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Super Smash Bros Ultimate has 19 white male characters (6 of which are blue eyed / blonde hair), and 0 women of color
- Thread starter BigBlue
- Start date
Which is why Sakurai needs to loosen up a bit on his thought process when it comes to character selection. The industry is taking its sweet time to improve, especially in Japan. So Sakurai should be willing to make a compromise every once-in-a-while to compensate.
Something I've noticed over the years is that Sakurai can be oddly stubborn about the weirdest things (Ex: Male Corrin as the default). Ridley does show that Sakurai can eventually cave, but that took a lot of begging from fans.
Tbf pokemon did a much better job despicting Hawaii so it might be just Atlus being Atlus
Yup, Atlus isn't exactly a shining example when it comes to representation.
But that progress is reflected in Inkling, Villager, Pokemon Trainer and Mii Fighter. Otherwise, where have they progressed much in set & defined ethnically diverse characters which is what we are talking about? Twintelle and a little bit of Elma who is incredibly vague in its ethnicity? Gerudo like Nabooru have been in Zelda games for over 20 years so Urbosa isn't anything new. If that's progress then Nintendo has already progressed since F-Zero and Adam in Other M.
You have my word that if Marina made it in, she'd be my new main hands down.
I think you greatly overestimate the value of whichever alternate gendered costume takes the forefront actually matters in the event that the social osmosis decides the female version is the ideal selection (which has been the surveyed case in almost every character that has a female version). Male Corrin being the first selection really does not matter when in the eyes of most, Female Corrin is the favorite, and almost everyone who plays her is cognizant of her representation.
The only case in which this does matter is when characters that clearly should have female alts just don't have them (i.e Hero).
I'm for it.
A Pearl and Marina team is one of my most wanted first party charaters. Get some lesbian representation while you're at it.
Don't @ me you know it's true.
Which, while appreciated, aren't the default. They aren't the main versions of the characters you see in marketing, Amiibos, or even the character select screen. And while the Gerudo have been around for years, Urbosa is one of the rare instances where Nintendo put emphasis on her. Twintelle is very clearly supposed to be black. And while Elma's case is more ambiguous, she's actually a main character.
Dark Samus got in despite Corruption being 11 years old at the time, so the age probably isn't the problem for Impa.
I'd say a bigger issue is that her OoT design is more known and her Hyrule Warriors design is more popular.
Would you envision Impa as an echo fighter then? She has a pretty differently shaped weapon than Shiek so that might be tough.
Dark Samus appeared throughout the Metroid Prime games. SS Impa is only in SS. (And Smash Ultimate uses OoT Impa for the spirit battle.)
Dark Samus had a complete model in Smash 4 as an Assist Trophy (that also reused Samus' animations), they just updated it a bit in Smash Ultimate. Her being an echo was a matter of convenience.
For the record, I think Impa should absolutely have replaced Sheik at this point given that Impa's history is such a hodgepodge depending on the game that its easy to just slot in the OOT/HW version over Sheik's moveset and it would work, and she's at least recurring whereas Sheik was just brought in as a gimmick for Zelda's moveset.
Impa would totally work in Smash, sure she doesn't have a defined role/look but y'know, neither does... any Zelda character. Ganondorf is a pig man half the time. Hell Ultimate didn't even try to make them consistent this time around, there's nothing stopping 'em from going Skyward Sword or Hyrule Warriors.
But yeah at this point they should put in someone. It's not like Impa or Elma couldn't have awesome moves crafted for them, either.
But yeah at this point they should put in someone. It's not like Impa or Elma couldn't have awesome moves crafted for them, either.
The wider fanbase just doesn't care about this though, so it's not even a thing for sakurai to look at. And in the case of the dlc now, he is all in on adding iconic allstar characters for the most part.
Why'd you quote me twice?
And I said what I said. I'd rather not get POC at all than having embarrassing caricatures like the ethnic SF characters.
Don't think so? She uses magic I think. Frankly Impa would be best if they used the hyrule warriors version with a naginata.
Smash seems to pretend that Hyrule Warriors doesn't exist, so Skyward Sword Impa is probably our only option of the two you mentioned.
...um.
This looks like a completely new model made from the ground up, not just an assist trophy "updated a bit".
But yes, the only reason Dark Samus is playable is just because she could work as a mostly low effort clone of Samus. She would of never been included otherwise. Same thing goes for characters like Chrom and Daisy.
OP title is really misleading. This is not the way to make a thread at all
1) the title seems to indicate there are no women in the game at all - untrue (Wii fit trainer, squid girl, peach etc )
2) how many people of color can Nintendo really use here? There's a huge difference between casting a black smash character because they fit the role of being in the game and casting a black character for diversity points.
This thread is just asking for the diversity points and this is not the way to go about it at all
1) the title seems to indicate there are no women in the game at all - untrue (Wii fit trainer, squid girl, peach etc )
2) how many people of color can Nintendo really use here? There's a huge difference between casting a black smash character because they fit the role of being in the game and casting a black character for diversity points.
This thread is just asking for the diversity points and this is not the way to go about it at all
I'm guessing that's down to Koei Tecmo more than anything, so yeah I'd expect Skyward Sword Impa with the Hyrule Warriors Naginata + water/blue fire magic. Which would still be pretty cool.
Ocarina Impa could work as a Sheik echo, but that's not the one people really talk about.
Are the people getting caught up on the blonde hair/blue eyes thing serious? It's been a mark of "beauty" in the West for decades. It's a very white beauty standard and OP is pointing out how in a sea of Japanese designs something that I assume is pretty rare in Japan is super well represented here.
I don't see why they can't just... Add twintelle.
I don't see why they can't just... Add twintelle.
they don't really have the same build though, do they
Ocarina Impa could snap Sheik like a twig
No that's just you. The title isn't misleading at all. Seems like you just don't want people to talk about it and are trying to hide it under the guise of "this is not the way to go about it at all". Everytime I see people talk about "fitting the role of being in the game" it kinda reads like BS to me. They could put Twintelle in and echo fighter Ribbon Boy if they really wanted to.
This image illustrates my point though. It's pretty much the same model sans updated texture work and redone lighting - that alone which is going to go a long way to make the update look fresh since many ATs used low-res textures. Maybe a few more polygons in the new model but that's it (but even then who knows considering Smash Ultimate actually has lesser polycounts on some models compared to their Smash 4 iterations)....um.
This looks like a completely new model made from the ground up, not just an assist trophy "updated a bit".
But yes, the only reason Dark Samus is playable is just because she could work as a mostly low effort clone of Samus. She would of never been included otherwise. Same thing goes for characters like Chrom and Daisy.
Even putting Dark Samus and Samus side to side in Smash 4 shows that she could've easily passed as a Samus clone if they decided to do it, they presumably just opted against it because most of the other "clones" were a lot less effort, or in Lucina's case, a lot more notable/relevant of a character.
That would be because Spring Man is the mascot for ARMS and he's already an assist trophy. Sakurai/Nintendo probably just figured people wouldn't be excited at the prospects of ARMS or any of their own IPs/characters being $5.99 DLC you have to pay for, rather than just being in the base game. Hence the current focus on third parties.
What I'm trying to say is that Nintendo has progressed barely an inch in that regard - just like in the past you had Doc Louis, a few characters in F-Zero and Anthony you now have Twintelle, Marina and I guess ambiguously diverse characters like Elma. The actual tangible progress at Nintendo has been in its character creation and changeability.
And there wasn't put more emphasis on Urbosa compared to the other champions just like there wasn't put more emphasis on Nabooru in OoT compared to the other sages. You may as well say they have put less emphasis on ethnically diverse characters in Zelda because the PoC main character in Ganondorf got shafted after Twilight Princess.
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They still could just do it though.
I'll make a point of saying they created these "rules" and really don't have much reason to follow them. I mean it's not like people were really chomping at the bits for say, Piranha Plant (who I love don't get me wrong) but they added them in anyways.
Edit: Also this is Smash we are talking about. I don't think they really need to worry about hype that much at all. Like people are always going to and mostly have bought the game regardless. I don't see why they can't just throw a bone here.
Is Male Corrin the default everywhere else as well? That's the reply I got last time I asked about this very same subject.
That's because of Fatal Frame, right? My guess is they'd need to get permission from Omega Force specifically for Warriors stuff, though you'd assume Nintendo would have the rights to the designs of the main characters. Japanese rights management always seems weird.
Piranha Plant is kind of a special case because it was clearly meant to be part of the base roster. It's supposed to be Ultimate's "surprise character", its equivalent to G&W, R.O.B and Duck Hunt, and unlike all the other DLC characters, it has a Palutena's Guidance. It's fairly obvious it was relegated to bonus DLC due to time.
I think part of the issue with this discourse is that the term "POC" is an American-centric concept born out of US identity politics. I looked to see if POC could even be translated into Japanese and there currently isn't an accepted phrase for it; they simply translate it was "non-White person" or "non-North American/European person," which doesn't have the same nuance at all.
Smash Bros. is a game developed in Japan by Japanese people who don't have the same lens as the US. In fact, Japan has its own nuanced identity politics, for example with ethnic Koreans living in the country for 3-4 generations and still being considered outside of mainstream society. This itself is immediately at odds with US identity politics that group all Asians into (more or less) one category.
Nintendo is course a global company and should behave as such, but I'm not sure forcing the issue from a heavily US-based perspective is an approach that will work here.
Smash Bros. is a game developed in Japan by Japanese people who don't have the same lens as the US. In fact, Japan has its own nuanced identity politics, for example with ethnic Koreans living in the country for 3-4 generations and still being considered outside of mainstream society. This itself is immediately at odds with US identity politics that group all Asians into (more or less) one category.
Nintendo is course a global company and should behave as such, but I'm not sure forcing the issue from a heavily US-based perspective is an approach that will work here.
That's cool to know in all honesty. It doesn't address what I'm saying though.
Female Corrin is the default in Fire Emblem Warriors. I think Heroes started to favor Female Corrin as well but don't quote me on that.
Fascinating how somehow racial stereotypes got in the game though.
Shantae would represent a 'brown' / middle-eastern person in a game without any if we don't count Gerudos. It would add diversity so why be so technical about her 'actually being white' (which is highly debatable tbh)?
Shantae has no chance to get in btw, that's not the intention of my post.
As disappointing as it is, if Impa gets I think they will ignore Hyrule Warriors completely and just be an echo of Shiek.
Dark Samus only appears in two games and a cameo, so that is not much more. SS is also the most recent version of young Impa, so they would probably consider her first before looking to older versions. I doubt the spirit choice really matters also, especially since the Impa spirit was used to guard Zelda in the OoT section of World of Light.
The model for a playable character is much more detailed than an assist trophy, so I think saying 'update a bit' is downplaying the work needed slightly. I'm not sure Impa should replaced Shiek, but adding her alongside as an echo would mean its not just the same three characters we've had since melee.
Just Google'd "2019 video game releases"
"OMG guys, wher r da colord ppl n SmAsh??
I get what you are saying but I also don't. If you want to point out the lack of pocs in games in general then I agree but maybe don't do it in defense of Smash, because all it does is discourage the voices of the people who would agree with you.
Edit: it comes off as "Don't pick on the game I like!"
From Fire Emblem Warriors onwards, Female Corrin is treated as the main one.