User talk:Toomai/On the order of things

I believe that Villager and Mii fighters (from the Animal Crossing and Smash Bros universes) should be placed before Little Mac because their universes were represented by stages in previous games (the logo denotes an established universe). Thus these are not Newcomer universes like Punch Out, but veteran ones. There should be a new Axiom to address this; when previously established universes (based on stages, not fighters) gain a playable character for the first time, those universes are placed before brand new universes. Thus the new order should be (Mii fighters (smash bros came out in 1999), Villager (animal crossing came out in 2001), then brand new universes like Punch out and Wii Fit). This is the only flaw I saw in this method, so please consider this and fix it.

- IGGY7735 —Preceding unsigned comment added by IGGY7735 (talk • contribs) 22:06, 23 June 2014 (EDT)

I agree that something's not right about a universe with only an Assist Trophy in Brawl (Punch-Out) coming before a universe with a stage in Brawl (Animal Crossing). But in my opinion, the order should be constructable without having to use that knowledge - it makes everything simpler in general when cross-game references are limited. I could consider it more, but at this point I don't think I'll be changing it. Toomai Glittershine The Prismatic 00:01, 24 June 2014 (EDT)

Shouldn't Lucina be next to Marth, like you did with the Links? 84.26.240.80 06:12, 16 August 2014 (EDT)

Your comment has caused me to realize I do a very poor job of defining what "similar characters" actually means. Does it mean the characters are clones or semi-clones within Smash Bros., or are closely-related in their home universes? Or both? The Mario group is "original, brother semi-clone, alt-version clone" and the Link group is "original, alt-version clone, alt-version semi-clone", so there's no debate there, but I need to draw the line somewhere for less-obvious groups. It'll probably be a judgement call no matter what I do, but I'll think about it, and Lucina will probably be moved. Toomai Glittershine The Glow 11:21, 16 August 2014 (EDT)

A few suggestions...

A couple of changes I'd suggest based on my own thought processes:

• I would think that sorting by game of introduction would be more important than sorting by clone or hero/villain status. For example, I'd sort the Mario characters Mario, Luigi, Dr. Mario, Peach, Bowser, Rosalina. (You also seem to have done this anyways in some cases by leaving Pichu after Jigglypuff.)
• Even if the previous point isn't put into effect, Lucina should be after Roy since she's a later-introduced moveset clone of the same character (despite her other similarities to Marth).
• We also need a sorting order location for stage-only universes for things like stage list boxes. Does Find Mii or Tomodachi come first, for example?

Thoughts? Miles (talk) 14:37, 19 August 2014 (EDT)

I never really knew what to do with Pichu; in some of the earliest versions of the list he was between Pikachu and Jigglypuff, but by the time Brawl came around he was cemented after the two. He's a clone, but he's only related to Pikachu by being in the same evolution line, unlike the other such characters that are both clones and canonically blood relatives. He's also a "true neutral" in every sense (being effectively a wild Pokémon), and has no canon allegiance to anyone else (this is pretty much why all the Pokémon are ordered by game - there's no real priority otherwise).

I was considering the order Marth-Roy-Lucina, but in the end it just feels wrong to me to group two unrelated lords closer than two distant relatives.

I guess the takeaway from this is that I prioritize characters as characters, not as fighters. I don't really want to have to use knowledge of who's in what game to order things if it's not as a tiebreaker (hence why it's late in the axiom list).

I do have an non-published order for non-character universes, so I might as well see what I can do about adding it to this page. Toomai Glittershine The Incomperable 14:58, 19 August 2014 (EDT)

Brawl Character order

I was thinking of an order like:

1. Mario
2. Donkey Kong
3. Link
4. Samus/Zero Suit Samus
5. Yoshi
6. Kirby
7. Fox
8. Pikachu
9. Luigi
10. Captain Falcon
11. Ness
12. Bowser
13. Peach
14. Zelda/Sheik
15. Ice Climbers
16. Marth
17. Mr. Game & Watch
18. Falco
19. Ganondorf
20. Wario
21. Meta Knight
22. Pit
23. Olimar
24. Lucas
25. Diddy Kong
26. Pokémon Trainer
27. King Dedede
28. Ike
29. Lucario
30. R.O.B.
31. Jigglypuff
32. Toon Link
33. Wolf
34. Snake
35. Sonic

Where everyone is ordered according to their Brawl character ID. ZeldaStarfoxfan2164 (talk) is a never lover boy 20:53, 20 August 2014 (EDT)

There are issues with "in-game technical orders" like this that make them less-than-ideal.

1. Games might have multiple technical orders. Melee's debug mode character selector puts Zelda and Sheik in the middle, but on the disc's ROM they're near the front. Brawl has Jigglypuff late in the order you list, but not in the co-op event 21 order.
2. They're not all-encompassing for the series as a whole. For example, where does Dr. Mario fit in this list?
3. They may be completely nonsensical to non-technical people.

Toomai Glittershine Le Grand Fromage 21:09, 20 August 2014 (EDT)

Move

Can this be moved to somewhere easier to find? Like 'SmashWiki:Character Order'? If this is supposed to be a guideline as to how to order characters in the mainspace, it should be a policy/guideline/help page. Qwerty (talk) 00:02, 22 August 2014 (EDT)

This is not an official wiki page that mandates what to do. It's a userpage that outlines what one user believes is the best way to go, and whether you conform to it in mainspace or not is up to you. Obviously I'd prefer this order be used in most cases, but that's just me being biased, not me speaking as a staff member. Toomai Glittershine The Researcher 00:15, 22 August 2014 (EDT)

Duck Hunt's Placement

Since this is the pseudo-official order we go by here on the site, I have a question about Duck Hunt's placement. In the third, fourth, and fifth developments, you put Earthbound, F-Zero, G&W and Gyromite at the end since they're unlockable, yet you order Duck Hunt as if it was a starting series, is there a specific reason you did this? Laikue (talk|contribs) 01:27, 18 September 2014 (EDT)

Bumpo, since this was never answered. Laikue (talk|contribs) 13:05, 16 October 2014 (EDT)

Hmm yes I appear to have overlooked this. I think I accidentally put so much effort into the ordering of all the new universes by release date that I glossed over how Duck Hunt is the only new universe to be unlockable and so should come afterwards. This will be fixed. Toomai Glittershine The Xanthic 13:36, 16 October 2014 (EDT)

Clones

I'd actually like to propose an amendment to this ordering system that places the clearest cases of cloning last in their series. The games already do this to an extent (Toon Link consistently listed after all other Zelda characters, the appended nature of the Melee clones on the CSS, the "clone corner" in SSB4). While I'm on the fence in the case of the more de-cloned characters (Falco in particular), I feel like this would in general be an improvement. Miles (talk) 12:55, 23 November 2014 (EST)

Clone status can change between games, so I'm not a fan of this idea at first glance. Toomai Glittershine The Boss 20:07, 23 November 2014 (EST)

It occured to me that the "clone status can change" argument could apply to any order that uses cloneosity as a criteria, which the current one kinda-sorta does - yet the characters this applies to are also highly similar clone status notwithstanding, so it's reasonable to group them together regardless. It's a little wishy-washy and case-by-case-ish.

So, slightly different counter-argument. This order is fundamentally intended to group similar characters together, and throwing clones at the end of the list goes against that idea. I'm not sure what benefit we get from (for example) having 8 characters between Pikachu and Pichu. Toomai Glittershine The Quiet 20:23, 23 November 2014 (EST)

Bringing this up again, with the following clarification: I feel like the best order is by game of introduction with clones last. It's incredibly jarring to me to see Lucina placed before Ike (and also separate from Robin), or to see Toon Link not last out of the Zelda characters (where all in-game orders place him). This seems like the most practical intra-series sorting method. Miles (talk) 00:37, 17 January 2015 (EST)

It all comes back down to "characters as characters" versus "characters as fighters"; I'm strongly attached to the former, while you seem to prefer the latter. It's incredibly jarring for me to see any Links separate from the other Links, or to see Bowser separated from Junior. I do agree that Lucina's placement is a lose-lose situation though. Toomai Glittershine The Incomperable 01:01, 17 January 2015 (EST)

I'm not totally sure I understand your distinction; for me, I think in terms of chronology of introduction in Smash more than anything, and clones coming last as developmental after-thoughts. Just for the record, the following would be closer to my preferred layout:

...but I know this kind of thing is highly subjective, so I'm not quite sure where to go from here. Miles (talk) 01:13, 17 January 2015 (EST)

If it's of any use, I've more thoroughly laid out my preferred order here. I'm curious about your thoughts on the subject (either on that page's talk or here). Miles (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2015 (EST)

Mewtwo and Pichu

Since Mewtwo is now Smash 4 DLC, would it be advisable to switch it with Pichu? It's just a bit strange to have the icons/artwork for general pages go from SSB4 > SSB4 > Melee > SSB4 to me. Besides, Pichu is a clone, and while it's a clone of Pikachu, Jigglypuff is between the two anyway, making it a bit of a moot point. Nyargleblargle (Talk) 18:34, 10 May 2015 (EDT)

smash 4

I am making userboxes for my page, and I was using this as a reference. I noticed a few things that get on my nerves but I don't know how/have permission to change them, so I'll list my questions here. 1. Why is Pichu after Jigglypuff, didn't the developers state that Pichu was a clone of Pikachu? 2. Can you update the pics for Mewtwo, Lucas, and Roy. This doesn't really effect the order but it just gets on my nerves. 3. Where does Ryu fit into this, I don't really know much about the Street Fighter Universe's connection to Nintendo. Can you answer these as soon as possible. Thanks. DekZek (talk) 23:18, 20 July 2015 (EDT)

Castlevania

This is a super minor thing, but Castlevania is a third-party series, so it should probably be moved accordingly. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 22:46, November 23, 2019 (EST)

This is not a super minor thing. I will fix it. Toomai Glittershine The Aurum 08:37, November 24, 2019 (EST)

A few disagreements regarding this page

Alright, I've got quite a few things to say about this whole order that I have some gripes with. I want to make my points as clear as possible and avoid any vagueness, so if this ends significantly boosting this talk page's byte size, I apologize in advance.

Anyway, here goes:

• F-Zero before EarthBound: Since you're ordering each series in their respective groups by the release of their first game, EarthBound should be listed before F-Zero. While Captain Falcon does predate Ness, the oldest EB fighter (1990 vs. 1994), EB is an older series than F-Zero (1989 vs. 1990).
• Wario before DK: Now when looking at it through a "character" standpoint, I can understand why Wario is before DK, as like you said, he is more connected to the Mario series than his own more so than DK. However, when viewed through a "series" standpoint, that's where things get dubious, because the Wario series arguably has less connections to Mario than the DK series does. While the first Wario Land does have that ending where Mario takes a Princess Peach statue (not to mention the subtitle is literally "Super Mario Land 3"), once Virtual Boy Wario Land comes around, that's when the connections to Mario start to heavily wane, with most connections after that point being nothing more than witty references. Granted, the DKC series never really had any connections to the Mario series (outside of a cameo in the second game), but DKC has generally been directly represented in the Mario series a lot more than the Wario sub-series. For example:
  • Diddy Kong has appeared in numerous of Mario spin-offs ever since the GameCube era. He's appeared in most of the sports titles since Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, most of the Mario Kart games after Double Dash!!, most of the Mario Party games after DS (playable or otherwise), and even found his way in games such as Yakuman DS, Fortune Street, and Dr. Mario World. Heck, Diddy was even a costume in Super Mario Odyssey (Speaking of Odyssey, that game also references several characters from the DKC series via street signs in New Donk City). The fact that a mainline Super Mario game actually acknowledged the DKC series seems pretty special if you ask me.
  • The Mario Kart has plenty of references to the DKC series. Not only was Funky Kong a playable racer in Wii and would return in Tour with newcomer Dixie joining him, but DS introduced a kart directly based on Rambi and Mario Kart 7 had a course based entirely on Donkey Kong Country Returns.
  • A few Kongs besides the above two have also made appearances in the Mario spin-offs. I already mentioned Dixie in Mario Kart Tour, but she was also in Mario Hoops and both baseball games. Tiny Kong was additionally a playable character in Super Sluggers
  • Even the Kremling Krew has made their way into the sports titles. Kritters made a cameo in Power Tennis before becoming goalies in the Strikers games before eventually becoming playable in Super Sluggers, joined by none other than King K. Rool.

The only time the Mario series has ever acknowledged the Wario series is through Dr. Mario 64's large focus on Wario Land characters and a course based on Diamond City in the arcade Mario Kart games, but other than those, most other references to the Wario series are either name-dropping or remixes of music from the series. DKC, on the other hand, is so prevalent within the Mario spin-offs that it could arguably rival the Yoshi series in terms of character spin-off acknowledgement, so that whole point about DK living in his own world feels extremely iffy in the grand scheme of things (especially since you could arguably apply that same point to Wario, as the Smash series heavily bases his appearance off of the WarioWare series, which could debatably take place in its own world as well, especially given how no characters from that series have ever made an appearance in the Mario series).

Now despite that long rambling, this is honestly the one I'm the least objective towards. Despite my evidence explaining why DK is a lot more connected to Mario than one might think, Wario is still a Mario series character at the end of the day, and considering he's still the only fighter representative of his series, I suppose it doesn't matter all that much in the end (though should a second playable Wario rep ever come, then it might become a bit problematic).

• Mii universe before the SSBU first-parties: While Mii Fighters were added to Smash before both Splatoon and ARMS, I feel it doesn't make much sense to order them first considering Miis aren't necessarily tied to any universe (the Mii "universe" is more of an amalgamation of several Mii-focused games that are otherwise unrelated) due to being system avatars, compared to Splatoon and ARMS which are full-fledged series. While I think listing Miis before the third-parties is fine enough, I believe they should be the absolute last of the first/second-parties.
• Banjo after DK:

"Third-party universes should always go last"

'*places Banjo right after DK despite the former being third-party*

I am fully well aware Banjo made his debut in a Donkey Kong spin-off, but nowhere in the rules does it claim that third-parties that are strongly related to a first-party are an exception to the "third-parties are always last" rule, so this placement just comes out of nowhere and, to put it quite bluntly, reeks of bias. I know there's also that "Nintendo connection" thing, but nowhere does it imply that third-parties related to first-parties get to be grouped with the latter.

• The placement of Marth's descendants: Now I understand that you want to group clone and blood-related characters, and in most cases I don't have a problem with how it's going (although I'm a bit iffy regarding placing Dark Samus before Ridley), but one big issue with placing Lucina and Chrom right after Marth is that it adds the side effect of Robin being completely separated from them. Now I can excuse something like Pichu being listed right after Pikachu since Pichu is almost always listed before Pikachu in anything that's not the National Dex order anyway, but this one is especially problematic when you consider that all three characters come from the same storyline (yes, Marth does get mentioned a lot in Awakening, but besides that, he otherwise has no bearing on the Ylisse storyline). Although if the Awakening characters were all to be moved to compromise with this, then that would also not comply with Chrom and Roy's clone relationship, so...I suppose there's just no truly pleasable way to present the FE characters.
• Reasoning for Dark Pit's placement: I would honestly change this if I were you. The reasoning makes it sound like Dark Pit is literally the same person as regular Pit when he's actually more akin to Dark Samus in being a literal doppelgänger clone, thus coming off as rather misleading to anyone unfamiliar with the Kid Icarus series.
• Good Before Bad - Kirby Fighters Edition: In the description mentioning why Meta Knight wasn't ordered Dedede, it states that it's due to Dedede being more likely to cause trouble on purpose. While Dedede has had his fair share of villainy, putting him in the same category as someone like Bowser or Ganondorf...isn't quite accurate, at least if we're talking about the mainline Kirby games. So far, Dedede has done something evil on his own accord in only TWO mainline games: Kirby's Dream Land and Kirby Super Star (Even if you count Super Star Ultra separately and use Revenge of the King as another example, Spring Breeze is arguably just a retelling of the original Dream Land, so that's still only 2 stories where Dedede was a true villain). If most other cases, he's either possessed or misunderstood. To prove my point:
  • Kirby's Adventure: His reasoning for splitting the Star Rod was revealed to be a way of protecting Dream Land from Nightmare. Once Nightmare is freed, Dedede actually helps Kirby by launching him and the Star Rod into the sky so he can stop Nightmare.
  • Dream Land 2: Possessed by Dark Matter.
  • Super Star: In Dedede's other main appearance, Gourmet Race, he doesn't really do anything evil. Yes, the ending bit of the opening does make him seem threatening, but besides that, at worst, he seems to just come off as a jerk rival similarly to that of Blue from Pokémon.
  • Dream Land 3: Possessed by Dark Matter, again.
  • 64: The Crystal Shards: Possessed by Dark Matter, once again. After being defeating, he actually tags along with Kirby for his journey (albeit a little reluctantly at first).
  • Canvas Curse: The Dedede you fight in this game is a fake clone created by Drawcia.
  • Squeak Squad: Wrongly accused by Kirby of stealing the strawberry shortcake he was about to eat when it was actually a gang of thieves called the Squeaks.
  • Epic Yarn: Possessed by Yin Yarn.
  • Mass Attack: Heavily implied to be under the influence of the Skull Gang.
  • Return to Dream Land: Tags along with Kirby on his adventure, but this time he was actually willing to do so.
  • Triple Deluxe: Controlled by Taranza.
  • Planet Robobot: Only ever appears in the opening and ending cutscenes of the game, so moving on.
  • Star Allies: Possessed by a Jamba Heart. He can also be recruited by Kirby if he throws a Friend Heart at him fast enough.

While he has had some villainous motives in some of the spin-offs (such as Dream Course and Super Star Stacker), his non-antagonist roles far outnumber his actual antagonist roles, so it's kinda hard to call him a "bad guy" in the same league as Ridley or King K. Rool.

And that's everyone I have to say.

I could forgive these choices if this was made more for fun, but with the fact that you promoted this as an explanation for a potential fighter order and even encourage other users to spread this to new users who aren't familiar with the fighter order, in addition to some biased choices, the priority towards character relationships and moral alignments, statements that aren't really accurate to the source material, and overall inconsistencies, I'm gotta be honest and just say that this isn't really a reliable source for explaining a potential fighter order.

So here's my advice:

If this whole order is just supposed to be your personal opinion, it's probably best not to promote it as something to be useful for new users. It's full of inaccuracies and biased opinions, and the inaccuracies will be glaringly obvious to those who have enough knowledge regarding certain universes (such as the statements regarding Dark Pit and Dedede). That whole "Where they belong" joke regarding Banjo's placement especially gives off vibes that this whole order isn't meant to be taken that seriously.

If this is supposed to be useful for new users, I suggest doing more research to make your points stronger, avoid making your ordering seem biased as much as possible, and actually try to make the orders be consistent through and through (for example: EarthBound shouldn't be after F-Zero if you're going by date of first game).

So yeah, hope some of these helped. And again, I apologize if the byte size of this talk page explodes because of this, but I needed to avoid being vague as much as possible, m'kay? SuperSmashTurtles of the Turtle Tribe 21:23, December 6, 2020 (EST)

All of these are valid concerns, and some I even agree with (i.e. we should disrespect the Miis more). I plan on doing a more thorough response later. Toomai Glittershine The Ghostbuster 08:01, December 7, 2020 (EST)

Don't mean to "come out of nowhere" (herher) but this is something I too have been meaning to bring up about the way we order things, and I think now is a good time to. Super Smash Turtles did most of the talking for me (which is good cause I would've made it an even bigger wall of text) so I'll just add a few new points to kinda back him up. In particular there's 4 major changes I believe we should make:

• 1 EarthBound should go before F-Zero: SST already brought up how we list things by series debut, so if this is the case then we should swap the order. For a new point I initally brought this up in a discussion about why we don't use the Sakurai numbers (which I too am not a fan of the Sakurai numbers either), and the reason we put F-zero before EarthBound is because "Smash almost always lists it that way". Problem is very few times does this rule apply when things are listed in a consistent order (Brawl and SSB4 trophies, SSB3DS stage selection, and SSB4 and Ultimate's sound test). Often times when F-Zero is before EarthBound the order is already jumbled up (e.g. F-Zero is listed before Kirby, Yoshi, Star Fox and Pokémon in Melee's trophies and SSBWiiU's stage selection).

Finally there are two instances other than the Sakurai numbers in which EarthBound is first: in 64's fighter select the unlockables are actually ordered by column instead of rows like the starters, because EarthBound predates F-Zero. Even though C.Falcon predates Ness, EarthBound as a series came first so Ness is before Falcon. And also in Spirits the EarthBound series is listed before F-Zero. If it's best to leave this the way it is then the least that should be done is to put a disclaimer like why Yoshi is grouped with Mario, otherwise EarthBound along with Ness and Lucas should be moved up one space.

• 2 Group Banjo Kazooie with the 3rd parties: This ones obvious. Adding to SST's reasoning, Banjo Kazooie is always considered a 3rd party franchise throughout the wiki and in real life, Banjo should not be the odd one out just because he originated in a DK spin-off. Not to mention it was only Banjo who was present on Diddy Kong racing, while Kazooie originated in the BK series.
• 3 Mii fighters go at the end but before 3rd parties: An extra point I'm going to add is that Miis are always listed last in the fighter select in all 3 games they appear in. Putting them before 3rd parties makes sense since... well... they're not 3rd party.
• 4 Move Lucina and Chrom after Ike: These placements always seemed off, while I know those two are decendants of Marth (even though I never played a single Fire Emblem game), they still debuted in Awakening which is after the one Ike came from. Plus Chrom being listed before Roy breaks the rule the clones should go after their parent fighters.

Anyway I don't really have anything else to say since SST did the rest. Wario and DK's placements don't really matter to me and I don't know much about Kid Icarus so not much to say there. I would like to backup SST's reasoning to put Dedede before Meta Knight because when it comes to "good vs. bad" neither of them can be considered actual villains in the same sense as Bowser or Ganandorf, and also Dedede debuted before Meta Knight anyway but it's no big deal either way. Anyway hope I didn't bloat this section anymore than it already has but this has been something I wanted to mention for quite a while. Omegɑ Toɑd 23:31, December 7, 2020 (EST)

To Omega Toad: I didn't state that Dedede should come before Meta Knight. It's more directed towards the statement for why "Dedede before MK" was not put into effect, which implicitly claims that Dedede is actually a full-fledged villain, when that isn't quite accurate to how he is in his series. But to add to my previous statement, Meta Knight isn't exactly safe from evil-doing either; in the "Revenge of Meta Knight" sub-mode from Super Star, Meta Knight's goal is to take over Dream Land with his newly built Halberd and end the lazy lifestyles of the inhabitants, which sounds pretty dictatorship-esque, if you ask me. On top of that, in the newest Kirby spin-off, Kirby Fighters 2, Dedede and Meta Knight both team up to become the main antagonists of the game.

So yeah, Dedede and MK are pretty much on the "not quite bad, but not quite good, either" tier of the moral alignment in a similar vein to Wario and Dark Pit (I'd also say Wolf, but the Star Fox timeline confuses me too much), so I personally don't mind who goes first. SuperSmashTurtles of the Turtle Tribe 03:46, December 8, 2020 (EST)

Here's my more detailed response.

• Ness in SSB64 has a strong case for falling under the "out-of-nowhere surprise character goes last" clause. F-Zero was a fairly respectable franchise at the time, whereas EarthBound bombed in the US and was never released in Europe. In addition, Ness has the most difficult unlock requirements by a decent margin. One could argue that Falcon is "more unexpected" because he's not directly playable in his home game as Ness is, but neither was Fox at the time, so I don't think that matters here.
• I do agree that, compared to the DK series, the Wario series tries to pretend it's alone and is more disconnected from the Mario series in terms of content aside from Wario himself.
• Yes get the Miis out of here. They're going last (before the third-parties).
• I am biased when it comes to BK I will admit. But consider that never before have we had a third-party universe that used to be a second-party one, so it's a unique situation that the current axioms weren't really written for. In fact I think the resolution should be removing the "always" from "always go last". (I expect a lot of pushback on this.)
• Let us agree that there is no good way whatsoever to group the Fire Emblem characters, it's the group I've had the most trouble with and have changed my mind on several times. Best to just pick one way and live with it.
• Yes I will fix my reasoning for the Dedede and Dark Pit placements so they're more accurate. (The Dark Pit one was supposed to be humerous, not literal.)

I will see what I get for response before I make any changes. Toomai Glittershine The Producer 08:20, December 8, 2020 (EST)

Alright, time for some thoughts.

• EarthBound: I get your points here, but that just raises one question: What exactly makes a character a "surprise" per se? While we can unanimously agree EarthBound did not do well in the U.S., the series was still decently successful in Japan, so is overall worldwide performance a huge factor in deciding the order? If we're going by that, you could argue that the Fire Emblem characters are even more unexpected than Mr. Game & Watch, considering the FE series remained Japan-exclusive up to Melee's release whereas G&W at least made it worldwide. One character might be a surprise in one region, but not so much in others, so the whole "surprise character" thing comes off as rather subjective. Even when factoring into the whole "late unlock" thing, while Ness may have had the most difficult unlock condition in 64, there doesn't seem to be any clear enough evidence that he was intended to be the last fighter unlocked, compare that to G&W in Melee where his unlock condition and VS. Match counter make it absolutely clear he's intended to be unlocked last. Also, R.O.B. and Duck Hunt are the only unlockable first-party universes in their respective debut games anyway, so that just makes the whole "surprise character last" thing even less viable. I'm starting to wonder if this whole rule is mostly an excuse to keep Game & Watch last.
• Wario: Again, I'm not too bothered with Wario coming before DK right now. It's only if the Wario series gets another fighter (most likely from WarioWare) where it could become a bit troublesome.
• Banjo: If Banjo gets to be grouped with the first-parties for being a former second-party, then what does this mean regarding the order for Bayonetta? While Sega does still own the trademark (at least according to this article, and even then they're not entirely sure), there is some evidence that Nintendo might own at least a part of the second game (The copyright for the second game lists Nintendo as a copyright holder, compare that to the Nintendo releases of the first game, which only states "Published by Nintendo", not to mention Bayo 2 has yet to release on a non-Nintendo console. This is also made evident by Nintendo being listed as a copyright holder on Bayo's eShop description and being listed as the sole "composition and arrangement" copyright holder regarding the second game's non-remixed music tracks in the Sound Tests, whereas the non-remixed tracks from the first game only list Sega), so Bayonetta is at least slightly closer to being a first-party universe than most of the other third-parties.
• Fire Emblem characters: I guess that's just the side effect of axiom 2 in general. In addition to the FE characters, there are some other strange placements (such as Dark Samus being listed before Ridley when the latter is a lot more prevalent within the greater Metroid series whereas the former is exclusive to the Prime sub-series, or Dr. Mario being placed between the Mario Bros. when he's the only one not to be from the mainline series, even if he's the same person as Mario and placing him last breaks axiom 6). I'll let you decide if this axiom is a good idea or not in the long run.

And that's all I got. This'll probably be my last response since I don't want to further bloat this talk page. SuperSmashTurtles of the Turtle Tribe 12:03, December 8, 2020 (EST)

Anyway didn't get to respond earlier but here's my thoughts:

• EarthBound: While I do get your point, I have two concerns:

• • • 1. This reasoning makes sense from an American standpoint, because we all know the EarthBound series didn't explode in success worldwide until virtual console . But the series was a big success in Japan, so there he wouldn't really be a surprise there. And if it's going by the worldwide performance then there's SST's reasoning about Fire Emblem.
    • 2. A few things about this "surprise character" thing makes Ness seem out of place: It isn't exactly accurate to compare Ness to Mr.G&W, R.O.B., and Duck Hunt because not only are those 3 just characters you would not expect to be a playable character, they're also characters who you wouldn't expect to even be a fighter with a full moveset. Mr.G&W was just a generic character in several G&W titles without having much to use as a full moveset, R.O.B. was originally a real life toy, and Duck Hunt was just a background character, while there were some combat stuff in Duck Hunt was just a background character, while there were some combat stuff in Duck Hunt that could be used, one wouldn't expect the dog and duck of all things would be a fighter. While you could argue these 3 would just borrow elements from their games and others to use as a moveset, Ness easily makes a ton more sense as a fighter because he is actually in combat in his games, and his friends provide an expansion for his moveset. All that Ness used was from his own games. Heck I made an entire moveset for Ninten which takes elements from EarthBound Beginnings so you can see that Ness didn't just come out of nowhere compared to the other 3 (well you could argue Fox and C.Falcon are mostly smash original in moveset but that's a different case). Not to mention Ness is not only a playable character from EarthBound but also the main character, on the other hand Mr.G&W, ROB and Duck Hunt were never playable characters at all outside of Smash (well technically ROB was playable in Mario Kart ds but you get the point).

Also for the whole "unlocked last" thing, one minor detail is that Ness's unlock conditions take priorority over the others for Classic Mode unlockables (well for Puff at least, not sure about Falcon but Ness was the first I unlocked). Probably not that important but still worth noting since it showes there's no clear evidence that he's intended to always be last.

• Banjo: Aside from Bayonetta that SST brought up, there's still no rule about what happens to characters who were 1st/2nd party who became 3rd party. If Banjo is going to stay next to DK, then a rule should be made reguarding characters who are 3rd party, but we're originally 1st/2nd party or are connected with Nintendo in some way (which would be necessary should more characters like this become playable). Plus you yourself admitted Banjo is there mainly due to personal bias, which should never be an excuse to break the rules.

Anyway that's all I got now. I guess I can agree Fire Emblem is too complicated to have an order that makes the most sense, I mean Marth is Lucina after all. Wario and DK don't matter, and I kinda misunderstand what SST said about Dedede and Meta Knight but overall they don't matter. Omegɑ Toɑd 20:54, December 8, 2020 (EST)