Re: Super Smash Bros. for WiiU/3DS
Posted: December 15th, 2015, 8:09 pmI embrace Smash both as a fighting franchise and as a marketing tool. I was introduced to Nintendo as a whole when I came over a friend's house and played Melee. Before that, all I had was Super Mario Bros and Pokemon Yellow. I would not have found The Legend of Zelda, Kirby, Metroid, Star Fox, heck, I probably wouldn't have found out about Donkey Kong or Yoshi's Island. If Brawl didn't exist, I would be ignorantly wondering how MGS -- "another gun game" in my puny adolescent head -- has five games right now. But that was hardly intentional marketing, that was just my own personal experience, and one point on a graph filled with millions.
However, Melee largely introduced a Japanese-only franchise to Western audience that was mostly ignorant of it. Roy was playable before his game was. It's similar to how development of Greninja began before XY was released, and all they had was the official art. They didn't know his moveset at all. All it was was marketing for a popular series with an upcoming addition. In Roy's case, it was mostly to market in Japan, but it ended up turning heads over here.
Even then, Fire Emblem still didn't sell all that well. It was still niche. Only Awakening has over a million sales out of the entire franchise. A hit is a hit even if it was two years ago.
I hate making correlations between popularity, worth, and roster representation, but fine, let's play that game.
Mario has ten characters directly related to his franchise. Nine not counting Dr. Mario.
The Legend of Zelda has five representatives with Zelda and Sheik being split thanks to the cut of transforming specials.
Pokemon has six, very straightforward.
So far, that's 21/58 official characters filled.
Fire Emblem has six characters in this final roster. Five if you think of Lucina as a reskin as first intended. 27/58 filled.
After that, we have the Kirby series and Kid Icarus, both of which are Sakurai's babies with three each, total of five if we once again think of Dark Pit as a reskin. 33/58.
Metroid, Star Fox and Mother have two representatives each (one of these is not like the other). 39/58
That leaves 18 individual small hits/3rd party appearances and Diddy Kong, whom I didn't include with the Mario franchise.
Sure, we can talk about how it's not longstanding like Mario or Zelda, but all that is is time. And really, the only thing that Fire Emblem lacks compared to Mario, the Legend of Zelda, and Pokemon is that: time. All it is doing is riding a new wave that Awakening brought, but what's wrong with that? It's only popular now, so its not worthy?
So from the perspective of a former casual gamer (I guess I'd describe myself as elitist casual back then, actually) who enjoyed whatever you put in my hand, I'm okay with this because I can imagine a little kid trying out Fates after this, I can imagine someone who wasn't born in time to play FF7 when it was first released (I was only one year old so I guess I count) going back in time, or buying the upcoming remake, I can imagine someone completely frugal, and foreign to games like I was, just starting to dabble in all these franchises. Even from a more statistical standpoint (God, I research for this post), I'm not at all peeved by Corrin's inclusion.
Yeah, my final argument is that some of these sheeple will go through my path, but I understand that quite a large amount will go some of yours and reach a point where they question the point of an inclusion of one character over another in a fighting game, calculate whether its worth their money, discuss what it means for the deeper meta of the scene, and start making expectations and speculations about future installments. With all the utterly and completely feasible options in front of Nintendo -- no third parties to reach out to, no intellectual property rights to worry about -- I'm completely fine with Corrin.
I don't know how much money is too much for any one game. I'm ignorant of that. I don't know what makes one franchise definitively better than another. I just know what I find fun.
However, Melee largely introduced a Japanese-only franchise to Western audience that was mostly ignorant of it. Roy was playable before his game was. It's similar to how development of Greninja began before XY was released, and all they had was the official art. They didn't know his moveset at all. All it was was marketing for a popular series with an upcoming addition. In Roy's case, it was mostly to market in Japan, but it ended up turning heads over here.
Even then, Fire Emblem still didn't sell all that well. It was still niche. Only Awakening has over a million sales out of the entire franchise. A hit is a hit even if it was two years ago.
I hate making correlations between popularity, worth, and roster representation, but fine, let's play that game.
Mario has ten characters directly related to his franchise. Nine not counting Dr. Mario.
The Legend of Zelda has five representatives with Zelda and Sheik being split thanks to the cut of transforming specials.
Pokemon has six, very straightforward.
So far, that's 21/58 official characters filled.
Fire Emblem has six characters in this final roster. Five if you think of Lucina as a reskin as first intended. 27/58 filled.
After that, we have the Kirby series and Kid Icarus, both of which are Sakurai's babies with three each, total of five if we once again think of Dark Pit as a reskin. 33/58.
Metroid, Star Fox and Mother have two representatives each (one of these is not like the other). 39/58
That leaves 18 individual small hits/3rd party appearances and Diddy Kong, whom I didn't include with the Mario franchise.
Sure, we can talk about how it's not longstanding like Mario or Zelda, but all that is is time. And really, the only thing that Fire Emblem lacks compared to Mario, the Legend of Zelda, and Pokemon is that: time. All it is doing is riding a new wave that Awakening brought, but what's wrong with that? It's only popular now, so its not worthy?
So from the perspective of a former casual gamer (I guess I'd describe myself as elitist casual back then, actually) who enjoyed whatever you put in my hand, I'm okay with this because I can imagine a little kid trying out Fates after this, I can imagine someone who wasn't born in time to play FF7 when it was first released (I was only one year old so I guess I count) going back in time, or buying the upcoming remake, I can imagine someone completely frugal, and foreign to games like I was, just starting to dabble in all these franchises. Even from a more statistical standpoint (God, I research for this post), I'm not at all peeved by Corrin's inclusion.
Yeah, my final argument is that some of these sheeple will go through my path, but I understand that quite a large amount will go some of yours and reach a point where they question the point of an inclusion of one character over another in a fighting game, calculate whether its worth their money, discuss what it means for the deeper meta of the scene, and start making expectations and speculations about future installments. With all the utterly and completely feasible options in front of Nintendo -- no third parties to reach out to, no intellectual property rights to worry about -- I'm completely fine with Corrin.
I don't know how much money is too much for any one game. I'm ignorant of that. I don't know what makes one franchise definitively better than another. I just know what I find fun.
