While Super Smash Bros. Ultimate features an expansive roster of 86 different playable characters, a few fan favorites were still overlooked.
I admittedly have fallen deep into a fixation/addiction with the Super Smash Bros. series once again, a recurring theme throughout most of my life if I’m being honest at all.
Initially introduced to the series with the original Super Smash Bros. not long after I received a Nintendo 64 for my fifth birthday in 2001, I completely fell in love with its sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee, after receiving a GameCube as a Christmas gift in 2003.
Since then, the series has emerged as a powerful mainstay in the gaming world, kickstarting both one of the most popular casual party game series while also inspiring a dedicated grassroots competitive scene that has endured throughout the series’ lifespan.
There have been six overall installments to the Super Smash Bros. series, though fans often look at them as five different games given that the series’ fourth installment was released for both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
In that time, the selection of both playable characters and stages greatly expanded, with the original title offering just 12 playable characters and nine battle arenas to choose from in multiplayer mode.
The series began to see exponential growth when it came to the character roster essentially immediately, with Melee more than doubling the cast with a total of 26 characters – a remarkable addition and improvement over the original game that was released less than three years before Melee.
Following back-to-back releases of the series’ first two installments in 1999 and 2001, respectively, the series then saw larger gaps in between release dates as distinct competitive scenes developed for each game.
Melee was followed by the 2008 release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii, a game that was a massive hit with casual and single-player audiences but fiercely divided the competitive community over its vastly different mechanics from its predecessor.
Regardless of what competitive players thought, Nintendo continued to add more and more characters to the series, with the 39 playable characters in Brawl ballooning to 58 with the release of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, commonly referred to as Smash 4.
While the playable roster now nears triple-digits with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, released for the Switch in 2018, a handful of characters that fans have long been yearning for in the series were still omitted, even as a healthy amount of more unrecognizable characters cracked the cast.
With Ultimate‘s grandiose and maximalist nature, it’s fair to wonder where the Super Smash Bros. series can even go from here – especially when considering that the most notable improvements and additions in previous titles came from the inclusion of more playable characters.
Operating under an assumption that the series won’t see a further increase in playable characters, I thought it would be fun to look back on what characters myself and many other fans would have liked to see added to the series at some point.
This list is made factoring in anecdotal public sentiment more so than it is my own personal opinion, as I don’t think you can have enough swordfighters until you include Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia.
When it comes to characters who are more well-known by the general public, here’s a look at the biggest snubs of the series:
1. Waluigi
Having long been a fan favorite with an established cult following within the wider Mario universe, Waluigi has long been suggested as a possible Smash Bros. character, owing to his inclusion in most multiplayer Mario titles.
Initially introduced to gamers as a playable in character in Mario Tennis, released in 2000 for the Nintendo 64, Waluigi has since become a mainstay in the Mario Party and Mario Kart series, while also being one of the strongest characters in Mario Superstar Baseball.
Waluigi’s absence from the series is particularly puzzling given the consistent inclusion of his counterpart, Wario, who has been a playable character in every Smash Bros. game since the 2008 release of Brawl.
While both Mario and Luigi have alternate costumes in Ultimate that mimic Waluigi’s recognizable purple-and-black appearance, the character himself remains excluded from the series.
Though unplayable, the series contains a multitude of references to Waluigi, often in the form of a trophy.
2. Crash Bandicoot
Now venturing out into third-party characters, the inclusion of a character like Crash would have been unthinkable in the series’ first two installments – but the inclusion of third-party characters such as Snake and Sonic in Brawl opened up the door for a wide range of fighters to be introduced in future titles.
While the Smash Bros. series has since welcomed characters from Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Fatal Fury and Kingdom Hearts, one of gaming’s biggest names from the turn of the century remains an omission.
Initially gaining popularity as an unofficial mascot of sorts for the Sony PlayStation in the late 1990’s, Crash has since become the focal point of an expansive video game series that has persisted since, which includes renowned racing titles and a pseudo-fighting game of its own.
With Crash Bandicoot games heavily emphasizing the title character’s movement and speed, it’s extremely easy to see how his character would translate well into the Smash Bros. universe, not unlike Sonic the Hedgehog prior to his inclusion in the series.
Furthermore, several Crash Bandicoot games have been released for Nintendo platforms since the franchise’s exclusivity with Sony ended in the early 2000’s, making Crash less of a stranger to Nintendo consoles than some other characters in the series.
3. Spyro the Dragon
Sticking to a similar wavelength after Crash Bandicoot’s inclusion, Spyro is another longtime video game mascot loved and recognized by many with attributes that are fairly easy to imagine translating to the Smash Bros. series.
Often viewed as Sony’s sidekick to Crash Bandicoot, the Spyro series also had an early window of PlayStation exclusivity in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s before future games in the series were released on a wide range of platforms.
With Spyro games heavily integrating the title character’s fire-breathing and flying abilities, it’s also easy to see how these traits could work in the Smash Bros. series, providing a character with a unique moveset that doesn’t stray too far from what the series has always been about.
Unlike Crash, Spyro has not had all that much exposure in multiplayer games, with his inclusion in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled and Skylanders standing out as among his few appearances outside of the main series.
While I certainly would take a new Spyro title by itself before anything else, it’s hard not to imagine what his inclusion in the Smash Bros. series would have been like.
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