The original Super Smash Brothers sported a roster of 12. Super Smash Brothers Melee expanded that to 25. Brawl cut six, but then added 16 to bring the total to 35. I suspect Smash Bros Wii U to follow Brawl’s lead, and for the the purpose of this proposal/prediction, Smash Bros Wii U will cut five characters from Brawl, bring one character back from Melee, and add 14 brand new characters for a total of 45 characters.
First, we honor those who will not return:
Lucario: Lucario falls victim to the axe because of something I’ll talk about later. Let’s leave it at that.
R.O.B.: I fought with myself about R.O.B. for a while. He has a couple of things going for him: he’s a classic Nintendo character, he has an original moveset, and he took a lot of people by surprise. However, I feel like they already have a character like that in Mr. Game and Watch, so why include two?
Toon Link: This may be a personal preference, but I’m sick of two Link characters, and we finally have a Zelda character worthy of inclusion that isn’t Link Jr. Possible spoilers in that sentence.
Snake and Sonic: Sakurai has said he doesn’t want to lose focus with an overabundance of third-party characters, and as much as I loved Sonic and Snake in my Smash Bros, I’m fairly certain they’re going to be one and done characters. I hope I’m wrong, especially on Snake’s part, but I see a new wave of third-party Smashers headed our way, which I’ll detail later.
Thank you, dear fighters, for hours of enjoyment in Super Smash Brothers Brawl. May you find yourselves falling from the disc to some kind of DLC in the future.
Next, we’ll talk about the 30 characters returning from the latest game, Super Smash Brothers Brawl.
Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, Samus, Kirby, Pikachu, Yoshi, Fox, Captain Falcon, Jigglypuff, Ness, Luigi: I like to call this group “The Twelve Smash-postles.” These are the Twelve who have been featured as playable characters in Smash since the original way back on Nintendo 64. They Melee’d. They Brawled. They’re going to Bash or Donnybrook or whatever this game will be called.
Olimar, Pit, Wario, Game and Watch, Ice Climbers: These five are safe because they were the sole representation for their respective franchises in Brawl (and it’s a safe bet that at least Game and Watch and Ice Climbers will remain that way). Without them, one chapter of Nintendo lore goes unrepresented.
Marth: While he has yet to be the sole representation of the Fire Emblem series, he is most definitely the iconic inclusion. He’s the first hero from the first game, so it’s only natural that Fire Emblem’s Smash presence start with him.
Peach, Bowser, Zelda, Ganondorf, Meta-Knight, King Dedede, Falco, Diddy Kong, Ike: These nine characters should have no problems getting into the next game, as they’re some of the most iconic secondary characters to their franchises. Peach and Zelda are the “damsels in distress,” Falco and Diddy Kong are the perfect second fiddles, Ike is still the most recent Fire Emblem hero, and Meta-Knight, Dedede, Ganondorf, and Bowser are the villains.
Pokemon Trainer, Lucas, Wolf: These three are returning to keep the series numbers up, but none of them will play the same as they did in Brawl. It sounds like Sakurai is looking for little to no clones at all, as he’s mentioned how much fun he’s had developing new moves for old fighters. Pokemon Trainer will have a new set of Pokemon (possibly from different regions… INFERNAPE?!), Lucas won’t be quite as Ness-like, and Wolf should be a whole new character. Wolf could also be included in the group above as a villain. Familiar faces with a whole new method to their madness: what’s not to love?
There’s the returning 30, but what of the remaining 15 in this proposed roster? Those slots will go to one returning Melee character and 14 fresh Smash Bros faces.
First, the returning warrior…
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Yo Jason, this is my first time reading one of your articles (I found it on n4g) but dude your really good! Your idea’s are mind blowing! And as far-fetched and outgoing as they may seem, they are all entirely possible. You even thoroughly explain HOW it is possible. The Master mode and Virtual camera idea is among the best I ever heard. Others only focus on what characters will be in the game, HOWEVER, you focus on how to expand the gameplay itself. Check out gamasutra.com and pick a gaming school, Jason. You definitely should be in game design. I’d love to hear more of your idea’s!
If you think they’re going to get rid of Lucario, the only playable fighting type Pokemon in a fighting game… you really aren’t thinking straight. Since Mario and Pokemon got six playable character each in SSBB (yes I’m counting Wario and Yoshi even though they had their own franchise icons since they appear in numerous Mario spinoffs as well as Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard as their own playable characters), they should continue to have the same amount of playable characters in the new SSB. Since you have a total of 8 Mario characters in your character list, Pokemon should get 8 playable characters as well since both franchises are the best selling franchises of all time. The Pokemon characters I’d put in are Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Mewtwo, Charizard (as his own character), Lucario, and a 5th generation Pokemon Trainer with 3 Pokemon. That gives both franchises 8 playable characters each. Other than that, I love everything else you did on the article. Great job!