This is the final reminder to go out and vote!
THE DEADLINE IS OCTOBER 3rd, 2015
First: Vote on the official website. Go to SmashBros.com and select your region to find a link to the Smash Ballot. Alternatively, we’ve collected some direct links:
Americas (English)
Americas (French)
Americas (Spanish)
Europe (English)
Europe (French)
Europe (Italian)
Europe (German)
Europe (Italian)
Europe (Portuguese)
Europe (Dutch)
Europe (Russian)
Japan (Japanese)
Australia (English)
Remember, the data from this poll can be used for future games, so vote for whoever you want, even if you don’t think they have much of a chance in this game!
Second: Go vote in the Ultimate Smash Ballot poll being held by Source Gaming!
The poll has over 1,600 votes! After voting you may view the results.
The deadline is October 4th, 2015. You can only vote for one character. So make it count!
If that’s not your cup of tea then…
Third: Vote in the Individual Character poll being held by Source Gaming!
The first poll has over 1,700 votes! After voting you may view the results.
Part 1 Playable Represented Franchise
These are characters that have a franchise in the game already.
Part 2 Other Nintendo Series
These are characters from either “retro” series, or unrepresented series from Nintendo’s history.
Part 3 “Deconfirmed” Characters and Veterans
These are characters that already have an in-game role, or used to be a fighter.
Part 4 3rd Parties
These are the notable 3rd party characters.
Part 5 “Missing Characters”
These are characters that were missing from the previous polls.
We will collect and post the data from our various polls as soon as we can finish compiling them. After voting, please share this article. The more votes we have, the more likely that the data will actually represent the fanbase.
I decided to include the PRELIMINARY results from the first part of the poll, partly so this article will be shared more. Please note this is NOT the final results. Also, this is ONLY the first part. For the final data I will combine all the averages of all the character votes together.
This is a chart showing the breakdown of the way people voted for each character (ordered by highest average to lowest). More fives, fours and threes are GOOD.
This chart shows the pure average.
Lastly, if charts are more of your thing you may access the table here:
[gdoc key=”https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LJjU4wlIEKeAmMTodiYVlPnJf3yNkc5PyadRiBi02Mo/edit?usp=sharing” title=”Table” http_opts='{}’]
I also wanted to show what kind of comparisons we can do with this kind of data.
Here are the votes for Dixie Kong and King K. Rool lined up:
[gdoc key=”https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a0zoFRo6YacxWx04UXkX3f8QSbLK2IZwUrfsmSkQBHc/edit?usp=sharing”]
The average sum of Dixie + King K. Rool votes combined is 7.054.
Counting only the votes that have a 3 or more point difference can show if there is a “hatebase” (Voting one character up, while voting the other down). 15% of the votes in this data set follow that pattern. Some of these votes are probably actually preference. I was actually surprised by how little people were downvoting another character vis-à-vis upvoting their own character.
When the SG ballot is finished, we will make a copy available for everyone to use. Feel free to utilize it however you wish, but please link us whenever discussing it, and make the data set available for other people so they may check your work.
PushDustIn is busy counting votes and speculating on the future of Smash. You can follow him on Twitter to stay updated on the nerdy details of Smash.
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Honestly, I’m pretty disappointed in the majority of the top 50.
Just for lulz, I sorted it by the most amount of 1’s, and I actually like a lot of the choices there. What REALLY surprised me is how downvoted the Diddy + Dixie combo was, considering that was actually the original plan for Diddy. I personally think that the two of them together would make for a stronger character than either separate.
Also, disappointed Jumpman got downvoted so much. 🙁 Same with Leif, Plum, Stanley, Mr. Sandman, Blood Falcon, Plusle & Minun, 9-Volt, Cross, Ninten, Weaville, and ESPECIALLY Wario Land Wario. 🙁
I’d honestly take any five of those over the top 5… no offense to any fans of said characters, of course.
People don’t like the Kong Duo idea because it devalues two strong protagonists with their own unique histories for the sake of a gimmick.
I don’t know if I’d agree about Dixie being a strong protagonist… Diddy maybe a little bit more so, but I’m still not 100% on that.
Diddy and Dixie both debuted and were primarily in the Donkey Kong Country series, featuring the tag mechanic as one of its central gameplay ideas. Both also started off as sidekick characters before being promoted to the star in DKC2 and 3, respectively, while still retaining the tag partner aspect.
I don’t really give points to Diddy for Diddy Kong Racing either… not because it’s a spin-off, but because it basically only had two DKC characters and a bunch of Rare originals, so it was more like “Rare All-Stars Racing” with Diddy put in there to push sales.
Don’t forget that Dixie was also not important enough to make it into DK64 or the first DKC Returns.
Anyway, minor tangent in those last two points aside, I think it devalues the Kongs to have them separate. The DKC series is all about that team aspect, and having Diddy and Dixie separated feels a bit unnatural to me. This is pretty much the reason I disapprove of Dixie in Smash unless she’s paired with Diddy… I don’t think she can really add anything to Smash without the tag mechanic nor do I think she’s a solid choice as a solo fighter.
If Dixie did became a solo fighter, I think she’d ended up as a Diddy clone. Not just making her faster but weaker than Diddy, but mainly using her ponytail to carry objects and do something crazy. Plus using a Tiny’s Banana Crossbow rather than Peanut Pop Gun, using her aerial spin attack like Donkey’s Spinning Kong, and using the elec guitar attack that’s similar to Barbara’s as her Final Smash, similar to Donkey’s Konga move. But I guess her chances on joining Smash can be really difficult. She was absent in many DK series during the N64 era to the early Gamecube era, so she really don’t have much of any brief information of what special and unique things she can do rather than tag mechanic. If she did took many actions during those large blank period, maybe she could’ve added more to herself for Smash.
For her FS she could ride that elephant from DKC3 (maybe Kiddy even could be on top) for stomping and water squirting, for smash attacks I think it would look cool to see her using her guitar, but seems unlikely, her first jump could have great vertical distance but low horizontal movement, then her second jump could be the hair spin thing that only has horizontal movement and the special jump could be.. er.. her blowing a big bubble gum? Idk, I hope she doesn’t have the same one as DK so she can be a little more different. I don’t think they would add Tiny’s crossbow, since Dixie has her bubble gum popgun in Tropical Freeze; Maybe fully charged the gum could make players get stuck a little bit and when not charged the gum ball could bounce around the place randomly.
Anytime people bring up “X series is all about Y” to justify a character inclusion or exclusion (i.e. “Metroid is all about isolation, so no newcomers”), I tend to tune out. I’m not a big fan of selectively propping up individual parts of canon gameplay to justify movesets, either. I don’t want Mario to shrink when he gets hit, or Link to be incapable of jumping, or Yoshi to get a Baby Mario mechanic (dear god, I remember this was a thing people suggested after he didn’t get revealed for ages after E3 2013). Smash 4 has, in my opinion, moved people too far toward suggesting the most bizarre gimmicks they can think up on paper, without stopping to ask…would it actually be fun in practice?
I also have to disagree on DKC2 and DKR “not getting points” in terms of Diddy being a standalone character. In fact, part of the storyline behind DKC2 (and 3, where Dixie is concerned) was Diddy setting out to prove himself as a Video Game Hero. And even looking at canon, as great a game as it is, DKC2 is one game; Diddy is mostly paired with DK in canon, and I can only imagine the backlash that would come toward the idea of DK being saddled with Diddy.
Diddy, although he’s not the legend DK is, shouldn’t be any different, and it seems for the most part, the poll respondents agree.
The problem with the “X series is all about Y” examples you listed are that (aside from the Metroid one) would break gameplay. I don’t think a tag-team mechanic is really that outlandish considering we’ve had characters like Ice Climber, Zelda/Sheik, Pokemon Trainer, and Rosalina & Luma. Most characters, especially ones where you played directly as them in their home games, have SOME kind gameplay gimmick that they are known for in their games. This is why Link has a variety of weapons, Peach can float, Kirby can copy powers, and Yoshi flutter-jumps, ground pounds, throws eggs, and swallows stuff.
Also, Diddy mostly being paired with Donkey kind of goes with my point of him being a “sidekick.” I may be in the minority here, but to me, it’d be like Sonic and Tails being paired for a game, then Tails and Amy Rose for the next, and Amy and Cream for the next. Do Tails and Amy really stand well as main protagonists? Not really, they’re better as sidekicks / supporting characters. That pretty much sums up how I feel about Diddy and Dixie. Granted, Smash DOES have secondary characters as well, but Dixie feels like it’s getting toward C-tier.
And about Diddy Kong Racing… it was originally Pro-AM 64, with Timber the Tiger as the main character. Shigeru Miyamoto suggested Rare put Diddy at the forefront, which made sense from a marketing standpoint. However, it doesn’t really boost up Diddy’s rep too much being at the forefront of a spin-off that takes place on Timber Island with a bunch of unknowns, with the only other tie to the DKC series being Krunch the Kremling.
I think my problem is mostly with Dixie as a solo fighter. I still think the two paired would be better than Diddy solo, but that probably won’t happen anymore. At least Diddy has enough to make him a decent solo fighter… I don’t really see that for Dixie.
But then, it appears I’m usually in disagreement with the popular opinion. *Shrugs* :\
Wow, I didn’t expect Impa or Tetra to rank that high! I thought the former’s support base had simmered down, but I guess not!
Should say something about Sceptile as well for cracking the Top 10! There’ve been a lot of people trying to disregard a lot of his support base, but that doesn’t degrade his status as a long standing fan favorite or his high moveset potential!
Black Shadow is a bit of an unusual case, though. How many people who rated him high are genuinely interested in him, and how many just want him to take Ganondorf’s place as a Falcon semi-clone despite how unlikely it’d be they’d completely rewrite Ganon in a game that’s already released? One of those things the poll can’t really tell us…
Something that seems very noticeable for this one, though? Any character who didn’t already have vocal support got 1-voted to hell.
Tetra was a bit of a surprise to me. I’ve seen a lot of support for Impa, though.
Besides what you mentioned for Black Shadow, I think a lot of fans may also want more F-Zero representation, and Black Shadow is essentially the main villain in it. Considering the series is dormant, I don’t think we’ll get anybody else from F-Zero unless it gets a revival soon.
And yeah, I wonder how many of the 1’s and 2’s were actually for dislike of the character, and how many were actually votes that should’ve been neutral. Makes me also wonder how many of those 5’s were from people hopping on the support bandwagons.
Yeah, I think people were much more aggressive about pushing down any characters they weren’t openly okay with. Maybe it’s out of fear an unknown will accidentally sweep the ballot, or a deep-seated belief that this poll is a kind of zero-sum game.
As for Black Shadow, there’s basically no way Sakurai would change a fighter’s moves in the middle of an installment – it’s really unfair to Ganondorf players. But he could basically be the more clone-y version of ‘Dorf in Melee.
I’m really surprised that Impa was on the top 3, even Bandanna Dee and Krystal to be in the top 5. I’ve actually predicted these characters to be in Smash, and I’m glad they had a lot of attention from fans out there. I’m also surprised on Sceptile being in the top 10 and standing over the most popular Blaziken. I guess it’s reveal of it’s Mega Evolution really had hyped everybody up, and desired to have him to balance with Charizard and Greninja as a “Starter Pokemon Trio”.
What I’m a bit disappointed is that Medusa didn’t made it in the top 10. It’s good she had a lot of attention as she still survived in the top 20s, but couldn’t beat against Hades. Although it’s a good thing she did have attention from many people out there, I don’t know why Medusa’s really not that popular to be suggested for Smash. I know she didn’t have much of the role in Uprising, hence Hades is more popular for his character and suggests himself to be the real villain of the series, but Medusa has been a real villain since the first game (excluding the KI2 part since that game was never released in Japan). I think Hades’ appearance made everybody forget who Medusa was and made them think that she’s not important to the series, but I do see these are terribly wrong. If she did make it, I think she’ll end up as Palutena’s clone, which does make sense though. Don’t know the possibilities, but still its a good thing that she was still mentioned.
Honestly, I would love to see Medusa in Smash. If not for the fact that she’s a classic Kid Icarus character, because she fills the rare role of the female villain.
Plus, she could have an attack like Mewtwo’s Disable, except it would turn opponents to stone. That’d be pretty rad. 🙂
After thinking about it, if I remember my Greek mythology correctly, Hades wasn’t necessarily evil, unlike Medusa. Of course, I’m sure liberties were taken in the KI series. 😛
Where are the 3rd party characters?
Those are preliminary results from Poll #1, which are characters from already represented franchises.
The final results with everyone are coming later.
But wait, I think I just found out that the Inklings weren’t in the list. Is this mean they weren’t supported enough by fans? Or did Pushdustin just forgot to add them in there?
Only the first part of the poll (which includes 113 characters by itself). It says it multiple times in the article. Also, not final results.
I wouldn’t forget thr Inklings :3.
If you DID forget the Inklings, I’d have to send you pictures like this on Twitter until you included them:
https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t51.2885-15/s320x320/e15/11376379_898047473599732_1445614623_n.jpg
Oh…didn’t payed attention on that one.
Heh…sorry. (*^^*;)
Krystal is #5? That’s really, really depressing… 🙁
Where Chibi-Robo? Where Chorus Kids???
Read the article. It’s only part 1. Final results will be releases once the polls close.