Super Smash Bros.

Hell, I'm just one word surplus of being a playable character!

EDIT: So this tops the page, huh?

Edited by TheHeroHartmut on Jun 12th 2019 at 7:48:02 PM

Melee's entries are somehow worse

Super Smash Bros. Melee (Nintendo Gamecube)

• Not too many people anticipated to play as Zelda, as she was almost exclusively an NPC in her home series with zero known combat skills. Even fewer expected Sheik, a one-off alter-ego of Zelda, whose identity was supposed to be a plot twist in Ocarina of Time.
• The Ice Climbers and Mr. Game & Watch were both this for similar reasons, in that they were 8-bit relics who most people hadn't seen in over a decade, and people who bought this game likely didn't know anything about their franchises. The former's gimmick also counts, as the Ice Climbers were two people controlled at once as opposed to a single entity. They were picked exactly because Masahiro Sakurai wanted a forgotten character to represent Nintendo from The '80s, a tradition he continues to this day.
• Dr. Mario certainly qualifies. Not only is he from a puzzle game, a.k.a. the last place you'd expect representation from, but he's just Mario in a doctor's outfit, essentially making him the first fighter to literally be the same as another, both appearance- and mechanic-wise.
• Falco Lombardi, one of the core Star Fox members, was also quite unexpected due to him usually being an NPC in the Star Fox series.
• Marth qualifies as this, but only for western audiences (as a Fire Emblem game had yet to leave Japan). Although even then, Fire Emblem was hardly the biggest Nintendo franchise in Japan.
• Probably one of the biggest ones at the time is Roy, whose game didn't even come out until after Melee was released. He was added for that exact reason, to promote his upcoming game.
• In the same vein as Dr. Mario, Young Link was this by virtue of not just being a second Link, but also the same as the existing Link (at least until Ultimate brought him back after the series had already started representing different Zelda titles).
• Mewtwo was certainly one of the most anticipated arrivals to the Melee roster, thanks to its sheer power and popularity following Pokémon: The First Movie. A Baby Pokémon like Pichu, on the other hand? Not so much. And we're pretty sure no one expected a character who actively invoked Cast from Hit Points.

So if you are an NPC, you are not worth to join smash. And yet nobody questions Peach or Bowser joining.

I would keep IC, Game and Watch, Marth and Roy and maybe Pichu's entries. Maybe Sheik.

Is this for Unexpected Character? Because, wow they're flinging that trope around like almonds on hot fudge.

Dr. Mario, I want to single out since from what little I can remember about the internet in the Melee days he was just kind of universally accepted to be there. No one was thrown off, he was just one of the six clones so he kinda... made sense, I guess.
He would then throw everyone off over a decade later when he returned in Wii U/3DS, and was initially the only character cut from Brawl's roster to do so.

Complaining about the Hero being called the Hero is yet another thing exclusive to the western fandom.

Of course it is, who else would be bothered by that?

That actually isn't surprising and not necessarily meaningful-the exact meaning of words like that can vary slightly between languages. It might not sound as generic in other languages.

Yeah, see what DoorCurtain posted earlier in the thread. Apparently that's exactly the case.

Edited by FGHIK on Jun 12th 2019 at 3:11:13 AM

I'll post it again just in case.

I don't really mind the "Hero" name too much but something more evocative of Dragon Quest may have fit better. A lot of people have suggested calling the 4 playable heroes "Dragon Warrior" as a nice call back to the first 4 localized Dragon Quest games.

Basically, I think this was an unfortunate case of either "literal translation over localization" or "higher ups at Square Enix or Nintendo or whoever wanting the character referred to by their class in every region".

Edited by DoorCurtain on Jun 12th 2019 at 1:49:07 AM

The Japanese name for the "Hero" class that most DQ protagonists belong to, "yuusha", is a term that was popularized by Dragon Quest (i.e. it was rarely ever used in Japanese before the DQ series named their heroes that)

For some reason, I find that very hard to believe. Do you have any source for that?

Best I remember is Brave is more of a translated nickname of Yuusha. But I do remember the Yuusha thing.

Yuusha and Hero are both basically the same thing, so I really don't see an issue here. One name is slightly more cool than the other. They both get the point across.

Based on Hero and Banjo-Kazooie getting into Smash, I have to assume Reggie was being 100% upfront when he said that "the Fighters Pass will exclusively contain franchises that we would never expect to see in Smash". The most obvious interpretation of that is that all of the Fighters Pass characters are going to be from series not already represented in Smash, which is just third-party franchises. So far, that's definitely the case, and I see no reason to think otherwise.

Keef delivers.

Whilst I'm glad to see Dragon Quest finally get a rep in Smash, I kinda wish they'd gone with one of the part members instead, like Jessica or Erik. If only because I feel like it would have added more variety to movesets, and party members have much more defined personalities. Although, I guess that would've run into issue about how recognisable they were?

Still, I feel like they should go with more party members for RP Gs from now on, if only to avert having more swordsmen.

Remember:

Every weapon is 100% valid.

Except for swords.

That might be most reasonable complaint I've seen about DQ's Hero yet.

That's so unbelievably true that it actually hurts.

It's really like Alpha VII said, I really fail to see how Villager & Trainer suppose to be any better. I might slightly know more about Pokemon but context is nonetheless the same.

So in light of Cloud apparently being recasted in Final Fantasy VII Remake, anyone think Smash Ultimate could finally give him an english voice track through a future update?

I don't see why not...if Square feels like going through the trouble. And I'm not sure they would, given their track record with Smash.

Edited by SapphireBlue on Jun 12th 2019 at 5:10:48 AM

That seems like a lot of money and time for very little.

Reusing voice clips instead of recording new ones would make it easier. But yeah, not expecting it.

AHHHH WE'RE SMASH BROTHERS

If Cloud makes it into the next game (and that's a pretty big bold italic caps-lock IF), I think he'll finally get an English voice.

I know not what you mean.

Edited by Weirdguy149 on Jun 12th 2019 at 9:06:43 AM

Is it just me, or does Hero look a lot like Trunks? (I'm aware that's just Toriyama's art style showing through.)

Any chance we get a Taloon spirit?

I think he looks more like Android 17, but Toriyama has an Only Six Faces problem in general.

Where's the italic?

Just in case, i removed a few shoehorned entries in Super Smash Bros.

Some recently even added Luigi because why not