Got lazy/burnt out

Even worse was Peach/Daisy, because on release they had distinct mechanical differences between the characters, but like halfway through the first fighter's pack they removed the differences between them, and never did anything to make them different after. At least Dark Samus has some moves with different element properties and animation differences that can make interactions unique between the two.

Duuddee ikr i was soooo upset when i first player her when ultimate launced and she didnt have her assist trophy moves

@@GrimYaeger That's because canonical Samus is so over powered that differencing Samus and Dark Samus would cause some balance problems.

​@@orangeslash1667 This game has Kirby, actual Goddes Palutena, reincarnated Goddeses Zelda, people who have killed gods and/or received blessings from gods, evil incarnate Ganondorf, etc. fighting a dog&duck, the AC Villager, fitness trainers, a boxer whose first apparition in Smash was as an assist trophy, etc. as equals. Balance goes out the window in Smash. Dark Samus' moveset could have been different and be as balanced as everyone else. It was a shame she ended up a clone.

leftover code from smash 4 😭

Yeah, I do think it would've been cooler if the picked up some Sarassaland themed objects with her B down move as a difference maker.

Yeah they went from bad echo fighters where one was strictly better, to just identical clones... It would have been better to make them more different

If anything they could give daisy peach moveset she had in melee

​@@Masaru_kun Even something as simple as having Daisy deal slightly more damage on physical attacks, a higher ground speed/jump height, and no float to reflect how most of her appearances are from the sports games, while Peach would have more damage with "magic‐element" attacks/turnips, higher air speed and retain float to keep more in line with the magical theming Peach and Zelda have had since Brawl.

I think the only way they can top ultimate is if you go like 35-50 characters but they’re FULLY fleshed out. We need a Mario move set that features something that’s not based just on 64 and Sunshine for example (ik cappy and p coins but that’s visual) Or a legitimate move set for Ganondorf.

@@callumloader8713 dude I agree. I wouldn't mind a Super Smash Bros Ultimate "Deluxe" for the Switch 2, kinda how like they ported Mario Kart, but honestly, I would loooove a reduced roster with fully fleshed out and updated moves. I also want SKINS man!

I’m also on Team Reboot, I really care about keeping every single character I mean they already had their chance at being playable, let other characters who’ve never been playable before get their chance.

@@callumloader8713 For the next Smash I want a fresh, new, made from the ground up game; not the same assets and stuff ported for who knows how many times now. Every other fighting game franchise has cuts between games. Smash fans have been spoiled by Sakurai's unhealthy hoarding habit. Smash 6 doesn't have to be Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, it can be MVC3.

@@callumloader8713 Ganondorf is that he has the Triforce of Power, so his moveset needs to reflect that. The problem is how to due you properly balance power in a fighting game???????? It really shows that some characters are a lot easier to design than others based on concept.

Yeah, I was gonna say this. In the Prime games Dark Samus only bears a resemblance to Samus physically. Her actual moveset is completely different, so while I'm happy Dark Samus is in the game, it's very much a wasted opportunity, especially given her Smash 4 assist trophy actually had some of her unique moves already.

@@WhitePointerGaming Yeah, a lot of echoes are just the epitome of wasted potential, outside of Ken since that's the whole point of his existence in general and they did a great job pulling from his more varied fighting styles from street fighter 3 onwards. But for the others I'd rather they not be in the game at all or just be alt costumes if all that was gonna be done were some stat changes or just visual flair. And even if changes get made if there's a new smash, it'll just be like the Ganondorf situation given history. Though I'd like if they proved me wrong.

@@MagillanicaLouM Some echoes have been de-cloned and redesigned over time though, like Luigi, Falco and Roy, so it can happen. But you're right, the chances of any of them receiving significant changes at this point, especially the new ones they introduced in Ultimate, are probably pretty slim. They are more likely to be removed in the next game than redesigned.

@@WhitePointerGaming tbh she was more scary as an assist trophy all the tentacles n shi

This was going to be the case in smash 4 I’m assuming when chrom was the original rep instead of Robin

@Eternal Indifference That POOR EXCUSE is why people thought she was boring! Attack animations from Awakening could still have been added!

​@Eternal Indifference Not a cutscene bro, it's the entire first half of the game she pretends to be "Marth". It actually makes some sense that she's a Marth echo fighter because Chrom never taught her how to fight in his style of combat because he literally dies in her timeline. What's baffling is the option to make Chrom a Roy echo, though I guess with his style of combat, it makes more sense to be a Roy echo fighter than Marth. I'm still pissed off that Ike can't shoot out projectiles though or the fact he's so damn slow when he was decently fast in his game.

@@kimoota-kun ​ Chrom never told her how to fight? Dude, Chrom and Lucina’s literal conversion when they were fighting was Chrom: “who taught you how to fight”, Lucina: “My Father” with the literal cutscene this dialogue is taken from SHOWING that they fight the same. Lucina also performs the same upward aether attack that Chrom does. Go one step further and outside of cinematics and instead gameplay and it makes less sense for why Lucina should echo Marth. While Marth is technically also of the “lord” class in Fire Emblem, more recent entries have made his class lodestar, a type of lord, but clearly meant to differ from the lord class that Chrom and Lucina are tied to, almost to say that they aren’t the same.

@@kimoota-kun Lucina literally says in Awakening that Chrom taught her how to fight. In the arena Ferox cutscene they are evenly matched 1 to 1. Take this further into Fire Emblem Warriors, Lucina and Chrom have almost the exact same moveset.

Lol

yeah they are literally completely different

If Ninten got in how would you envision him? Personally I’d see him as a Ness/Shulk Hybrid with Buffing and Debuffing PSI Abilities with a Mewtwo Recovery and him using his Bat more than Ness and maybe his Boomerang, yes you can equip him with a Boomerang in Earthbound Beginnings.

search brawlfan1 ninten

Yeah, they're basically as different as Fox/Wolf and Mario/Luigi lol

Not really.

@@nydeity9100 Yes, really. Teams have deadlines, and resources, and they're only going to put in so much. Echo Fighters take fewer resources, so they can make it in. And unless you're making the argument "there are not enough unique characters in Smash Ultimate" it doesn't really make sense to demand that they make more unique characters.

​@@nydeity9100 Yes, really. It has been stated that echoes were created because all that was needed was a new model and a couple of move tweaks.

You know what? For cases like daisy/peach and Simon/richter, I’d prefer nothing or the echo being an alternate costume over having two functionally identical characters who add nothing in terms of gameplay. Even the alternate costume method would likely have been (marginally) less time consuming than implementing them as echo fighters

@@dakoriolf Sakurai really likes his references.

Ganondorf is that he has the Triforce of Power, so his moveset needs to reflect that. The problem is how to due you properly balance power in a fighting game???????? It really shows that some characters are a lot easier to design than others based on concept.

@@orangeslash1667 Various Zelda games have given plenty of abilities for Ganondorf, which Smash Bros completely ignored. Ocarina of Time: Ganondorf freely flies, or at least freely hovers. Phantom Ganon is armed with a trident, fires an electric orb, effectively teleports through paintings, and can create decoy images. Ganondorf has a strong diving punch with a wide area of effect, lobs a electric orb projectile and also charges up for a homing multi-shot projectile. Ganondorf has some form of "darkness" energy attack. You could argue that Ganondorf can naturally reflect projectiles by hitting them, or you could argue that is instead a property of his basic projectile (as Link can also reflect them.) Wind Waker: Ganondorf can fight unarmed, but dual wields two long swords for the real fight. Instead of flight, he has a floaty jump that can deliver fast horizontal movement. Unarmed, he punches Link (and seems to have a martial arts stance at one point) and backhands Zelda hard enough to knock her out of the battle. Armed, he has a few wide sword swings, a spinning attack, and a flippy jump. He blocks front attacks with his swords. Twilight Princess: As Zelda Puppet Ganondorf (Ganondorf possesses Zelda's body), he flies freely, uses her sword to launch/reflect his OoT electric projectile, and summons a triangular area of effect attack. As Dark Beast Ganon, he teleports while dashing forward with attempted goring attacks. As Ganondorf riding his horse, he uses a rather long sword one-handed and fires a circling orb that breaks into multiple projectiles. As Ganondorf on foot, he still has that long sword which he uses for a variety of attacks. He has a running slash, a thrust, a wide swing, a spin, and also does a rushing elbow into sword swing combo. He has both a quick evasive jump and a high vertical leap that he follows with a sword attack. He also tends to block front attacks with his sword. Link to the Past: This is pig-monster Ganon instead of Ganondorf, but he has enough moves to warrant using him as an example. He fights with a trident that he can spin and throw like a boomerang. He can summon a ring of fireballs that circle around him. He can temporarily expand that fireball ring, and he can transform the fireballs into firebats that fly away. He can summon a firebat that flies in a spiral while setting fires on the ground. He can summon a firebat that flies in a straight line while leaving a fire trail. He has a jumping stomp that temporarily stuns. He has an afterimage dash/teleport. He can turn invisible.

Smash identity is a serious problem for a lot of characters. Ike for example is not remotely similar how he is in his own game but at the same time more people have played smash ike than fire emblem ike. It's gotten so bad that ike in recent fire emblem games is smash ike and not fire emblem ike.

@@BainesMkII The problem is giving Ganondorf all that stuff would make him broken. Characters like R.O.B, Game and Watch don't have this problem because their not very strong in their games, so Sakurai made them more powerful. It's a sad fact that overpowered characters have to be extremely nerfed for Smash.

@@gameboyn64 The problem is that Radiant Dawn doesn't look great for Wii standers, and two the game has very annoying map design.

@Eternal Indifference it's a shame too. I've never played Awakening, but I really like them as characters. They deserve better.

Right? Like the video said, Daisy should've been more offense/combo oriented compared to peach. Her specials should also refer to the Mario sports, party, and kart games imo

@@ghifariasoka8272 Heck, I would have been fine if they had just given her her triple jump from Super Mario Run instead of float. Bam, changes her character completely.

@@kicksyo2171 I've seen people make Waluigi moveset revolving around the spinoff games and Daisy could've followed a similar route. Replace her Bob-Ombs with the ¿ Blocks (not as much damage but stuns, allowing for combo starters), and replace her Toad with a Crazee Dayzee (less knockback but deals more damage)

Heck even just giving Daisy a Baseball Bat in one of her angled forward smashes would’ve been cool. Personally I’d sacrifice the Golf Club for it.

More like Kirby and Puff. Yeah, they have similitudes like size and weaknesses, but they differ in so many things is just not similar enough to be compared.

I’m the opposite the only confirm I consistently hit with Chrom is Nair-Fsmash… His knockback is worse for kill setups compared too Roy for me. Granted I do enjoy them both but they each definitely have their own flaws

While he does have a bit less kill power than Roy, it's not by a crazy amount and he doesn't lack for kill setups. Jab bair is an execution barrier, but you still have jab fsmash, dtilt tech chase kills, fthrow tech chase kills, fthrow to pivot cancel ftilt being a good chaser. Stray bairs and ftilts. Side b kills decently too, it just looks weak compared to Roy's ridiculous side b.

Profile pic checks out

Honestly I love chroms up B. When there was speculation for him being a character in smash 4 I always thought it would be cool for him to have an aether style up B and years later when he had it in ultimate I was so happy. Sure it might be a terrible recovery but the fact that they did it warms my heart😂

@@branman968 fthrow tech chases dont work with di up

I almost feel like Ken is an Echo instead of a regular fighter simply because of his history in Street Fighter, where he was also a direct clone of Ryu's moveset. Otherwise it'd be more like Isabelle compared to Villager, where they just happen to have similar moves because of the franchise.

@@lasercraft32 pretty much yeah. Even in Street fighter past early versions of 2, him and Ryu have so much different stuff going on in moveset and playstyle

Lucina was considered worse then Marth in her debut game, it’s more a case of how the specific game works then one being fundamentally better then the other.

@@-AirKat- But not so worse it was bad or even mediocre. Even in smash 4 she was an upper high tier, barely below Marth. Lucina is in roughly the same spot as before while Marth plummeted due to the faster nature of the game.

I also want to brin attention to Richter. The whole "Simon and Richter are echoes of each other" is a BS excuse.

Nope they have one singular difference (holy water) so they're technically different characters

@@randomcatname7792 a diference that might as well not even be there

@@Buzterer not true! Richter has a slightly better matchup against Olimar because his fire can kill red pikmin!

@@coqui9879 Again, such a specific, almost negligible difference that it might as well not even be there. Not only is that a difference that literally affects one matchup, but it doesn't even change how the matchup works. Olimar has six possible pikmin, and this difference makes it so a single attack can or can't hurt a single one of his 6 possible pikmin. Whoop di doo. It's asinine.

@@randomcatname7792 which isn’t relevant in 95% of matchups and even in the ones where it is usually don’t determine the outcome of the game. It’s like a 1 in 10,000 chance that picking one or the other actually makes a difference

Why isn't Alph an echo

@@raizokite240 the thing is he WAS supposed to be a clone of Olimar in smash 4 that utilised rock Pikmin instead. And Doc, Lucina and Dark Pit were just skins. Then they went ahead and swapped them round

@@thegiraffegang8315 Didn't know that and I'm going to blindly believe you without looking it up

Yeah but like you, I don't agree. I really don't think a stat difference and mario tornado is enough at all to warrant Dr not just being made a costume in ultimate lol. Its literally the same guy, no one will care and mains can adjust and don the lab coat.

Isn’t Isabelle a semi-clone?

I'm fine with the Pits being the way they are.

@@kappadarwin9476 tbh but dark pit deserves better

Although Alph and the koopalings could all easily have their own unique movesets too tbh. I'm fine with the koopas purely because the sheer number of them would be too much on the devs but Alph I feel was definitely done dirty lol.

​@EternalIndifference Just not having source accurate movesets in general is a problem with Smash. Look at Ganondorf. I know he has multiple iterations with different powers and abilities, which is why I would love for them to reintroduce something similar to the custom moves from Smash 4 except they include those varying abilities and moves across his multiple iterations that you can pick and choose from without trying to cram them all in one character.

@@EternalIndifference Honestly echo fighters are just a way to claim to have more characters to choose from when in reality its not more choice its just x version or y version of x version. Fe is not very well represented in smash in general despite the abundance of music and stages. Its funny how sakurai really chooses who they get creative with and who they don't and people will defend these horrible design decisions regardless.

@Eternal Indifference of course, I’d be referring to characters that would make sense to be echos being treated this way. With a bit of work, I fully believe that Dark Pit and Daisy could work as echo fighters because they make sense to mirror their counterparts (not Dark Samus because original Samus needs a full rework before either side could work). But Lucina makes full sense to me to be a Marth echo fighter. In fact, I find it excessively weird that she wasn’t like that in the first place. I haven’t played the game myself yet (in the backlog) pretending to be Marth was a major part in her story, then playing like he did would lean into this more and, if it was the intent, could fool longtime fans better. The only good reason I could see Lucina needing to play differently than Marth is if the player is told that it is Lucina in disguise early on and they are deliberately trying to show the difference between the two.

@@lancehvu I would not say that smash overall represents characters badly but there are certainly a few notably bad outliers (Sonic, Gannondorf, Samus). Otherwise, I think they do a fantastic job.

@@dave9515 not well represented?? Don’t they have the most characters after the Mario franchise? How much more representation do you want?

health?

For the h y p e

Every nair1 into knee i land adds 1 year to my lifespan

1) he's hype 2) he's fun You're welcome

What other Falcon players besides Fatality and Sean?

Captain Masher.

Well then you have to consider the fact that it makes those characters less likely to get their own unique move set in the future. Now that Daisy’s her own character and not just a skin, it’s less likely that they’ll make her more distinct from Peach in the future. It’s not impossible, but far less likely. Plus if you’re going to have a completely different character in a completely separate slot, then I don’t think it’s asking too much of the developers to just change _something_ like frame data or runspeed or just anything to make them feel like more than just a skin of the original.

Characters have alternate skins with their unique voices (mainly the koopalings). Isn’t there an inconsistency on why some are alternate skins and others their own character if they are basically the same thing?

​@@UniversalName -The koopalings are 7 characters, if you throw them into a single slot, you need 1 more; you either mash them with Bowser Jr or you don't have them. -Ike is literally the same character. We are not giving him two character slots. -Alph has no unique soun effects. -Leaf either goes as a Pokemon Trainer skin or is not there. Giving her a character slot is making three new playable characters. Am I missing someone?

I agree. While yes, you could have done more with them, I find them to be enough and perfectly fine.

@@thunderd7904 I agree with you. Yes it does lessen the chance of getting unique attacks. However, some of these characters probably would have never made it in unless they were echoes, so o think that it kinda evens out that way. I don’t think they’d ever add daisy as a fully fledged fighter but she has the chance to shine as an echo

True, a lot of these echos are in the game BECAUSE they're similar enough or have connections to already existing characters, Dark Samus, Daisy, Chrom and other characters like them would absolutely not be in Smash if they had to make them unique.

Exactly. If anyone has problem with them existing the only other option is that we have less characters in the cast, with no one new taking their place.

@@lucasferro6050 But at that point for Daisy or Dark Samus, they may as well be like *Alph*, a different skin. I'd rather them be a skin than a character with little to no significant difference.

@@amistake5110 But those two characters have unique effects attached to their moves, with Daisy's flowers replacing Peach's hearts and Dark Samus releasing phazon energy in a lot of its attacks AND both have unique taunts, idle animations and win screens, they're not JUST a costume swap, unlike Alph who is just a costume and nothing more. Imo these differences are enough to separate them

@@lucasferro6050 That does make me think what Lucina would be like if Sakurai went with his first idea of making her a costume for Marth...

But then if they’re basically identical in terms of gameplay, why not just have them be a costume instead of ending up giving them different records for stuff like GSP and home run contest?

I'd rather have Damus as an Assist trophy high key. We got Ridley, he's enough for a villain of metroid. I'd rather Daisy and Richter have also been assists, in fact EVERY ECHO THAT IS NOT KEN I'D RATHER HAVE HAD AS AN ASSIST TROPHY!

In general, fighting game clone characters can be cool because they can offer a new way to play an established character. Its just a couple of the Smash clones dont and it feels like a glorified costume rather than a new fighter. Btw, I want to learn how to mod ultimate. I want to give Kazuya the ability to KBD (among other things)!

​@@robertgeorge4602 The best you could do is give him a reverse Mist Step, which would cause issues outside of 1v1 where he's forced to face his opponent.

@@espurrseyes42 Ive heard its possible because HewDraw Remix had in the patch notes that you can crouch cancel Kazuya's backdash. I just have no idea how to mod.

There's a mod for Doc that changes most of his moves... *he has the people's elbow, and it spikes...why couldn't Doc have this in the actual game?*

You're right, but chrom wasn't in smash 4 and roy was dlc. I guess they thought Lucina was more important than chrom so she was added in smash 4 and given marth's moveset. Plus in awakening she pretends to be marth. Then in Ultimate having 2 marth clones would be too much so chrom was based on roy, who was originally a marth clone anyway

I guess given the time travel in Awakening you could say that Future Chrom refined his sword style over time so by the time he was teaching Lucina how to fight, it was more similar to Marth's, whereas the Chrom that ended up in Smash Bros is the one from Awakening's main timeline, who was younger and rougher around the edges, leading to his fighting style resembling Roy's more chaotic, aggressive style. This is very much working backwards to justify it though, and the only real evidence that the game has to Chrom and Lucina fighting differently is their animations (Chrom pulling his sword out of the ground at the beginning of fights and stuff)

@@raizokite240 I mean yeah, that's the reason she is the way she is in Smash, and that makes total sense. Narratively speaking though, with what Awakening shows and explains, it doesn't make sense

I guess Sakurai based Lucina solely off the fact that she masqueraded as "Marth" for the first small part of Awakening, which is incredibly short-sighted from a design perspective.

@inplane 100% Hard agree but like I main her so meh

Yeah, removing the echo fighters wouldn’t mean that [insert favorite characters] get in, just that that you removed echoes fighters

Yeah, that's what I thought, too. I feel like I'm missing something in this video. If Sakurai and co. had unlimited time and resources, echo fighters would be completely unique. Fox and Falco are so different because the team had literally four games to flesh out their differences. If I only have 10 minutes, I couldn't draw you a completely new character, but I *could* trace an old one and just change the face.

Indeed. Remove all 8 echo fighters from melee and we would only had 20 characters instead of 26. That's something a lot of players don't see. Also, sometimes a design can be fixed with surprisingly few tweaks (Bayonetta) or ruined with few tweaks (Luigi). The high amount of echo fighters in ultimate is a byproduct of "everyone is there". With so many characters there's no time for identity.

I wonder how many echo fighters worth of work it takes to make 1 whole new character...

@@NormalGayBro I think Sakurai said in melee that it took 3-4 times the effort to make an original character than an echo fighter, or something in those lines.

That's kind of the problem with a lot of legacy characters. Their original smash iteration doesn't really represent how they are in their original games yet they gain a following in smash and become difficult to change. I would really like to see ganon be more like zelda ganon but i also really like stomping on people with dair

@@gameboyn64 There's a very easy way to satisfy both audiences that the Smash team just doesn't do. Ganondorf could be given his own unique moveset while his old moveset could be passed down to a new F-Zero character (like Black Shadow for example). That would satisfy the people who want Ganon to have a moveset that represents his appearances in his home series, people who like Ganondorf's current moveset, and people who just want a new F-Zero character added to the roster.

@@SonicTheCutehog that would probably piss off more people. Fans of smash ganon will get mad that their character was made to play in a way that's unrecognizable. Meanwhile f zero fans will get mad that their new character is both extremely lazy in design and bad.

@@gameboyn64 The moveset would still be in the game and Ganondorf would be given a moveset that represents how he is in his games. Besides, we all know that's the only way another F-Zero character will get in the game.

Then make skins like the Koopalings. No reason to waste the extra effort of implementing a few alternate moves and animations and having a 2nd or 3rd or 4th version of a character to balance instead of just condensing them to 1.

But then they accidentally gave him chromikaze which was insane.

Definitely disagree with the Samus Dark Samus part. If it was Samus and the SA-X, then ya, they could be nigh identical and even though it’d still be stupid, it’d also make sense. Dark Samus, on the other hand, is not a clone of Samus in canon. Dark Samus is the Metroid Prime that absorbed Samus’s Phazon suit and essentially uses it as a foundation for its abilities. In game, it uses completely different attacks to Samus; usually centering around Phazon. I see 0 justification for why they couldn’t at least make charge shot move slower or increase its air speed while decreasing its ground speed. Simple easy changes that give you a reason to prefer one over the other even if Dark Samus definitely deserves a complete move set overhaul akin to Project M EX Remix.

Peach used to have different moves in Melee such as a different up air and the Peach Bomber which made an opponent catch on fire, she even had Smash 4 Custom Moves which they could’ve pulled from to make Daisy Unique.

@@thunderd7904 your right SA-X would definitely be a better fit for a clone but dark Samus fit the theme of 1 hero 1 villain better. The "justification" for clones is basically filler for time constraints. It's been like that since melee really. The smash games that have no clones are the ones that had a decent amount of development time. Melee and ult were made in 2-3 years an ult released with over 60 characters. So I feel like the thought process behind the clones was to fill up a roster space with a fan service character that they basically don't need to tweak beyond a few attributes. Dark Samus looks like samus so just let them play like samus. I'm sure if dark Samus comes back in another game that they'll have a completely different move set that's usually what happens with clones.

@@brandonwilliams6119 I think the reason they didn't go for it the custom moves because they didn't want the clones to be vastly different balance-wise. Which is why they opted for more subtle changes. I don't exactly remember what peaches custom moves are but I do remember a lot of those custom moves being stupid when it came to balance. If they gave Daisy a custom move and then had to spend time balancing it that would have defeated the purpose of her being a clone in the first place which is to save time and effort. Now I'm not saying they couldn't have tried harder but that clearly wasn't their prerogative.

@@crasyman101 yes, but if you’re not going to truly distinguish the clone from the source, I feel like there’s no point. And it’s not like it’s that hard to either, like I said, literally just a few number tweaks to their attributes would’ve been enough. The most ironic thing about Dark Samus is that they distinguished her through a few animation differences, which is much more time consuming, rather than a few number differences which is much easier. IMO, a good, justified clone is someone like Melee Falco. Almost the exact same animations for each move, but just differences between the angles the moves send at + a couple other things. And again, making new animations is way harder than just changing some numbers so I don’t see why they’d go through the effort of giving Dark Samus new animations without also changing some numbers.

Man these bots are really everywhere

Always hated how Dark Pit holds his Staff in his renders but it’s only a Final Smash, you’re really telling me Sakurai couldn’t make it a neutral special?

@@brandonwilliams6119 What would Dark Pit's Final Smash be then????

But would it be possible, If Sakurai didn't do it then it must be impossible?????

I don't think that's entirely fair. To me, the "echo fighter" designation seems to indicate that they're _not_ just trying to artificially inflate the number of fighters. Nintendo is clearly acknowledging that they're not actually distinct enough to get their own fighter numbers. Do I think they should've done a little more with these characters? Absolutely. But I think this viewpoint is a little too cynical.

They’re just bonus content, mostly for people that dont care that much about gameplay differences, I wouldnt bothered to play peach if it wasnt for daisy as an echo. Same for samus/darksamus and simon/richter, I play them all because I like metroid and castlevania.

Yeah, chrom's bad recovery has several negative side effects that limit what he can do compared to roy or much of the cast. He cant double jump in neutral or disadvantage as much because getting knocked off stage without a double jump is instant death.

At least chromicide kills the opponent first. Ganon's side-b was done dirty in every way.

@@wickd6878 chromicide doesn't work like that any more. Unless chrom only hit his opponent on the way down chrom dies first

@@gameboyn64 at a decent percent, and I mean like over 50, it takes the opponent first, (unless you're way high) The 0-death may not work, but for a majority of a match, it's available to chrom

@@wickd6878 I'm fairly sure chrom up b uses fixed knockback but i haven't verified that

True!

It makes sense from a design standpoint, because otherwise he would virtually be an objectively better Mario like he was in Melee. They might've overdone it with the negative multiplier stats though

@@SB2749 Not as likely with the way Mario is now. Even if they have equal speed stats, Doc would still only have a kill power advantage. Mario would still have better jump height, B height, recovery and combos. As well as less landing lag on shared ariels.

I think most of the effort on ultimate was to update the engine to be a medium point between melee and smash 4 instead of just brawl without tripping, because no, replicating Melee is not that good of an idea due to accesibility issues.

Isabelle is a semiclone like Ken

you can actually stack them in the same slot, effectively making them skins, if that bothers you too much.

@@ayar2 I mean that's really just a visual band aid. It's not solving the feeling that about 1/8 of the cast or so are minor iterations or just duplicates of the same templates. I don't mind it for Ultimate so much mostly because the "Everyone is Here" idea kind of required all the filler clones to be brought back, but I don't think that large numbers of clones/semi clones should be used to pad the numbers on future rosters. I also think that clones should and likely will be the first place to trim roster bloat for any future installment.

@@TheEmperorGulcasa the reality is that clones and echo fighters dont really take roster slots from other characters, because most likely than not are last minute additions, some of them having little to no differences due to the same tight schedule, making them basically harmless. besides, you may not like clones, and think it would be best to just get rid of them, but there also players who dont mind the playstyles and just like the characters by themselves, I for example cant stand peach character wise, but daisy alone made me play the character regardless, same with samus and dark samus, I play both because i like metroid. I ll be fine if they become skins in the next game, but inevitably there will be new ones that will take their place.

@@ayar2 How much dev time they take on the back end is relatively immaterial to public perception. I do understand why they are produced and some number can't be helped probably. I don't mind it in a few cases, such as Lucina having a lore reason to be similar to Marth (although they could easily say she's kind of like Marth and leave her with Chrom's moveset in the future and just cut roy and chrom). I don't mind characters getting represented, like Daisy or Dark Samus, but in their cases I think being total clones does them a disservice. They could have been at least given a nominal mechanical difference, like Lucina vs Marth. Even ones that have had it like Gannon to Falcon still feels like something of a lazy inclusion. Ultimately though, I think like Brawl cutting Doc, Pichu and Roy was the right decision and that will likely be the right decision for future entries. There are a couple instances that are justified, like Ryu and Ken, but for the most part I think they should be avoided.

@@TheEmperorGulcasa It all depends on: 1.-If Nintendo wants another installment 2.-Who`s gonna direct it 3.-What approach said director will take for the game. that last one is the more important, because if they go for less characters but more unique movesets they will risk losing a great portion of the playerbase because nobody likes when there`s less characters than the last game (3rd party characters absences are justified because they have their own licensing troubles, some more than others, Its more likely that sonic, megaman or pacman will return than joker, cloud or sora). but Im sure they will still prioritize their bigger market and find an acceptable compromise.

Especially when half of the moveset comes from Richter anyhow. They could have had Simon focus more on traditional zoning by giving him more angleable whip attacks and a different up b, while Richter plays more like Young Link where he focuses on using his projectiles to rush down opponents. I think they were going for a more "generalized" moveset for the Belmonts, but that makes it even more bizarre that Simon is the primary when nearly everything down to the idle animations is from Richter. Not everything ofc, but up b, dash attack, the idles, the down tilt, etc. Most of the important moves. They could give Simon a better whip dangle, have him swing around with the whip more, maybe give him the leather whip even? There's still potential to make Simon different. You could make Simon have worse mobility and air stats to have him represent the more rough movement of the old games, and keep Richter with the same mobility they have now to have him represent the newer,, more athletic Belmonts. They could have even given Simon Grand Cross for his Final Smash and given Richter Hydro Storm!

@Saben .C [Spoon] I completely agree. Simon could've had some moves from Simon's Quest like his up special could've been using a red crystal which causes a tornado like Hero. Heck, Simon could've kept the normal specials and Richter could've different specials like a rebound stone or daggers or even athletic attacks like he has in some games. I get they are a generalize moveset but still think they could've done difference. Heck Richter's holy water shouldbe traveled across the floor. O could go on but you get the point.

@@thomashuff7976 If Richter was as fast as Symphony of the Night he would be broken. At least the costumes are cool.

@@orangeslash1667 especially if he could use his dash attack in the air like he does and his uppercut was as good.

@@thomashuff7976 Again that would be busted. Which is why Symphony of the night references are kept to a minimum. Fun Fact: Indiana Jones was the inspiration for the Belmont Whip.

Yes, recycling custom moves with some tweeks would have been such a great use of them.

@@Lira_orpheus Yeah, a shame because a lot of those moves are really interesting and added new life to a ton of characters. Giving some custom moves to base fighters (like Marth gets Iai counter) would have been another way to create differences.

I think dark samus's charge shot is slightly lower and maybe her up smash or something. Dark samus has slightly different animations so hurtbox shifting is a thing

Nope, there’s literally no difference other than her movement animations like rolling, jumping, running, etc. actually I take that back: some of Samus’s attacks like fair are fire while some of Dark Samus’s aren’t. Definitely doesn’t justify an entire character slot.

@@thunderd7904 From the wiki Dark Samus' shield is slightly smaller Both of Dark Samus' rolls have less ending lag than Samus's Dark Samus does not use her Morph Ball when rolling, and she does not somersault while double jumping or jumping backward. This makes her hurtbox larger during those animations. All of Dark Samus' smash attacks have altered animations. This slightly influences the horizontal range of all versions of forward smash, with the unangled version having marginally less horizontal range, while the up and down angled versions have marginally increased horizontal range. However, Dark Samus does not move back as quickly during forward smash's ending lag. This makes it slightly less safe than Samus' version. This allows up smash to hit shorter opponents more reliably than Samus' version at the cost of KOing grounded opponents slightly later. Charge Shot has an altered animation, in which Dark Samus performs the move one-handed. This results in the projectile being fired at a slightly lower elevation, but her hurtbox is taller during the animation compared to Samus' version, making her easier to hit. This allows Charge Shot to hit low-profiling opponents more easily. However, this makes it slightly easier for opponents to jump over the projectile Dark Samus' animations for firing a Homing and Super Missile are different. She does not hunch over as much as Samus does when firing a Homing Missile, making her hurtbox taller and easier to hit. Her animation for firing a Super Missile in the air is much longer than Samus' version.

@@gameboyn64 ok but these differences still aren’t enough to strongly prefer one over the other and again, will rarely ever affect the final outcome of a battle

Steve players play completely differently from each other. Steve is one of the characters with the most varieties of play styles out of all characters in Smash

I'm sure that has to do more with how developed the meta of melee had become. People has different playstyles but you need the same fundamental basis. Even on the most limited characters you can notice differences in between players, as we see between Peanut and Alternis. The reason we don't see that many discrepancies is because the roster is bigger, and there's plenty of options to choose (64 tournament viable options from 19) but not much more players, meaning is more difficult to see repeats of characters.