body types as well. Do y'all who think the Tactician could be in mean to tell me that they're gonna create six different models for the character, or else risk ostracizing players who chose one of the player models that ISN'T in SSB?) So what then, the 'hooded Tactician' appearance solution that was suggested earlier? Well sure, if you want to alienate EVERYONE who played Awakening from that character.

The thing is, I can't imagine that IS and/or Nintendo would allow Super Smash Bros to wreck the image of the FE13 Tactician as YOU, the personalized player, that Intelligent so deliberately created. And yeah, it's true that there will ALWAYS be people who complain about characters that get atted and there's nothing you can do about that. BUT. Whether or not it's actually true that people would complain that their personalized character wasn't represented in the game, Sakurai and/or the Nintendo higher-ups are going to hesitate to make this character playable for fear of backlash anyway. There's just too much room for complaint and player dissatisfaction from the perspective of the corporate uppers (as I understand it, anyway, I certainly won't claim to be an expert on gaming bureaucracy).

And before someone brings up the Villager again as a counterpoint, no. It's really not the same. Like, at all.

Awakening encouraged its players to personalize their avatar character in that game, whereas Animal Crossing just gives you a personality quiz and generates an appearance for you based on your results (same with different hairdos-- the only way to get the appearance you WANT is to know the answers that get you that appearance). These defaults are used pretty consistently throughout most of the series, and are the basis for all the color-alts of the Villager that we're getting in Smash 3U. The difference: there is a precedence for these characters that the Smash Bros versions are based off of. Maybe you could say the same for Awakening's avatar, but it's definitely a lot more complicated than the whole Villager situation.

Whether or not you agree with my assessment of Nintendo/IS/Sakurai's views on the Tactician character, it's undeniable that there are a LOT of complicating factors surrounding his/her inclusion in Smash-- I haven't even gone into all of them.

Not expecting people to agree, but I hope people can at least be open-minded enough to see where I'm coming from here x__X

Edited June 9, 2014 by BANRYU

[Anacybele]

SSB Sheik is female.

The Sheik of Brawl and SSB4 doesn't even technically appear in any game outside of SSB (she's Twilight Princess themed and didn't appear in that game). This Sheik is essentially an SSB-original character, so Sakurai can decide the gender, and he stated that Sheik is female.

In actual canon, Sheik's gender is not defined and heavily debated.

CONSIDERED to be female. Not everyone thinks he's a girl.

Sheik was originally planned to be in TP. He even had concept art, but was scrapped during development. And he is in no way an SSB-original character when he first appeared in Ocarina of Time as a major character. And his gender IS defined in canon. By both Ruto and his game model, which is clearly a man's body as I described.

But you're right, this is always heavily debated and the debate never seems to end, so this is pointless anyway.

I think that to solve Avatar's voice issue is to just make both genders usable with the default appearance and either voice 1 for both or new voice actors.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Anacybele

[PKL]

You guys forgetting NANA

[HK Motendra]

RFoF was talking about the SSB Sheik.

And as you mentioned before Ana, SSB doesn't follow the canon of the games that each person comes from. Whether or not Sheik is male or female in the canon of LoZ, she is in SSB

http://www.smashbros.com/wii/en_us/characters/sheik.html

Edited June 9, 2014 by The King

[Jedi]

Smash caring about canon.. That's rich. Its a celebration of Nintendo's history not a canonically factorial addition to each franchise.

[Florete]

CONSIDERED to be female. Not everyone thinks he's a girl.

Sheik was originally planned to be in TP. He even had concept art, but was scrapped during development. And he is in no way an SSB-original character when he first appeared in Ocarina of Time as a major character. And his gender IS defined in canon. By both Ruto and his game model, which is clearly a man's body as I described.

But you're right, this is always heavily debated and the debate never seems to end, so this is pointless anyway.

Ana, you should really do more research before making claims, especially when you think you're correcting someone.

From SSB Wiki:

Sheik is definitely considered a female in the Super Smash Bros. series. Several examples include that Sheik's Melee trophies describe her as being female, that Masahiro Sakurai refers to Sheik as female in her update on the Smash Bros. DOJO!! website, and that she is referred to as female within both Brawl and its manual. As such, the SmashWiki uses the feminine classification for Sheik.

Sheik supposedly being planned for TP means nothing. She wasn't there, and that's that. Thus, that is why I say the Brawl and SSB4 incarnation is essentially an SSB original character (the Melee one is from OoT). In the same way, the Links from SSB64 and Melee are not the same as the ones from Brawl and SSB4.

What you want to "think" doesn't mean anything. As far as the Brawl/SSB4 Sheik, you are wrong if you call Sheik a man.

Also, "considered" in this context doesn't mean "some people think, some don't." It may as well be "regarded."

From Zelda wiki:

Debate on Sheik's Gender

Sheik's gender is not entirely clear.

Sheik has canonically only appeared in Ocarina of Time. Within that game, Sheik's gender was referred to once, by Princess Ruto, when she referred to Sheik as a "a young man"[15] and "him".[16] The Official Nintendo's Player Guide also describes Sheik as "a young man". Sheik's art displays a significantly more masculine build than Zelda's. Within the context of Ocarina of Time, it appears that Sheik is at least supposed to be perceived as male, regardless of what "he" may truly be. For that reason, Zelda Wiki refers to Sheik as male, because the perception is the only certainty about the character's gender.

Within the game, Sheik is never unambiguously indicated to be of either gender. "He" may very well be merely a well-done disguise that had Ruto fooled into thinking "he" was male. And in that vein, the Official Nintendo's Player Guide is likely written as it is in order to not spoil the revelation of Sheik's true identity to the readers.

The Ocarina of Time manga states that Zelda's mind was sealed away so she would believe she is a boy and take the identity of Sheik. Though the Manga contradicts the game on various points, Eiji Aonuma has said that "the manga makes up for [the game] by filling the gaps 'precisely.'"[17] However, he later stated that players preferred female characters that were more independent, like Sheik and Tetra.[18] Trophy descriptions in the Super Smash Bros. series use feminine pronouns when referring to Sheik; however, while Melee Sheik is based on the Ocarina of Time Sheik, Brawl Sheik is based on the non-canonical alter ego of the Zelda from Twilight Princess. Brawl Sheik retains the masculine appearance of her Ocarina of Time self.

It has also been suggested that Sheik was originally meant to be a male character, but has been recast as a female in recent years to better appease to the market. This argues that the idea of gender as an inherent and vital component of an individual's being is deeply ingrained in the (Western) mindset. Nintendo has over time made Ocarina of Time less controversial, such as by recoloring Ganon's blood from red to green, removing real-life religious symbols, and writing the ReDead trophy description in Super Smash Bros. Melee to remove the implication that the ones in the Hyrule Castle Town ruins were some of the previous inhabitants. It may be that Sheik as a secret male alter ego to a well-known female character originated as a creative story element, but that such a character would be difficult to market as a multiple-times gender-swapping combatant in the Super Smash Bros. series. Also, Nintendo does not have a large cast of noncontroversial, famous female characters, which makes a female Sheik more interesting from a marketing perspective.[19]

Might I also remind you that the handbook for the original Metroid referred to Samus as "he." What these both have in common is a late/end game secret about the true nature of the character that the characters would not want to have spoiled beforehand.

[TheWill]

Smash caring about canon.. That's rich. Its a celebration of Nintendo's history not a canonically factorial addition to each franchise.

People aren't saying Shiek in the original series is female, but the one in Smash Bros is female.

[Kyea]

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. Just whether you choose to believe the magical transformation is literal or just a disguise. But I feel we should move on from the topic, as it's not that important to SSB4.

Do you guys think that Ganondorf is coming back in SSB4? And if so, would you like to see any changes? Personally, I want to see him come back. I'd love to see him use a sword or more unique magic-based moves. So he doesn't necessarily need a sword or two. And he could still warlock punch people

[Jave]

SSB Sheik is definitely female. Look at the friggin' Brawl model. That's a feminine body if I've ever seen one.

I find flabbergasting that people are willing to even use "Well, Sakurai could be wrong" as an argument after ALL THESE YEARS. Do you seriously believe they would let Sakurai get away with referring to Sheik as female if it was canonically wrong? Get real.

[BANRYU]

Regarding the whole Sheik debate... I make no claims as to the femininity or masculinity of anyone's body, but I would just like to point out that all iterations of Sheik in Super Smash Bros have thickish bandages across the upper pectoral regions of their torso. Breast binding is also a thing that women who want to disguise themselves as men do.

I'm just gonna... let that information sit and back off from it

[Knight]

Are we really arguing about Sheik?

[Jedi]

People aren't saying Shiek in the original series is female, but the one in Smash Bros is female.

I wasn't even talking about Sheik. I was talking about Banryus argument against the avatar and how the avatar isn't "canon" to fe13

[Ema Skye]

So what do you guys think we're going to get on Tuesday?

I'm hoping for 2-3 newcomers and maybe a 2-3 veterans.

[TheWill]

I wasn't even talking about Sheik. I was talking about Banryus argument against the avatar and how the avatar isn't "canon" to fe13

My apologies, it's hard to tell with the two topics going on at once.

[Kyea]

I'm just going to continue moving on...

I don't what to say about Tues. How many veterans do we have left? Capt. Falcon, ICs, Falco, Jiggs, Ganon, Rob, MK, Ness, Lucas, and Game & Watch? Leaving off Snake and Ivy/Squirtle on purpose. I hope we see Capt. Falcon and Ganondorf come back and it compares how different their movesets are now.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Kyea