Super Smash Bros.: A Retrospective Part V: Vote or Die

Months pass and Nintendo releases another direct in April of 2015. Things start off with Iwata in his final appearance on camera showing off Mewtwo's reveal trailer and release and we also get two more announcements...

Lucas returns to Smash and the biggest announcement of them all, and what I consider to be Iwata's Swan Song for what made me come back to this skeleton:

The Super Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot. A suggestion box where people could vote for the character they wanted to see the most. For me, I was still speculating on who could be added. I didn't want Lucas cut and I was happy about Mewtwo returning. Who did I vote for? I voted twice on my phone and my computer. First vote:

I made a specific statement on why King K. Rool should be added in Smash For and I remember filling out a Club Nintendo survey for Ganondorf's skins in Hyrule Warriors and mentioning King K. Rool as well as Donkey Kong's lack of reps while Fire Emblem and Kid Icarus had more despite the lack of sales or games. Donkey Kong Country at the time outsold ALL of Fire Emblem and I need not mention the latter. I was apeshit over the lack of Donkey Kong reps and I was gonna make damn sure that something came from this. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one who felt this way:

From the original thread on the Smashboards, a massive 1200+ pages of support for the Kremling King. I was there already back in 2014, but the increased support gave me a second home. I was at the DKVine as well and still pop up from time to time. It's one of the biggest threads at the time and still is. But on to my next pick:

I was a big fan of Mother 2/Earthbound and felt that Paula could be a neat little dessert, utilizing her PSI better than Ness could at the cost of power and weight. Maybe she could have a gauge showing how much PSI she had to use so you could balance things out with replenishing your PSI and using bigger attacks for more PSI. That's really it.

Anyway, my spirit was revived with new Smash characters coming in. Dixie could have a shot at long last and it was speculated that Roy and Ryu were next on the list. I guess Roy was another instance of bringing back a popular character but Ryu was interesting: I felt that Mega Man was added due to Capcom arranging Ryu to appear as well. Basically you want our character, you put in this character too. I had no issue with him funny enough. The way he plays is tantamount to an actual Street Fighter game, inputs and all. Said IP was also a prominent game among my friends and family too. So overall, I was enjoying the game with the additions and the one new character but I couldn't help but notice something:

 

Lyn aside, this was getting a little out of hand. Sakurai boasting his love for Fire Emblem when he explained Lucina's inclusion led to four reps instead of three and with Roy, you have two Marth variants. Marth did change from Brawl and For so Roy was more or less his Melee counterpart with some tweaks here and there and also why Ultimate's picks are the way they are. But never mind that, Fire Emblem is now at five reps, six if you use any Robin with custom moves. A bit disproportionate but there was still some hope, right?

Right???

"Has your Mii Fighter always dreamed of being king of the Kremlings? Now your Mii Fighters can realize their true destiny with this King K. Rool costume!"

...
End of July, this popped up via tweet, a costume for the Mii Brawler. This as far as I was concerned was the killing blow for King K. Rool in Smash For. And this also proves the Smash Ballot was taken into consideration with this costume. You think this was added by coincidence? I gave up hope at this point. Dixie wasn't coming if this character who had way more momentum was regulated as a costume.

Yeah, that was it. And the ballot was still ongoing for a bit, so way to kill the hype for me, Mii costumes. I didn't like them because they took up so much time to develop according to Sakurai with their custom moves and then you can't use them online and now, this gave me even MORE reason to hate them. It's no better than Assist Trophies in my opinion. Begrudgingly, I kept my eye on For to see what was gonna come of this whole ordeal. Fast forward to November, and...

Fucking hell. The one character a fair chunk of the Smash Bros. community really didn't expect or even want. But here you go. I gave no fucks about Cloud and I sure as hell wasn't buying him. Top off the shit sundae, The stage he came with had only two tracks. It doesn't help that I only saw him as a character used from Ike's base model. The damn Final Smash even looks similar to the Aether. That overall left a nasty taste in my mouth and there was more to come. Awaiting December, the final Smash Direct arrived.

The last direct and the would-be results of all that ballot stuffing. How do you start things off?

With another Fire Emblem character, of course! What better way to ensure the upcoming title's success than to use Smash Bros. to promote it? So, that leaves us with six characters from Fire Emblem, and they all use swords. But you can also play as the female version of Corrin too. Now you can do an eight-player Smash with all Fire Emblem! Cool, right? Only two minutes in and the entire internet was in an uproar. Next was Cloud's explanation and his release after that direct. But then came another unexpected surprise in that same video: Geno from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars...as a Mii costume.

Good glory. Geno was a character up there with King K. Rool and Ridley and countless others requested since 2006 and this was Sakurai's way of trying to add some compromise for that. at the time I was neutral to him, but in retrospect, I've grown to respect his fandom and overall character. It helps that I did play Super Mario RPG and consider it a unique game among the Mario RPG games.

This is also the one time I can't attack Sakurai directly; this is all on Square. Why they own the character but are so anal with it is beyond me. When are they gonna use Geno again, in the next Dissidia title? What a laugh. After some more Mii pelts, we finally saw the results of the ballot...

Yep. Bayonetta* according to the final direct was the winner of the Smash Ballot.
*Among realizable choices

Now that particular asterisk rose some question, a lot more than I care to explain. Exactly what did realizable mean? What the dev team could do on such short notice? Who Sakurai wanted personally? Other circumstances? Either way, I refuse to believe that Bayonetta* won the ballot and she was cherrypicked among many other characters. Like Cloud, I didn't buy her or Corrin. It's not because I hate her character, as I do own both Bayonetta games and also the PC version of the first game, but the reasoning behind her. It doesn't help that the final three are disgustingly overpowered and Sakurai admitted that you have to buy them to beat them. Bayonetta* in general being by far worse than Metaknight in Brawl. Funny enough, combos were downplayed in Brawl onward but Bayonetta* brings them back and look at the results.

In general, Smash For to me is the low point of Smash Bros.. Brawl was coming off Melee's reins and Brawl had divided the community severely and no one wanted a sequel to it. The fanbase was already fatigued from it and Smash For on the surface seemed like a different game but playing it, it was more or less Brawl but even more stripped down. Content was spread between two games and I wasn't buying both games for one mode, but I had the game with the shittier mode, go figure. Collecting trophies was fun in Melee and even Brawl had more to play with albeit with model ports and so on. But For?

Wario

A living embodiment of gross, this villain hates Mario and loves money. He claims to have known Mario since childhood, but who can tell if that's true? In Smash Bros., he's a seriously agile heavyweight fighter. He can store up his trademark Wario Waft for explosive results. Did I mention he's gross?

Pokemon Trainer
 
Pop quiz! What do Misty, Brock, Cynthia, Iris, and Ash all have in common? That's right-- they're all Pokémon Trainers! This Pokémon Master in the making is the same. Back in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, he fought to be the very best-- like no one ever was. To smash them was his real test-- to launch them was his cause!
I'll leave it at that, as there are enough examples to pick from, but that first one rubbed me the wrong way. Not a mention of WarioWare even. Wario may as well be a Smash original. And that trophy section of his in Brawl and For were a joke. Same with Mother and Yoshi. How the fuck does Melee have more variety in trophies with the latter and even the former if you don't count alts? You can tell that For was done out of obligation and not by passion but here it shows more. With that direct to an end, I gave the game away to my nephew and cut my losses. Under twenty hours played. What a joke.

At that point, I cut Smash out my life completely and wanted no more to do with it. There were other games I cared for and other series I liked. I'll end things with a piece from my old diary, typos and all. Take note of the section I underlined:


6/8/11
So Nintendo finished their conference yesterday. They announced some things along with their controller for the new console(They didn't show it just yet). Two things related to
Pokemon was Smash Bros.(Two titles)and a 3D Pokedex. The latter has 3D renders for Gen V Pokemon, and it's free(for a limited time, I bet). Kinda cool and I bet these models'll
be re-used for the 3D console Pokemon game that's sure to come. It saves time and money.

Now for the former, ugh. I've gotten tired of Smash Bros. Brawl was THAT draining and infuriating. And since playing Pokemon, I haven't looked back. I bet you there'll be some
more Gen I/II worship for this game. Zoroark is the only good thing that'll inevetably happen, maybe Black to replace Red. People want Blue(not Gary, fuck him)to return with yet
more Gen I Pokemon to use. Sadly the developement teams might feel the same way. I hate the nostalgia that Gen I and II generated and I especially hate the fans. Here's some
fairness for all sides: Get a rep for every Gen, bring back anyone that was cut from the last game, don't cut any characters at all and just lessen the bullshit factor. That's
what gradually killed the game for me.

And you know what? Even if Smash Bros(Or rather the team behind it)doesn't fufull this quota, the main games that have no relation to Smash Bros. will. Black and White, you've
done well. Gray will do even more and GameFreak will always deliver. Short version: Fuck Smash Bros. Stick to the games that it borrowed elements from it. That said, the 3DS
and the Wii U(Sillier than the Wii itself, no?)will both get a Smash Bros. and they'll connect to each other somehow. The one thing I'm worried about is how much money this'll
all cost. Damn. Again, there's some optimism to be had, but I'm in no rush to get excited. My tastes have changed.