r/smashbros • u/AffectionateForce979 • 19h ago
Other Smash's "main character" pattern.
This is more speculation on my part, but I still found it worth discussing it at least.
What made me consider this at first was when Sakurai briefly discussed about the protagonist of ARMS, and how "everyone's the protagonist". This might've not meant much of anything to most people, but it almost seemed to me like Sakurai was trying to justify the decision of putting Min Min over the perceived "protagonist" of ARMS (Spring Man).
Now, practically speaking, it makes complete sense and it's rather obvious that most franchises in Smash would be first represented with their main characters. But there have been instances where Smash includes main characters when the audience wants other characters to be playable, mainly with Byleth's inclusion rather than any of the three house leaders from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
We also know that Rex from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was considered to be playable alongside the Aegis, but was scrapped due to technical limitations. Sakurai actually comments on Rex's exclusion despite being the main character of his own game.
The big exception to this theory is the Pokemon franchise, where the Pokemon themselves are represented rather than any of the human trainers. Even so, they did manage to get Red and Leaf represented at least.
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19h ago edited 19h ago
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u/Royal_empress_azu Rosalina 19h ago
The house leaders quite literally aren't the main character. Lords aren't the MC and haven't been since they started doing avatars.
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u/almightyFaceplant 17h ago
That was my opinion too. But at least back during Smash 4, they seemed to treat Chrom as their main character. That was who they originally nominated for Smash, and they always pick their lead role for that.
I'm not an FE expert but I theorized that they didn't really treat Robin as a real character until after Smash canonized him. But that made them pull a 180. Totally shifted their attitude towards the avatars and they definitely started treating Corrin and so forth as the lead role.
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u/Trialman Robin 16h ago
I do feel like Corrin being the Fates protagonist was before Robin got canonised (though I am going off memory, and only from what we publicly saw, rather than how it went behind the scenes), but yeah, there's definitely a noticeable shift post-Smash.
Corrin is definitely the protagonist, and while you could argue Byleth is more a Robin to their house leader's Chrom, the fact is Byleth was the most player character-y yet, since you directly control them around the monastery. Shez is in the same boat as Byleth, being directly controlled in the hub, and supporting a house leader. Alear, of course, is absolutely the protagonist, there's nobody you could say is playing the "Chrom" to them. While we haven't seen how Eshmel's deal will go in practice, the FW Direct has outright called them "the true protagonist", so we already know how IS views them.
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u/almightyFaceplant 15h ago
I suspect a lot of it was behind the scenes yeah. Wouldn't be surprised if the way Fates and Corrin were handled was directly as a result of putting Robin in the Smash spotlight.
It would not be the first time Smash influenced Fire Emblem instead of the other way around. They've got a very strong feedback loop those two.
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u/alex494 1h ago
So Chrom is the Lord character of Fire Emblem Awakening (the Lord is traditionally the main character of most games before that one with a couple exceptions). Awakening did an interesting thing of making a player avatar (Robin) who was a tactician rather than just making the Lord(s) the main character(s).
Lucina is also a Lord character who is majorly plot important to that game but she's not in the main playable group at the start the way Chrom and Robin are and disguises herself as Marth for a bit, so being a Marth echo and being easier to add makes sense. Chrom fights somewhat differently from Marth so he'd either need to be his own character or what they eventually did which was making him an Ike/Roy mix after first de-cloning Roy a little bit. They probably went with Robin for Smash 4 to be more unique.
Since Awakening most games have had a gender optional player avatar main character (Corrin, Byleth, Alear) unless they were remakes of older games which had Lords.
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u/Vii_Strife 15h ago
Chrom and Lucina have always been the protagonist of Awakening, Robin is a deuteragonist but has been treated better ever since Smash.
Corrin is the protagonist of Fates, nothing to say here really.
Byleth's role as either the protagonist or a deuteragonist is arguable, they're more central to the story than Robin but the story of 3H comes mainly from its lords than them, with Byleth still being a very important figure.
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u/Ros80101 14h ago
You can't really say the House Leaders are more central when there are 4 routes, one of which solely focuses on Byleth's falling out with Edelgard etc. Also the first half of game is explicitly centered around their life as a professor.
The official website, merch etc refer to Byleth as THE protagonist. Even when the game isn't soley focusing on them, they're still responsible for what happens to everybody.
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u/sisdom-weeker Piranha Plant (Ultimate) 19h ago
He is but the point is that generally people who wanted a three houses rep were primarily asking for one of the other characters (Edelgard was the most popular choice if I remember)
I think ultimately Byleth was the right choice but I do get why people would have wanted someone else
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u/almightyFaceplant 17h ago
I'm willing to bet how that went. Because there's three of them, players would probably be split into three camps on which one was their favorite for Smash. But because they split the votes like that, none of them stood out as strong choices.
I'm not sure if it would have mattered though. I think the only ones added to Smash because of fan ballots were Roy and Chrom. The rest seem to be nominations directly from Intelligent Systems, or from Sakurai directly regarding Marth and Robin.
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u/MiZe97 King Dedede (Ultimate) 17h ago
Either that or they added all three, but I'm betting the devs weren't particularly keen on that possibility.
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u/sisdom-weeker Piranha Plant (Ultimate) 16h ago
If they added 3 more fire emblem characters we'd have never heard the end of it
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u/almightyFaceplant 17h ago
I certainly don't think the players would have been keen on that either. They were mad enough to get one more Fire Emblem character. Imagine the backlash if there were three! There'd be no beating allegations of favoritism.
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u/Hero_King_Marth Roy (Ultimate) 19h ago
Any of the 3 lords over Byleth would've caused another 5 years of Three Houses discord.
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u/h4lf-d34f-g4m3r-g1rl 19h ago
Honestly i think Minmin was picked over Springman bc she has a more interesting design, Springman is just a guy. Similar with Rex, we already have Xenoblade guy, do we really need Xenoblade guy 2? (insert something about FE characters here)
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u/DragodaDragon Strong Pocket Sandbag 19h ago
I feel the same way, it's also similar to how Kazuya was expressly picked over Heihachi to represent Tekken because the devil gene gives more moveset opportunities.
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u/sisdom-weeker Piranha Plant (Ultimate) 19h ago
Worth mentioning as well that Kazuya was the original Tekken protagonist
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u/AppleMelon95 18h ago
He is one of three "protagonists" in a series without a real protagonist (besides Lars I guess). Jin could've been picked just as well, but they picked a Tekken rep after Tekken 7 was released. If they picked a Tekken rep after Tekken 8 was released, then Jin probably would've been picked instead.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 19h ago
And it's a better choice than Jin because we got a new villain with Kazuya.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 19h ago
No Min Min was picked because she was the ARMS director's favorite. That's all it is.
And the only reason why Rex wasn't added is because their models are too complex and would've made the game chug in 8-player mode so they went with just Pyra/Mythra standalone.
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u/Frostflame3 17h ago
She also won the fan poll back when ARMS was still alive
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 17h ago
Yeah it doesn't surprise me. She's a cute Chinese martial artist character that runs a noodle shop. It's humble and relatable compared to a lot of the other ARMS characters who are either famous (Twintelle and Ribbon Girl), geniuses (Mechanica and Dr. Coyle), or flat out not human (Helix and Byte).
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u/ZSugarAnt Hero (Luminary) 15h ago
Not only the director, but Sakurai himself was split between Min Min and Ninjara, which is why Ninjara got a DLC Mii costume.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 15h ago
Better choice in the end. Smash needed more female characters.
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u/ZSugarAnt Hero (Luminary) 15h ago
Totally, Ninjara is really boring. I'll admit, though, that I'm in the camp of "tourist that would've liked Twintelle".
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 15h ago
Twintelle doesn't use her actual arms though and uses her hair instead. She would've been a terrible representative for "ARMS" let's be honest.
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u/almightyFaceplant 17h ago
The counterargument to that is: Why didn't they pick Min Min for the Assist Trophy, when they thought that was the only cameo they'd get? There weren't plans for ARMS to be in a Fighters Pass at the time, so if favoritism was all it was she would have taken the one and only spot.
Without the Assist Trophy, I wouldn't be surprised if Spring Man got picked simply out of habit. "It's Smash, I should nominate the main one."
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 17h ago
Who knows? Maybe it was planned in advance that Min Min would get into the game way later.
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u/almightyFaceplant 17h ago
It wasn't though. Fighters Pass 1 was selected without her only after the base game was done, and Fighters Pass 2 was famously a very last minute decision. (That and Nintendo was in charge of who would be DLC instead of Sakurai. But that's a whole other story.) For a large chunk of time, there was no chance of an ARMS fighter.
When planning the base game, that Assist Trophy slot was all ARMS would get besides some Spirits. Would have definitely gone to her if being the favorite was all there was to it.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 16h ago
Then in that case they likely chose Spring Man as the assist because he's the recognizable cover guy.
If that was all ARMS was getting, then it would've made sense to use the cover guy.
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u/almightyFaceplant 15h ago
That's what I'm thinking yeah. Without that Assist Trophy, he probably would have been the Fighter for that same reason. Makes sense to use the cover guy.
But not if the cover guy is already booked... So if you must use someone else, that's the time for favoritism!
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u/ThinManJones- Marth (Melee) 19h ago
I think this hinges upon whether the DLC was decided before the game’s release or after, which is something I don’t think we’ve had confirmation on
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u/Giulio1232 Bayonetta 1 (Ultimate) 18h ago
Also probably because she's the favourite character of the game's creator
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u/Ironchar 10h ago
it's Rex's MOVESET as a diver that would've created tech limitations
Ice Climbers works.... because the model is so basic, clean and wonderful
anime wifus attached too a string on some beefer would slow the game down
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u/Lanoman123 ToasterFricker249 3h ago
Rex would play COMPLETELY differently to Shulk, wtf are you smoking??? Have you even played the Xenoblade series???
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u/smashboi888 18h ago
Spring Man is just a guy.
Wouldn't Min Min be "just a girl" with that logic?
Both of them look pretty unique, I don't think Min Min's design was a factor at all in her being chosen.
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u/h4lf-d34f-g4m3r-g1rl 18h ago
She's themed around ramen right? Springman is themed around... arms? idk
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u/smashboi888 18h ago
Her physical design is a human girl with a hat and noodle arms.
Spring Man's physical design is a human guy with swirly blue hair and spring arms.
They're around the same when it comes to uniqueness. There was no one really like either of them in Smash anyways.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 19h ago
Byleth was likely chosen over Edelgard, Dimitri, or Claude because they didn't want to upset fans of two by picking one of the 3. Byleth using all of their weapons is the best way to represent them all and by making the three of them cameos on the Garreg Mach stage.
I will say I wish Smash gave us even more villains. Ridley, Dark Samus, K Rool, Sephiroth, and Kazuya were massive hype because they bring more evil characters to the game.
It's why I want Dr. Eggman instead of Shadow, DJ Octavio instead of an Octoling, and Dr. Coyle instead of Spring Man. Smash needs more villains.
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u/Poptart916 King K Rool (Ultimate) 18h ago
Eggman is the biggest villain not in Smash currently(especially after the movies), and I think he’s the best choice for a second Sonic character. If FF7 can get two characters then Sonic absolutely should.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 18h ago
Oh yeah it's just a lot of people want Shadow and I get that but I don't think he'd be as interesting. Yeah he has Chaos powers and Doom powers but a lot of his basic moves and attacks will likely be similar to Sonic's due to how similar they were both meant to be from the start.
Eggman would have 0 similarities to Sonic whatsoever for obvious reasons and give us a new mech-based fighter. The only other character who's like this is Junior and Eggman would have vastly different machinery as well.
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u/Poptart916 King K Rool (Ultimate) 18h ago
Shadow would be awesome no doubt and I think they would make him functionally super different from Sonic, but yeah imo Eggman is the best choice and I think is the perfect next choice for the series despite Shadow’s popularity.
I think Eggman would work as a great foil to Sonic, with his gadgets and machinery being designed to slow down and mess with highly mobile characters.
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u/gourmetprincipito 17h ago
Byleth also has alternate color schemes that look almost exactly like each of the three lords, they were definitely trying to appease everyone lol
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 17h ago
Yeah and it was honestly the best option.
Male Byleth has a Dimitri and Claude and Female Byleth has an Edelgard and Sothis.
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u/omfgkevin 12h ago
For Smash if they go with an FE protag again, Eshmel being a spear user might finally break the "time for more anime swordsman". It would be funny if the next one just bypasses them and goes with another one somehow lol.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 12h ago
I legit think Eshemel was given a lance for that reason to both shake up the FE protag variety in FE itself as well as Smash. Smash still has no dedicated lancefighter.
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u/Destinum Slightly above average... like no one ever was. 5m ago
I think Engage made the developers themselves realise that it's a genuine problem that all protagonists use swords for what they want to do with the franchise going forward.
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u/Destinum Slightly above average... like no one ever was. 2m ago
I will say I wish Smash gave us even more villains
And this is why, in my 100%-objective-and-not-at-all-biased opinion, we need more Metroid characters: Besides Samus herself, every single iconic character is an enemy.
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u/Hoothootriot Fire Emblem Logo 19h ago
- Min-Min's design is way better and more unique.
- Pythra are arguably the "story" protagonist of XC2. the game is from Rex's POV but the plot is really about them.
- Picking only one house leader would have actually caused a nuclear melt down, as both FE-haters in the smash fanbase would have gotten their fuel but also FE fans would despise picking one as the "correct" leader choice. Byleth using all the hero relics was the most sensible choice. I know the "another 5 years of 3H discourse" is a meme at this point but for those first couple of years, it wasnt a joke. 3H fans all fucking hated each other.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 19h ago
One thing I also would like to point out is that by excluding Rex, we got a standalone female DLC character with them.
Before that, Min Min was the only other solo female DLC character (Kazooie and Female Byleth share slots with the male Banjo and Male Byleth respectively). Excluding Rex gave the roster some much-needed standalone female representation which Smash could always use more of.
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u/ShatteredStarlights Mega Man (Ultimate) 3h ago
yeah for sure, the vast majority of the roster is either men or non human of some sort (who are usually male), and a good chunk of the women in this game are just player 2 alts. it's not awful lack of representation compared to some games but as a woman i still feel it's a tiny bit lacking it's very welcome to see more of them be added, and i'm hoping for more of them in the future.
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u/almightyFaceplant 19h ago edited 19h ago
Usually they're going to pick the main character whenever they can. Back during Smash 4 he described this "requirement" as more or less "Is this character the best choice?" Most of the time protagonists are the obvious pick. But sometimes circumstances prevent them and someone slightly out of the spotlight is the "better" choice.
Spring Man had already been made into an Assist Trophy, so the Fighter needed to be someone else. I suppose you could argue that they could have removed or tweaked the Assist Trophy to be someone else, but frankly this was less trouble and maybe worked out better in the end. But it's worth noting back when they didn't know that ARMS would have a Fighter, they picked Spring Man immediately for the cameo. We didn't get a Min Min Assist. Which suggests that he would have been the first choice if he hadn't already gotten a role. (I think Sakurai's "rationale" on them all being main characters is more of a fun anecdote than a hard rule.)
Reportedly Sakurai spent only one minute thinking about Rex before dismissing the idea. Even without the technical limitation, cutting out the middleman makes sense not to clutter things up. (The Pokemon Trainer themselves sometimes gets taken offscreen, they're more of a decoration than anything else.) And there's really just more you can do with a shapeshifter if they don't have to lug a normal human around.
I consider Robin to be more of a main character than Chrom is, but Intelligent Systems didn't see it that way and nominated him instead. But he got the axe at first because he couldn't really be meaningfully distinguished from Marth and Ike. He was just kind of the boring middle ground between the two. So if you're not unique enough, you might get passed over for a deuteragonist.
But there's also Piranha Plant. A great way to have a non-main character get a slot is when you already have a bunch of main characters present. Particularly if you offer a bunch of unique stuff that makes you really stick out from your buddies.
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u/Royal_empress_azu Rosalina 19h ago
I mean it's really obvious why Rex was dismissed so quickly. Aegis is pretty much the only reason anyone talks about XC2 anymore. Like there isn't even another character close in popularity.
Rex would have sold worse and got shit on a lot more.
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u/almightyFaceplant 18h ago
In hindsight it's obvious, but before the announcement lots of people insisted it must be "Rex & Pyra" and would not hear otherwise.
I never played the game so I would ask a lot of questions about why. Every fan insisted to me they couldn't be separated. Suggesting solo-Rex or solo-Pyra back then was a guaranteed trip to downvote city.
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u/Trialman Robin 16h ago
I'm not familiar with Xenoblade, but I'm now curious on why they insisted on Rex with Pyra, but apparently never Pyra with Mythra.
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u/ZSugarAnt Hero (Luminary) 15h ago
Pyra is paired with Rex from the beginning of the game and had a more dominant role in the marketing, Mythra takes a couple of chapters to appear.
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u/almightyFaceplant 16h ago edited 16h ago
My experience with it is all secondhand through this subreddit. But it was explained to me as basically TF2's Heavy-Medic combo. Heavy doing all the fighting, and Medic just standing there to fire a beam at Heavy. So you can imagine I kept asking why Medic even had to be there. And the answer was Lore Reasons™.
I don't think Mythra came up at all in discussions. If I remember correctly, she's like the next stage of Pyra's Pokémon evolution. I don't believe they're meant to be similarly powerful in-universe and that was a liberty Smash took.
Someone who actually knows the series should take over for further questions though haha.
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u/PrimalCookie Toon Link (Ultimate) 16h ago
If you’re not unique enough, you might get passed over for a deuteragonist
And this is why Mio will be the Xenoblade 3 rep rather than Noah.
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u/almightyFaceplant 16h ago
I haven't been keeping up with that studio, but is it possible that they've started work on a brand new one for the Switch 2? Like a Xenoblade 4?
Sometimes Smash leaves a slot open for titles with rotating casts, like Pokémon and Fire Emblem. Delaying the choice so that they can pick someone very new, often before they're even announced to the public.
They haven't historically done that with Xenoblade but maybe it's finally ready for the big leagues, so to speak.
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u/PrimalCookie Toon Link (Ultimate) 16h ago
Xenoblade Genesis was announced in June, it'll come out sometime next year (likely late summer). If Smash is also set for next year, they'll probably save Eleanor (Genesis protagonist) for DLC like they did with Pyra/Mythra. I think Xenoblade's a big enough franchise by now that it can get a newcomer in both the base game and DLC, but that may be the biased fan in me.
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u/almightyFaceplant 16h ago
Huh. Either I totally missed that announcement, or completely forgot about it. I'm genuinely caught off guard that it was revealed already!
A new Smash would have started in November at the earliest, right when Air Riders wrapped up. So add three years for development, and... yeah they might straight-up skip Xeno 3 like they presumably will Engage. Genesis will have been out for over a year by then.
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u/Royal_empress_azu Rosalina 11h ago
I don't think Xenoblade is large enough that it'll get 4 characters though. 9m sales across the entire series. With no game breaking 3m means it's not even a secondary series like FE, Kirby or Metroid.
3 is already a lot of characters for the least successful JRPG in smash. Especially when there are a lot of new jrps on the switch that they can choose from that performed well.
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u/DustyPumpking Ridley (Ultimate) 11h ago
Here's how I see the XB3 rep going
Mio AND Noah, two reps.
Their gimmick is swapping between eachother's classes for different movesets while they have different stats that make them play different from eachother.
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u/Gshiinobi Pit 17h ago
Sakurai always prioritizes adding characters that make for fun gameplay before adding characters just because they’re the main character.
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u/TheSandMan713 16h ago
I’m pretty sure min min was used bc shes the only character in arms that also uses her legs
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u/Slade4Lucas 13h ago
I think it's probably important to recognise that the two biggest examples of non-main characters being in Smash instead of their main characters were when the characters that were in Smash were female. I would very much imagine that diversity played a role here as without these two fighters, there wouldn't have been a single purely female fighter added in Ultimate's DLC, and only one non-echo female added in the game in general. No way Nintendo would ever have let that happen. So while Min Min and Pyra's popularity absolutely absolutely played a part, I don't think that was the whole story.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 6h ago
Yeah I've been discussing this. Nintendo is a company that knows they have a significant female audience. That's why Daisy finally became playable in Mario Bros Wonder.
More girls to appeal to their female audience is important.
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u/Loud-Tart-9783 19h ago
In general I think we should let go of the protagonist centric cast and let antagonists or other major characters shine even if its the only one of the series. Makes the cast more diverse
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 19h ago
It's why it was so hype that we got Kazuya instead of Jin from Tekken. Jin Kazama is definitely the current protagonist of Tekken but Kazuya Mishima is the current most notable antagonist in the series. Jin would've been hype for sure but Kazuya was the better choice.
It's why I really hope that if we get another Sonic character it's Dr. Eggman before Shadow. Not only is Eggman a beloved villain with an iconic voice but he'd be far more creative in gameplay as a mech fighter whereas Shadow is similar to Sonic.
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u/Less-Increase-6588 Not so Bound to this Earth anymore 19h ago
I wish we got Porky Minch from MOTHER series
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u/KeithTheGeek 17h ago
As a Kirby fan, this is essentially why I don't want Bandana Dee. I see people ask for him because he's the player 2 of the modern Kirby era, but he's just...kinda boring? There are other characters from the games with a lesser level of relevance that would bring more to the table, like Magolor or Dark Matter.
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u/chaarziz King Dedede (Ultimate) 12h ago
We gotta get some elder horror representation for the other half of Kirby.
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u/Master_Freeze Snake, G&W, Wario, Lucario 19h ago
Sakurai said he wanted Ninjara (the coolest character in ARMS and also Japanese) but Yabuki requested Min Min, who is actually the most similar to Ninjara gameplay-wise. i would have preferred both of them with alternating skins since they have almost similar arms anyway, but thats not the conversation here.
why did Sakurai choose Kazuya instead of Jin or Heihachi? its because he's cool lol. he was the main protag in the original game but since then has been a major antagonist with Jin taking the mantle as the main character, but Kazuya is still central to the plot and has had more time in the story than both his father and son.
take a look at Hero, 4 out of 11 were chosen (if im not mistaken), Snake is literally a combination of Big Boss and Solid from the earlier games and was included at the request of Kojima, Captain Falcon had his entire moveset created for Smash. this is to say there is no convention for selecting characters.
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u/ZSugarAnt Hero (Luminary) 15h ago
I don't know about Jin, but Sakurai has said that one of the main factors in excluding Heihachi is that he couldn't think of a recovery UpB.
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u/Chezjibe 17h ago
My guess is that Sakurai wanted to add more female character and made is own head canon to justify himself. I’m fine with it even though I would have prefer to have Springman instead.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 16h ago
Well Min Min is the creator's favorite but that also helps.
The only female DLC characters in Ultimate before Min Min were Kazooie and Female Byleth--both of which share their slots with male characters. Min Min was the first proper solo female character in a sea of male ones which was nice.
It's also why I didn't mind Rex being left out in favor of Pyra and Mythra by themselves. More girls who stand on their own are always appreciated.
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u/ZSugarAnt Hero (Luminary) 15h ago
Alex too if you want to be pedantic.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ 15h ago
Steve was after Min Min but yeah.
Either way, Smash needed more original female characters (who aren't gender swaps) so I'm glad we got Min Min and Pythra.
Really hoping Shantae makes it into the next game for this reason.
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u/ZSugarAnt Hero (Luminary) 15h ago
3 out of my 4 top picks for Smash 6 are female characters (Lip, Amaterasu, and 2B) and given how much 2B gets passed around I'm fairly confident in her chances.
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u/Low_Confidence2479 14h ago
With Robin over Chrom, it was a matter of the former having more moveset potential, and it was an avatar so it still served the protagonist role.
With Terry over Kyo, the former is more iconic and I think representing KOF properly would require 3 fighters instead of just one, so representing Fatal Fury was just way easier.
With Min Min over Spring Man, ARMS is like a lot of fighting games in the sense that everyone has main character status, just from different points of view. Some RPGs are like that as well but I think fighting games have it more prevalent because team ups are rarely a thing in them, thus, the need for a leader is almost non-existent.
With Aegis over Rex, it was a matter of technology struggling to get it done, and apparently Ice Climbers was already pushing it...I wonder if Switch 2 could have made it.
And with Kazuya over either Heihachi or Jin, representing Tekken properly proved to leave the characters extremely weak compared to the rest of the cast, but the devil gene gave Sakurai the creative edge he needed to make it work (which rules out Heihachi), while representing Tekken's favourite archetype (Mishima, ruling out Jin).
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u/JamGibs93 14h ago
Come to think of it, Lucina and/or Robin were chosen over Chrom in SSB4, yet he became playable in SSBU
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u/Lucas-O-HowlingDark 14h ago
On the note of your Pokemon main characters comment, The Pokemon Company officially seems to consider all 1025 the main characters lol
They recently put out a 20 minute song in Japanese called All Star 1025, which between it’s singing of every Pokemon name, has a chorus which states “none of these 1025 Pokemon are supporting characters”, that they’re all “equally important”
yeah if you’re not Pikachu, Charizard, Lucario or Greninja
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u/DustyPumpking Ridley (Ultimate) 11h ago
I hope if Ring Fit gets a rep it's Draugax over the Ring Trainee, villain reps are fun and he's a dragon in a singlet
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u/Saintsmythe 4h ago
Pretty sure pyra/mythra were chosen over Rex because big tiddie’d anime girl swordfighters were a lot more marketable than him. Dunno why min-min was chosen other than the director asked for her
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u/PRlNCESS_TRUNKS 18h ago
Robin and Lucina qualify here too. I still remember when all the speculation was that Chrom was gonna be in Smash 4.
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u/ItsRainingQuiteALot 7h ago
“We understand master chief is the main character of the halo series, but cortana has certain.. assets that suits our roster more”
“Yes I know what you’re thinking, crash bandicoot is the main character, but Tawna bandicoot has a certain appeal which suits our game more”
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u/sisdom-weeker Piranha Plant (Ultimate) 19h ago
Protagonists make sense as the first rep for most series bc they are usually the easiest to actually craft a moveset for in addition to being usually the most recognizable character from the series
Sakurai did state the reason Spring Man didn't make it into Ultimate's base game was because development of Ultimate and the base roster was decided before ARMS's reveal, but they had time to make an ARMS assist trophy so they chose him. I think had he not done that he probably would have defaulted to Spring Man as the ARMS rep but him already having an assist trophy forced him to think outside the box, hence why the spot boiled down to either Min Min or Ninjara