Dream Roster: Nintendo vs. Capcom

Like most of our previous Dream Rosters, we voted on individual characters. This lead to some interesting results, and characters who were oh so close to making it. Sorry Ridley fans, I guess you’re doomed to a life of Ridleyless fighting games.

The ‘big three’ Nintendo franchises all got multiple characters. The core cast of the Mario series; Mario, Peach, Bowser and Luigi are must-haves, a Nintendo cross-over could simply not exist without them present. Donkey Kong, who sits in a sort of limbo between his importance to Mario, and his importance to himself was someone who fit the same criteria.

Similarly, the Zelda series got a total of 3 characters. Those being of perennial importance; Link, Zelda and Ganondorf. The latter two helped greatly with making the roster feel inclusive of female Nintendo characters and villains.

Pikachu and Mewtwo were chosen as the two Pokémon characters. Despite both originating from the very first crop of Pokémon, they are extremely effective at displaying the diversity that you can find in Pokémon.

The other characters are sole reps of historically important, currently relevant (or both) Nintendo franchises. It was important to make sure the likes of Star Fox, Splatoon, Fire Emblem, Kirby and Metroid had a voice in this.

Captain Falcon’s inclusion was above all else a nod to his current status as a fighting game icon. At this point he’s arguably more of a fighting game character than he is an F-Zero character.

Even though Capcom may have given Megaman the shaft in some of its some of its past cross-overs, it does appear that they have been open to embracing it more recently. Megaman has heavy ties to Nintendo, particularly the classic series so it inevitably wound up with several characters. Protoman made the roster by the skin of his teeth.

Street Fighter is always quite annoying when it comes to cross-overs. There are so many important characters, but you don’t want to over-saturate the roster with them. Three tends to work well, though that usually means that due to the enormity of Ryu and Chun-Li you’ve only got one left! M. Bison works well due to his status as *the* villain, as well as his unique abilities.

Resident Evil was kind of tricky. Some of the more violent characters such as Tyrant or Nemesis wouldn’t really mesh with the tone of Nintendo like they do with say, Marvel. Ultimately Leon made a lot of sense due to his relevance to Nintendo (Resident Evil 2 and 4 were among the only Resident Evil games to initially release on Nintendo platforms). A second character, Jill who has been a recurring character in many Capcom cross-overs felt like a good fit, especially when considering the (at the time) exclusive Resident Evil REmake. Leon and Jill represent the peak of Resident Evil’s Nintendo presence.

Many of the other Capcom characters, bare a significant importance to the Nintendo brand. Ace Attorney, Monster Hunter, Ghosts ’N’ Goblins, Final Fight, Viewtiful Joe, Okami and Breath of Fire have made significant impact on various Nintendo’s systems, ranging from the early days of the NES, alll the way to the present day.

With the exception of Morrigan, who has become a secondary Capcom-cross over mascot; every character from the Capcom side has prominently appeared in a game from their home series that appeared on a Nintendo system!