Super Smash Bros.

In-game notifications say this weekend's Spirit Event is Link's Awakening themed and adding two new spirits from the remake (LA Link and Owl)

But, amusingly, two of the spirits that appear more often in the event are Wart and Goomba. Kinda makes me happy to see.

What about the Prince Richard spirit?

Ooh, wasn't even looking for him. He's there too, and so is Chain Chomp!

The other four are all Zelda, though- the two new ones and the two from the original Link's Awakening.

So I wonder what the fights will be. LA Link is pretty obviously going to be Toon Link, but I suppose Owl's going to be Falco like Kaepora Gaebora should have been.

I'm still waiting for this guy◊ to be a spirit

Oh, I think I get why they used the King K.Rool trailer style again...not just because of the Rare connection.

That trailer got played the most...I believe it got played during the pre-release Ultimate tournaments.

It's a Rare replay.

That's, that's just awesome. Kudos to you, man.

I can't take credit for that, a friend of mine came up with it.

This entry was added about the hero in the Unexpected Character page.

• Banjo and Kazooie have been some of the most popular requests since Melee^note though still surprising, considering Rare is now owned by Nintendo's competitor Microsoft, E3 2019 first revealed the Hero from Dragon Quest, and the reveal managed to have some twists despite having a credible leak source. What many expected was a specific hero, Erdrick, the legendary hero of the first two games in the series and player character of the third, as his name was dug up from the leaked files. Instead, the initial presentation featured the Luminary from Dragon Quest XI.^note Fulfulling the "promoting an upcoming game" quota that Roy and Corrin did in earlier Smash titles, as Dragon Quest XI is getting an Updated Re-release on the Switch. Then came the Bait-and-Switch mid-trailer, revealing that the heroes of III^note Erdrick still qualifies as this trope since the only reason everyone was talking about him is because he was leaked, IV, and VIII are skins for the Hero. It makes you wonder if Sakurai was aware of the leak and decided to have some fun...

The labelnote bothers me. Patterns and quota are meaningless and shouldnt even be mentioned

Edited by fasoman1996 on Jun 12th 2019 at 1:22:28 PM

I don't think extremely popular and prolific characters like Banjo-Kazooie or the DQ Heroes can even count as Unexpected Character, just reading the trope description. It's supposed to be for fandom nobodies like the One-Scene Wonder showing up in stuff, but looks like the Trope Decay is strong with this one.

They were kind of unexpected, but I wouldn't say enough to actually fit the trope either. The labelnotes, meaning the leaks, really change a lot. People pretty much thought Banjo & Kazooie would be the de facto Rare/Microsoft choice as is. Nobody expected a full competitor to grand permission, as that was a huge argument against them(and one that was valid). Some said relevancy(despite the franchise being used via merchandise, so it was still overall active) was a factor.

People were expecting Erdrick as the only character, with maybe female Erdrick for an alt. So it in a sense fits, but everybody was sure DQ would get a Hero choice before anyone else, so in a way it doesn't fit. With the leaks, as noted(heh), they weren't nearly as unexpected. I'd say remove both. They weren't as surprising as they could be. If leaks didn't happen, yes, but the leaks were heavily put out there(especially the Erdrick one) to the point it came up multiple times per week. The Banjo one was recent, but he wasn't even that unexpected anyway.

Joker was unexpected. He's popular but he never appeared on any rumors that gained traction, was never really a super popular choice compared to some other characters, and had a tenuous at best connection to Nintendo.

Dragon Quest and Banjo were all of those things.

Edited by LordVatek on Jun 12th 2019 at 12:48:26 PM

Connection to Nintendo has never actually mattered, so no, they weren't highly expected because of some fan rule/perception(which also has nothing really to do with why they would be added. Hero is a huge legacy character and vastly popular and important to the whole world of gaming. BK is a severely requested character, not that it made people think he stood a real chance, especially with how many people thought he was irrelevant despite being actively used).

But they weren't that unexpected either. They're too in the middle to really count.

There's way too many people who say them coming along with too many people who thought they never had a chance. The only one you could decently argue at best is DQ for being somewhat expected, due to its legacy. BK were given up on a long time ago quite consistently. Since Melee even. They didn't get any real hope till DLC came along again, showing off multiple 3rd party characters. The last time they were expected was during the Grinch Leak, which was a half a year ago. When that fell through, people gave up hope.

They should honestly be removed because they were very in the middle for being expected. They literally don't fit the trope. The closest thing that remotely made people believe were the leaks that was anywhere near a widespread opinion. Without those, they'd be quite a bit more unexpected. Both pretty much came out of nowhere at that point(if you ignore leaks). People actually expected other characters too, including Steve, which even Japan thought he was more likely than B&K. They didn't even think Erdrick was the specific one so much as the general Hero too. A lot thought we'd get Geno or another FF character at that point, not a series that was niche in the West. There's a vast overestimation of how much they were legitimately expected. The leaks pretty much made them impossible to be on the trope, where they otherwise were able to qualify, even if just barely.

Edited by Irene on Jun 12th 2019 at 12:06:42 PM

Apologies if this has been posted before, but this is an interesting thread documenting japanese reactions to the announcements.

Banjo is actually reasonably popular with PS 1/N64 era japanese players, so while he was understood to be something mostly for western fans they were happy to see him overall.

Character Reaction: Oh Cool.

Character Reaction: OMFG. Daddy Sakurai is Blessed.

Character Reaction: Eyup, whatever, I'm asleep on this fool.

Character Reaction: Well it's not what I wanted, but happy for the fans.

Character Reaction: Um, it's neat, but did people actually want this character?

Character Reaction: ...

Character Reaction: More Characters!!

LOL, what a hilarious non-sequitor!

Well, if it was funny, that's fine too.

It really wasn't.

Okay.

I don't know why you said it was then.

Edited by randomness4 on Jun 12th 2019 at 11:08:19 AM

Pretty accurate though.

Yeah, that's what I was going for.

What do you think will be the DLC Spirits for Dragon Quest and Banjo-Kazooie, assuming they get a similar amount to Persona?

Mingella, Blobbelda, Brentilda, Bottles, Jamjars, and Jinjos will probably be in. maybe other stuff like musical notes and Jiggies.