Talk:Clone/Archive 5

Luigi is not a semi clone
Luigi is not a semi clone because he has completely different moves than Mario. Crocodile Dippy 2 (talk) 10:52, 10 December 2018 (EST)
 * He's been a semi-clone ever since Melee, Croc. The changes made to Mario in Smash 4 still apply to Luigi as well, even if his grabs and throw have been drastically changed. Plus, two of his moves (up tilt and forward tilt) were slightly recloned to resemble Mario's again, and he still has the same up and back aerial animations as Mario as well. SonicSpeed48ChristmasSig4.png Sonic, the Cheerful Speedster ChristmasTimeTigger.png 11:07, 10 December 2018 (EST)
 * Luigi's status as a semi-clone has been subject to debate since SSB4. If we look at his current moveset, he shares a similar neutral, back, and up air, forward and up tilt, up and down smash, and similar standard and up specials. Meanwhile, his jab, dash attack, down tilt, forward smash, forward and down aerial, side and down special, final smash all variation of his grabs, all throws, running and walking animations, helpless animation, idle animation, screen KO, character physics, and jumping animations are completely unique. Furthermore, some of his moves like Super Jump Punch have radically different properties that further distinguish him from his red counterpart. These differences put him more in line with Wolf. OldLink5 (talk) 11:38, 10 December 2018 (EST)
 * No I mean Luigi is not a semi clone in Ultimate, not in other games. Crocodile Dippy 2 (User talk: Crocodile Dippy 2) 19:18, 10 December 2018 (GMT)
 * Personnaly, they sould not be considered semi clone anymore, they have completely different moveset and property, Fox/Wolf share more than Mario/Luigi.Jf811 (talk) 11:53, 13 December 2018 (EST)

It is very difficult in general to draw the line at which a character is no longer a semi-clone. I have a project that attempts to do so, but until I can complete it, things should stay as they are for now. Toomai Glittershine The Pan-Galactic 10:45, 14 December 2018 (EST)

I think it's more straightforward that we think. Clones are characters like Daisy, or Richter, or Lucina, who share virtually all the main attributes, body frames, and attacks with their source, with a different visual design, maybe a few different animations sans taunts and victory poses, and MAYBE a few, minimal gameplay tweaks. So you don't really play them differently from their source. These clones are NOT balanced standalone.

For semi clones, it's any character who is based on, but with significant changes to either attributes, attacks, skeleton etc. I think Luigi, Wolf, Pichu, Dr Mario, Isabelle etc. all fall into this. With Dr Mario, his attributes and properties changed so much that playing him like regular Mario isn't viable, so he is basically a unique character in tier lists and strategies. Pichu doesn't share a single animation with Pikachu now despite it's basic moves having a passing resemblance. Wolf has similar special moves but many differences in his mechanics, even if he is based off Fox. These characters ARE balanced standalone.
 * Agreed on the two paragraphs above. This was essentially my two types of clone argument, which is already backed up by quotes from Sakurai.Furballcan (talk) 11:34, 21 December 2018 (EST)

Non clones are NOT directly based on another character. Rosalina for example isn't based off anyone. So is Palutena or R.O.B or Greninja, or Bayonetta. --SmashingAlbert (talk) 05:46, 15 December 2018 (EST)

I think that at this point in the series, our boy Weege isn't a clone anymore. With a unique jab, dash attack, fsmash, stilt, fair, dair, side b, down b, grab, throws, and animations, along with different physics and properties on some of his moves make me think that the green-hatted plumber is, and should be, separate from Mario (at least in Ultimate).

Super Eli (talk) 05:15, 3 January 2019 (EST)

Thanks to OldLink5 for the list of his Luigi's moves. Super Eli (talk) 05:16, 3 January 2019 (EST)

I like Toomai's list. By the percentage of moves and traits that are shared with Mario, Luigi now has less than 45%, putting him in the same ballpark as Wolf. He's not a semi clone anymore. Rmkar9 (talk) 18:51, 7 January 2019 (EST)
 * How much of a clone someone is is not a quantifiable percentage. By your logic we should be declaring Lucina, Young Link, Pichu, Dark Samus, Ken and Toon Link semi clones just because they are not completely identical to their counterparts. Black Vulpine  of the Furry Nation.  Furries make the internets go! :3  19:11, 7 January 2019 (EST)

Wolf in Ultimate
Sorry, if you're still going to list Lucas and Luigi in the Ultimate clone section, then you have to also list Wolf. The three of them are certainly a step above clones and semi-clones but it's pure favoritism to single out Wolf as special. He's still a character who has moves (all specials and final smash) clearly derived from another (Fox) and not anymore unique than either Luigi or Lucas compared to their original. 72.89.170.85


 * Agree, Mario/Luigi and Ness/Lucas are clearly now different from each other more than Wolf/Fox. Jf811 (talk) 10:38, 14 December 2018 (EST)

Please read the section on Wolf in Brawl; it explains that Wolf's relationship to Fox is very unclear and hard to compare under the rules that work for other characters. Until we have enough time/resources to determine whether this holds true for Ultimate, things will stay are they are. Toomai Glittershine The Xanthic 10:42, 14 December 2018 (EST)


 * Again, this is a distinction that somehow only applies to Wolf. You didn't need to find the time/resources to determine if it still holds true for Luigi or Lucas in Ultimate before listing them. Wolf even has less unique moves compared to Fox in Ultimate thanks to the loss of a unique neutral air, meanwhile Luigi got an entirely new set of throws and Ness/Lucas got a different up air. Between the three sets, Wolf is the only one that got less unique from their base in Ultimate, but somehow he needs more time before he's listed (even in an other section like with Brawl) but Luigi and Lucas are added right away.72.89.170.85 00:26, 20 December 2018 (EST)
 * Agreed. I made a post earlier about how there are only two types of clones. Echo fighters who are clearly marked as such, and non-echo fighters that still have a clear parent fighter. That's it. How many differences, and which ones matter more, and if its the animations, or function, or frame data, or name (in either English or Japanese), and charts that count percentages of moves are all arbitrary headcanons by the fans. Wolf, Luigi, Lucas, Isabelle etc are all clearly based off of Fox, Mario, Ness, Villager etc. But they have enough differences to not be echoes, even if some have more glaring differences than others. The only person who would be in contention is whether the Marth spectrum stops at Chrom or goes all the way to Ike, but where Wolf goes is obvious. Furballcan (talk) 11:26, 21 December 2018 (EST)

Can we stop trying to define semi-clone?
Look, I think we're all tired of the endless debates. Is Luigi still a semi-clone? Is Ganondorf still a semi-clone? Was Wolf ever a semi-clone? And honestly... who the heck cares?

Sakurai has blessed us: he has given us an official definition for clone 9 times out of 10. They're clearly separated in Melee and Smash 4. The whole Echo Fighter thing in Ultimate. Brawl clearly has no clones. And Luigi's "differences from Mario" section on the website speaks for itself. We can state these characters are clones with full confidence!

No such luck on semi-clones. And yeah, SmashWiki is not official -- but y'know what? None of the fans have ever bothered to define semi-clone, either. Toomai made a pretty good chart... and then he remade it and somehow ended up with completely different results. Guys, even a single person can't agree with himself on what exactly makes a semi-clone! Do you see a problem here?

Of course, we can't ignore semi-clones outright. That would be stupid and a huge hole in our encyclopedic nature. But can we stop trying to be the end-all be-all source on who is or isn't a semi-clone? What we should be reporting on -- what is fact -- is that no one can agree (bar a few exceptions). This page is a hot mess, honestly, and a lot of the mess would be cleaned up if we just stopped trying to justify our baseless definition of this equally baseless term.

So I drafted up an example: User:TheNuttyOne/Clone. Semi-clones are no longer given walls of text; they are given brief references in the opening paragraphs. The characters who are widely agreed upon are said to be widely agreed upon. The characters who are debated are said to be debated. If the readers want to know more about their differences and similarities, they're welcome to open their individual pages -- this is a page on clones, which briefly discusses the highly controversial nature of semi-clones.

Leave your thoughts. I probably won't respond to them because I fully expect to be ridiculed for this suggestion and don't have the energy or patience to deal with that. TheNuttyOne 01:14, 20 December 2018 (EST)
 * Sounds good to me Furballcan (talk) 11:26, 21 December 2018 (EST)

Your idea changes semi-clones from "usefully explained" to "not usefully explained", but it still marks such characters as semi-clones, and thus does not accomplish what you say you were trying to do by letting readers make their own decisions.

Also, I did not get "completely different results" when I remade my clone system. I think Wolf just moved a bit because of new stuff I discovered since the original version. No characters' status were changed. Toomai Glittershine The Incomprehensible 12:02, 21 December 2018 (EST)
 * I have to agree with Toomai; you use the term "semi-clone" 25 times in your attempted fix, which doesn't really stop defining the term. And, to be completely honest, what of "semi-clone" is unclear? It is not a clone, but it is also not unique, so it's partially a clone; a "semi-clone", if you will. Aidan,  the Festive Rurouni  12:33, 21 December 2018 (EST)

Exactly! Also Nintendo and Sakurai already gave us a definition of a full clone, and dataminers have found that it is almost entirely accurate.. I suggest we just go by it. Also, can we please add Wolf back to this as he does have significant differences that people might not understand, but is clearly built off Fox. --FloraBlola2 (talk) 12:49, 26 December 2018 (EST)

Can the title be changed to Echo Fighter??
Hello, Smashers. I know that they are still clones, but Sakurai has provided us a official term, so now clone word is in disuse. While I do get there are semi clone, now that there is a official term, I think it could just be me, but saying 'clone' just feels wrong. Can we get the title to be changed? Michele (talk) 12:22, 26 December 2018 (EST)
 * No. "Echo Fighter" is just a label for full clones in Ultimate who debuted in SSB4 or Ultimate. Zakawer2 (talk) 12:35, 26 December 2018 (EST)
 * We've discussed this before, and, Zakawer2, it's just a term for full clones in Ultimate (though I don't know if it's exclusive to non-Melee clones). And besides, we aren't official, so we don't necessarily have to go by the official term used now.  Aidan,  the Festive Rurouni  12:51, 26 December 2018 (EST)

Memoryman3 is using IP addresses and sockpuppets to edit this page and insert his clone nonsense.
Admins, please place this page, alongside those of Dr. Mario, Young Link, Pichu and all Echo Fighters in SSBU, under permanent (not temporary) semi-protection to prevent Memoryman3's sockpuppets from editing this page by any and all means whatsoever. Zakawer2 (talk) 17:25, 27 December 2018 (EST)
 * As much as I think the above message is a QDV violation, I agree. PROTECT even reads, "A page or image that has been a recent target of persistent vandalism or other persistent nonconstructive edits by a banned user." That is EXACTLY what is happening here. Black Vulpine  of the Furry Nation.  Furries make the internets go! :3  17:34, 27 December 2018 (EST)
 * I also agree. From what I can tell (and comparing a past sockpuppet IP he used), Memoryman3 is most likely using a VPN or proxy to edit the clone section. It doesn't seem like Memoryman is going to stop, either, until his "point" stays on the wiki. SugarCookie420 (talk) 17:43, 27 December 2018 (EST)
 * Don’t be silly, the admins will never protect this article, they simply don’t take vandalism as seriously as they used to. 198.8.84.214 17:45, 27 December 2018 (EST) - The Scribbler

This is stupid. The edits he has done are actually pretty factual and unbiased. In fact, they line up more with offical explanations and info. All echo fighters have exactly the same parameters with few exceptions such as Dark Samus' shield size (11 -> 11.7) and Ken's 10% faster run speed. --162.243.163.104 18:45, 27 December 2018 (EST)
 * I have to agree. I have no idea why people are taking issue to Memoryman's edits when he's actually adding useful and relevant information to the page. --Luigifan18 (talk) 19:24, 27 December 2018 (EST)

Dr Mario, Pichu and Young Link are now semi clones.
Sakurai has given us a definition of a full clone in Ultimate.

※攻撃力やふっとばし力、歩行・走行速度、ジャンプ力、重さなどの基礎パラメーターが、オリジナルファイターに対してほぼ同じのファイターのこと

Basic parameters such as attack power and launch power, walking and running speed, jump height, weight, etc. are about the same as the original fighter --66.85.140.114 08:42, 4 January 2019 (EST)
 * Right, they're semi-clones. So why do you keep edit warring saying they're not clones at all? It doesn't matter how much in the right you think you are, your methods of editing and trying to get your point across are highly disruptive. Good on you for taking to the talk page this time, but that's what you should have been doing in the first place. Black Vulpine  of the Furry Nation.  Furries make the internets go! :3  09:20, 4 January 2019 (EST)
 * By that measure, Ken (who is regarded as an Echo fighter) is not a full clone. I feel like clone distinctions are inconsistent in general for Ultimate, so while developer explanations are a handy guideline, they're not the be-all-end-all for determining clone vs. semiclone. Nyargleblargle.png Nyargle blargle'''  (Contribs) 09:48, 4 January 2019 (EST)

Not quite. Ken is clearly an exception, and even then, he shares a vast majority of his toolkit and data with Ryu. He has similar KO potential, the same jump height and aerial movement in all aspects, the exact same weight and gravity, and a very similar if not identical disadvantage state. A lot of his moves are even unaltered from Ryu, unlike Dr Mario who differs in every single move. Dr Mario's differences in terms of gameplay are also more drastic.

Even then, we now have clones like Daisy and Dark Samus who have largely aesthetic changes for character appeal. Or Lucina who is borderline the exact same. Modern games have been doing this more often as balancing a clone is actually harder than you might think. --86.163.150.33 15:46, 4 January 2019 (EST)

Should we put Ultimate Dr. Mario in the “other” section just like Wolf?
Aside from memoryman3 and his sockpuppets, a majority of us can agree that Dr. Mario is very much a full clone. I’d suggest renaming the unneccesarily long “clones and semi-clones that are not echo fighters” section to simply “semi-clones”, and then putting Dr. Mario in the “other” section since he’s neither an echo fighter nor a semi-clone. I don’t think complicating the title would be a good way to group Dr. Mario in there. 184.181.102.188 18:52, 20 January 2019 (EST)
 * I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree. Dr. Mario is a pretty hard clone, over 90% of the moves either look or function the exact same. His status isn't "unknown" as the argument for Wolf is. Though I also think Wolf shouldn't have his own Other section given he's a pretty obvious semi clone. He and Luigi have a similar ballpark % of moves that are the same as their parents. If he's not a semi clone, then Luigi isn't either. Rmkar9 (talk) 18:14, 21 January 2019 (EST)
 * I’m fully aware that Dr. Mario is more of a clone than Ken and Wolf is a fairly obvious semi-clone. However, since nobody seems to want to move Wolf out of his own section, I suggested moving Dr. Mario there as well. While he is not labelled as an echo fighter, I don’t think naming the semi-clone section to something complicated is a good reason to group Dr. Mario in there. Ditto on Luigi though. If he’s a semi-clone, so is Wolf. 184.181.102.188 18:23, 21 January 2019 (EST)

Oh, I never realised that Dr Mario shared the same air speed, the same gravity, the same jump height, the same general movement and attack power, and all the same combos as Mario? There is no debate, Sakurai didn't list him as an echo fighter for a reason. --185.72.246.203 09:56, 24 January 2019 (EST)
 * I said all of us except memoryman sockpuppets know that Dr. Mario isn’t a semi-clone. 184.181.102.188 14:34, 25 January 2019 (EST)

Echo Fighter definition
The echo figthers definition is full of approximations and speculations based on a lack of knowledge about how video games are made. As someone who have professional experience in the matter, I would like to edit it to put a proper definition of what an echo fighter actually is : A echo fighter is a fighter that reuse most of another fighter animations in order to save a lot of development time (as animation is unarguably the most time consuming task on the development of a Smash fighter). That's it, there is no such thing as "similar" proportions, they literally have the same rig (aka skeleton), there is no such thing as Dr Mario, Young Link, and Pichu not being echo fighters because of some made up reason about debutting before SSB4, Young Link and Pichu both have their own unique rig, and Dr Mario, despite having presumably the same rig as Mario, still have a full set of animations of his own. Isabelle is not an echo fighter because she has her own animations, simple and plain. Daisy, Lucina, Dark Pit, and Richter only have taunts of their own. Chrom have his own up special. Dark Samus have a few animations of her own but often go back to Samus animations. And Ken finally is probably the less echo amongst the echo by having a lot of kicks of his own. So, is everybody fine with putting my definition of what makes a character an echo fighter ? YoshiRyu (talk) 11:10, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * The problem wih what you’re suggesting is that there are too many exceptions to this rule. Krn, Chrom, and Dark Damus use entirely different animations. Additionally, even if what you say about Dr. Mario using an entirely separate rig of animations from Mario (and you’re probably right), they are still the exact same for the most part. If we looked directly into the game’s files, Dr. Mario’s speed and strength are actually identical to Mario’s as well, so if we’re going to consider his animations different because of a different rig, then we’ll have to state that his attributes are the same. I persoanlly don’t think bis is a good way to define echo fighters, but I commend you for trying something that sounds reasonable. 184.181.102.188 11:55, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * The exceptions are the reason why I say echo fighter reuses most of another character animation. People tends to no notice because the game is smooth as hell, but the amount of work put in the animation of the character is huge, we're talking about hundreds of animations for each character. The original animations for Ken, Chrom, and Dark Samus are very very few, compared to the reused animations. And when you said that Dr Mario is similar to Mario, well, that goes my way : Dr Mario is similar, yet he has his own animations, therefore he is not an echo fighter. Of course, the wording may be off, I'm no native english speaker, so anyone can reword that in a better way, be my guest, but the truth is echo fighter means animation recycling, all the echo fighters use mostly recycled animations, none of the regular fighters does. So when the wiki says that Dr Mario may not be considered an echo fighter because he is in the series prior to SSB4, that's simply not true, the reason he is not an echo is that he doesn't use Mario's animations. YoshiRyu (talk) 13:35, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * This is as arbitrary a definition as any other, and don't really see what value it adds over what is currently here. Animations are not the only part of a character's defining gameplay and mechanics, and should not be the sole determinant of what makes an echo fighter/semi clone/clone. – Emmett  13:46, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * As said in the initial message, I have professional knowledge about video game development, so this is not an arbitrary definition. The animations are the element that differentiate echo fighters from regular fighters : all 69 regulars fighters have only animations of their own, fact, all 7 echo fighters reuse most of another fighter animations, fact. Let me put that in perspective : imagine I'm a biologist, and I'm telling you that an animal in front of you is a "zebra", and you're telling me that it's an arbitrary name and that "striped horse" is as good, that the situation I'm in right now. Echo fighters are animations recycling, I'm 100% sure of that, it's as obvious to me as the striped horse being a zebra. YoshiRyu (talk) 13:54, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * Unless your professional knowledge of video games from development comes from working on SSBU, and you are on their design team and can provide evidence to substantiate that, your definition is your own opinion and entirely arbitrary. You are yourself qualifying the fact that "most" Echo Fighters share "most" of their animations because it's not as iron clad as you make it out to be. I also have a degree in biochemistry and that analogy is nonsensical. What single part of the definition on the main page is factually incorrect? They *do* share most of their movesets; they *do* have similar proportions; they *do* have different taunts and poses. – Emmett  14:02, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * Sorry to disagree, but a professional developper doesn't need to have work on a game to be able to see how it has been done, game development is an expertise field just as any other one, it's not some kind of magic. Echo fighters do share animations, it's visible. And the fact that you insinuate that I wouldn't be able to tell if I didn't work on a game is low key insulting. The fact that you can't see that I'm right doesn't equate with me being wrong. As you have a degree in biochemistry, would you say that you can't understand another expert work ? Aren't things related to biochemistry that are obvious to you but that "normal" people can't "see" ? Do you consider your specific knowledge about biochemistry as bieng an "opinion" ? For me, and you need to understand that it's not an opinionn it's an expert analysis, echo fighters being animation recylcing is as obvious as basic biochemistry must be for you, it's the 1+1=2 of my expertise field. Also, I didn't say that most of the echo fighters share most of their animation, ALL echo fighters share most of their animation, all 7 of them, there is nothing approximate about that. PS : The statement about Dr Mario, Young Link, and Pichu is pure speculation, and factually false, as said in my first message. YoshiRyu (talk) 14:34, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * Also, this is a wiki page, it's about informations, not about coincidences. Animations recycling is the criteria that makes an echo an echo. Echo fighters do share their moveset, but that's just a consequence of reusing animations for development efficiency, sharing a moveset does not make a fighter an echo, it's not enough. Echo fighter do have similar proportions, but here again, that's a consequence (or more accuratly, a requirement) of reusing animations, having similiar proportions does not make a fighter an echo, it's not enough either. The definition about echo fighter should display actual criteria defining echo fighter, not criteria that are both true for echo fighters and non echo fighters (Lucas does share his moveset and have similar proportion with Ness, yet he is not an echo because those two criteria don't make a fighter an echo). YoshiRyu (talk) 14:49, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * The game defines echo fighters and that is the definition we should use for Echoes. The nature of semi-clones vs clones can be up for debate, but I don't think an official definition of who is/isn't an Echo Fighter specifically is up to us. – Emmett  12:02, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * You got it all wrong. You seem to think that I'm trying to redefine what echo fighters are. I'm not. I'm trying to explain that the wiki definition is factually wrong, because written by people who speculated without the required knowledge to do so (no blame intended). The definition of echo fighters I told here is the actual definition of echo fighters. I don't see where it contradict the game. The game doesn't even defines echo fighters, I have no clue where you got that from. And I surely never talked about defining who is/isn't an echo fighter... YoshiRyu (talk) 13:54, 27 January 2019 (EST)

Animations come into it but don't echoes also share all the main stats with their original fighter? Dr Mario for example has different speeds and jumps. The echoes don't. --Delia (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * Ken is faster than Ryu, so sharing stats is not a requirement for being an echo fighter. Animations is the key criteria, I don't know how I can make it clear to everyone but echo fighters are basically low cost characters : animating a character is unarguably the most time consuming task (and therefore the most costly part) of developping a figher in Smash. By reusing most of an other character animations, the developpers allow themself to add an extra fighter in the game for a really cheap development price by saving on the main part of its budget. That's the actual motive behind what echo fighters are : low cost characters. Everything else is nothing but ulterior developments that doesn't affect the characters echo status. They can keep any part of the character a pure copy, but that's never a requirement for the fighter to be an echo. They may keep all the stats, but they may also decide to change some, and it won't disqualify the fighter as being an echo (that's what they did for Ken). So yeah, in the end, objectively looking at the motive behind echo fighters and the 7 ones we have, I can tell for sure that animations recycling is what's make an echo an echo. And just for the record, it's not like I decided so right of the bat, when the first direct aired, as anyone, I was surprised by Dr Mario not being considered an echo. But when the second direct aired, by seeing Dark Samus and Chrom, especially seeing how Dark Samus switch between a few floating animations and many non floating animations, I figured out the pattern. And it actually made me predict that if Isabelle would be added, she wouldn't be an echo fighter, because the Villager animations wouldn't fit her, and I guessed right. And when Sakurai said Isabelle couldn't be an echo, the very next sentence he said right after is that she has her own animations, so if not direct proof of me being right, it's still good evidence I am. YoshiRyu (talk) 16:40, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * Dr. Mario’s animations are exacty alike to Mario’s though. That’s the problem. I trust you that Sakurai used a different rig of animations for him, but the fact of the matter is that his animations are exactly like Mario’s except for 4 moves.
 * I didn't think I would have to make a whole lesson about 3D animation today... Ok, so animations being alike is not the same as recycling animations. Dr Mario animations may look like Mario, but they still are entirely new data, which mean that no matter how much they look alike, an animator spent a lot of time making them. On the other hand, echo fighters animations (most of them) are duplicated files. Making Dr Mario's idle required an animator to use an animation software for hours, meanwhile Daisy's idle is literally a Ctrl+C Ctrl+V of Peach's in the data folder. That's the difference between making similar animations for a regular fighter and recycling animations for an echo fighter. YoshiRyu (talk) 17:02, 27 January 2019 (EST)

I have changed the page to take into account that the official usage of "echo" is incompatible with the popularly-understood defition of "clone". Toomai Glittershine The Chilled 17:13, 27 January 2019 (EST)

All of Ken's other stats are literally a copy of Ryu's. Only his walk/run speed is slightly different. Dr Mario on the other hand has different run speed, air speed, gravity, power, air acceleration etc. He plays very differently to Mario. None of the echoes do, and some are literally the exact same in gameplay. --Delia (talk) 17:15, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * And I'm pretty sure we can also find fighters that aren't echo fighters and have yet identical stats (I have no idea where to check that however, I know there is a pages somewhere on that wiki with break down stats for each fighter, but I don't know where). The fact that echo have mostly similar stats is a natural consequence of them using the same animations : if a character has the same walk animation, of course he's gonna walk the same speed, otherwise his feet would slide on the ground, looking all glitchy (that's why Ken's walk and run animations loop faster than Ryu's). But that's still not what define an echo fighter. Honnestly, it's a paintful conversation, I feel like I'm trying to convince you all that 1+1=2, and that you're arguing otherwise, because that's how obvious it is to me. When I say I'm 100% sure of what makes an echo an echo, I'm not juste putting some emphasis on that number, I'm genuinely 100% sure of what I'm saying, I don't think I'm right, I know I am. All the thing you're all talking about are not defining elements, there just similarities you witnessed with your gamer eyes, some of them are mandatory consequences of sharing animations, some are just coincidental, but none of them are relevant to what an echo is from the perspective of the game. An echo is a low cost character, how ? By cutting most of the animation budget for that character. Why Sakurai did choose to make a dev side perspective an official gameplay element, bite me, I have no clue (I actually think he should have extended the concept to all clones) but the reality is that the seven characters that are echo fighters are the seven and only ones that use shared animations. I'm not making that up, I'm seeing it. YoshiRyu (talk) 17:52, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * Having similar stats actually doesn't have much to do with having similar/identical animations; the Smash Bros. engine is smart enough to match animation speed to movement speed, which heavily minimizes any additional feet-sliding.
 * But anyway if your premise is that "they'e echoes because they copy-paste animation work", then sure, but that's not an airtight viewpoint. Some non-echoes also re-use animations, such as Ness' and Lucas' floor attacks. Toomai Glittershine [[Image:Toomai.png|20px|link=User:Toomai/Bin|???]] The Quiet 21:00, 27 January 2019 (EST)
 * The engine is smart enough to match animation speed...? How much do you know about animating a 3D model ? That's not how it works... Yes, you can just speed up an animation, it feasible. Would it be the proper thing to do tho ? No. It works with Ken and Ryu because their animations are old school inspired. But for a more natural animation, speeding it up would end up feeling unatural. That won't be up to Nintendo standard. They don't do that. About Ness and Lucas, they may have the same data for a few animation, I didn't check, and I'm not gonna do so, but it's still gonna be few animation recycling, while echo fighter mostly use recycled animations. This whole conversation is really really painful... I'm a pro, I know what I'm talking about, I know that the wiki page contains speculations that are purely and simply false, and you're all there saying me that I'm wrong because your uneducated self on the matter can't understand it. You're not disagreeing with me because I'm wrong, you're disagreeing with me because you don't have the required expertise to understand what you're talking about... such a pain. I know what I'm talking about, I don't think I'm right, I know I'm right, I'm not 99% sure I am, I am 100% sure I am, because that's my job, because I understand what the dev team did because I would have done the same thing. Echo fighters are animation recycling, they are made that way so they are cheap to develop. Having the same rig is not a criteria, it's a requirement for animation recylcing : if a character have the same rig as another but still have his own animations, he's not an echo fighter, period. Having similar moves is a consequence of reusing animation : if the animation is the same, of course the move is gonna be similar, but having similar moves is not enough to be qualified as an echo fighter. And if animations are the same, stats are likely to be the same too, it's normal, it's about having a result that feels natural, why do you think animators read so many books about human anatomy ? I have a master degree and more than 10 years of experience, I know what I'm talking about, I know how a game technically works, I know how a game production go, I can tell how Smash was technically made, and I can tell how its production went. Echo fighters are animation recycling, it's not open to debate, it is precisely what echo fighters are, it's obvious as hell. So don't tell the doctor that you know better than him about medicine, thanks ! YoshiRyu (talk) 10:19, 28 January 2019 (EST)
 * Now, my formulation isn't clear and obviously lacks a lot at being convicing, so this need to done differently, and that's the reason I started this talk, but I can ensure you that what define a character as being an echo fighter is that this character mostly reuse the animations of another character, cutting a big part of the budget a character normally require (we're talking here about a cut that is around 70% if not 90% of its price), reusing animations obviously require keeping the same rig/skeleton, and leads to the character having a lot of similarities in their gameplay (because two moves that are animated the same can't be totally different). You can tell me as much as you cant that you don't think so, you don't know what you're talking about, while I do. YoshiRyu (talk) 10:19, 28 January 2019 (EST)

A character's status as an echo fighter is not subjective. Sakurai himself has identified Ken, Daisy, Dark Samus, Richter, Lucina, Chrom, and Dark Pit as echo fighters, both through interviews and the official website. This is what the page is basing their classification on. The qualifications for a semi-clone have not been established, meaning that they are up for interpretation. While I agree with YoshiRyu that nearly all of these characters have tons of work put into them, that does not change the fact that the characters listed above have been OFFICIALLY confirmed by the Smash Ultimate team as echo fighters. We can personally disagree with their classification system, but for the purpose of this page, Dr. Mario, Pichu, and Young Link are not echo fighters. OldLink5 (talk) 11:26, 28 January 2019 (EST)
 * Where the hell did I say anything about the fighters status ? I said : THE WIKI DEFINITION IS WRONG, the WIKI DEFINITION, not the list of fighters, not the classification, the DEFINITION, the text at the begining of the section. Can people stop replying without reading what I said please ! YoshiRyu (talk) 11:45, 28 January 2019 (EST)

I feel that explaining what happened here may help : Prior to SSBU, we had "clones", clones was a concept defined by players to adresse characters with similarities. When Nintendo announced the echo fighters, players thought it was nothing but an aknowledgement of the concept of clones, and simply slapped the clone definition on that new concept : Echo fighters are clones. But then, dissonances started to appear : Dr Mario is a clone, but he isn't an echo fighter. And instead of rethinking what echo fighters may be, players started twisting the definition they previously copied from clones to make it fit despite those dissonance, adding made up exceptions : like echo fighters are clones, but not the one that are prior to SSB4, that's why Dr Mario isn't an echo fighter (seriously, you think that the way Sakurai went, that he said in a meeting "Echo fighters are characters that are similar but not the one prior to SSB4, because I don't want to" ?). My version, build from scratch, by analysing the characters, is simple, functionnal, fits all the characters, and makes sense from a development perspective, from Sakurai's perspective : There is two type of characters in SSBU, the ones with a full budget, and the low cost one, the laters, made possible by mostly reusing animations to cut cost, are called Echo fighters. All the seven echo fighters recycle animations, none of the regular fighters does, it's a straight forward explanation that make sense, that every single character in the game fits, and that works without any dissonance, without having to make up some random rule about character being prior to SSB4. You should really stop clinging to that flawed definition built upon the clone definition and start considering that echo fighters are not related to what players consider to be a clone, but to what Sakurai consider to be a factual technical difference between two type of fighters. YoshiRyu (talk) 11:45, 28 January 2019 (EST)
 * It appears that I misunderstood your argument, so I apologize for that. In regards to the bits of speculation scattered around the article, it might be a good idea to do away with them entirely. One example that you brought up is the arbitrary exception that characters introduced prior to Smash 4 cannot be echo fighters. I agree that there is no evidence for this and was simply an assumption an editor felt was worth including in the article. Your knowledge on the matter of video game development can serve the wiki well, and we appreciate the fact that you used the talk page first before drastically altering the article (Although I'm pretty sure the page is protected at of the time of this post). However, it is worth noting that certain echo fighters possess unique moves as well, with Ken being the most obvious example.OldLink5 (talk) 12:02, 28 January 2019 (EST)
 * Thanks for apologizing, I was a bit upset because it was the second time someone misunderstood me, I went overboard, I shouldn't have. I agree with most of what is said there, I just think that a sentence should be added to explain that animation recycling is what qualify a character as being an echo fighter, that the "similar if not identical proportions" should be replaced by "identical proportions", and that the speculation about SSB4 priorness should be either totally scraped or replaced by something like "Some characters that debuted as pure clones got a full budget for SSBU and did not end up being echo fighters, such as Dr Mario." YoshiRyu (talk) 12:29, 28 January 2019 (EST)
 * First, please cease with the "I know better than you because it's my job" attitude, it makes you look snobbish and combative rather than helpful. I also have several years of experience with 3D modelling and animation and a university degree in game development (though admittedly no professional experience in either), so I'd like to believe I'm not uninformed on the matter.
 * Second: I agree that parts of the article need to be updated due to us determining that "clone" and "echo" do not mean the same thing (my previous edit was mostly a stopgap). I don't believe it is particularly urgent, but I do plan on giving it a serious look within the next few days. Toomai Glittershine [[Image:Toomai.png|20px|link=User:Toomai/Bin|???]] The Inconceivable 22:42, 28 January 2019 (EST)
 * I know what I'm talking about, and I have people telling my that what I say is "arbitrary", that I can't tell because i didn't work specifically on SSBU, and even comments that aren't related to what I said, is it that suprising that I ended up being combative and have to remind people that I'm talking from a legit standpoint ? Can you imagine how frustrating it is ? Imagine how you would feel if someone was arguing with you that fighters only have one texture, and that what you claim about those weird normal map and other maps is just an "interpretation", "arbitrary", and that you don't know because you didn't work on that game anyway.
 * Now, as you're knowledgable in animation, please answer those questions : Do you confirm that each character uses hundreds of animations ? Do you therefore agree that the animation budget is overwelmingly bigger than any other task required in the making of a fighter ? Do you confirm that echo fighters reuse most of their "parent" animations ? Do you confirm that regular characters all have a full set of animations of their own (mostly) ? Do you agree that reusing animations is an effective way to drastically cut down the development cost of a fighter ? And do you think that, from a production perspective, it makes sense to see echo fighters as low cost fighters for which the animation budget has been drastically reduced ? And while I'm at it, do you confirm that having the same rig/skeleton is a requirement for the reused animations to work properly ? And do you also confirm that reusing animations is very likely to cause similar moves and similar stats ?
 * Because in the end, I'm still 100% sure that the point behind echo fighters was to put low cost characters by saving on the insane animation budget, and that the gap between regular fighters and echo fighters is significant enough to do such a claim : We're talking here about a very tangible difference, with seven fighters on one hand having more than 90% reused animations, and all the other fighters on the other hand being way bellow 5% of reused animations, 0% for most of them. YoshiRyu (talk) 05:15, 29 January 2019 (EST)

Suggested way to clean up the clones page.
So now that the game released, I think we have a pretty good idea of what makes an echo fighter now. I also think I have figured out why some clones have no real gameplay changes.

We know that Echo Fighters are meant to have the same overall attributes as their source character. This was proven via data mining. All echo fighters have very similar or identical overall attack/speed/range/weight/gravity/jumps/grab speeds. No echo has the ability to wall jump if their source character cannot for example. They also share all the core mechanics, so stuff like Isabelle's Fishing Rod and Link's Hookshot for example would be major mechanic. Dr Mario's equipment change his abilities a lot. Animations also come into play as all echo fighters have the exact same skeletons (Dr Mario does too, and so does Wolf and Lucas, but they have lots of ability changes). If I had to guess then I think that they didn't want to add to play-testing too much and account for multiple scenarios such as possible combo setups working on a character and not an echo. That's my take on it. --Delia (talk) 18:21, 28 January 2019 (EST)
 * Obviously, you are a Memoryman3 sockpuppet. Zakawer2 (talk) 15:33, 30 January 2019 (EST)
 * If a user is trying to give constructive advice, I would refrain from repeatedly smearing them as a sockpuppet. Try to assume good faith.OldLink5 (talk) 16:43, 30 January 2019 (EST)