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Description
We're a tenth of the way through and are going to celebrate with a highly requested (and slightly controversial?) character!

King K. Rool in Smash.
It is said that K. Rool is one of the most highly voted characters for Smash games, even in Japan where I wouldn't have expected the DKC games to be as big as they were elsewhere. My original inclusion of K. Rool in my first Smash project: professorfandango.deviantart.c… was in an effort to have at least one hero and one villain for each franchise, but I'm actually not a massive fan of the character myself.
The idea of crocodiles being the natural enemy of the Kongs is great, but I feel like K. Rool's design leaves something to be desired. Making him a 'king' is a bit lame, I think that villainous royalty is a bit middle-of-the-road but they did change that in future games by casting K. Rool as a pirate captain (possibly my favourite incarnation) and a mad scientist.

This was a concept I quite liked. Bowser is a fantastic villain but when every game is just vs. Bowser and he's exactly the same in every game, it can get a little tired. This way the entire theming of the game can be built around the boss's persona - DKC2 had a heavy pirate theme and DKC3 had quite a lot of machines and industry in it.
The drawback though is that the character himself loses some of his identity and it almost felt weird, after Rare's departure, and K. Rool appeared in a couple of spin-offs, to see him appear as a King again. In a way he almost didn't have a 'default' design because by only the second game he was completely different.

Also I never liked his bloodshot eye.
However, sticking him in Smash would lend him a few cool costumes and I do wonder what kind of moveset they would give him. His DKC1 attacks were kind of standard fare, maybe they would mish-mash elements from all of his incarnations or maybe he'd get something completely new?

King K. Rool in the Donkey Kong series
K. Rool has been missing in action for a while now so for him to appear in Smash it would make sense for him to first reappear in Donkey Kong games.

DKC Returns was a fantastic game, but the Tiki Tribe were fairly boring villains. The bosses were hynotised animals so they had no coherent theme and while Tiki Tong was a fun boss, he was yet another head & hands boss, something we've seen hundreds of times before.

The Snowmads of Tropical Freeze I thought were a fantastic new group of enemies. They fit the arctic theme, being mostly cold climate animals AND being vikings and most of the bosses fit the theme and were well designed (not all of them, I'd argue!) The biggest disappointment though was Lord Fredrik, because he never really got any personality and there wasn't anything particularly outstanding about his design, he was just one or two steps above a regular walrus enemy. I don't know if these characters will ever return but if they do I hope they do something more interesting with Fredrik.

POINT IS, there have been some interesting and great developments in the Donkey Kong games but the question is, what's next? If there is another DKC game will Retro Studios make it? If so, will they come up with a brand new set of villains? If not, will whoever does make the game bring back the Kremlings? Kritters are still popping up in spin-off games so they're not forgotten, but if King K. Rool is going to return, I'd like to see something completely original and surprising from him.

UPDATE

King K. Rool in Smash Ultimate
I said that I was "not a massive fan" of this character - I like him, but I can take him or leave him. Maybe because I never managed to find DKC2 in the shops so the second and third games in the series weren't a significant part of my childhood but the fact was that I was always confused as to why he was so requested for Smash. Almost every character in every game has fans, some very passionate, but for K. Rool to be in such high demand seemed odd to me.

In any event, those prayers were answered and the crafty croc is now a Smash Brother!
And I'm actually very pleased about it! For one, he has just about the best intro trailer so far and in particular I'm happy they made him a very comical character, it's very appropriate.

For my original proposed moveset: www.deviantart.com/professorfa… I tried to be a bit clever and not make him so straightforward but I was wrong again and it seems a number of other fan-proposed movesets were right on the money since he gets specials from every one of his game appearances, and even a Blast-o-Matic Final Smash which I thought was completely unlikely at first, but the abundance of cinematic Final Smashes in this game does make it more obvious. Plus a hilarious belly bounce counter (I had always noted that his belly in the original DKC artwork looked gold and didn't know if it was actually supposed to be some sort of armour or if it really was his body. Later games gave him a more natural stomach but the Smash version does look like it might be a separate garment. Appropriate, since reptiles don't have pecs!)

I do find his deep ridged scales a little bit off-putting right now compared to Bowser who has a slight scale texture but the skin otherwise looks like a single piece, though I'm sure I'll get used to that. Plus it's great to see the smaller Smash franchises getting some padding, which I'll talk about more elsewhere!

Description
We're a tenth of the way through and are going to celebrate with a highly requested (and slightly controversial?) character!

King K. Rool in Smash.
It is said that K. Rool is one of the most highly voted characters for Smash games, even in Japan where I wouldn't have expected the DKC games to be as big as they were elsewhere. My original inclusion of K. Rool in my first Smash project: professorfandango.deviantart.c… was in an effort to have at least one hero and one villain for each franchise, but I'm actually not a massive fan of the character myself.
The idea of crocodiles being the natural enemy of the Kongs is great, but I feel like K. Rool's design leaves something to be desired. Making him a 'king' is a bit lame, I think that villainous royalty is a bit middle-of-the-road but they did change that in future games by casting K. Rool as a pirate captain (possibly my favourite incarnation) and a mad scientist.

This was a concept I quite liked. Bowser is a fantastic villain but when every game is just vs. Bowser and he's exactly the same in every game, it can get a little tired. This way the entire theming of the game can be built around the boss's persona - DKC2 had a heavy pirate theme and DKC3 had quite a lot of machines and industry in it.
The drawback though is that the character himself loses some of his identity and it almost felt weird, after Rare's departure, and K. Rool appeared in a couple of spin-offs, to see him appear as a King again. In a way he almost didn't have a 'default' design because by only the second game he was completely different.

Also I never liked his bloodshot eye.
However, sticking him in Smash would lend him a few cool costumes and I do wonder what kind of moveset they would give him. His DKC1 attacks were kind of standard fare, maybe they would mish-mash elements from all of his incarnations or maybe he'd get something completely new?

King K. Rool in the Donkey Kong series
K. Rool has been missing in action for a while now so for him to appear in Smash it would make sense for him to first reappear in Donkey Kong games.

DKC Returns was a fantastic game, but the Tiki Tribe were fairly boring villains. The bosses were hynotised animals so they had no coherent theme and while Tiki Tong was a fun boss, he was yet another head & hands boss, something we've seen hundreds of times before.

The Snowmads of Tropical Freeze I thought were a fantastic new group of enemies. They fit the arctic theme, being mostly cold climate animals AND being vikings and most of the bosses fit the theme and were well designed (not all of them, I'd argue!) The biggest disappointment though was Lord Fredrik, because he never really got any personality and there wasn't anything particularly outstanding about his design, he was just one or two steps above a regular walrus enemy. I don't know if these characters will ever return but if they do I hope they do something more interesting with Fredrik.

POINT IS, there have been some interesting and great developments in the Donkey Kong games but the question is, what's next? If there is another DKC game will Retro Studios make it? If so, will they come up with a brand new set of villains? If not, will whoever does make the game bring back the Kremlings? Kritters are still popping up in spin-off games so they're not forgotten, but if King K. Rool is going to return, I'd like to see something completely original and surprising from him.

UPDATE

King K. Rool in Smash Ultimate
I said that I was "not a massive fan" of this character - I like him, but I can take him or leave him. Maybe because I never managed to find DKC2 in the shops so the second and third games in the series weren't a significant part of my childhood but the fact was that I was always confused as to why he was so requested for Smash. Almost every character in every game has fans, some very passionate, but for K. Rool to be in such high demand seemed odd to me.

In any event, those prayers were answered and the crafty croc is now a Smash Brother!
And I'm actually very pleased about it! For one, he has just about the best intro trailer so far and in particular I'm happy they made him a very comical character, it's very appropriate.

For my original proposed moveset: www.deviantart.com/professorfa… I tried to be a bit clever and not make him so straightforward but I was wrong again and it seems a number of other fan-proposed movesets were right on the money since he gets specials from every one of his game appearances, and even a Blast-o-Matic Final Smash which I thought was completely unlikely at first, but the abundance of cinematic Final Smashes in this game does make it more obvious. Plus a hilarious belly bounce counter (I had always noted that his belly in the original DKC artwork looked gold and didn't know if it was actually supposed to be some sort of armour or if it really was his body. Later games gave him a more natural stomach but the Smash version does look like it might be a separate garment. Appropriate, since reptiles don't have pecs!)

I do find his deep ridged scales a little bit off-putting right now compared to Bowser who has a slight scale texture but the skin otherwise looks like a single piece, though I'm sure I'll get used to that. Plus it's great to see the smaller Smash franchises getting some padding, which I'll talk about more elsewhere!