That’s right, Kirby’s mischievous rival (he’s not always the bad guy after all) is now confirmed for Brawl. In some ways, this is actually more interesting than Sonic’s inclusion. Why? Well, I was going to talk about this stuff on the podcast, but I’ll go ahead and discuss it a little.
You see, WAAAAAAAAY back before the official site didn’t post every day, they had a submission form on the Japanese only side of the site requesting that players submit requests for the types of music, stages, and characters they wanted. If you don’t remember, I actually started a project designed to help people submit requests that Krystal be included. It was only marginally successful, because they didn’t listen to our requests either in America or Japan. I do think we got noticed though.
Anyway, shortly before the official site went offline to prepare for the format they now use, Masahiro Sakurai posted a list detailing which characters were requested and how many times (officially of course). This was interesting, but no-one knew if they would listen to the fans completely. Then, characters high on the list started getting confirmed. First Ike, then Diddy Kong, then Lucas, and finally King Dedede today. If you remove them from the list, and remove characters from previous games, you get this:
- 4 for Geno (Super Mario RPG character)
- 4 for Ridley (Samus’ evil rival)
- 3 for Captain Olimar and Pikmen (Main characters from Pikmen games)
- 3 for Krystal (Uh, yeah, you know who this is)
- 3 for Takamaru (Samurai character from a Japanese only game)
- 3 for Windwaker Link (Cell-shaded Link)
- List truncated
As you can see, Krystal is tied for second place, so if she is in the game, she’s about third in line to be announced, unless they made her a secret character.
Also notice a couple other things. Takamaru and Windwaker Link are unlikely to make it into the game. Takamaru is a Japan-only character, which they are trying to avoid. They also said at one point that they wanted to reduce clone characters, which is pretty much what Windwaker Link would be (don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they could make him unique if they wanted to, but it IS the same character, just younger). Then there’s Ridley, he has wings and can fly constantly. Originally I would have said he couldn’t be in the game because he’s a flying character, but after the way they did Pit and Metaknight, I think it’s possible. Geno is relatively obscure, but has a massive following and a lot of requests.
So Krystal still has a very, very good chance of getting into Brawl. We’ll see in the coming weeks and months!
Well, not, there’s only one more empty space in the last row in the newcomer list. Question is, who fill that spot? And when? Krystal is my most wanted character, though by now now, it’s more than likely she’ll be a hidden character. HOWEVER, it is possible that some of the charaters we’ve seen already may very well be hidden as well, though it is unlikely, otherwise they probably would have announced Jigglypuff by now.
Oh, and another note, one reason why some of these highly requested characters have been announced (like Ike and Dedede) is supposedly because Sakurai actually listens to fans. That, and I think Krystal is one of his favorties.
There’s nothing stopping them from adding another row man. It’s just a website.
There are, according to all the information I’ve seen, going to be at least 35 characters in Brawl, and we only have 22 confirmed (Zero Suit Samus doesn’t count). There’s plenty of room for Krystal.
WW Link is a different character from the older one in SSBB (aka TP Link). If you are familiar with the Zelda series, you’d know that most of the games featured a different Link. And you said it yourself. They could easily make him a character with a unique moveset, so I don’t see the problem with putting him in the game. He could easily replace the OoT/MM Young Link in SSBM and ultimately become the new “Young Link”.
Well, technically, it’s the same character reborn whenever Hyrule needs him. Regardless, it would be an effort to make him unique, wheras characters like Krystal and Ridley would be unique from the start.
Why Geno?
In the end, they’re still not the “same” individual. When you’re creative like Sakurai, it doesn’t take much effort to create a moveset for characters, at all.
Frankly, I think this is a new low. As much as I’m a Kirby fan, King Dedede is far too obscure to be a starring fighter in a flagship Nintendo game. In fact, many of Brawl’s new characters are a weak roster. Dedede, Meta Knight, a nondescript Pokemon Trainer (a missed opportunity to include Ash), and… oh God… Diddy Kong. Nintendo SERIOUSLY need to extend their repertoire by including characters from other series. What about Captain Olimar? What about Chibi Robo? What about an Advance Wars CO? (Sami would be a good choice.) What about R.O.B. the totally useless robot? Please Nintendo, don’t keep your vision narrowed on series that already feature characters in Brawl!
Glitcher, as you can see from the list I posted, Nintendo IS listening to fans. They are pretty much including every character that was requested. King Dedede may be obscure, but not nearly as obscure as Sami. The reason they didn’t include Ash was because they don’t use Ash after Red/Blue, they switch to a new trainer. I’m pretty sure that the depicted trainer is the “standard” one from current generation games. Diddy Kong is far less obscure than ROB, sadly. So you see, it’s tempting to think we have the answers, but the fact is, people voted, and these were the characters that won.