Pokemon's Influence on Super Smash Bros.

I've been studying the rosters from the past three Super Smash Bros. titles for more than 5 years, and since this a Pokemon forum, I will be focusing on Pokemon's reps and how it influences this fighting/party hybrid game. Based on the information I've found, I've set up several theories on how Pokemon is properly represented:

- Each SSB title adds two new Pokemon reps (64: Pikachu and Jigglypuff, Melee: Mewtwo and Pichu, Brawl: Red and Lucario)
- It appears that only one Pokemon character will represent the current generation, while the rest are Kanto reps
- Pokemon gets its reps based on their popularity from the anime (Red is a special case, because they wouldn't allow Ash in due to being an anime character, so they used the trainer that inspired Ash's creation)
- Event Pokemon cannot be playable characters, as shown by Deoxys' role as an assist trophy and Darkrai as a regular trophy despite being highly requested characters.
- If a starter Pokemon is going to appear, then so must the other two starters (according to BCVM22 from Serebii)

Here is the list of Pokemon characters who have been mentioned constantly to be our new reps:



What are your thoughts on these theories? Who is more likely to be picked as playable status? Am I just overthinking that there's such a thing as a pattern in SSB, which therefore is just a mere coincidence by Sakurai?

I dunno, I'm thinking as of now it seems coincedental, because of all the stuff that gets cut out. When you consider Smash Bros, there's a lot of things were were supposed to get but didn't, even dating back to the first one on the 64.

This includes extra characters in a series, or character replacements overall. I'm sure we were gonna get more Pokemon in Brawl, but didn't because of some sort of limitation or constraints. Honestly, it's just the way it goes during the development process (and in some cases, some ideas just aren't fun, so they get scrapped).

I know I'm approaching this from more of a development angle (can't help it, that's what I'm in school for :( ), but I'm just not entirely convinced that there's a method to the Pokemon addition to Smash Bros beyond what you said about their popularity in the anime determining their addition (unfair, but...). I can't go back to when I didn't know about all the removed elements of the series and prototype stuff. It kind of throws a lot of theories out for every represented series.

Let's see what happens in the next Smash, though. You could be on to something, but I'm skeptical that it was planned that way.

dbp said:

I dunno, I'm thinking as of now it seems coincedental, because of all the stuff that gets cut out. When you consider Smash Bros, there's a lot of things were were supposed to get but didn't, even dating back to the first one on the 64.

This includes extra characters in a series, or character replacements overall. I'm sure we were gonna get more Pokemon in Brawl, but didn't because of some sort of limitation or constraints. Honestly, it's just the way it goes during the development process (and in some cases, some ideas just aren't fun, so they get scrapped).

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Well Mewtwo and Meowth were originally going to appear in 64, but they were scrapped due to time constraint. There wasn't anything Pokemon-related that was scrapped during Melee's development that I can remember. Mewtwo was also set to appear in Brawl according to the hacked data, but he was scrapped. The best possible theory behind this is because we would have 5 Pokemon reps in Brawl, which will be unfair for that series to have more reps than Nintendo's flagship franchise, Mario, which has only 4 reps in Brawl, so they have to scrap Mewtwo.

Let's see what happens in the next Smash, though. You could be on to something, but I'm skeptical that it was planned that way.

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This is one of my usual pet peeves, because I'm not convinced if it's the developer's choice to do anything they want with their game once you've recognized the patterns after years of research just like how veteran Pokemon players knew we'll be getting a regional rodent/bird/bug/pikachu clone/fossil/pseudo-legendary.

What I think it should be is a Pokemon trainer that can be customizable with their customizable pokemon costumes. (i.e. blue Fennekin with Johto trainer). I think this is completely possible because if I can remember, Masahiro Sakurai or someone announced that the new Super Smash Brothers will focus on more detail and moveset, and less 'more characters'. So basically, they are choosing quality over quantity with the new one, therefore costumes with more originality on being more customizable is ideal. I think they should include all trainers (maybe girl ones too if they have the time, but don't count on it) Kanto, Johto, Hoen, Sinnoh, and Unova. This would make a lot of people happy. Also, keep Pikachu and if you're keeping Jigglypuff, don't screw it up like you did in Brawl.

Sorry for the novella.

Dragooncroft said:

What I think it should be is a Pokemon trainer that can be customizable with their customizable pokemon costumes. (i.e. blue Fennekin with Johto trainer). I think this is completely possible because if I can remember, Masahiro Sakurai or someone announced that the new Super Smash Brothers will focus on more detail and moveset, and less 'more characters'. So basically, they are choosing quality over quantity with the new one, therefore costumes with more originality on being more customizable is ideal. I think they should include all trainers (maybe girl ones too if they have the time, but don't count on it) Kanto, Johto, Hoen, Sinnoh, and Unova. This would make a lot of people happy.

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That really isn't possible because it will be too complex to play as the Pokemon Trainer on a game that's suppose to be easy to pick up. Plus it'll require a lot of voice work to fit every single trainer for the customizable feature and they can't fill up every trainer and starter on one select screen. They're better off picking only the most popular trainers in terms of the fanbase and the anime, both boy and girl.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

That really isn't possible because it will be too complex to play as the Pokemon Trainer on a game that's suppose to be easy to pick up. Plus it'll require a lot of voice work to fit every single trainer for the customizable feature and they can't fill up every trainer and starter on one select screen. They're better off picking only the most popular trainers in terms of the fanbase and the anime, both boy and girl.

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Why not? They did it in Super Smash bros. Brawl, didn't they? It wouldn't be inpossible. Especially if this is where a lot of their focus is heading.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

This is one of my usual pet peeves, because I'm not convinced if it's the developer's choice to do anything they want with their game once you've recognized the patterns after years of research just like how veteran Pokemon players knew we'll be getting a regional rodent/bird/bug/pikachu clone/fossil/pseudo-legendary.

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True, true. I suppose the question is then, who's really behind Smash Bros?

Dragooncroft said:

Why not? They did it in Super Smash bros. Brawl, didn't they? It wouldn't be inpossible. Especially if this is where a lot of their focus is heading.

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Creating a customizable trainer is much different and more complex than giving Wario a different outfit. Because of this, creating two separate trainers is the possible route to take.

i think the next smash bros. will have Red and Brendan as the pokemon trainer characters, Pikachu, Mewtwo, Jigglypuff, and Zoroark/Lucario as the pokemon characters

SoraTheTruth said:

i think the next smash bros. will have Red and Brendan as the pokemon trainer characters, Pikachu, Mewtwo, Jigglypuff, and Zoroark/Lucario as the pokemon characters

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But that only makes 6 Pokemon reps, which would be too many for the next Smash. It would be more logical if the series has 5 reps.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

But that only makes 6 Pokemon reps, which would be too many for the next Smash. It would be more logical if the series has 5 reps.

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How is it more Logical that 5 is better than 6? We don't work for the company so we have absolutely no say in what is logical or not when it comes to their games.

Based on rumors I've heard though, its only Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and 1 5th Gen Pokemon. Victini, Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem are supposed to be trophies/World obstacles like how Dialga and Palkia were in Brawl.

Zoroark and one of the Musketdeers were the rumored thirds from what I remember seeing. But I heard there were over 50 characters this time too, so they could be adding way more than that from each Nintendo Series games a lot of them from older games. (Someone said the guy from Balloon Fight was going to be in it)

They are also doing something brand new with the cross platform link up so we may get shafted on character selection since the Capcom inclusion idea keeps jumping from bad to good and back to bad in Sakurai's head. We've got a while to wait and we'll see some footage in June which excites me cause I wanna see what rumors are true. But as far as Pokemon is concerned, based on rumors we're getting between 3 and 8 as there was one about bringing back all the Pokemon so far plus some new ones.

XanderO said:

How is it more Logical that 5 is better than 6? We don't work for the company so we have absolutely no say in what is logical or not when it comes to their games.

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When I was researching the rosters from the first three titles, I noticed that a new row is added within each title. We currently have 4 rows in Brawl, which was why the Mario series was reverted to only 4 reps rather than 5 in Melee, which means they'll have up to 5 reps for Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon in SSB4 because of the theorized 5th row.

Based on rumors I've heard though, its only Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and 1 5th Gen Pokemon. Victini, Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem are supposed to be trophies/World obstacles like how Dialga and Palkia were in Brawl.

Zoroark and one of the Musketdeers were the rumored thirds from what I remember seeing.

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The lack of a 6th gen rep makes me feel suspicious about this rumor. Perhaps TPCi will have to intervene with Sakurai's development by requesting him to add a 6th gen rep, possibly Sylveon, like they did with Lucario to promote Gen IV. Further more, 3 reps is too few for one of Nintendo's best-selling franchises.

But I heard there were over 50 characters this time too, so they could be adding way more than that from each Nintendo Series games a lot of them from older games. (Someone said the guy from Balloon Fight was going to be in it)

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Strange, didn't Sakurai said that there will be less new characters this time around because he wants to focus on rebalancing the current character roster? That contradicts the rumor of having more than 50 characters, which makes sense on why he says this because one of my research also showed that the there is a 10 digit pattern for each title. 64 has 12, Melee has 25, and Brawl has 35, so Sakurai wants to add less new characters to adds SSB4's roster up to around 40 (about 43-45 characters to be exact).

They are also doing something brand new with the cross platform link up so we may get shafted on character selection since the Capcom inclusion idea keeps jumping from bad to good and back to bad in Sakurai's head. We've got a while to wait and we'll see some footage in June which excites me cause I wanna see what rumors are true. But as far as Pokemon is concerned, based on rumors we're getting between 3 and 8 as there was one about bringing back all the Pokemon so far plus some new ones.

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They said they'll only show off screenshot in this year's E3, but even those may not be enough because I know they'll only show Mario, Link, Kirby, and Pikachu as the main focus much like the beginning of Melee's intro and Brawl's teaser trailer.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

The lack of a 6th gen rep makes me feel suspicious about this rumor. Perhaps TPCi will have to intervene with Sakurai's development by requesting him to add a 6th gen rep, possibly Sylveon, like they did with Lucario to promote Gen IV. Further more, 3 reps is too few for one of Nintendo's best-selling franchises.

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It would depend on release. If its a good while after Gen 6 is released, then we may have a Gen 6 Rep. The rumor was from 2012. Gen 6 has only been known for 3 months. I don't think Sakurai would have had previous knowledge not being part of the TPCi team. That info stays within the parent company so SSB team wouldn't have known in 2012 of the next Pokemon game series.

Strange, didn't Sakurai said that there will be less new characters this time around because he wants to focus on rebalancing the current character roster? That contradicts the rumor of having more than 50 characters, which makes sense on why he says this because one of my research also showed that the there is a 10 digit pattern for each title. 64 has 12, Melee has 25, and Brawl has 35, so Sakurai wants to add less new characters to adds SSB4's roster up to around 40 (about 43-45 characters to be exact).

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Smash had 12, Melee has 26, Brawl had 37. Sakurai said that he was originally going to add Capcom fighters to the game, but didn't know how to translate them to a different fighting game's mechanics. Its been an on and off thing. I also don't see any reports about him saying he plans to lower the amount of characters. Only reports I've seen is him playing tennis with the idea of including Capcom characters. His biggest concern against is just adding Non-Nintendo characters "willy-nilly" to him takes away from the story.

I'm doing basic google searches but really most info seems to come from a hardly credible source. And its basically says what I posted.

Everything else comes up with rumors or is just completely dry.

XanderO said:

Smash had 12, Melee has 26, Brawl had 37. Sakurai said that he was originally going to add Capcom fighters to the game, but didn't know how to translate them to a different fighting game's mechanics. Its been an on and off thing. I also don't see any reports about him saying he plans to lower the amount of characters. Only reports I've seen is him playing tennis with the idea of including Capcom characters. His biggest concern against is just adding Non-Nintendo characters "willy-nilly" to him takes away from the story.

I'm doing basic google searches but really most info seems to come from a hardly credible source. And its basically says what I posted.

Everything else comes up with rumors or is just completely dry.

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Here is one of the sources that talks about Sakurai planning not to add more characters in the roster: http://mynintendonews.com/2012/07/02/smash-bros-wii-u-probably-wont-feature-more-characters/

It's difficult to determine what he means, as many fans are making their own speculations on what he meant about adding less characters. Some say the roster will still be 35/37 with some being rumored and replaced by news, while others say it will be less new characters but still have the same 35/37 in the roster. Whichever speculation is true, then I hope neither of them affects the two "new Pokemon reps per title" pattern I've theorized.