Timing the Roster

Back during the days of Smash 4 speculation, there was a thread where fans could post their rosters. One character that came up constantly was Animal Crossing Boy. This idea was often shot down by site veterans (who were well versed on Sakurai) because “Sakurai said he can't be in because he's not violent.” This wasn't some hogwash people came up with either; Sakurai did state that Animal Crossing Boy was excluded because he couldn't fight. His own words from the Iwata Ask.

The most important thing was simply whether or not it would make players happy. I mean, there are lots of popular games with characters that just aren’t meant for fighting and were too hard to incorporate into the Smash Bros. title. Heading the list of these characters are the ones from the games we just mentioned, Nintendogs and Animal Crossing. Because these are games played by lots of people, I knew players would be happy to see them make an appearance. This is why I wanted to find a way to put them in the game and why they became Assist Trophies.

When E3 2013 came around, the first character unveiled for the new Smash Brothers was Villager, the Animal Crossing boy. Despite following what Sakurai said, the “experts” were eating crow (myself included).

Now, this should be a lesson to everyone who focuses on Smash Bros speculation. Sakurai, like anyone else, can change their mind. He is not some unmovable bolder that will forever and always be the same. Yet people are using the same logic to invalidate other characters, namely ARMS characters and Rex/Pyra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Their reason this time is what I have referred to as “timing the roster.”

The argument goes like this: Sakurai chooses characters early in development. ARMS and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 came around in 2017. Sakurai would have finished selecting the characters sometime in 2016 before these games were out so he wouldn't select them. Different people have different timelines, but the idea remains the same. These games came out too late so those characters would not be included.

Content

First, the idea does go contrary to past results. Each game has actually gotten a lot of content from games released the year prior.

From Brawl, both Lucas and Lucario were added despite their games coming out in 2006 (Brawl was originally slated for 2007). Additionally, Brawl had an Electroplankton Stage, Jill from Drill Dozer as an assist trophy and a rearrangement from Kirby Squeak Squad, all games released in 2006. Twilight Princess and Star Fox Command, where Zelda and Star Fox got their designs from, also released in 2006. For Smash Wii U, Greninja was added despite his game being released only 11 months earlier. Additionally, the game had stages from Mario Kart 8, Yoshi's Wolly World, Pikmin 3, and Game and Wario, all titles that released from 2013 onward. In fact, in Yoshi's Wooly World's case, the game wasn't even released until the year after Smash. And it goes without saying, but Roy was added to Melee before his game was even released.

The argument is predicated on the fact that Sakurai determines the project plan early in development and sticks to it. However, to accept that premise, you also have to accept he does it for the other content such as stages and assist trophies. The fact the we have content from games that release after the start of any development shows that he has access to these games before release. From this, we can extrapolate the he can have access to these characters well before their games release. This is supported by the evidence above.

Assumptions

That said, I'm sure some experts will take umbrage with those examples. Perhaps they were unique cases. While that's debatable, let's, for the sake of argument, grant that these are unique cases and that we can't draw inferences from them. Even still, the argument remains lackluster. In order for this point to be true, those arguing it must make a lot of assumptions in order for the argument to work. Such as:

•    When development of the game started

•    What was the cutoff for selecting characters (if there is one)

•    That Sakurai wouldn't know of games in development

•    What stage of development those games were in

•    That Sakurai will select characters the same way he did for the last game (basically, that he wont change anything).

The issue with these is that if anything changes or is incorrect, then the entire idea falls apart. What if the game started development in the summer? What if ARMS was about done in March of 2016. What if Sakurai knew a lot of games were coming out in 2017 and adjusted how he adds characters in accordance? The assumptions above are based mostly on guesswork. We have no idea when any of these games started development or what state they were in all this time.

So let's take a hypothetical scenario. Let's say Smash Brothers started development in March. And let's say that they determined the roster in May. By that point, ARMS and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 would be 7 months away from their reveal and both titles would likely come out in 2017. Smash wont come out until 2018. Moreoever, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 would likely have been in development for at least a year as it started after development ended on Xenoblade Chronicles X back in 2015. Likewise, ARMS could have started after the Mario Kart 8 DLC ended in 2015. Both of these games would have been far into productions. Even if we assume all this, there is always the fact that Sakurai would add them later on after the games came out as Smash wouldn't be close to done by the time these games went gold.

Now, you may disagree with any of these tidbits, and I can grant you that some of them may be off. My point is not to make this specific case but to illustrate that by relying on assumptions to make the argument, then there is a far greater chance the idea will be wrong if any if any of these facts are off. So even accepting their premise, you can still reasonable conceive a scenario where these games could easily get into Smash. Therefore, the argument is likely incorrect. This is why it’s better to rely on an idea that has fewer assumptions. As the saying goes, assume makes an ASS out of U and ME

Conclusion

So the problem with the argument are twofold. First, it ignores past Smash Brothers games as these games added characters and other content that was released within a year (or closer) to Smash’s release. Second, the argument relies on too many assumptions that, if any are wrong, destroy the entire premise. And this is one of the problems of focusing on Sakurai and what he does. People have studied how he adds characters for years, yet no one has been able to use the information presented to accurately predict the characters. So why would following him more closely lead to better results? Instead, it would be better to take a broader view and look at what actually happened and what makes sense to determine who gets added to Smash Bros and who doesn't.