Super Smash Bros.

It's far too early to call a game that's showing signs of losing steam outside its hardcore crowd as quickly as it has the most successful anything just yet. A launch is one thing, where, again, numerous factors in its favor saw the game with a huge spike in interest where it needed it the most to be a financial success. Developer support and it being a generally pretty good game with solid netcode means it has managed to sustain an audience, but I promise it's nowhere near as big as what Smash Ultimate's concurrent playerbase will be, nor will the game have the same legs as Smash in the future outside that dedicated audience. It doesn't have enough content for it, and once DLC support dries up so will casual interest in it for the most part.

Edited by Hashil on Oct 10th 2018 at 8:04:17 AM

According to Wikipedia, which admittedly might be out of date, the Dragon Ball franchise has sold more video games than the Smash Bros series has.

So, like, not smaller than Smash Bros.

Regardless of that, I was discluding Smash Bros from all of this considering it's focus on casual over competitive and being a super non-traditional fighting game. And I fail to see how being more successful than Smash Bros (or as successful) is even a requirement for representation.

Edited by EpicBleye on Oct 10th 2018 at 10:08:20 AM

That's not fair; there are way more Dragon Ball games than Smash games.

Number of games is irrelevant. The Elder Scrolls series is one of the best selling franchises of all time despite only having 5 games- and that was even before Skyrim got remastered and rereleased like eighty billion times.

Yes, yes it was. And it's totally irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Edited by EpicBleye on Oct 10th 2018 at 10:15:59 AM

Elder Scrolls was actually a videogame franchise first.

Todd Howard when?

My biggest issue with letting Goku into the game, aside from the fact that it's less the quality of his games and more the recognizibility of his brand, is that it would shatter the floodgates and welcome every other anime character.

And Smash is supposed to be a celebration of video games (originally Nintendo games, thanks Kojima)

We not only have Goku (Lucario), we also have Gohan (Ryu).

I've yet to see anyone arguing for Goku actually address this, ironic since it's the factor that disqualifies him from being included in Smash. It doesn't matter how many Dragon Ball video games there are on Nintendo systems, Dragon Ball never started as a video game franchise and thus has no place in Smash.

And Piccolo (Yoshi)

And Buu (Kirby)

And even Freeza (Mewtwo)

Dragon Ball gaming franchise as a whole being bigger than Smash on the whole doesn't change how successful FightersZ is or is going to be.

And honestly I don't see how that indicates that it's had a heavy impact on gaming? Sure, it's made a lot of money. But beyond that...
Maybe you could point to that as encouraging other franchises to make video game adaptations of Anime/manga, but I'm not certain that's something to celebrate since they don't seem to have an impact on anyone besides people who are already fans of the franchise.

Edited by BlitzTrain on Oct 10th 2018 at 7:24:10 AM

I really really hate this slippery slope fallacy that people having going on here.

No, it would not welcome every other anime character because no other anime character has as prolific a video game history, much less one on Nintendo consoles.

This is a bad argument. Stop using it.

And celebrating one of the largest video game series (which just recently launched an incredibly successful fighting game), one that started on Nintendo consoles, isn't a celebration of video games?

I literally just addressed it a page ago, and twice more just now. Whether he started as a video game character or not is totally irrelevant- Dragon Ball has more than made it's mark on video game history.

Edited by EpicBleye on Oct 10th 2018 at 10:28:42 AM

And Yamcha (Wolf)

And Great Saiyaman (Captain Falcon)

Having a thousand licensed games, some of which happen to be on Nintendo systems, is not making your mark on video game history.

Edited by Chris on Oct 10th 2018 at 7:26:51 AM

Do you even know this fandom, EpicBleye? I've been in this fandom since Brawl and I know they would take Goku getting into Smash as the signal to allow just about anybody in the games.

Edited by kablammin45 on Oct 10th 2018 at 10:27:50 AM

I spend half the week playing the game competitively. Unfortunately, I know I'm talking to a brick wall here.

But that's never stopped me before and it isn't going to stop me now.

Bruh, that's being disingenuous and you know it. Dragon Ball video games started on Nintendo systems, have consistently been on Nintendo systems, and very recently released one of the best selling fighting games of all time (which also had the single biggest audience in EVO ever) which is also on a Nintendo console.

Edited by EpicBleye on Oct 10th 2018 at 10:32:29 AM

x4

Nope. Because as everyone and I mean everyone keeps telling you, it didn't start as a videogame series. That it spawned one in absolutely no way matters. At this point you're just beating a dead horse.

Edited by kkhohoho on Oct 10th 2018 at 9:29:31 AM

Okay. Well, get back to me when you come up with something besides dollar figures to measure an impact on gaming I guess?

Unless Sakurai or someone on the Smash team shows evidence of changing their mind on the whole "Fighters have to have originated in a video game"/"No cartoon or manga characters" thing, I don't see it happening. Even if it could be cool.

Just saying "no" to my point doesn't suddenly beat my argument.

How is having an incredibly successful video game franchise irrelevant? Why does starting out as a non-video game suddenly make it not a video game franchise? Why does not starting out as a video game even matter?

Just because everyone is telling me I'm wrong doesn't mean I am wrong.

What other metric should I use, then? What metric would you use to determine how much of an impact a video game series has made? Sales is the de facto measure of the success of any franchise.

Edited by EpicBleye on Oct 10th 2018 at 10:36:25 AM

Because it didn't start out as a videogame franchise. Smash is about celebrating videogame history first and foremost. Not anime history. And Dragonball is primarily anime history.

Except I already brought up the fact that Dragon Ball as a video game series, and just a video game series, has had it's successes.

Franchises can be more than one thing. Dragon Ball can represent both anime history and a facet of video game history too.

Edited by EpicBleye on Oct 10th 2018 at 10:34:50 AM

I'm curious about what you think of Negan being in Tekken 7, because that's the closest comparison I can think of for Goku being in Smash. The reaction to that announcement from what I've heard, by the way, has been mixed to negative, with the general consensus being "this makes no sense whatsoever".

Though in fairness, I don't remember Katsuhiro Harada specifying that non-video game characters can't be in Tekken. Sakurai, on the other hand...

It's not even any one game. Dragon Ball as a video game franchise is a series of licensed games with nothing in common beyond being about Dragon Ball.

It's not like Street Fighter where you can pinpoint its origin and how it literally started the fighting game genre as we know it, or Final Fantasy VII and how its storytelling revolutionized Japanese Roleplaying games. Dragon Ball is a successful anime and manga that spawned successful video games people bought because they carry the Dragon Ball name and are sometimes also good, almost none of which do anything particularly remarkable or noteworthy to leave their mark on gaming history besides making a lot of money.

Edited by Hashil on Oct 10th 2018 at 8:38:16 AM

Goku is still a character that originated in manga and anime. Which disqualifies him from being in Smash unless Sakurai changes his mind (Theoretically possible but that seems rather far fetched for this specific issue). We're not the ones you need to convince otherwise.

I blame FE for this

I blame Kojima

if it wasn't for him wanting Snake in a game he absolutely didn't fit in we wouldn't be having this conversation