Ayumi, Takamaru And A Love For The Unknown

Sakurai talked a bit about Smash in a recent interview.  Besides the mention of Mewtwo coming soon, two more hints were dropped.  Sakurai had considered Takamaru for Super Smash Brothers for Wii U/3DS and he considered Ayumi (from Famicom Detective Club) for Melee.  You may know the latter from her inclusion as a trophy in Melee.



In both instances, the characters weren't included because they lacked familiarity outside of Japan.  I wanted to talk a bit about Ayumi as well as not including these characters.

Ayumi

This may seem like an odd choice, so why even think about including this character?  Well, one thing fans have pointed out is that the game: Famicom Detective Club, is actually a bit bigger than we think.  At the time of Smash 64, the series had about three games: three sequels and a game for the satellite BS system.  This is more than Star Fox and F-Zero at the time.  The first game was re-released in the Famicom Mini series on the Gameboy Advanced and the Virtual Console, although it's been a while since a new one was released.  However, at the time Melee was being made, it was not a completely unknown series.   Actually,  in a poll by Famitsu about your favorite Nintendo game, the first and second game in the Famicom Detective Club series ranked 46th and 14th respectively (see here).  Actually, the second one beat out such classics as Super Mario World,  Donkey Kong Country, Kirby Super Star, and Super Mario Bros. 3.  So while it may seem like an odd choice, it has some prescience.

Unknown Series

The year is 2001.  Super Smash Brothers Melee just came out on the Gamecube.  Exciting.  But there is this new secret character, Marth.  Who the heck was Marth?  And Roy?  Well, turns out these guys are from Fire Emblem series which is a popular series in Japan.  But it never came out anywhere else.  However, people came to really like these characters.  Actually, Roy was particularly popular, likely because he was more user friendly than Marth.  However, the fact that they were unknown didn't stop people from liking them.  In fact, it was also what prompted the release of the Fire Emblem games in the western world, and with the exception of one game, every Fire Emblem game has come out in the west since the 6th game (Roy's game).

In my article regarding King K Rool, I noted that one of the reasons he wouldn't be in is notoriety.  Of course, you have to make the game to appeal to as many people as possible, I'm not sure if this is the best idea.  Melee proved that people will like characters even if they aren't well known.  Heck, look at characters like the Ice Climbers and Mr. Game and Watch who are pretty obscure as well.  That didn't stop fans from embracing them.  It also adds some variety to the roster as well.  I'm not saying there should be a ton of off ball characters, but both Takamaru and Ayumi would make good candidates as both of them have a strong history.  Heck, it seems that even Nintendo wants Takamaru back as he has a minigame in Nintendo Land and his game was released worldwide not too long ago.
As an aside of Takamaru, I did find it interesting that his game had a medley with out a character oir stage.  I guess this is the reason why.  Also, Takuraru's games are defiantly ones that could spawn an entire series were there enough demand for it.