Super Smash Bros is coming to the Nintendo Switch this year, and by some great miracle appears to be a brand new entry in the series rather than a port of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U! It’s a miracle that Masahiro Sakurai would grace us with his mastery another time, let alone do it in less than four years. As ever, with a brand new entry comes a flurry of excitement over who will join Mario and Link in battle. Not all characters are equal, however, so we’ve crunched the numbers and have weighed the definite odds that the character you want to see entering a match on Final Destination with no items or smash balls and 5 life stock and only Fox, anyway, so they’re not invited. Just don’t actually check our math, please.
Spring Man / Ribbon Girl – Arms
Arms is the first new IP of Nintendo’s Switch-era catalog, not that long after the inciting of the Splatoon craze for the Wii U, and a little while to statiate Switch owner’s multiplayer cravings before the arrival of Splatoon 2. With Splatoon’s Inklings being the first confirmed new brawlers, the next obvious speculative choice would be Nintendo’s freshest faces of the Arms cast. The odds get a boost with Arms already being a fighting game; so they can make the leap to this party platformer brawler pretty easily.
Odds: 10:1
Rayman – Rayman Franchise
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Rayman actually has quite the history on Nintendo platforms, his most recent appearance in Rayman Legends was originally planned as a Nintendo exclusive. Losing that kind of exclusive, burned the Wii U for eternity, but Ubisoft also seems to want to have a good relationship with Nintendo in the wake of the success of Mario + Rabbids, and the just announced releases such as South Park the Fractured Butthole. A pretty convincing leak a few years ago also indicated some interest in seeing character in Smash Brothers. Rayman’s platforming history can bring a pretty large variety of moves, stages and easter eggs to the table as well, but it will all come down to convincing Ubisoft to let them do it.
Odds: 300:1 for DLC
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Crash Bandicoot – Crash Franchise
The possibility of Crash quickly floated around online as the N. Sane Trilogy was revealed to be coming to the Switch. However, it’s also seeing release on other platforms, so this feels more like Activision maximizing profits as, they are known to do. While this is the first time the original games will appear on a Nintendo platform, Crash has been on Nintendo consoles starting as far back as Wrath of Cortex in 2001. Most of these were multi-platform and never really established themselves in Nintendo’s own history, so while Crash’s spin attack might be cool to see, he doesn’t seem like the kind of character to make an appearance.
Odds: WHOA:1
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Waluigi – Super Mario Franchise
Just as Luigi is vastly different from his brother Mario, Waluigi is very different from basically every other character in the franchise. He’s lewd and romantic, yet charming and quirky at the same time. We can’t help but adore the biggest “character” out of Mario’s cast. He’s the life of the party. His taunt would be crotch chops. Have him walk exactly as he does as an assist trophy. All of his attacks can be sports tricks. Need a Final Smash? Waluigi was the villain in Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix. Come on, you know you want to see that. Make it happen, Nintendo. Give the people what they need.
Odds: Not even going to calculate. This is happening whether you’re ready or not.
Rex – Xenoblade Chronicles 2
The lead protagonist in the newest Xenoblade game, Rex is a bit of a departure compared to Shulk, who was a newcomer in the last Smash. Rex could still be a sword user, but would be able to flourish his moveset with the fact that he’s actually partnered with another character, Pyra. They wouldn’t really swap out as much as Pyra can appear mid combos, and that would set Rex apart. On the other hand, Shulk could just stick around and be a perfectly good rep from this newer RPG series in the Nintendo canon. Shulk is also bad and should go away.
Odds: 50:1, but if Shulk sticks around 100:1
Viridi – Kid Icarus: Uprising
A creation of Smash director Masahiro Sakurai, Viridi is the Goddess of Nature, similar in design to Palutena but sarcastic and much younger. She cameos in the Kid Icarus stage in the Wii U Smash Bros, and it is clear Sakurai is going to put his own characters in the game whether you like it or not. Viridi’s nature-based set would set her apart from Palutena, while even being able to borrow some of the other goddess’ support powers form Uprising on 3DS. It seems more likely that we’ll see at least one more character from that game join the roster, and our money’s on the edgy hippie goddess.
Odds: 20:1
Knuckles – Sonic Franchise
Y’know, Sonic has been in two of these now. He and Mario have been to the Olympics a few times together, at this rate. I agree it’s about time to start taking this relationship to the next level and letting one of Sonic’s friends join the party, but only one, because oh god, most of that roster is bad. That said, Knuckles being a significant gameplay difference from Sonic while fulfilling a similar purpose sets him up to be the best choice. Tails could fill that role too, no doubt, but functions in the Sonic games as a slower Sonic with better recovery, and that doesn’t seem as fun to include. On the other hand, Tails doesn’t have an unfortunate association with a racist meme. Hmm…
Odds: 30:1 for either of Sonic’s only two good friends.
Takamaru – The Mysterious Murasame Castle
A traditional samurai character from a niche NES title sounds like something Smash Bros would be all over, and you’d be right. Back when Super Smash Bros for Wii U was in development, Sakurai strongly considered making Takamaru a character, but decided instead to make him an assist trophy because the game is not well known in the West. However, between a guest appearance in a couple of other games and a Virtual Console release of Murasame Castle, that is less the case now. Additionally, there was a time Fire Emblem games weren’t localized and many credit Smash Bros for that changing. On the other hand, do we want that many Murasame Castle games?
Odds: 10:1
Leon S. Kennedy – Resident Evil Franchise
Resident Evil 4 is one of the most acclaimed of the series, and it originally came as a part of the GameCube’s “Capcom 5” games. With his flat puns and wanna-be hero mentality, the Leon of RE4 would be a beautifully troll-like addition in the colorful brawler that Smash is. Capcom has already shared a character from their other two major franchises in MegaMan and Ryu, why not the other one? The only catch here is that if you’re not using the exact Leon from that game, why bother? His characterization changed drastically in future games and that’s just not as interesting as the Leon from RE4 would be. Look, we’re not getting Snake back, this would be a great way to get over that loss
Odds: 400:1 that everyone goes to bingo.
Whatever husbando/waifu you wanted from Fire Emblem – Fire Emblem Franchise
There are enough Fire Emblem characters in Smash Bros. If anything, Marth should probably retire finally and let Lucina take his place. We all have that one character we love, but trust me, they can’t all be in there.
Odds: 25:1 it’s who you want, 2:1 another Fire Emblem Character shows up.
Papyrus – Undertale
Okay, fine, Undertale is in fact coming to the Nintendo Switch. Undertale also seems to have quite the fan following in Japan. Neither of these things means Papyrus or his brother Sans are going to make the leap into anyone else’s games, much less Smash Bros. It’d take a whole lot of determination for any indie game character to break the barrier separating them from the rest, especially ones like Papyrus and Sans who are the core fourth-wall breakers in an already super post modern game, that to put them into Nintendo’s own post-modern franchise would be really confusing. Also, could you imagine the internet flame war that would erupt if this happened? I remember when all GameFAQs fell apart because Undertale won a game of all time vote one time and gaming has enough to deal with right now.
Odds: 500:1 that Sakurai likes the word jumble.
Shovel Knight – Shovel Knight
I don’t want to be that guy, but we already have Mega Man and I thought as a whole Smash fans were against clone characters? Joking aside, Shovel Knight has been huge on Nintendo platforms and was even the first to get an amiibo not produced by Nintendo themselves. They’re very much aware of the character, and he has a much better chance of showing up in some way in a Smash game than a lot of other characters thrown around.
Odds: Hell of a lot better than whatever other indie character you were hoping for.
Cappy – Super Mario Odyssey
I’m on record with being a fan of Cappy’s characterization in Super Mario Odyssey, and definitely would like to see him go on in fame beyond the one game. However, as a ghost hat that has to be thrown to do anything kind of makes him a complicated character to design an attack set around. It wouldn’t be the strangest idea, if you remember Charade from the SoulCalibur II filler cast. That kind of worked. If they did this, though, it would be one of the more weird things Smash Bros has done. Or, maybe it’s just the more obvious answer.
Odds: 5:1 that Mario is wearing Cappy already.
Captain Rainbow – Captain Rainbow
What’s that? You’ve never heard of Captain Rainbow? That’s not surprising, seeing as this particular captain only starred in one game on the Wii that was never localized outside of Japan. Captain Rainbow tells the story of Nick, an actor who plays a tokusatsu superhero who uses yo-yo’s. When his show stops being popular, he travels to a magic island to make a wish for more popularity, encountering other forgotten Nintendo characters like Smash veteran Little Mac and the aforementioned Takamaru. Alas, Nick’s dreams were never truly realized as the game sold absolutely terribly in Japan; and Captain Rainbow is all but forgotten. For what it’s worth, the game was pretty good, and now that you know about a yo-yo wielding tokusatsu Nintendo character, you want more of it, right?
Odds: 1000:1 that Nintendo stops being cowards and releases Captain Rainbow to the rest of the world…err, I mean they put Captain Rainbow in Smash Bros.
Bubsy – Bubsy Franchise
Total meme pick, you caught us. Bubsy originated on the SNES, during the time everyone was trying to make their own Sonic-style character. While this character has a bit of a reputation for being disliked, Bubsy’s first outing did well enough to bring a sequel out quickly, and a resurgence in his popularity began when they tried to get two games Greenlit on Steam. A new title launched last year, and while that wasn’t on a Nintendo platform, it’s release might be indicative that it is time for a homecoming. Or, it’s possible that resurgence was just the internet taking a meme too far and thinking “what could possibly go wrong?” Well, internet, everything. Absolutely everything went wrong, and you should be sorry.
Odds: 2000:1 that something goes wrong.
Shrek – Shrek licensed games
Speaking of memes, please stop doing this. It’s not funny anymore.
Odds: 10000000000000:1, now get out of my swamp.
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