About

Super Smash Bros. Character Predictions are online discussions about the evolving roster of playable characters in Nintendo's crossover melee fighting game franchise Super Smash Bros. Since the release of its first sequel title Super Smash Bros Melee for GameCube in 2001, speculations and parodies of the latest inductees to the franchise have become a recurring discussion topic within the fandom, usually peaking right before or after Nintendo's announcement of a new sequel title in the series.

Origin

The first game in the series, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64, was released in 1999 with a dozen of playable characters (Captain Falcon, Donkey Kong, Fox, Jigglypuff, Kirby, Link, Luigi, Mario, Ness, Pikachu, Samus and Yoshi), followed by the release of Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube in November 2001 with a fresh batch of 13 Nintendo franchise characters (Bowser, Dr. Mario, Falco, Ganondorf, Ice Climbers, Marth, Mewtwo, Mr. Game & Watch, Peach, Pichu, Roy, Sheik, Young Link and Zelda), which set up the fans' expectation for inclusion of new characters with every sequel release in the franchise.

However, fan-made predictions and theories about the next-generation characters didn't take off until the announcement of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii at Nintendo's pre-E3 press conference in May 2006. The hype surrounding its character roster was further boosted by the inclusion of playable characters from third-party franchises, such as Solid Snake (Metal Gear) and Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog).

Spread

YTMND Series: Newcomers

The meme began as early as on May 10th, 2006 with YTMND user Bendillin's creation of the site Super Smash Bros. Brawl Newcomer: John Madden!, which featured an image of NFL commentator John Madden in place of Solid Snake introduced as a "newcomer" in the E3 2006 trailer for the game. Bendillin's YTMND parody soon led to several spin-off sites announcing various pop culture icons and video game characters as newcomers to the series, some of the more popular candidates being Mega Man, Geno (Super Mario), Krystal (Star Fox), Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney), Leon Kennedy (Resident Evil), Sora from (Kingdom Hearts) among others.

Fake Super Smash Bros. Rosters

As rumors continued to spread that Super Smash Bros. Brawl would feature twice as many characters as the Melee, fans of the game also began creating parodies of character rosters in entirety, incorporating their own candidates into the table.

SSBB Character Bio Parodies

In preparation for the release of Super Smash Bros Brawl, Nintendo launched a promotional website called Smash Bros. Dojo, which showcased each character's canonical background, power moves and gameplay screenshots. Following the launch of the site, fans soon began spoofing the character bio pages by substituting the official characters with other candidates of their own choices.

Super Smash Brothers for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS

During Nintendo's E3 conference in 2011, the company announced that it will be working on a fourth Super Smash Bros. title for the Wii U console and Nintendo 3DS. On June 8th, 2011, IGN interviewed Masahiro Sakurai and asked about the possibility of a Capcom character appearing in the upcoming title, to which Sakurai said:

"I can't say that it's entirely out of the realm of possibility that some Capcom character could appear in the next Smash Bros. The big problem, though, comes from the idea of trying to get characters from a completely different universe to fit with the style that has been dictated by Nintendo's characters in a fighting game.

At the end of the article, IGN offered a poll with the question "what Capcom character would you most like to see appear in the next Smash Bros. game?" Mega-Man came in first place (55.08%) with Viewtiful Joe in second (11.85%) and Ryu in third (10.80%). Nathan "Rad" Spencer came in last place (0.36%).

Search Interest

External References