Why King K. Rool wont make the cut

It may seem odd to suggest that this character wont be playable in the new Smash. He's a pretty memorable character from the Donkey Kong series and people seem to want him. So hwy wont he be in?

If you remember in my Takamaru post, I noted that most of the characters from the new game had appeared in a game within the last few years. It seems Sakurai picks characters that have appeared in a major roll within the last few years. Here are the Brawl characters and the last game they appeared in before Brawl released (again, sans third party characters)

• Meta-Knight:  Kirby and the Amazing Mirror - 2004
• Wario: WarioWare Smooth Moves - 2006
• Pit: Kid Icarus - 1987 (and the Gameboy game)
• Zero Suit Samus: Metroid Zero Mission - 2004
• Ike: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - 2005
• Pokemon Trainer: Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green - 2003
• Diddy Kong: Donkey Konga - 2005 (and in multiple Mario spinoffs)
• King Dedede: Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland 2002
• Lucas:Mother 3 - 2006
• Olimar: Pikmin 2 - 2004
• Lucario - Pokemon Diamond/Pearl - 2006
• ROB - Mario Kart DS - 2006 (and other cameos)
• Wolf: Starfox Command - 2006

With the exception of Pit, every character added to Brawl was in a major role within the six years between Brawl and Melee. The only exception to this rule is Pit who's last game was over 20 years ago.  With the exception of classic characters (those picked because they are old), the character roster includes characters who have been in recent games.  Many of these characters were in games that released within 2 years of Brawl.  I shouldn't have to mention Smash 4's roster where all the characters have been in a game recently. 

But why does Sakurai do this.  A problem for him is that a lot of people plays these games and not all of them are die hard fans with a lot of knowledge about Nintendo.  He has stated that he choices characters that make people want to play the game.  At the same time, we tries to spread out the series with characters.  Pokemon and Mario characters are the most memorable, but a game with just that would be boring.  So how do you make sure people will like the characters you added and have some recollection of who you added.  This is even harder when you're pulling characters from already lesser known series.  The best bet would be to pick characters who have appeared recently.  For instance, take Robin.  You may not know Fire Emblem, so you may not know immediately who he is.  But his game is fairly new, so it wont take long to find the information or to make the connection.  Picking characters that are not as relevant are risky as they may be fading into obscurity due to disinterest.  This is why you don't see Tingle despite Nintendo pushing him for a long time.

So how does this affect K. Rool? Well, King K Rool's last roles were the ill fated Donkey Kong Barrel Blast (2007) and and a minor role in Mario Super Sluggers (2008). So it's been over 6 years since King K Rool has been in a game. It seems that Nintendo is de-emphasizing the Kremling.  Donkey Kong County Returns and  Donkey Kong County Returns Tropical Freeze de-emphasized the bad guys you were fighting and the force changed between the two games.  Tropical Freeze focused more on the Dixie and Cranky than the fact that there was a new enemy force.  Since Donkey Kong Country Returns are the newest games in the series and were commercial success, it would make sense that the content from those games is promoted as players would better recognize the content from them.  In this case, Dixie Kong has a better bet as she is more recognizable.  In fact, she has had bigger roles being in all of the Donkey Konga games and Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze.  King K Rool, unfortunately, is a character that is becoming less important.  I suspect he'll be a boss in the Smash Run mode but not a playable character.

(Hope this one is OK. Was tired when I wrote it)

Takamaru and new characters

I know this is a bit old but I've been out of town for some time and I finally have the chance to talk about this. Anywho, it has been confirmed that Takamaru is an assist trophy in the newest Smash Brothers games. Was Takamaru a likely candidate for a new character. Somewhat, when you consider he's one of the best choices for a classic character. As Sakurai even mentioned in the Miiverse post, Takamaru was born the same year as Link, Pit and Samus. Not to mention his game has since been released in the US and Europe. But, yet, he is an assist trophy.  A classic Nintendo character who is also a samurai. Why not add him?

What I have considered for a while is that the game is pulling characters that are newer or who have at least been appearing in the newest games. To compare, let's look at the current line-up of new characters and compare them to Brawl's starting characters. Bold are characters after the inception of the newest Smash game. Note: for this comparison, I'm ignoring third party characters.

Brawl

• Meta-Knight: 1993
• Wario: 1992 (Wario Ware: 2002)
• Pit: 1987
• Zero Suit Samus: 2004
• Ike: 2005
• Pokemon Trainer: 1996
• Diddy Kong: 1994
• King Dedede: 1992
• Lucas: 2006
• Olimar: 2001

Smash Wii U

• Villager: 2001
• Wii Fit Trainer: 2007
• Rosalina and Luma: 2006
• Little Mac: 1984
• Greninja: 2013
• Palutena: 1987
• Mii Fighter: 2006
• Robin: 2013
• Lucina: 2013

In Brawl, 4 out of the 10 starting characters were new. In Smash 4, 6 of the 9 characters shown so far (sans the third party ones), are from a recent game. Also, it should be noted that Villager, Little Mac, and Palutena all have had a recent game (Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Punch Out!! [Wii] and Kid Icarus: Uprising).  With the exception of Pit, Brawl followed the same convention.  Wario was also based on Warioware, the newest games in the series.

Overall, it seems Smash 4 is focusing on the new rather than the old. The difference may be due to the fact that Brawl was trying to capture characters that weren't in Melee. Many of the characters who weren't new were also requested back when Melee was coming out. Now, with many of the characters added in Smash, adding the newest characters makes sense. Also, Amiibos may also play into this. With Nintendo promoting these toys, they would rather have characters people would be more familiar with rather than having forgotten characters.

Is there a chance we'll get a classic character. Perhaps. But Takamaru was the best show at getting one with his cameos and his history as a character.  We'll have to wait and see what happens. Based on this though, I would reason that the characters added this time would have appeared in recent games. 

Is the final roster 51 characters?

NOTE: This post contains information regarding a potential leak. There is no official information, but if you want to avoid these entirely, I suggest you stop here.

There has been a lot of talk about the roster for the new Super Smash Brothers only having 47 characters. However, based on some evidence, that notion doesn't fly. In fact, in this post I'm going to prove that the roster will have 51 characters.

Before we begin, I need to talk about the Gamatsu leak.  It has been highly contested, but given the information revealed at E3, it appears likely.  I wont go much in depth on why this leak is likely true, but I'll give a quick overview. Before E3, Sal from Gamatsu, who had supposedly been getting information about the game, stated there were 6 more characters in the game: Pac-Man, Palutena, Shulk, Choir Boys (from Rhythm Heaven), Chrom and Mii Fighter. It should be noted that he specifically said "Mii Fighter" before it was revealed. This gives credence to this rumor so we can say with some confidence that Shulk, Chior Boys and Chrom will be in. I should also note that it was never implied that this is the entire roster.

With that out of the way, we can discuss why the roster will have 51 characters

The 3DS version does not fit a 47 character roster

On GameFAQs a user by the name of XXX stated that a roster of 47 does not fit the 3DS's screen. Here is what he said

The 3DS's top screen has a resolution of 400x240 (or 800x240 with 3D, but that's irrelevant).
The 3DS roster appears to take up all of the screen, so we can calculate the sizes of the slots in the demo roster:
400 / 6 = 66.67
240 / 4 = 60
This means every slot is 66x60 and that there's a 2 pixel wide strip of empty space on each side.
Supposedly, a 8x6 roster would fit perfectly with the same slot proportions:
400 / 8 = 50
240 / 6 = 40
So slots of 50x40 and no empty space.
But are these really the same proportions? Let's check:
66 / 60 = 1.1
50 / 40 = 1.25
Oh, that doesn't quite match up. Let's try 9x6 instead:
400 / 9 = 44.44
240 / 6 = 40
So slots of 44x40 and once again a 2 pixel wide strip of empty space on each side.
44 / 40 = 1.1
And yup! They have the same proportions as the demo roster's slots!
In fact, you could know this without even calculating it like this.
If the proportions don't change, the column/row ratio should always stay the same:
6 / 4 = 1.5
9 / 6 = 1.5
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/633202-super-smash-bros-for-wii-u/69445404

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/633202-super-smash-bros-for-wii-u/69445404

Here is the simple explanation. Based on the resolution of the 3DS top screen and the roster size, 47 would not fit the roster and keep the same proportions.  However, a 51 character roster (9x6) would fit perfectly. In fact, when compared, it still has the 2 pixels on the side.  You can also test this mathematically. 6/4 = 1.5 In order for the proportion to stay the same, it has to equal 1.5,  8/6=1.33333 but 9/6=1.5.  So we can see that in order for the current proportions to be set, the roster has to be 51 (9x6) and not 47 (8x6).  However, XXX pointed out that one game will have to change proportions.  The Wii U version does not hold 51 characters (13x4) based on it's current proportions.

The Wii U Version will change proportions

One thing many people don't know is that there was a difference in proportions from the demo version of Brawl and the official release.  Here is an image showing the difference provided by TheAnvil

Link if it helps you all see better: http://i.imgur.com/LN1wNEc.png

The left is the final roster (sans Wolf) and the top right is the roster for the demo. One thing you can notice is the demo boxes are much more rectangular and the final roster is more square.  Here are somethings you can see in the boxes on the demo that you can't see in the final release

• Demo you can see Marios hand but only two fingers in the final release
• You can see all of Fox's Blaster in the demo but not in the final release
• You can see Diddy Kong's elbow in the demo but not the final release
• Pit's right wing is more visable
• Lot's of white space on Pikachu and Yoshi
• You can see half of Meta-Knight's hand in the demo but only a third in the final release
• You can see most of Sonic's spikes on the demo version
• You can see a bit more of Bowser's left arm in the demo. You can also see more white space.

Based on what TheAnvil noticed, in order to resize the demo box to the final release, you'd have to shrink the picture horizontally 75% and vertically 64%.  This tells us that the demo and the final release were not proportionate.  Take a look again at the picture I posted in the top.  That is the roster for the newest demo.  You'll notice that it is similar to the Brawl demo in that the boxes are more rectangular. Estimates of a 47 character roster (12x4) are based on these boxes. However, they will likely be resized based on the information in Brawl and the 3DS.

So based on this information, the roster is more than likely not going to have more than 47 characters. How many is up in the air as the Wii U can hold about 52 while the 3DS holds 54. We'll have to wait for release to see what the final number is, but it could very well be just over 50 characters.

UPDATE: This is an older post and the Gamatsu leak is been proven to be false with the introduction of Robin. I have left the information in since it is still relevant to the topic at hand.