This article is a collaboration between LIQUID12A and Delzethin. Special thanks to Spazzy_D for help with research.
Disclaimer: due to how respectful people are on the Internet there are several instances of swearing in the images provided.
Another Super Smash Bros. game has its final roster and another round of speculation can come to a close. With a grand total of 58 different characters, the newest edition of Smash covers a wide swath of Nintendo’s history from its classic franchises to its up and coming modern games, and with a cast that stands out amongst each other impressively well for its size. This final roster brings something else with it, though, something that is unfortunately becoming very predictable: a whole lot of salt.
Vocal, negative reactions have become the norm since the final DLC characters were announced this past December. Disappointed fans have lashed out with wild emotions, condemning the characters selected and accusing series creator Masahiro Sakurai of letting personal bias dictate his decisions. The backlash has even created longing for the roster of previous entry Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a game that rarely saw such nostalgia from the fanbase before now! With so much opposition to the character selection of this installment, surely this will be a black mark of some kind on the series, right?
But what if we were to tell you…that this has all happened before?
Join us as we journey to the bygone times of early 2008 as we take a look at Brawl in its early days and observe the reactions to its roster. You may find them to be a surprise.
To begin with, a quintessential and undeniable fact: the roster of a brand new Super Smash Bros. game will always feel like it sucks.
As we’ve seen a few times now, the release of a new Smash game and the reveal of its final roster brings a lot of feelings to the forefront. There’s the excitement from finally having it in our hands and getting to experience it for ourselves, especially present for anyone whose favorite or most wanted characters got to join the fight. There’s a sense of relief, as well, as character speculation finally ends and the stress therein leaves, a calm after the storm. But there can also be disappointment to the fans whose favorites missed out, a feeling that the game isn’t as good as it could’ve been.
Some fans are unable to handle that disappointment…which leads to the salty comments you hear about so much.
But that’s happening this time because of how questionable the new roster additions were, right? That didn’t happen on this scale with the previous games, right?
…Right?
How we wish we could be wrong.
While one could argue the reactions to 3DS/Wii U’s roster were more vocal and pronounced for various reasons–the Smash Ballot being the greatest–the truth is…Brawl’s release was shockingly similar. For its first few months, and even for a while before its release due to its final roster being leaked beforehand (yes, just like the ESRB leak for 3DS/Wii U), salty comments were everywhere. Fans attacked the 38-character roster for being smaller than they expected, they attacked the clone characters they felt were “undeserving” (Even though they were all less of clones than the ones in Melee!), they accused the Subspace Emissary of hogging development time that could’ve been spent elsewhere. They even directed their ire toward Sakurai himself!
If you took a drink every time you found a comment like this from back then, you’d wake up in the hospital.
There are a few parallels: people were angry over characters, the final roster, and minor gimmicks. The common complaints about Brawl were the small roster, several clones and the overly robust story mode. Fast forward to 2015, and the complaints are about other things…but they’re there nonetheless.
It’s okay to be disappointed, it’s okay to question some of the creative decisions that went into a game, but there’s a line, and so many reactions, past and present, cross it. A little constructive criticism is always a good thing, but there’s a difference between critiquing something and bashing it for not catering to one’s individual wishes. It’s egotistical and immature…and it reflects poorly on the community as a whole.
A lot of people have claimed the Smash community reached a low point when the final wave of DLC was revealed. Turns out this is all happened before.
Even when looking at the speculation base for both games, some aspects are similar, and that is no less evident when we look at the biggest, most controversial part of any Smash game: the characters. Just like the newest games, Brawl had its share of fan favorite characters who missed the cut. The support bases of King K. Rool, Ridley, Waluigi, and several others turned sour once they found themselves on the outside looking in, creating scenes very similar to what we’re seeing today.
Who’s the one in the right here? Good question.
If Brawl’s roster really was as “perfect” as a nostalgic minority is starting to claim…why was it so controversial from the beginning?
Characters assumed to be shoo-ins missed out, and some of their fans felt cheated. Less expected characters found their way in, to be branded “less deserving” for not being who the vocal minority preferred. Veteran characters who were hated when they were first revealed in the previous installment were suddenly put on pedestals and given special status solely for being in a Smash game once before.
Now tell us: Was the previous paragraph about Brawl or 3DS/Wii U? Can’t tell, can you?
We’ve been going on for a while about how similar the reactions have been…but one key detail is very different.
So, who has seen the “reps” argument brought up repeatedly in the last few years? Many a discussion has happened over how many characters are present on the Smash roster from each franchise, and their “representation” is treated as a measuring stick to compare to other franchises one might not be as interested in. There are constant cries of some series being “over-repped” and others that “deserve more reps.” The truth is, while Sakurai does pay attention to such things, he doesn’t restrict himself with them–he’ll add a character that “over-reps” a franchise if he thinks the character is worth adding, and he won’t shoehorn in a character just to even out a series’ representation compared to the others.
…But many fans still treat the situation as more simplistic than it actually is, acting like any decision that doesn’t match up with one they would make is a personal slight against them.
For Smash 3DS/Wii U, the salt was directed mainly at a few characters and franchises that were accused of being “over-repped”. Kid Icarus in particular drew the most ire during the 3DS version’s release, as two newcomers and many items, trophies, and enemy models were brought over from Kid Icarus Uprising as Sakurai was accused of blatant favoritism toward a franchise he personally revived. The Super Mario series was another target, gaining two newcomers and having Dr. Mario return, raising its total number of characters to either 7 or 9 (depending on if you count Yoshi and Wario) while fellow major franchises Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda remained at the same character count they had in Brawl. By the end of DLC, Fire Emblem would join them as a scapegoat, gaining three newcomers–none of them the one with the largest bandwagon going into the game–and four characters overall, each for a wildly different and unforeseeable reason. Vocal fans of series such as Donkey Kong, Metroid, and Star Fox felt ignored, and took their anger out however and on whoever they saw fit.
All of this also happened after Brawl’s release…but with several franchises in the opposite situations. The lack of a Mario newcomer and the absence of Dr. Mario (who missed out due to time constraints) rubbed many fans the wrong way. Other fans were annoyed that the only new Zelda character was the semi-clone Toon Link, deeming him “undeserving” and claiming the roster would’ve been better off without him. Sakurai was even accused of bias, as well, but toward Kirby instead, as then-newcomers Meta Knight and King Dedede became scapegoats for those who couldn’t stand that their favorites fell short of the cut.
But one character in particular saw the most hatred, resentment, and salt of any of them. Want to guess who it was?
We’ve sprained our feet from the dead horse kicking at this point.
It may be hard to believe for anyone who wasn’t there, but Wolf O’Donnell was despised for months after his reveal. Many fans couldn’t believe that a second Star Fox clone would get in over so many other characters they were hoping for. Even within his own series, he didn’t see a whole lot of support, as significantly more went toward the mystically-aligned telepath Krystal (who was actually considered all along, missing out mainly due to, once again, time constraints) for her greater moveset potential!
This was pretty common. I guess they wouldn’t have minded if Wolf missed the next Smash game…right?
But then the months and years passed, the fanbase grew used to Wolf being there…and when a new Smash game was announced, he was as vehemently defended as any other veteran. When it turned out he wasn’t coming back, the fans reacted with as much salt over his exclusion as they did toward his inclusion years before!
Anyone else have whiplash?
So Star Fox as a series was fairly active during Brawl’s release, yet it was maligned and called “over-repped” for having 3 characters. Then it went inactive for several years leading up to 3DS/Wii U, fell to 2 characters since the inactivity made it lower priority…and now it’s “under-repped” despite having no releases in that entire span aside from a Star Fox 64 remake!
Does that even remotely make sense to anyone?
People back then wanted LESS Star Fox and MORE FIRE EMBLEM. Be careful what you wish for.
What can we learn from this? Much of the Smash fanbase is very opinionated, very dead set on their opinions, and has trouble coming to terms with any outcome other than the one they want most. Many of the fans are also resistant to change, idolizing some characters solely for being in a previous Smash game and ignoring the situation surrounding them at the current time. A spot on the roster is a grand and venerated position, and the more vocal supporters can and will tarnish any character they feel doesn’t deserve the honor…only to praise them with the rest of the veterans years later. It’s a very strange cycle.
See you in several years when the complete opposite is stated.
There’ll be new Smash Bros. games in the future–it’s only a matter of time, and we might be seeing one soon for the NX if the rumors hold true–and more discussion and arguments and salt will come with them. The best we can do is take a look at the past, understand how and why these things happened, and try to use that knowledge to handle the emotional roller coaster that is Smash speculation better than the last time.
May we remember well that those who do not know their history…are doomed to repeat it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_O%27Donnell
The reception section.
The bs from fans and large gaming journalists being large gaming journalists is probably why Wolf is gone.
The same shall happen with Corrin.
Wikipedia is literally the worst reference on the planet. You can tell the narrative that the people who edited that section wanted to tell.
Hate can eventually turn to love for a character when given enough time. I actually didn’t know that Wolf was so despised at first so I was kind of surprised he didn’t make it into the next game after people grew to love him. Eventually all salt for x character is meant to die down. I remember during the Pac-Man reveal trailer that the minority of internet comments mentioned that he was a wasted character slot. I can’t believe they didn’t see this coming when it was known that Nintendo was working with Bandai Namco to make Smash 4. One lesson to take fro this is to be happy with what’s there and try not to overthink about the roster or other Smash content too much.
Wow, the part about Wolf was a surprise to me.
Then again I didn’t really go on smash related gaming sites back then, save Smash dojo.
One thing I think that Brawl’s roster did better than Smash 4 was spreading out additions to returning series. Sure, Mario didn’t get any new characters, but you could argue that they had most if not all of the core cast in there already (depending on how you feel about Toad). Meanwhile, we got new characters for Kirby, Metroid (sort of), Donkey Kong, Star Fox, Fire Emblem, Mother/Earthbound, and Pokemon. (and maybe Zelda) In Smash 4, if you weren’t a fan of Mario, Kid Icarus, or Fire Emblem, (especially the last two) you were out of luck.
At the same time, Smash 4 did a better job of bringing new franchises to Smash than Brawl did. Brawl added character from 4 previously unrepped Nintendo franchises, Warioware, Kid Icarus, Pikmin, and ROB. Of these one is arguably just anouther Mario spinoff similar to Yoshi (Wario) and anouther is arguably more of a peripheral than an actual game character (ROB). Smash 4 brought in reps from Animal Crossing, Wii Fit, Punch-Out, Xenoblade, Duck Hunt, and whatever franchises you want to tie to Miis. Smash 4 also repped 5 new 3rd party franchises in comparison to Brawl’s 2.
True. I hope the next game strikes a good balance between the two; it’s nice to see a lot of series being added, but if old favourites get neglected in the process, it leaves a sour taste (and vice versa).
I remember that days… Wolf was accused to be another worthless clone. A character that only appears here for the Sakurai’s bias and blah.
Life can be ironic some times. Star Fox is “over repped” one day. And FE another day.
I think it is expectation people have on the roster that lets them down. Several people tend to consider some characters “locked” before Nintendo has said anything which leads to let down (see Chrom and Ridley). The ballot clearly blinded people’s expectations because some characters are popular among Smash and Nintendo fans. That just rose fan hopes higher. A lot more fans however, have dreams of their special guest star which begins to knock the strongest of Nintendo contenders out the ring.
It is always better to lower expectations as stuff gets revealed. Corrin will gain popularity over the years although considering the character is an optional purchase it is hard to tell if demand will rise to Wolf standards. There are some Wolf supporters who always wanted him in Smash Bros and never gave a backlash for his Brawl inclusion as well.
I get by my negatives by reminding myself on the wins I got. Alph, Bowser JR, Palutena, Shulk and the one that blew my mind the most…… the dog.
This trope is relevant:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpinionMyopia
So is this well-known psychological model:
http://grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief/
Put them together, and what do you get?
I’ve always been fine with the roster, everyone feels more or less deserving to be there, maybe not Dark Pit but I’m not gonna turn my nose up at a last second inclusion.
Despite this though, Ridley’s exclusion and reason’s for being exuded do not sit right with me, it would’ve been nicer if Sakurai said they tried and failed.
It annoys me how bashed the “casual” side of Nintendo’s franchises are when mentioned in Smash speculation even though they sold more than 80% of their “core” decades-long series in the span of a single console generation.
Brawl’s roster is by far my favorite out of all the Smash games. I didn’t really understand why Snake was in back then, and I never liked Toon Link, but it’s still by far the best. I never experienced any ill-feelings towards Wolf, although three of the same Final Smash was a bit dumb at the time. Now we have three of two Final Smashes. Brilliant. Still, Brawl is actually my favorite Smash title, and 2nd favorite game of all time. So much content, best roster, and I just have so many great memories with it.
I am still sour over Smash 4’s roster, too, and I don’t think I’m going to turn around and support characters to return that I hate now when the next game is revealed next generation. I’ll support characters I’d like to see or feel that they deserve to get in/stay, will stay neutral on characters I don’t care for either way, and I’ll hope and pray that characters I don’t agree with get cut/replaced.
It’s actually scary how accurate this is, and not something I’ve ever noticed before. Probably because I never spent much time online discussing Brawl as I have with Smash 4, so I’m a relative newcomer to this discussion. It has become an apparent truth that it’s an impossible task to make a roster that satisfies every potential buyer. Even if in some hypothetical universe where the development team could add literally every character that everyone wanted, people will still have reasons to argue over the inclusion of certain characters, be their reasons legitimate or otherwise. I found this article to be pretty insightful and I’ll have to monitor my reactions to other people’s opinions on the roster in the future, but there’s one specific line I personally don’t agree with:
“To begin with, a quintessential and undeniable fact: the roster of a brand new Super Smash Bros. game will always feel like it sucks.”
I’m probably just too optimistic, but I’ve never once been disappointed by a Smash roster or any character on it. There’ll be characters I don’t play as often (mostly because I’m awful with them), but that doesn’t mean that I have to disrespect their inclusion. I’ll admit, I couldn’t have cared less about Wolf’s inclusion in Brawl since I had no connection to the Star Fox series at the time, but after playing him for a while, he grew on me. Was I sad to see him go? A little, but now that I’m more familiar with the development history of Smash games and the constraints that the development team had, it’s far easier for me to understand the cause for exclusion than to blame Sakurai for any particular bias he may or may not have,
Hey.
I personally understand why you disagree with the line mentioned; it’s more of a jab towards those who think a roster sucks because x was included or y was cut, for instance(and even then, only those who are very invested in the roster to have that reaction in the first place). The original line had more of that context but it was slightly edited. Opinions on things like rosters tend to be highly subjective as is, like someone decrying the game because no Ridley, Wolf, KKR, etc., so the line obviously won’t apply to everyone.
Glad you enjoyed the article.
It seems like the formatting bugged out on us a little. Bear with us while we get everything cleaned up!
If Wolf ever does return, I almost guarantee he will suffer from what I like to call “the Mewtwo effect”.While Mewtwo had fans he wasn’t exactly the most popular melee character, he was considered one of the worst in the game, and I’ve heard there were petitions to get him cut from the next game… and then he actually was cut. By the time of Smash 4 Mewtwo was one of the most requested characters, everyone wanted him to comeback, then he did, and now almost no one really cares about him any more. He’s still considered mediocre, and most of the people who were pushing for him to return don’t even care anymore. If Wolf returns, most of the people who want him back will not only not use/play as him, but not care about him at all anymore. They will just go on to demanding another character’s inclusion.
To be fair, Wolf had a much more sound design than Mewtwo does in either Melee or Smash 4.
This is definitely true, and a weird cycle fans seem to go through.
I think most of these crossed the borderline from critique to salt easily due to their tone and overall disrespect. However, I still feel that we should remember, not all disgust at a character can be bad.
I can see the anger towards Wolf, but it’s irony is was to crazy. People kinda overreacted on StarFox getting over-representation, when I think it got a good amount. People really over reacted in that regard.
However, I wouldn’t compare it to Corrin. I hate when people are to salt about him and provide no reasoning, but think about it, in brawl, StarFox was tied for the 4th biggest series with Kirby, not that huge of a roster.
In Smash 4 though, Fire Emblem has the 2nd largest roster, above Pokemon, a series abundant with possible fighters and a VERY popular series. Even without alt. costumes it ties with Pokemon. Mario has more since it is Nintendo’s poster boy after all.
Even Sakurai noted the large FE roster, but put in Corrin anyway, with little consensus for what was really Tipping The Scales.
Corrin is more diverse than Wolf, but he steps over in rep too much, and borrows quite some similarity in moveset to some other characters.
Not to mention, we all know there were other games that could’ve really used Smash advertising, More then FE, which still get’s so much from Nintendo.
Wolf in Brawl was kinda just there, and although being a clone duplicate was odd, and pissed of Starfox and Non-Starfox fans alike, He still didn’t tip the rep scales.
Representation is still an important thing in Smash Bros, it helps to balance the amount of fans pleased by inclusion. It’s why Mario got no new reps in brawl (possibly), but definitely why Kirby got no new reps until Brawl, and still has non in Smash 4.
Smash 4 and Brawl are similar, but still different babies. Brawl had to kinda rush, while Smash for arguably has more time.
With Brawl, character voting wasn’t as easily spread to creators, while in Smash 4, the development of character wishing grew higher, even though it could arguably still lean on the Japanese side since the main man only speaks Japanese.
Corrin’s inclusion is still a different beast than Wolf’s, and I can see the salt turn more into reasoning. Not AT ALL to say there aren’t some salty idiots out there that set a bad image for people that honestly have actual reasoning for disliking a character.
Although the statement of “deserving of a spot” has loose use over the years, I still think that Smash 4 has at least seen better reasoning for hatred of a character than Brawl, with people growing smarter about what it means and takes to be included into Smash.
its actually tied with Pokemon for second when it comes to representation for Smash 3Ds/Wii U. both franchises have 6 characters including DLC.
I remember back when Brawl was announced/coming out, I was a happy person off the internet, so never heard how anyone aside from my friends were taking to the game, nor who was in it beyond the trailer that had Snake revealed at the end. I didn’t even know Sonic or Ike were in it, despite having grown up with Sonic and loving Path of Radiance long before I played Brawl and such. xD
It’s a shame, but little surprise, to hear how that’s how it was back then too! Isn’t there some sort of thing people call the “Zelda Cycle” that applies there too? It may just be a general fandom thing.
Exactly. This is the most hugest problems of what have went wrong with these people called “fans”. When it comes with their favorite character, they worship them as their idols, as they become extreme and hardcore upon them, while they bash on others who opposes and don’t follow their desires. And once it was proven that character didn’t make it, they become outrageous as being more egotistical and immature. They become “hooligans” instead. Much more, although everything we post in the internet are nothing but “opinions”, which is something that shouldn’t be taken seriously, these types of fans use those as their own “fictional facts”, believing whatever they say is righteous as being boastful and prideful. This is why misleaded information were born, because they refuse to understand the reasons of that character’s exclusion, and make up negative things that’s never been true as the officials never stated such thing in the past. They don’t understand the limitation of the game’s data and their technical difficulties. They don’t understand the staff’s situation like how long it takes to create one character from scratch. They don’t understand how the entire Smash really works. Because these fans never had a same experience from those Smash creators, which is mindless.
These fans are simply bashing and hating Sakurai for no reason. I don’t think the whole character choices all made by Sakurai alone. Smash is a crossover game. Sakurai doesn’t own all these characters (except for Kirby and Kid Icarus). They were all borrowed by their creators and companies who they own them, and they’re here to cooperate with Sakurai in order to make these characters work. Sure there could have been more choices like including K.Rool, Inkling, Mach Rider, etc.; but these are the characters that needs to be discussed with both Sakurai and their creators. Some couldn’t because of time constraints, technical difficulties, game data limitations, lack of popularity in overseas, and the most important…lack of uniqueness.They cannot just put any character there for no reason; every characters need a reason and meaning for their inclusion, and that’s how both Sakurai and their creators cooperate each other to determine how that character could work in Smash. And of course, they already know non-video game characters aren’t even allowed because that’s not where they came from, like Goku, Shrek, Chuck Norris, Donald Trump…really, its a stupidest choices.
FE roster’s over-rep may be a problem, but as I said before, I don’t think this choice was made by Sakurai alone. As in evidence throughout his interview and in his Twitter account, he was well aware of adding Corrin as he was worried that there’ll be too many FE characters, and it was decided among the cooperation with Nintendo itself. Probably Nintendo decided to bring in more FE characters because they knew that the series and franchises weren’t doing good in the west than in Japan. They wanted to bring FE more attention to make their franchise more successful, which resulted bringing more characters to Smash to gain more attention as promotion. I don’t know it really worked out that way, but both Robin and Corrin has been proven to be more unique than being plain swordsman.
I could understand more upon Wolf’s problems. Whether for him to be called as a Fox clone or not, he wasn’t an unique character. Yes he’s the only fighter to use claws, and he’s the Star Fox roster’s powerhouse; but his movesets are perfectly similar to Fox’s with different designs and effects, and he’s another “Land Master User”, which he uses something that he NEVER used in the actual games (except for Assault’s 2P battle mode but that doesn’t count!). I really don’t know how important Wolf can be in Smash, as I’ve always thought Krystal is more important than him. But I could’ve been more disappointed for bringing back another Mario who’s just in his doctor costume, and Dark Pit that he could’ve use other weapons than using the same one as Pit but with different effect, and using a Final Smash which is a Light Arrow rip-off. I really didn’t mind for Lucina because she was in my prediction list, but I could agree she should’ve been more different than Marth if possible too. Other than, I still believe Smash 4’s final roster is well perfect enough, even without Wolf being in there for unknown reasons.
In the end, fans just overly expect things too much. Eventually they’ll never remember what they’ve did in the past as long they only think about themselves than others, as they’ll simply keep repeating history all over again. They just follow the whole “give and take” thing, and they’ll never know why this happens as they never learn anything.
And if Clint Eastwood was here (well not in this link), then he’d said this…
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6nSo4W-C8s)
Wolf was very popular in Brawl and had no reason to be cut besides the 6-7 others. Everyone (Including me) wanted him back but Sakurai (For unknown reason) ignored everything they said. And I think the DLC roster on the official website looks wrong. 4 newcomers on the top, 3 veterans on the bottom, and 1 blank spot at the end is just uneven. By the way I still think to this day that Wolf can still get his chance to return in the (Rumored) NX remake that’s being worked on by Namco Bandai.
And my bad for forgetting the word Still in this post* #ttc
you guys sure love to pick on wolf fans. also,i bet when the possible smash 5/smash nx comes out,a fire emblem character will get the cut. therefore,a huge salt wave will come. i just bet on it
funny how people that whined about cloud are now defending his inclusion in terms of their little made-up criteria on guests (or it’s series) needing at least forgettable nintendo appearances.
Also, I really don’t think Zelda roster is over-repped either. Sure there are so many Zelda-related items, stages, assist trophies and regular trophies, but the playable characters aren’t that different. But I guess people felt that way because of how Zelda and Shiek ended up being separated from each other since they were formally a transforming characters. They could’ve stayed as one person and transformed freely with their down+B move unchanged, keeping the roster as 4 characters than 5, if it wasn’t for the 3DS version. It really doesn’t matter how the 3DS version sold a lot better than the Wii U version, but I guess the 3DS version was the major obstacle to change things around because of its lack of machine power which caused many technical difficulties, such as Ice Climbers’ rejection. It could’ve worked perfectly if it was only for the Wii U version, but since they wanted to make it equally with the 3DS, then they had no choice but to follow that limitation.
And not to mention that the Zelda rosters aren’t that different with the DK, Metroid, Kirby, and Star Fox rosters; they don’t even have new characters either. With that case, I wouldn’t say Zelda rosters are over-repped, just because they decided to split Zelda and Shiek separately and not adding any new Zelda characters in their roster. I could only say that separation have disillusioned everybody and misleaded them believing there’s too many Zelda characters.
But there’s something I don’t understand. Although everybody keeps complaining that there’s too many FE characters, I don’t know why they don’t make the same complaint with the Mario characters, which have 7 characters in their roster, or 14 by adding the Koopalings, or 18 depending if you count the DK duo, Yoshi and Wario. Is it because nobody would mind since the Mario series are the Nintendo’s main franchise as they’re special? Or is it because they weren’t paying attention on it as they only focused on the franchise they hate the most?
As far as your last paragraph goes, Mario is easily Nintendo’s biggest and most important franchise (and the larger numbers are fairly exaggerated – the Koopalings are alternate costumes for Bowser Junior, and Donkey Kong and Wario have long been established as their own franchises with their games having little connection to Mario’s), while Fire Emblem is fairly obscure and about half of the series hasn’t been released outside of Japan. (including, at the time of his announcement, Corrin’s own game)
In a game like Smash Bros., Mario, Pokemon, and Zelda having a lot of characters is extremely well-justified – they’re easily Nintendo’s A-list franchises. Even people who don’t play video games are going to recognize Mario, Pikachu, and Link, while the same can’t be said for anyone from Fire Emblem. Having four characters in Smash makes sense; it’s a long running franchise, and the latest instalment saved it from being cancelled, so they’re going to want to celebrate that game. Five is pushing it, at least in my opinion (they say that Roy was the most-wanted cut Melee veteran, but given that Mewtwo was already in the game, that seems like it would be by default given his competition), and six is outright extreme (especially given that Fire Emblem was one of the few returning series to already get several new characters in this game, while several other franchises which had a lot of viable choices were ignored).
Maybe there was a lot of demand for Corrin in Japan that wasn’t reflected in online polling (though given that they didn’t mention anything about demand for him or how he did in Japan’s ballot, it doesn’t seem like it), but giving a lesser-known franchise like Fire Emblem as many characters as Pokemon, or as many as Donkey Kong, Metroid, and Star Fox combined, seems excessive no matter how you look at it.
Since when has anyone said Zelda was overrepped? It got less characters than Fire Emblem.
“Although everybody keeps complaining that there’s too many FE characters, I don’t know why they don’t make the same complaint with the Mario characters”
First of all, Mario is the biggest Nintendo franchise, and therefore makes sense to give the most representation. Secondly most people don’t treat alt costumes as characters, so a lot don’t count the Koopalings (why ahould they count; they’re skins). Thirdly, most just treat DK, Yoshi and Wario characters as representing their own series because Smash does (and really, it’s pretty insulting to count DK’s games as Mario representation). Although some say (myself included) Mario was overrepresented by added Dr Mario. Six characters was fine, but seven is where it starts to get a bit unbalanced with the rest of the roster.
“If Brawl’s roster really was as “perfect” as a nostalgic minority is starting to claim…why was it so controversial from the beginning?”
I find this line to be really obnoxious, as the first half is clearly a dig at anyone who says Smash 4’s roster took a step backs from Brawl’s (which it did, clonier clones and characters that were only added to advertise recent/upcoming games) and acting like they are wrong for even daring to say so.