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Smash Ultimate has 74 Characters, yet lacks Black/Brown characters (READ OP)

Deleted member 4976

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Oct 25, 2017
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MOD EDIT: Making jokes and comments about non-human characters being examples of black characters due to stereotypical features is both racist and dismissive of the issue of media representation. Any posts that cross this line will continue to be moderated appropriately.

Smash Ultimates full roster has been revealed (outside of DLC characters). And there is not one brown or black character in the base roster.

I realize that Nintendo doesn't exactly have a wide variety of diverse characters to choose from, especially compared to some of the other publishers. But I also think that this point is not as strong as it was say when Brawl had come out, or even Smash Wii U/3DS, a more recent title. There has been a marked uptick in diversity with recent Nintendo titles that is largely absent in Ultimate, ranging from titles like Botw, Fire Emblem (which has always had characters to pull from, even in older games), ARMS and more.

The inclusion of third-party characters also makes this a bigger issue. Because the game is no longer just pulling characters from Nintendo's history, but also series like Final Fantasy and Bayonetta.

I'm hoping the DLC characters rectify this a bit, but given the newcomers introduced in Ultimate, I'm not expecting much.
 
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Peleo

Peleo

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Nov 2, 2017
2,656
There was a similar topic yesterday which got quickly closed.

Smash Bros is reflective of gaming as a whole, there simply aren't enough notable characters to chose from. This occurs to the female representation to a lesser degree. Still hoping for Twintelle though.

Important to note Inkling, Villager, Miis and maybe Pokemon Trainer have different skin colour variations. Also, of the 70 characters, only 35-40 of them could even be associated with some kind of ethnicity since the other half are animals, monsters, robots or aliens.
 
Dyle

Dyle

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Oct 25, 2017
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At least Villager, Inkling, and Miis have some darker skin options, so it's a little better than Smash 4. It's definitely shitty but it represents the state of the industry, both in Japan and the West. There are so few characters that would fit and work as a fighter so it's hard for Sakurai and crew to use any
 
GranddadFreeman

GranddadFreeman

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May 18, 2018
588
User Banned (3 Days): Inflammatory drive-by post and dismissing concerns about representation
No thanks. I'd rather have a black person with their own game, not some throwaway spot on a game with 75 characters. Gonna have to do better than "random black character with someone else's moves" to get your woke points.
 
sixteen-bit

sixteen-bit

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,680
Chad Warden was a total clown but the truest thing he ever did was call out SSB for not having any black people in it.
 
Silky

Silky

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10,522
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GranddadFreeman said:
No thanks. I'd rather have a black person with their own game, not some throwaway spot on a game with 75 characters. Gonna have to do better than "random black character with someone else's moves" to get your woke points.
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Don't fall for this post, Era. You're tempted. You are very tempted to fall for this post. Do better.
 
louisacommie

louisacommie

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Oct 25, 2017
17,566
New Jersey
Twintelle

Urbosa

Elma ( despite that dumb plot twist)

Please

New nintendo ip with the main character as a black person
Peleo said:
There was a similar topic yesterday which got quickly closed.

Smash Bros is reflective of gaming as a whole, there simply aren't enough notable characters to chose from. This occurs to the female representation to a lesser degree. Still hoping for Twintelle though.

Important to note both Inkling, Villager and potentially Pokemon Trainer have different skin colour variations. Also, of the 70 characters, only 35-40 of them could even be associated with some kind of ethnicity since the other half are animals, monsters, robots or aliens.
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Well hopefully we dont get people posting animal characters as "funny" jokes...
 
RedAhmed

RedAhmed

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Jan 9, 2018
3,276
I hope Nintendo makes a game starring some person of color, but it currently doesn't really have something like that. So I don't think there's much point in complaining at the moment.

Elma for Smash
 
Mobu

Mobu

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Oct 28, 2017
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Ganondorf is brown

and most newcomers arent human so its not like they added 8 white guys
 
Biestmann

Biestmann

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Oct 25, 2017
7,412
Nintendo's catalogue simply is weak on that front, so Smash Bros. naturally will reflect that. But they absolutely should have made room for recent additions like Twintelle and other black/brown characters if they even exist.
 
Bear

Bear

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Oct 25, 2017
10,861
Point taken, but also like half of the characters are animals or aliens or something else.

Definitely should be more diversity in rosters, though.
 
Sammy Samusu

Sammy Samusu

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Oct 25, 2017
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Well there aren't many black characters in gaming as whole. The root of the problem is elsewhere. Representation in Smash is a consequence.

Gabon can be considered black, no? Black Inklings too.
 
HardRojo

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Does Nintendo actually have any major black characters among their IPs? Plus, who from the third parties involved could offer a character and who would that character be?
 
Pyro

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It is a shame and shows there's still work to be done in the medium as a whole.
 
Rotobit

Rotobit

Editor at Nintendo Wire
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Oct 27, 2017
10,196
Definitely agree, I think it's an unfortunate side effect of the Smash team tending to pick central characters/protagonists first and foremost, and unfortunately a lot of diversity still happens in the side-lines

For what it's worth though they did change one of the Villager alts since E3 to a different skintone. It's not a lot but hey, it's something.

UWMfyH5.png
 
Dark Knight

Dark Knight

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Oct 25, 2017
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Are there any asian characters? I can't think of any unless I'm really forgetting someone. Seems like Nintendo generally only designs very light-skinned, caucasian-looking characters beyond maybe some side characters in Zelda.
Mobu said:
Ganondorf is brown

and most newcomers arent human so its not like they added 8 white guys
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That's true, Ganondorf is definitely not a "white" character I would say.
 
Silky

Silky

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Oct 25, 2017
10,522
Georgia
HardRojo said:
Does Nintendo actually have any major black characters among their IPs? Plus, who from the third parties involved could offer a character and who would that character be?
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Twintelle, Arms
Gerudo
Couple of Advance Wars characters

Dark Knight said:
Are there any asian characters? I can't think of any unless I'm really forgetting someone. Seems like Nintendo generally only designs very light-skinned, caucasian-looking characters beyond maybe some side characters in Zelda.
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Fire Emblem: Fates Birthright has quite a few
 
Papasmurff

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Oct 28, 2017
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Ganondorf has dark skin and is Gerudo, which clearly represent Middle Eastern/North African people.

It's fair to say there is little representation for black and brown playable characters, but there is more than zero.
 
Jazzem

Jazzem

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Feb 2, 2018
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Yeah this is a bit of a shame, the roster hasn't ended up as diverse as I'd like gender or race wise. Really hoping this can be bumped a bit with DLC, Twintelle as stated would be a terrific inclusion on that front
 
Tbm24

Tbm24

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Oct 25, 2017
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Overall there aren't many game characters I can point to, that would fit in smash, that are black/brown. Shame, but gaming/nintendo need to do better.
 
Hours Left

Hours Left

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Oct 26, 2017
18,400
Ganondorf has brown skin, and there are black Inklings.

Diversity is something that definitely needs to be addressed though.
 
00stevenm

00stevenm

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Nov 6, 2017
64
Well considering animals and cartoons make up more than half of the roster not sure what one might expect...
 

ItsKipz

Member
Oct 27, 2018
171
Ultimate is a collection of iconic gaming characters, primarily ones associated with Nintendo or companies close to them. In that space, diversity is still not a focus for lots of devs and the best we'll probably get is the alternate skin tones for Miis, Inkling, and Villager.
 
Neoxon

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In the case of a good chunk of the games you brought up, their contributions in regards to PoC characters were too recent for the base roster (Smash Ultimate's base roster was finalized as early as December 2015). The lack of more PoC representation is more of a Nintendo problem at the time than a Smash problem.
 
Silky

Silky

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Waiting for some droopy dick moron to post game and watch or Donkey Kong as if they're clever about hiding their obvious disdain for thethread
 
Raijinto

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This is a shame and definitely something that needs to be addressed and improved- hopefully someone can ask Sakurai/Nintendo a question to this effect.

Though the people above have a point in questioning the title due to the fact that literally dozens of SSB characters aren't human. Like 2/3 characters revealed yesterday were a Pokemon and a plant.

But yeah for the 30-40 human characters it is an issue.
 
Pirateluigi

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Oct 27, 2017
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It's a problem, but it's also more a reflection of gaming, especially Nintendo, as a whole. I appreciate the recent diversity of characters like Twintelle, Marina, Elma, and John Henry, but Nintendo needs to create more diverse main characters.

Also, put Doc Louis in Smash as a second Punch Out rep.
 
Mobu

Mobu

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Dark Knight said:
Are there any asian characters? I can't think of any unless I'm really forgetting someone. Seems like Nintendo generally only designs very light-skinned, caucasian-looking characters beyond maybe some side characters in Zelda.

That's true, Ganondorf is definitely not a "white" character I would say.
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i thought marth was asian when i ws a kid, i dont know if thats the case though
 
TheMoon

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If we're already starting the topic over, how about we actually have an accurate premise because stating there are 0 black/brown characters is false since both the Inkling and Villager have skin-tone options.


Inkling_Palette_(SSBU).png


P8hDxgE.jpg
 
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Vipu

Vipu

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Oct 26, 2017
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This seems very problematic to me and I hope it gets adressed by Nintendo asap
 
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