Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a true celebration of gaming. Masahiro Sakurai and his development team went to great lengths to bring us a roster featuring 86 challengers.
Of course, many of these characters had to settle for different functions within the Super Smash Bros. series before they were eventually able to get “promoted” to playable status. It’s interesting to note that only three of these fighters thus far had beginnings as Assist Trophies.
The first of these characters is Little Mac from the Punch Out franchise. Before he became playable in Super Smash Bros. 4, he made his Smash debut as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
“However, for me, ‘Does that character have unique abilities’ and ‘Do [they] add to the game’s enjoyment in a positive way?’ are the important questions. When you compare balance to these concerns, balancing becomes a small detail.” — Masahiro Sakurai
According to a translation by Source Gaming, Masahiro Sakurai noted that characters with such extreme strengths and weaknesses like Little Mac tend to either constantly win or lose, to the point of causing imbalances. He even goes so far as to say that they can’t avoid breaking the balance of games like Super Smash Bros., but Sakurai wanted to include Little Mac anyhow.
“However, for me, ‘Does that character have unique abilities’ and ‘Do [they] add to the game’s enjoyment in a positive way?’ are the important questions,” said Sakurai on the subject of Little Mac. “When you compare balance to these concerns, balancing becomes a small detail. What kind of game is ‘Smash Brothers’ in the first place? Playing together with friends while laughing is the main component. I guess it can’t be helped.”
During the era of Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS (just before the release of Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U), Little Mac proved to be quite the terror initially. Sakurai would eventually point out that Little Mac had the lowest win rate of all characters at the time during online play. Despite this, Little Mac would still be nerfed in balance patches due to the frustrations he caused for players.
The other two characters that got promoted from Assist Trophy to playable character are Isabelle and Dark Samus. Coincidentally, both challengers initially appeared as Assist Trophies in Super Smash Bros. 4, and then became controllable fighters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Both of these combatants were ultimately chosen due to their popularity. Dark Samus in particular is said to be popular over here in the West. It turns out that a lot of fans wanted more Metroid representation up until this point (back when only Samus and Zero Suit Samus were playable).
While Dark Samus behaves as an Echo Figher of Samus, Isabelle is technically a completely separate fighter from Villager, though there are many similarities in their movesets. Although Isabelle was likely built off of Villager, Sakurai has asserted before that all of Isabelle’s animations and proportions are different to that of the Villager’s.
It’s very likely that Dark Samus and Isabelle’s promotions were the direct result of the Smash Ballot held during the DLC era of Super Smash Bros. 4. Sakurai has mentioned many times before how the results of this poll were continuously referenced during the development of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
As expected, character popularity plays a huge factor in terms of the decision making for the roster. This can be enough to prompt Sakurai to promote an Assist Trophy into a playable challenger.
It’s also been implied that Sakurai did consider Spring Man as DLC in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate even though he was already an Assist Trophy in that very game. Spring Man could be thought of as the protagonist of ARMS, but ARMS Producer Kosuke Yabuki told Sakurai that “everyone’s the protagonist” in that game.
Ultimately, Sakurai ended up choosing Min Min over Spring Man and the rest of the ARMS roster due to a personal request from Mr. Yabuki. This was because Min Min was Yabuki’s favorite character.
In other words, Sakurai is always going to make it a point to respect a creator’s wishes when using their properties. While this has caused difficulties for development, Sakurai clearly feels like this is an extremely important factor when considering characters.
With all of that in mind, there are a ton of other Assist Trophies based on other video game characters that fans have been requesting for years. A few notable examples include Shadow the Hedgehog, Isaac, Waluigi, Ashley, Lyn, Takamaru, Akira, Alucard, Shovel Knight, Zero, and many more.
It’s funny to think that the Assist Trophy showcase that gets shown off prior to the launch of a Super Smash Bros. entry tends to cause more disappointment rather than excitement among the fans. Indeed, any fighter that is shown off as an Assist Trophy is essentially disconfirmed, though Sakurai himself has never explicitly stated this to be the case. Regardless, the rule has held up thus far.
The Nintendo Switch 2 has finally been officially unveiled by Nintendo. Assuming the company continues to follow through with their tradition of a new Super Smash Bros. entry for every mainline console, there should be a new iteration announced at some point.
Of course, it just so happens that Masahiro Sakurai has been working on a secret game project since April 2022. He wrote up the proposal for this mysterious game “at lightning speed” back in July 2021, while still juggling the development of Kazuya and Sora DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
If Sakurai is developing the next Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo Switch 2, then we’ll very likely be seeing some new faces on the roster. Or perhaps we’ll be seeing some promotions from the cast of Assist Trophies. There are still plenty of popular picks that fans would love to see.
It’s only happened three times before, but who is to say that it couldn’t happen again? We’ll just have to see what happens when Nintendo is finally ready to reveal some more games for the Nintendo Switch 2.
Source: Event Hubs
