Dream Roster – Smash Bros. With 100 fighters

“Obvious” Choices:

• Keeping almost  the 90% of the current roster.
• Bringing back the Ice Climbers, Wolf and Snake
• Keeping the 3rd party characters.
• Including the Inklings from Splatoon and Springman from Arms as this two franchises are heading the New Nintendo IP forces
• Toad: To close the 4 playable characters from Super Mario Bros. 2. He could have a Captain Toad alternative costume, and even some moves based on him.
• Paper Mario: Some might think he just will be “another clone”, but Paper Mario has a lot of potential to have his own distinctive moveset.
• Dixie and K. Rool: having 100 spots gives more space to not have to pick one over the other.
• Impa, Anna and Tiki: At this point, they have become recurrent important characters of their series.
• Midna and Skull Kid: The legend of Zelda has a problem with “one-off” characters, as some people look at them as “less worthy” because of their lack of appearances on this long running series. But of all of them, this two have become icons of the series.
• Takamaru and Prince Sable: They could bring a diverse and unique arsenal and abilities to the roster, also they could work as Link and Toon Link foils.
• Andy and Samurai Goroh: Advance Wars (or the whole War Series) needs more love (and to come back), so having Andy on Smash could bring more awareness to the series, in a similar way that happened to it’s sibling series (Fire Emblem). This spot could have been for Sami as well. The same can be said about F-Zero, that could use Smash as a platform to try to come back. As an aside, Black Shadow getting Ganondorf’s moveset is a bad option, despite that Ganondorf deserves an overhaul..
• Balloon Fighter and Qbby: Along with Kirby, represent the past and present of Hal Laboratory. Balloon Fighter has been on a similar conundrum than Villager, as a character that could be hard to implement at first glance. And Qbby could look cute and not fight-ready, but his abilities could be surprisingly effective.
• Krystal: Some think she has been erased of the current canon, others that StarFox Zero never happened. Despite all of this, she could bring a Staff based moves to add some diversity to the “classic Spacie” moveset.  
• Bandana Dee: being playable and having abilities on it’s own gives him the edge over other Kirby characters.
• Isabelle: Animal crossing is a big series at this point, and a second character in smash is a well deserved price. And having the fan favorite mayor secretary could show her abilities hidden behind her pacific look. or She can fight in a cute inexperienced way.
• Rayman:  
• Including Ryu Hayabusa as the representative from Koei Tecmo. He is a character with a close relationship with Nintendo since the NES era, and now that Koei Tecmo has been on a roll with the Hyrule and Fire Emblem Warrior spinoffs, giving them a spot in Smash doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

Controversial Choices:

• Despite having 100 spots, I cut some characters, like Lucina and Dr. Mario. As I feel that there are more interesting choices.  Dark Pit kept his spot because he could easily get new moveset.
• No Alph as a separate character. As I can’t think of a really convincing moveset for him. Pikmin totally deserves another character on the game, but at this point on time, only the Plasm Wraith shows real original potential.
• Tibby instead of the Chorus Kids as the Rhythm Heaven rep.
• Daisy and Waluigi: To complete the “Party/Sport” group, as both of them could bring fun ways to play. Daisy with fairplay and Waluigi in a wah-cky way.
• Isaac,  Chibi-Robo and Wonder Red: They could be really fun and diverse characters, despite their series being less bankable than other franchises on the list.
• Decidueye: Has the advantage of being from the latest current generation, and having the chance to close the Starter Type Triangle. Also, being an archer should not limit his moveset, in a similar way to Pit, having also close combat moves to finish a foe or to defend itself if cornered.
• Sylux and Ridley: the former has a small fan folowing, but could bring interesting abilities to the battlefield. and Ridley, well he is the posterboy of characters that “should” be in the game as Samus greatest enemy. Dark Samus was one of my original list too, but I wanted to include characters from more diverse sources.
• Medusa instead of Hades. Hard Choice.
• Shovel Knight as an indie representative.
• Nightmare from Soulcalibur instead of Heihachi from Tekken, despite being a bigger Namco franchise. However, Soulcalibur has a closer relationship with Nintendo.
• No Simon Belmont. Only because a self imposed rule of “2 characters per third party company”. This point is just to prove that self imposed rules can backfire.
• Banjo & Kazooie: The Bear and the Bird may now belong to Microsoft, but they roots and glory belongs to Nintendo. And Rayman  

Biased Choices:

• Vaati: I’m not really sure about his “third party-ness”, but his abilities and status as a villain are big pluses on my side.
• No more Mother Characters: on my first draft I added Paula and Masked Man. But in the end, other characters have more relevance to be on the game.
• Bub from Bubble Bobble instead of any other big character owned by Square Enix.
• Mach Rider. This game could have a kickass reboot.
• Style Savvy and Arcade Bunny (or Baito Kun) because I like joke-ish characters.

Easy Choices

• Keeping everyone from Smash For 3DS / Wii U, the series’ best roster
• Bringing back the Ice Climbers, Wolf, and Snake
• Adding well liked characters from Kirby, Metroid, Donkey Kong, and Star Fox
• Paper Mario, Toad, and Waluigi: we’ve talked about all three Mario characters before, albeit with the former two a little more than the latter. Though for Toad, I’d be fine with him being Captain Toad instead – just with Toadette as an alt. for either choice
• Similarly, buffing the Mario spinoff series: it’s a testament to how big the franchise really is, and all are liked by fans
• Rayman: we’ve discussed this before, but he makes sense for a variety of reasons – western (and Ubisoft) representation, unique moveset, and already in the game
• Balloon Fighter: HAL, Balloon Fight, Smash, and Iwata have a shared history
• Dark Samus: She could also be fun as a “spiritual clone” inspired by but entirely different from Samus
• Decidueye, Victini: they represent other generations, fighting styles, and are important within their franchise
• Takamaru: the obscure, retro, formerly Japan-only character
• Diskun as the hardware rep: Since his trophy in Melee, people have looked to him as a possible choice, understandably so
• Newer series like Splatoon, ARMS, and BOXBOY! (even if Qbby isn’t “obvious” by any means): New blood is always good
• Niche choices, like Chibi-Robo, Wonder-Red, and the Chorus Kids: they can be added in more easily with such a large jump in the roster
• More Zelda; it’s important! All three are sensible choices from major games

Controversial Choices

• Keeping not only Dr. Mario, Lucina, and Dark Pit, but adding three clones: Isabelle, Alph, and Octoling. While I’m unsure how interesting clones of Villager and Olimar would be, the other SG staff convinced me. Overall, clones total 6% of the cast
• Marill: I’ve suggested it before. It’d work well with moves like Waterfall, Play Rough, Rollout, Defense Curl, Aqua Tail, Superpower, and Surf
• Nihilego: Pokémon deserves a lot of representation, and an “out there” choice is worthwhile. Nihilego is another rep for the popular Gen. VII, another “darker” Pokémon with an interesting position, and the unique stats and reliance on poison damage in its own game could be interesting
• Anna, the seventh Fire Emblem character: the series is only getting bigger, and she’s a recurring character
• Bringing in Resident Evil: It’s one of the biggest franchises in history, and it’s got many ties to Nintendo
• Two ARMS characters. We have no idea how well the series will sell, but Ribbon Girl could function as a clone, semi-clone, or entirely unique character
• No new F-Zero characters. Was considering Black Shadow, though
• By contrast, five Donkey Kong characters. Dixie and K. Rool are popular, but I wanted to highlight the series’ arcade roots. Thus, Donkey Kong Jr. as a retro rep
• A fourth Kid Icarus character: Like Dark Samus, Medusa would function as an interesting, meta counterpart to Palutena
• King Hippo: he could be a semi-clone whose weight would make him nothing like Little Mac, he could draw from his or other Punch-Out!! fighters moves, or both
• Lip: another obscure, retro, Japan-only character
• Badge Bunny: thought highlighting Nintendo’s free-to-play model was important, and as great as Rusty Slugger is, I wasn’t sure how to turn a mid-life crisis into a compelling moveset
• No Banjo-Kazooie: I love the first two Banjo games, but I also don’t feel they’re that pressing or fundamentally “important”
• No other Bandai-Namco characters: I’m not certain how valuable Soul Calibur or Tekken are for inclusion

Personal Biases

• Not bringing back Young Link, Squirtle (partially replaced by Marill), or Ivysaur. Just personal preference for characters that could potentially do “more”
• Paper Mario: he’s been my most wanted character since Meta Knight and Toon Link
• Kamek: so long as we don’t lose Mushroom Kingdom U over this
• Decidueye: I kind of feel we’re on a bit of a hype train with it, but I’m a firm believer in highlighting the Fire-Water-Grass dichotomy. Plus, it might be based around archery more than Link or Pit, which could be interesting
• Ten Pokémon: honestly, this shouldn’t be a bias, but Pokémon deserves at least that for a hundred-character roster
• Ridley: kind of an elephant in the room, I suppose. Look, I don’t think Sakurai is wrong, but this is a big (pun not intended) roster and he’s valuable. He just may be drastically different than normal
• To a broader extent, the two Metroid characters: I don’t want to add fighters solely for the purpose of representing a series, and I can’t see anyone other than those two as having real, historical merit
• Mach Rider: wanted more Ice Climbers / Pit-style retro fighters
• Wonder-Red: PlatinumGames is excellent, and the idea of a superhero with the power of a hundred superheroes is fantastic
• More female newcomers: Dixie, Ashley, Midna, Krystal, Dark Samus, Medusa, Isabelle, Ribbon Girl, Anna, Fiora, Lip, and Jill – plus, Inkling and Octoling could be male or female, and Toadette would be an alt. of Toad
• Jill: aside from my love of Resident Evil, I like Jill a lot; she was the iconic character before Leon or Chris, and I wanted another female guest fighter.
• The specific Zelda newcomers: it was hard going with the choices I made over Tetra, but in the end I felt Skull Kid and Midna had the best arguments for them.
• Fiora instead of a Xenoblade 2 or X character: To be honest, I didn’t care for X, and I’m not waiting for a character from 2. Fiora’s important.
• This doesn’t go here, but I would have liked to include Sukapon, the hero of Joy Mech Fight. He was the de facto hero of one of Nintendo’s earliest fighting games…but then again, Rayman fits that limbless fighter design  himself, doesn’t he?

Obvious Choices

• With 100 characters I don’t think there is any excuse to not have every Smash character so far from Mario to Bayonetta. Obviously this includes cut characters as well. Alph can also be promoted.
• Some of the Nintendo characters are either really big and popular currently, are legacy characters or Sakurai has hinted at coming into the game in the future. As my On Character Selection series has shown me, these are all key features for inclusion so the ones that fall into this are:
• Captain Toad: the current big, new, Mario character. He also represents Toad and has his own series on the Wii U.
• Ashley and Isabelle: she is incredibly popular in a way that transcends her own series in Japan. For Ashley, the little witch angle unique in Smash and she is highly requested. Isabelle on the other hand is another rep from one of Nintendo’s biggest series.
• King K. Rool: his Mii Fighter costume is proof of his success in the ballot and so Sakurai is well aware of his popularity, which makes him likely.
• Sheriff: He represents the Arcade history of Smash and is one of the few ‘surprise’ characters left. 
• Ganon and Tingle: Both are big Zelda characters who are recurring, important and unique so they would make good additions to Smash.
• Sylux: the popularity is there so this really just relies on Metroid Prime 4 coming out, which I think it will so here we go.
• Waddle Dee and Prince Fluff: With 100 characters we can start going into the other Kirby characters and these two both have factors deserving of their inclusion. Waddle Dee is important and popular while Prince Fluff brings in elements of Good-Feel and their yarn aesthetic. 
• Takamaru: Considered twice for Smash and only missed the mark due to his lack of western relevancy. The release of his game over there and his appearance as an assist trophy changes all that.
• Decidueye: a new Pokemon is always added and Decidueye is definitely the most likely candidate. He’s new and gearing up to be popular.
• Andy, Chibi-Robo, Tibby and Lip: All four of these characters are from the few Nintendo series that have been around for a long time, with multiple installments, but still no representation in Smash.
• Spring Man, Dillon and Inklings: Currently these three are Nintendo’s rising stars. While Dillon doesn’t quite reach the heights of the other two his popularity is there and the cowboy angle is unique.
• Wonder Red: the Wonderful 101 was one of the Wii U’s few new IP and while not a commercial success it was cult success and the hero angle is also unique.
• All the new 3rd Party I added are either really popular requests or are from series with a huge impact on the gaming industry as a whole.

Controversial Choices

• Baby Bros.: People are sick of babies due to Mario Kart and it is another Mario but personally I think the two together would make an excellent Yoshi rep. Playing like the Ice Climbers, they could use various moves and techniques from the Mario & Luigi series of games (which they also starred in).
• Adam Malkovich: Federation Force was Metroid’s first major spin-off and the federation are a major part of the franchise. While Adam isn’t liked due to Other M his importance to Samus can’t be questioned. He is also the most important federation character. 
• Blood Falcon: with Dark Pit and Lucina I realized that Blood Falcon is just a really easy clone of Captain Falcon and it allows for a second F-Zero rep.
• Slippy Toad: I can imagine some are wondering why he is here over Krystal and the answer is relevancy. Slippy has been in every Star Fox game and, unlike Krystal, was not erased from the canon. He could also have a unique moveset with Star Fox Guard elements.
• Elma: while many people might be expecting a character from Xenoblade 2, I think that X and the original Xenoblade saga may end up being running series. Which makes Elma the Shulk of that series.
• Ribbon Girl: Some people might be wondering why there are two Arms characters but only one from Splatoon. While I admit she would be somewhat of a semi-clone to Spring Man I think both are important enough to the series to justify.

Personal Biases

• Donkey Jr, Toon Zelda, Baito-Kun and N are all personal wants of mine. Jr. because he would be a cool throwback. Toon Zelda to balance out the Toon line. Baito because he is fun and N because I would like a trainer from Pokemon and unlike most, N would actually fight alongside his Pokemon (trainer and pokemon equality and all that).