Garreg Mach

 

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All I care about is Ness is there and that is all that matters to me. I don't care much for the other characters.

How about that Alph hype?

 

-MT

Considering the doggie's our closest thing to Banjo being in the game at this point, I ain't complaining.

At the very least, Dr. Mario isn't a FULL clone; his Down-B is the Mario Tornado instead of the F.L.U.D.D. (which in my opinion makes the Doc much better than regular Mario).

Oh, right, I meant to reply to something earlier. =P

 

Paper Mario was never in the game to be an alt or clone to get a full character slot from; he was just a sticker or trophy.

I love that jiggly puff is in the game because jigglypuff is the most fun to crush people with xD

Hoping Ganondorf has a new moveset. Seriously, even if you couldn't come up with something with just his own moves you could probably filch some from other bosses. Unfortunately, I don't have high hopes for him.

Dr. Mario just makes no sense to me. When they first announced the ability to customize characters' attacks, it seemed like a prime opportunity to just give regular Mario the option of using Dr. Mario's pill attack.

Falco is not that much of a surprise but I would've preferred if they cut him for Wolf (since that way the series would have both a protagonist and antagonist) or cut both him and Wolf for Krystal (which would have provided a female character, and one who could have a unique moveset to boot).

Game & Watch and R.O.B. are both too iconic and representative of distinct periods of Nintendo's history to be cut. Glad they're back.

Eggplant Wizard wouldn't make any sense as anything other than an assist  trophy—he literally has just one attack in the entire series. Dark Pit fills a similar role in that he provides a playable antagonist, and there were enough weapons in Uprising that they could even give him a completely unique moveset. Unfortunately, from what I've heard that's not the case...

Duck Hunt dog is amazing and from what I can tell he draws from a lot of classic NES games for his attacks, making him sort of a conglomerate character like Game & Watch. He sounds like he'll be quite interesting to play as.

I have no complaints about Jigglypuff and I love that one of her alt costumes has Serena's hat from X and Y. I wish all of Pikachu and Jigglypuff's alts were like that; surely there's been enough player characters to do that.

Bowser Jr. sounds fantastic. Yes, he's another Mario character, and no, I don't care. The fact that his alt costumes are the Koopalings is amazing, and it sounds like he'll play completely differently from any other character.

Bowser Jr. is honestly my favorite out of the bunch that were discovered today; from his uniqueness to the fact that he's actually 8 different characters in one slot... he's basically everything that I was hoping this Smash would be in terms of characters. It's a shame that practice wasn't the standard.

In the couple weeks since the roster was leaked I'd come to terms with the inclusion of the various newcomers. I was initially upset about DHD and Bowser Jr., but now they're pretty hype for me. Doc and DPit I can live with.

 

I really thought there would be more characters, though, since there's space for five more tiles on the CSS and Smashboards mod Neo Zero claimed the leaked roster was incomplete. As such, I still held out hope that some of my most wanted newcomers would still make it. I was entirely sold on Ridley's chances, and I was hopeful for K Rool as well (though by the end I doubted he'd make it). Still, both of these characters were long shots from the start in that their inclusion was almost too good to be true. I'd honestly be surprised if Sakurai and his team were to make such tasteful and diverse roster decisions.

 

(Perhaps such wording is oversimplifying it - Villager, WFT, and DHD come to mind - but the fact remains that Metroid and Donkey Kong, two of Nintendo's most popular franchises, have minimal representation in Smash. In fact, both now have less than does Kid Icarus, a series which has only three games, of which but one is recent - and that game developed by Sakurai himself. As an interesting note, Metroid has never gotten a "true" newcomer: Samus was the series' only rep in 64 and Melee, ZSS in Brawl was an addition to Samus rather than an independent fighter, and ZSS in 4 is now a veteran.)

 

Anyway, what really gets to me is the veterans who haven't returned. Pichu and Young Link were to be expected, as they were barely unique enough to warrant slots in Melee, and YL has a spiritual successor in Toon Link. Everyone feared the worst for Roy when Robin and Lucina were revealed; the same goes for Squirtle/Ivysaur and Charizard - expecting the cut softened the blow.

 

But Mewtwo, Lucas, Wolf, Ice Climbers, and Snake? Their exclusion is a freaking travesty. Mewtwo never should have been cut (and, indeed, never was intended to have been cut) after Melee, and Smash 4 was, in my mind and the minds of many of his fans, his chance to return to his rightful place. Lucas was one of my mains in Brawl, and Wolf was the other. Not having them is painful. Ice Climbers were arguably the most unique character in Melee/Brawl; that they should be removed is ridiculous. Word is that the technical limitations of the 3DS led to their exclusion, in which case they'd #### well better be on the Wii U version. As for Snake ... ugh. Why

 

The interesting thing about these five veterans is that each one's failure to return results in a decrease in overall representation for their franchises. Pokemon, which had six reps in Brawl, now has five. Mother dropped from two to one; Star Fox from three to two. Both Ice Climber and Metal Gear lost their only rep.

 

I could go on, but I'll spare you all my ranting.

 

Here's to DLC.

DLC, I think, is to be expected - if Nintendo is adding characters and tracks to Mario Kart, I expect that we'll eventually see characters and stages added to Smash Bros. 

 

As for missing characters... rumor has it currently that there are characters that can be unlocked by linking the 3DS and WiiU versions of Smash together; which characters this involves seems to vary, although Snake is common in these lists. Ridley, Lucas, Ice Climbers and a few others have also been mentioned. While I'm unsure of the characters being correct, I do feel as though this "link to unlock the rest of the roster" thing might be real; it would be an excellent way to make sure that hype remains generated for the Wii U version in a few months.