User:Toomai/On the order of things

This page is a sort of essay geared to explain why the order of universes and characters used throughout several important wiki pages (such as the main game pages) is how it is. Should a newer user be confused or misguided on the subject, referring them here would be a good idea.

Disclaimer: This order was solely designed by me (Toomai). Chances are it is biased in some areas, such as deciding between two options that make about the same sense. Should you disagree with part of the order, please explain on the talk page.

Note that this is all subject (though unlikely) to change.

Axioms
These are the basic principles I want the final order to adhere to, roughly in order of importance. If you disagree with these, then you probably won't agree with the order, and either one of us trying to argue is futile. Note that "keep characters of the same universe together" could be considered an axiom 0; I think it's too obvious to list. (Also the list doesn't support starting from 0.)
 * 1) The relative order of two characters should not change between games.
 * 2) Strongly-related universes and characters should be grouped together. In the case of characters, while it's mostly a case-by-case decision, if two characters are related by blood and are at least semi-clones, they probably apply under this axiom.
 * 3) Third-party universes should always go last, preferably based on how strongly they're connected to Nintendo.
 * 4) Universes of starter characters should come before those of unlockable characters. (For this and all other rules based on "starter" or "unlockable", "DLC" is a third step, after unlockable.)
 * 5) Universes should go in the order first established in SSB64: series release date.
 * 6) *Exception: Games tend to have an out-of-nowhere surprise character that is unlocked late. In these cases, there's a case to puting their universe at the end instead, such as Game & Watch in Melee and R.O.B. in Brawl.
 * 7) Characters should be ordered such that the good guys come before the bad guys, and that the most important ones come first in those orders.
 * 8) Characters should be ordered so that the SSB64 guys come before the Melee guys (and so on). In the case of DLC, release order effectively acts as a second layer to this.
 * 9) Characters should be listed in the order "starter", "easy to unlock", "hard to unlock".

Development
This is the basic thought process traversed upon creating the order.

Series
1. Order the universes of the Original 8 as presented in SSB64.        

2. Move Yoshi to between Mario and DK. Yoshi continues to appear in core Mario games as a major character, whereas DK only shows up in sports spinoffs. 

3. Add in the unlockable characters' universes.  

4. Add the universes introduced in Melee. Ice Climber goes first as it's represented by a starter character, while Game & Watch is after Fire Emblem because it's represented by a character that is almost certain to be the last unlocked (and the connotation that he's the surprise out-of-nowhere character).   

5. Add the (non-third-party) universes introduced in Brawl. R.O.B. goes at the end because he's the out-of-nowhere character.   <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)">

6. More Wario to between Yoshi and DK. Wario generally doesn't appear in core Mario games, but it is widely perceived that he is still part of the Mario universe more than his own, whereas it is generally accepted that DK lives in his own world. <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(191,0,191,0.25)">

7. Add the (non-third-party) SSB4 universes, again ordered by first game release date; Duck Hunt comes last because it's the only unlockable one (and it also happens to host the surprise character). Unfortunately, this establishes/requires that assists who later gain fighter status (i.e. Little Mac) cause their universes to move. As it is impossible to predict this, it cannot be helped. Luckily, this can only ever turn a minor universe (no symbol) into a major one (yes symbol), rather than changing the order of two major universes. <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)">

8. Throw the Mii Fighters in I guess. They don't belong to a universe, but they do need to have a spot in the character order - and since they're not characters in their own right, they go at the end. <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)">

9. Add the (non-third-party) Ultimate universes. There aren't a lot. <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)">

10. Add Brawl's third-party universes. Sonic goes before Metal Gear because of the stronger Nintendo connection (more games on Nintendo systems in general, Mario sports crossovers). <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)">

11. Add SSB4's third-party universes. Mega Man began as Nintendo and the "core" series is almost purely Nintendo. Many Pac-Man games are only on Nintendo systems, but he began as an arcade character. The rest are DLC and so go in their release order. <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)">

12. Add Ultimate's third-party universes. Only one is base while the rest are DLC, so they go in the order they appear. <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)"> <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(255,191,0,0.25)">

13. Put BK next to DK where they belong because of the strong connection between the two. <div style="display:inline-block;background:rgba(191,0,191,0.25)">

Characters
1. Start with a character order based on the weakest axioms: "SSB64 starters", "SSB64 unlockables", "Melee starters", and so on. Grouped by universe, of course.

2. Make changes. Mostly to group related characters together (axiom 2), but a few others too.
 * a) Move Dr. Mario to after Mario because he's literally the same person.
 * b) Move the princesses to after the bros and before the Koopas, both for axiom 6 (good guys before bad guys) and for this being a standard order in the Mario series.
 * c) Put Daisy next to Peach for historically being a palette swap of her.
 * d) More Bowser Jr. to after his father.
 * e) Group all the Links together.
 * f) Put Dark Samus after the two Samuses, since they share DNA.
 * g) Move Pichu to after Pikachu, as they are Pokémon of the same evolutionary line. (This is by far the move I'm least sure of; as far as I'm concerned it looks right both ways.)
 * h) Define an order for PT's Pokémon, and put them alongside him. Squirtle-Ivysaur-Charizard is decided because not only does it follow the stages of evolution, it happens to be their switch order and the Subspace Emissary order. (The other likely order would be by Pokédex number, and having Ivysaur listed first seems unusual.)
 * i) Move Lucina and Chrom to after their ancestor Marth.
 * j) Put Dark Pit next to Pit because that's who he is.



Note that the following changes were considered but not made:
 * Meta Knight and King Dedede were not swapped. It was considered that Dedede should come first because he's a more Bowsery foe than MK. But MK is very rarely an enemy in his own right - he's usually on Kirby's side even if it doesn't seem so, whereas Dedede is more likely to be causing trouble on purpose. So, when putting good before bad, MK is before Dedede.

Comparison to other orders
An extra warning that this is mostly based on the above opinionated axioms. If you have an order not listed here, list it on the talk page and provide some arguments, and I might add a comparison to it here.

Character selection screen order
This seems appropriate since it's based on arguably the most important menu in the game, right? But as it turns out they're actually pretty poor.
 * Collectively: They break axiom 1, and cannot say anything about universes that do not appear in their game.
 * SSB64: Luigi comes first; this doesn't break any axioms, but it defies logic that Mario isn't first. Unlockables are on the ends and in the middle. Yoshi is separated from Mario.
 * Melee: Dr. Mario comes first (see above); in fact 50% of the clones come before their originals. The middle row is objectively backwards, forced into being reversed so that Ganondorf is reasonably close to the other Zelda characters, meaning we need a special rule for reading the middle row right-to-left for things to flow as expected.
 * Brawl: Must be read as columns instead of rows for universe grouping, unlike previous two games. Throws new one-character universes into soft spots in the middle without much regard for surroundings. It's certainly not as bad as the last two, but it's not particularly good either.
 * Brawl's SSE: No. Just no. It does a pretty good job of organizing by game and unlockability, but it sacrifices universal groups for it, and that's a deal-breaker.
 * SSB4: This one is pretty good honestly, but G&W comes before DK on the 3DS yet after on the Wii U, and honestly neither of those are sensible. Also shoves all DLC characters to the end (including Mewtwo and such).
 * SSBU: See "Sakurai numbers" order below.

Alphabetical order
Alphabetical order is a completely valid order in many cases and is the best choice in contexts such as numerical lists. But when you want to list characters, and not just their names, I think alphabetical order is too impersonal and stuffy. It can also get a bit iffy on sorting certain characters (e.g. when sorting "Bowser" and "Bowser Jr.", different implementations come to different conclusions).

Overall series release order
Brawl's all-star mode did this. Basically, it throws game associations out the window and continues to slot things between other things so the earliest universes come first and the latest come last. I wouldn't say this is a bad idea, but any order that has Mr. Game & Watch first is a bit sketchy, and Yoshi and Wario being in the middle of nowhere leaves something to be desired. It also comes with the wrinkle of regional dissimilarity (that is, the order being different based on what region's release dates are being used).

In-game technical orders
There are several orders used in-game to define characters, but they aren't viable to use in general. Mostly because of the "several orders" part; for example Melee's debug mode character selector puts Zelda and Sheik in the middle, but on the disc's ROM they're near the front. They also share the same problems as character selection screen orders: they change between games and say nothing about characters not present.

Sakurai numbers
Yuck. I respect the idea behind it, but it relies on knowing the history of Smash Bros. in more detail than even a more well-informed fan might know (e.g. Sheik being revealed long before Zelda for Melee). I think it's nothing more than marketing hype for the "all veterans returning" gimmick. And I think everyone will agree that it makes finding a character in the list (or on the selection screen) take much more effort compared to other orders.