“Nintendo’s All Stars in Super Smash Bros. Melee!” Thus goes the iconic introduction of Super Smash Bros. Melee, widely acknowledged to be the peak of Nintendo’s crossover fighting game franchise. And yet, every single installment since then has moved further and further away from the “Nintendo All Stars” angle.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl introduced Sonic and Solid Snake; Super Smash Bros. For Wii U brought Pac-Man, Mega Man, Ryu, Bayonetta, and Cloud into the fold. And Ultimate brings in Simon and Richter Belmont, as well as Ken, with Joker from Persona 5 set to join the cast next year as the first DLC character.
At this point, it’s pretty clear it’s not just “Nintendo’s All Stars”, and that’s something that even Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of the franchise, and the director of every single installment so far, admits. Writing in his weekly Famitsu column (translated by Siliconera), Sakurai admits the series has far evolved beyond that.
Between his acknowledgement of that fact, and Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime’s recent hints that Joker from Persona 5 is indicative of the kind of DLC characters Smash will be getting going forward (with recent rumours suggest Dragon Quest entering the stage), I have a feeling we are about to see a lot of third party characters in the game.