User:Flippy/myths and legends

NeoGAF Melee rumour

I knew this post was untrue, but while I was rabbitholing Melee info I got curious, because I noticed some of its claims genuinely did have some level of alignment with actual things Sakurai has said, but its wildest claims (Wolf? Leif? Pokemon Trainer? Huh?) were so utterly baseless as to confound me.

tl;dr This post is indeed mostly untrue, BUT it is built around a few nuggets of true information mixed with falsehoods. From what I can tell, generally speaking, most of the info appears to be heavily mutated from Melee's website and the first game's Smash 2 poll. It seems that OP significantly embellished the information by jumping to conclusions (connecting unrelated information and stating those extrapolations as fact), misinterpreting the text, and in some cases yes, genuinely just making things up. There's probably a level of bad oldschool Babelfish or "I know a guy" translations at play too. Also yes, the alleged Famitsu articles being referred to genuinely do not seem to exist.

While it's died down ever since Sourcegaming debunked it, the kernels of truth are what seem to have given this post such a life - it's much easier to believe false information something up if the root of what you're hearing sounds true. The Smash 2 Poll has contributed to a lot of FUD in general, early fans who found it often mistakenly believed it to be an actual list of characters who were planned but scrapped for 64 and Melee. I suspect this is where all the "Meowth, Sigurd, etc. were planned for 64!" rumours come from. That's why when trying to find accurate info, it's just as important to debunk and bust old rumours, so they don't swim in the same headspace as real info.

Anyway, here you go:

• It was decided early on to separate the newcomers into two even groups for balance reasons: fan favorites (as determined by a survey) and unique, unexpected characters.

^Totally false.

• Bowser, Peach, Mewtwo, and Marth were culled from the fan survey.

^Partially true. All four characters ranked highly in the poll and the poll was explicitly cited for Bowser and Marth.

• Zelda, Sheik, Ice Climbers, and Mr. Game & Watch made up the other group.

^False/embellished. Probably just extrapolated from their low/non-rank in the survey.

• Just in case Sakurai couldn't get approval to use Marth from Intelligent Systems, he had some King Dedede concepts ready as a backup.

^Totally false. Completely baseless. Possibly extrapolation of Dedede being mentioned as being cut from Smash 64 on the poll's page, where he ranked highly. Marth’s profile on the SSBM site mentions the cooperation of IntSys leading to his inclusion, as well as his popularity, but that approving his inclusion was a challenge. This seems to be a false connection between two unrelated statements.

• Wario placed third in the poll, but with Bowser and Peach pencilled in, Sakurai didn't want to include 3 Mario newcomers.

^True.

• Sakurai considered adding a character from Pokémon Gold/Silver during planning, but none of the popular options were feasible.

^Totally false. Possibly misinterpretation of “someone from Pokemon”, “Marill”, “Togepi”, and “Lugia” being in the poll. There's no indication that Sakurai seriously considered them.

• He thought about having a trainer summon the second generation starters, but there wasn't time/resources for such a labor-intensive character.

^Totally false. Possibly overextrapolation of “Satoshi (Protagonist)” in poll, but otherwise completely baseless as far as I can tell.

• Pichu was promoted as the main Pokémon from those games, but it would have been too similar to Pikachu, so Sakurai passed on it.

^Totally false. Worth noting is on Melee's site, a fan asked Sakurai why Pichu was picked over Raichu, and Sakurai stated Pichu's joke character concept made him stand out more. POSSIBLY a misinterpretation/overextrapolation from this.

• Thinking back to Pichu is partly what made Sakurai want to include clones.

^Totally false. This and the next 3 bullet points seem to be derived from Pichu’s page on the SSBM site. This page is where Sakurai explains about clones and why they were added to the game, but there's no indication that Pichu specifically was the impetus behind adding clones. Possible extrapolation from this.

• Clones were not included in Melee's planning documents.

^True.

• Sakurai had a hard time deciding on all of the clones, though some choices came easy like Pichu and Young Link.

^Partially true, but embellished.

• Sakurai says that he probably could have finished Dedede in the time it took to make the 6 clones, but he's glad he was able to beef the roster up a bit.

^Completely false. Totally baseless. Possibly a MASSIVE mutation of Sakurai saying that Dedede as a clone would have been impossible and a bad idea. His other statements on Pichu's page express the opposite, which is that cutting or not adding clones would not make it suddenly possible to add a single new character.

• Wario was briefly considered as the Mario clone, with low speed and high attack power, but Sakurai felt that Wario deserved better.

^Embellishment of a rhetorical point Sakurai made.

• Dr. Mario made sense for a few reasons: he's from a critically-acclaimed retro game, the team wanted to include his music, and because a doctor would probably be on hand at an event as violent as Smash Bros.

^Middle part is true and on his character page. Rest is embellished/made up.

• Wolf was considered as Fox's clone, but with shared animations Sakurai felt he would just be perceived as a gray-colored Fox, so he went with Falco for his drastically different appearance and excellent jumping capabilities.

^This is TOTALLY made up as far as I can tell. At absolute best, this seems to be an extrapolation/editorialization of Falco’s bio, and Sakurai's statement that not all characters in the intro movie (where Wolf is literally a gray-coloured Fox) were actually playable.

• Leaf was considered as Marth's clone, but when Sakurai went to Intelligent Systems for approval they gave him an early look at the GBA Fire Emblem, and he agreed that Roy would be a better fit. Sakurai mentions his fire properties as making him stand out.

^Totally false. Possibly inference/editorialization from Roy’s bio and Leif’s presence in the poll + being the most recent Lord at the time.

• Ganondorf was the last character added to the game. He was only included because he was popular, had a similar body type to Captain Falcon, and because Sakurai couldn't really think of any additional plausible clones.

^Partially true but also embellished. This is based on the writeup on Dorf's character page.

James Bond, Sonic, Takamaru, Banjo, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand were planned for Melee!