Hey everyone, I hope things are going well for you all. After today, we will be officially half way through the confirmed roster for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. We are definitely going to cover a few of the lesser known characters in today’s post so this will be a fun one as we are starting to get out of the realm of characters even I am less familiar on. With that out of the way, it is time to dive back into the characters.
Mr. Game & Watch: The only 2D fighter of Super Smash Bros. it will surprise no one that Mr. Game & Watch is the oldest character in the game, rivaled only by Pac-Man whose first game also came out in 1980. The Game & Watch games were created by Gunpei Yokoi, the man who would later produce Metroid and Kid Icarus. Their inspiration came one day when Yokoi was riding the train and he happened to spy a bored businessman playing with his calculator. From that stroke of inspiration, Yokoi want to create a machine that would double as a watch and an actual game that could be used to kill time when traveling from place to place. The end result were a series of pocket electronic games that doubled as alarm watches. The Game & Watch systems would eventually lay the groundwork and inspiration for the Nintendo Gameboy, the company’s first handheld gaming console.
Meta Knight: Arguably more popular for his infamy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl then for his role in the Kirby games, Meta Knight is a curious character in the Kirby lore. Sometimes he is an ally and sometimes he is an antagonist. The only thing consistent about Meta Knight’s motivations is their inconsistency. Meta Knight is the same species as Kirby and as such looks like a black Kirby when his mask is off. Most people know that Meta Knight in Brawl was so powerful that he was the only character ever to be banned from official tournaments and that he was a main supporting character in the Kirby Anime, Kirby: Right Back At Ya! but I bet not a lot of people know who did his voice work in the English Dub of the show? Meta Knight’s English Voice Actor is Eric Stuart an actor probably better known for the voices of Brock and James in the Pokemon Anime as well as Seto Kaiba from the Yu-Gi-Oh! series.
Pit: The hero of the Kid Icarus franchise, Pit is an angel guardian of Palutena, the goddess of light. He is impetuous and headstrong but has a good heart that longs for justice. Honestly he is essentially an angel version of Spider-Man quips and all. Most of his characterization comes from the 2012 game Kid Icarus: Uprising which revived his franchise after it had laid dormant for over 20 years. Because of that huge gap in time between releases in his official series, there are many things the average video game player does not know about Pit despite these facts being outlined in his official series. One of the most interesting Pit facts that people should know, but a surprising amount of people do not is that Pit despite being an angel and captain of Palutena’s guard, Pit cannot fly on his own. He needs to be granted the power of flight by Palutena. This is a reference to his game’s inspiration in the Greek Myth of Icarus, the son of Daedalus. Daedalus made himself and his son wings so they could fly away from their imprisonment. Icarus made the mistake of flying too close to the sun, causing the wax on the wings to melt and thus he fell into the sea.
Dark Pit: Pit’s mirror double and Echo fighter, Dark Pit was born when Pit shattered the Mirror of Truth. For those unfamiliar with Kid Icarus: Uprising, one would be forgiven for assuming that Dark Pit is evil and stands in stark opposition to Pit. In fact, Dark Pit is actually an Anti-hero and not an actual villain. He will sometimes help Pit and sometimes attack Pit, depending on what he wants to do. It is more accurate to call him Pit’s rival than Pit’s enemy. In fact, it is revealed in Palutena’s guidance conversation from Samsh 4 that Dark Pit decided to side not with Hades or Medusa against Palutena, but with the Nature Goddess Viridi, the 3rd neutral party in Uprising. For a last fun bit of trivia about Dark Pit, one of his nicknames in the Japanese version of Uprising is ‘Burapi’ a scrunching together of his Japanese name Black Pit that sounds an awful lot like the name of famous actor, Brad Pitt.
Zero Suit Samus: Once Samus’ iconic Orange Power Suit is stripped away, what we are left with is Samus in her Zero Suit. This suit while not nearly as powerful as the Power Armor, is useful for missions that require Samus’ ability to move and be stealthy to be at her utmost. It is actually when stripped down to her Zero Suit that one gets the best look at just how superhuman Samus is. Canonically, she can jump over 40 Ft in the air, which is no surprise when you consider she is at most a third human these days. As Samus currently stands in her series, she is one part human, one part Chozo, and one part Metroid. She was born human but was later adopted by a race of Bird people called the Chozo and infused with their DNA. Later when Samus comes into contact with a hostile force known as the X-Parasite, she is badly wounded and her life is only saved thanks to a vaccine that infused her with Metroid DNA.
Wario: Wario is Mario’s doppleganger and is most well known for his insatiable greed. He is meant to stand in contrast to Mario who acts out of nobility more often than not. Screw that! Wario does not have time for all this selflessness. Despite his attitude and self centered attitude, Wario has done some pretty heroic things in his history (when it has suited him). He saved a cursed princess in Warioland 4 and in Warioland 3 he rescued the inhabitants of a Music Box world from a giant clown god named Rudy. Maybe he is not such a bad guy after all. On second thought, maybe he is a bad guy because it is written in his name. Wario’s name is more than just Mario with an upside-down ‘M.’ His name is actually derived from the Japanese word ‘Warui’ which means bad, so maybe Wario is a ‘bad’ guy, but it does not necessarily make him a bad guy, does it?
Snake: Solid Snake returns after his absence from Smash 4, and he becomes the first 3rd party character I get to talk about in this series. Those familiar with the Metal Gear series know that Solid Snake is actually one of two clones of Big Boss, with the other being his brother Liquid Snake. Before Big Boss was the Big Boss, he was also Snake only he was known as Naked Snake. If you could not follow that, then welcome to the crazy love child of eccentric video game director Hideo Kojima because the franchise does not get any clearer then what I just explained. You might be wondering right now why there are so many ‘mother-trucking Snakes in this mother trucking franchise?’ Well that is because of where Snake’s origins lie. All of the Snakes in the Metal Gear Franchise are inspired by the movie character, Snake Plissken, the hero of the 1981 action movie, Escape from New York. Plissken was a cynical, no-nonsense former Army Special Forces commander conscripted into service to retrieve a secret material for a shady, dystopian, US government. This cynical, terse, yet ultimately reluctantly dutiful and effective attitude was central in the creation of the main Snakes from Metal Gear.
Ike: The Radiant Hero and main protagonist of Fire Emblem Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, Ike is young leader of the Greil Mercenaries. He took over the group from his father Greil, after he was killed in battle with the legendary Black Knight. Ike is certainly one of the most popular characters in all of Fire Emblem and it is not hard to see why. He is not a prince or a noble. He was not born into greatness, he makes himself great through his efforts and hard work. The most interesting fact I know about Ike is that his name actually has many inspirations. Ike is a shortening of the name, Isaac, and is a reference to the Biblical story of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Isaac was Abraham’s promised son and the one whom God promised to make into a great nation that will be known throughout all the earth. Similarly, Ike also becomes a son of promise, who inherits the Greil Mercenaries from his father and grows them into a great army known throughout all of the land of Tellius. Ike’s likeable character and prowess in battle is also a reference to President Dwight Eisenhower whose nickname was Ike. “We Like Ike,” the cheering phrase used in the Smash series for Ike is the exact same as Eisenhower’s campaign slogan.
Pokemon Trainer: Pokemon Trainer is unique among all the Smash characters in that he is technically 3 characters in one with Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard making up his team. Most fans of the series know that the male Pokemon Trainer is based on the character Red from the games and Manga and that his female counterpart is named Green. The three Pokemon they control are the primary, secondary, and final forms of the 3 starter Pokemon of Kanto. While there are a handful of fun facts that relate to the trainers themselves like how Red in Pokemon Sun and Moon wears a shirt with the number 96 on it as a reference to Pokemon Red and Blue’s original release year or how Green was initially planned to be a playable character in Red and Blue and would take the remain Pokemon at Professor Oak’s lab, I think for this triple entry it would be more fun to share fun facts about the 3 Pokemon the trainers use instead.
Squirtle: One of the most interesting things about Squirtle is that out of the 3 Kanto starters, more major anime characters in the anime have trained a Squirtle than any other starter. Ash, Gary, May, and Tierno have all trained Squirtles at one point or another and Squirtle was even the main character of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Anime special. While Charizard may take the cake as the most popular fully evolved Pokemon of the 3 starters, Squirtle definitely seems to be the favorite primary form of a Kanto starter.
Ivysaur: Ivysaur is the middle evolution of the Bulbasaur line and the plant on its back has transformed from a bulb into a full fledged flower. The flower itself is based of the Rafflesia genus of flowers. A fun fact about the flowers and not so much Ivysaur is that while Rafflesia flowers do like to attract insects for pollination, it actually means to attract flies and as such smells like rotting meat at times. Quite a bit different from Ivysaur’s sweet scent.
Charizard: Almost everyone who has heard of Pokemon knows of Charizard, the flying, fire breathing, not dragon, that only became a dragon after its Mega-Evolution. Its Pokedex entries state that it breaths fire hot enough to melt boulders and it can certainly be a Smash powerhouse at times. Not only is Charizard strong, but it is unique among the Pokemon in Smash Bros. in that it is the only Pokemon that has transitioned from being a Pokeball Pokemon to a full fledged fighter on the roster. Good on Charizard for working his way up.
Diddy Kong: Donkey Kong’s sidekick, best friend, and nephew if you go by the original Donkey Kong Country games, Diddy Kong makes up for what he lacks in size and strength with ingenuity, flexibility, and maneuverability. By this point in his history, Diddy is by far the second most popular member of the Kong family, but few people are aware that Diddy almost was not Diddy. The original concept for the character that would become Diddy Kong was actually going to be a redesign of Donkey Kong Jr. Rare Studios the developer of Donkey Kong Country had intended the original Donkey Kong Country game to star Donkey Kong from the Donkey Kong arcade games and his son, Donkey Kong Jr. Not liking Jr.’s new proposed look, Nintendo told Rare to either use the old concept for his look or rename the model and create a new character. They opted for the rename and thus Diddy Kong and who we now speculate is Donkey Kong III, the grandson of the original Donkey Kong, became the stars of Donkey Kong Country.
Lucas: The hero of Mother 3 (Which Still Has Not Come to the West), Lucas has come a long way since his appearance in Brawl. He and his game have stirred up quite a movement of Mother series fans who have demanded for years that Mother 3 be brought over from Japan. I do not have much experience with Mother 3, but from all the information I have seen and read about it, the story seems to be a very personal and pretty meaningful one that focuses less on conventional JRPG exploration than it does on focus and intimacy. Lucas much like his predecessors Ninten and Ness, also has a special naming convention, however unlike the previous two, Lucas’ name is not related to Nintendo, but rather the game itself. In Mother 3, Lucas has a brother who plays an important role in the game’s narrative. That brother’s name is Claus, which is an anagram of Lucas. This is meant to convey the strong bond between the two characters and convey the idea that had things gone slightly differently, Claus could have been the hero of the story instead of Lucas.