Hmm, let's see...
- Was my #1 pick for this game and was my #2 for Brawl. I've been a Megaman fan for 20 years and have wanted him in Smash since Melee so I'm absolutely thrilled to death that he made it. I absolutely love everything about his moveset so, for me, he's pretty much been the perfect addition and will easily be one of my mains but, I'll be honest, his only ability could have been for him to loudly fart and then explode violently and I'd still play as him.
- Long, long ago (circa 2005) this was one of the characters I supported the most behind Geno and Megaman. By the time Brawl was announced, I had lost all enthusiasm for supporting the character because I was so often told how stupid I was for supporting a "nonfighter" and how, if anyone was going to make the cut from Animal Crossing, it was going to be Tom Nook a billion times over. Nine years later, Villager's actually a thing
and all my enemies are dead and rotting in shallow, unmarked graves. His moveset has largely turned out how I thought it would and I've been very impressed with all the footage I've seen of him. Also, even though the Creepy Villager meme is dead, I still love and believe it's one of the best things to come out from these speculation days.
- The character that shocked the world over. The character that made half the Smash fanbase laugh themselves into insanity and the other commit seppuku. By far the trolliest character to ever grace Smash Bros. I have to say, I love her style. Simple and yet really unique. The fact that she's a joke character that isn't utter garbage like most of them has me genuinely impressed. The fact that she bounces around taking people out with yoga moves makes me feel like this character shines with Sakurai's creativity like nobody else.
- Kid Icarus Uprising is far from my favorite game but I absolutely love what they did with it. They took a basic NES game and blew it up into an engaging world with extremely likable characters, unique gameplay, and outstanding music. This game should become the text book example of how to do a reboot right
where's my Mysterious Murasame Castle reboot, Nintendo?!?. Of all the characters in the game, I came to like Palutena the most. Part mother, part friend with smarts and quirkiness thrown in. Who would have thought that a literal background character in Brawl would have such a transformation? Color me impressed. I wasn't surprised she made the cut like most of the newcomers but it's still good to see her nevertheless. I haven't seen enough of her moveset to judge her as a character yet but I like what I see so far. One thing that does bring her down for me though is Sakurai's not so subtle bias of Kid Icarus in this game and the fact that she's the only character with multiple choices for her specials is oh so convenient. If Sakurai wasn't directing the game I doubt she would have gotten in but I'm glad to see and I want to see how she develops as a fighter.
- My, my, my! What do we have here? Nobody can deny that Robin beating out Chrom was probably the biggest upset in Smash history since Wolf beat Krystal in Brawl. Despite his fans being kind of sore winners at the moment and tainting my appreciation of the character, I think it's a cool addition. I've wanted a magic weapon user in Smash for a long time now (oh Geno where art thou?) and it's nice to see that it's a reality now. Like Wii Fit Trainer, it's a good example of a character that I didn't know I wanted until they were shown off.
- Was in my top three but E3's showing of him this year largely took the wind out of my sails for being enthusiastic about him. I'm not a fan of glass cannon characters and I think the crippling weaknesses ruin a lot of his appeal to me. I, however, am holding out hope that ways will be found around these to balance him out. I guess I can't be too upset with how he turned out though because, well, he's a boxer and they usually have an "all or nothing" approach to fighting anyways. I can see him becoming like Ike for me, a character that I could barely stand because of his weaknesses but became someone I loved to play as when I got the hang of him. There's also little denying that Mac was one of the deserving first party characters for this game and he has been one of the few characters that people had almost been universally excited for.
- I'm probably one of the five people in the world that didn't go out and buy Pokemon X/Y at launch and I didn't play through it until after Greninja was revealed in April. Easily my favorite starter since Swampert in Gen 3 and definitely the best choice of a Gen 6 Pokes but I don't see him being one of my favorite Smash characters. He's cool and all but that's about as far as things go for me.
- During the Brawl era, I hated this character with a burning passion and terrorized his support thead about as much as I did the Daisy, Waluigi (who's now one of my favorite Nintendo characters, ironically), and Tingle threads. I still think that he's a washed out character that hasn't had a genuinely noteworthy game since the arcade days and is largely still around because of the "doohoohoo, remember how rad the 80's were" mentality of gamer culture that's never going to go away. He's iconic but, in my mind, he's like the loser who's in his 40/50's that thinks people actually care about how well he played football in high school. To me, Pac-man represents everything wrong with gamer culture but, crap, man, is he charming in this game. His art style and moveset are brilliant and the fact that he's a tribute to the arcade days instead of just a nauseatingly nostalgic circle jerk to his own games shows that a lot of care went into making this character in Smash. They've taken a character that I downright despise and made him somewhat likable to me; that's pretty damn impressive and I can't wait to try him out.
- I figured she was going to get in somehow, whether in the initial release or DLC. I also figured that in the best case scenario she was going to be a semiclone of Marth so the fact she's a Melee era clone doesn't surprise me at all. As a character, I prefer her to Chrom but I kind of hand an inkling that, whoever made it, they weren't going to be a completely original character so it's hard to get that excited for her. I'm glad she made it to a small degree but I'm probably not going to get too attached since she's probably at the front of the line to be cut when the next game rolls around thanks to her nature. I feel Lucina deserved better but I didn't have much invested in the character to begin with.
- Turned out a lot better than I thought they would but I think the novelty of them is going to wear off fairly fast. I can see myself making a Bill Cosby Mii, going into a few matches with friends, laughing like a drunken hyena on opiates before shelving the character permanently when it stops being funny. I can already tell that these are going to be the addition that people are going to be complaining about until the next Smash Bros. Despite this, I still hope a competitive standard is decided for all three because I think they offer an interesting "fan project" that hasn't existed yet for the competitive community outside of the Brawl hacks.
- I just can't get excited for her. When she was revealed in December, the hype I had been feeling for the mystery reveal just dropped like a steel barrel filled with bricks. A lot of it comes from the fact that I think she got in too soon, being playable in one canon game literally less than a month before her Smash debut. I griped a few days following and my complaints haven't completely dissipated. The fact that most people who played as her at the E3 demo build found her extremely underwhelming and/or complicated doesn't exactly hype raise any enthusiasm for her. She strikes me as this game's Yoshi, someone you have to be completely god-like with to get anywhere with but only because hardly anyone plays as them because of this. As far as Mario characters go, I would have rather seen Toad or Waluigi (or Geno but that ship set sail years ago).
At this point, the only newcomer I'm still holding out a little bit of hope for is Takamaru and I've pretty much closed shop for everyone else on my wishlist. Even with Gematsu taking a blow, my expectations are still fairly low but we'll see how things turn out in the end.
