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Description
With Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and 3DS coming to a screeching end, I decided that now was the perfect time to put together a mock up of essentially how I think the Smash 5 roster should look (not will look).

I want to talk through essentially my thought process behind this, so if you're interested, my thoughts will be listed below!

Firstly, aesthetically I initially wanted to arrange the character selection boxes into the shape of the Smash logo, but it wasn't really working with the number of characters I wanted to use for this. I ended up going with a more traditional format and honestly it lends a little more credibility to the design as every Smash Bros so far has been arranged with a square box format. I decided that I would go for a more "out of this world" motif with the background by having stars shining. It kind of highlights that these are stars of gaming, I think. The shades of soft blue are to complement the space motif. The characters are arranged by their debut series date (multiples, then individuals), top down.

If it's not entirely clear, the top icons are for: adjusting time, swapping between battle types (time, stock etc), Amiibo support, and Custom Fighters (disabled).

Now onto the real fun, the characters!

Nearly every single character from Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and 3DS returns in this version (including all DLC characters). I feel like these games are near-perfect in terms of how they play, and visually I could not imagine much of an improvement, so why not just build on top of what's already here? I mean, it's what we all want, is it not? The sole exception of characters returning are the Mii Fighters, instead I opted for ONE Mii character. This is because I believe that a generic Mii should be the default selection, and it could then be used in all different game modes, not just select modes as in the current Super Smash Bros. Of course, this Mii could still be customised for personal use in offline modes.

71 characters in total.
56 returning from Wii U /3DS.
12(13*) newcomers.
2 returning cut veterans.
1* previous alternate costume turned character.

From L/R, T/B:
Waluigi
What is probably quite a controversial pick, I wanted to represent every corner of Mario's gaming empire in my roster. We've got his normal platformers, we've got his RPG games, we've got his puzzle games, so we also need his sporting games. Nobody embodies this more than Waluigi, a character literally invented to appear in sporting games.

Paper Mario
As previously mentioned, I wanted to represent every corner of Mario's games. Paper Mario is a long running RPG series, featuring many games that are nothing short of masterpieces. As he's made out of paper, he can contort his body into basically any shape. This would make for a very compelling moveset by my estimations.

King K. Rool
Donkey Kong has been criminally under utilised in every previous Smash game so far. Something I believe that should be rectified sooner, rather than later. King K. Rool's popularity is almost inargueable. As the main villain of the Donkey Kong franchise, he's something of an icon of gaming. Mario has his Bowser, Donkey Kong has his King K. Rool!

Dixie Kong
Dixie was a character who nearly made it into Brawl in a rather bizarre capacity, but it's time for her to enter the Smash Bros fray for real. Being one of Nintendo's first female characters to star in her own video game(s) has got to count for something.

Tingle
The Legend of Zelda franchise hasn't received a proper new character since Melee, and that needs to change. While it's somewhat hard to really pick a character who is as important as Link, Zelda or Ganondorf, I believe that Tingle would be the most appropriate pick. Not only is he a recurring character within some of the most popular Zelda games, but he has actually starred in 3 games of his own. He's a protagonist of Zelda. He would also make for a great joke character.

Ridley
Controversial doesn't begin to describe Ridley. For everyone who desperately wants this large purple dragon in Smash Bros., there is someone else who would rather eat glass than have him included. I am actually indifferent to him, but you can't deny his huge popularity. Functionally it could be difficult to add him, but I believe that there is a way to do it, somehow.

Ice Climbers
The only reason this Ice Climbing duo was cut from the current game was due to technical limitations set in place by the 3DS system. With those concerns gone we should see their return.

Wolf
Wolf's being cut in between Brawl and Smash 4 stings. It really stings. With Star Fox Zero releasing shortly, hopefully Star Fox can finally be great again, and bring Wolf along for the ride!

Takamaru
Takamaru was the character I picked to be the "surprise" character, I initially decided upon Balloon Fighter, but after I decided to include Tinge I opted to change it to a different retro character from Nintendo's history. Takamaru may have been included in Smash 4 had he been more well known outside of Japan.

Alph
Only a costume in Smash 4 (thanks again 3DS technical limitations) I would really love to see Alph fleshed out into his own character. He can use his own ship for his Final Smash, and hopefully he can use Rock and Flying Pikmin in his moveset! Pikmin is about to see a 4th entry in its series, so it would be nice to see another proper character for this long-running series.

Articuno
I have to admit, Articuno is kind of a place holder. It would be more appropriate to put a Pokemon from Gen 7 (or perhaps 8) on here, but unfortunately none of those actually exist yet. Articuno however would be an optimal choice on a personal level. If I'm thinking of the most different kind of Pokemon possible, a bird one would have to be right up there. An Ice type is also something distinctive from not only the rest of the Pokemon, but the rest of the cast, so it's really killing 2 birds with one stone. No pun intended. Being from Gen 1, he's much more recognizable to the majority of casual fans than Pokemon who debuted in Gen 2 and beyond.

Inklings
Really, I'm staggared that the Inklings didn't make it onto this iteration of Smash Bros. Splatoon is such a huge success for them, the Inklings would have been probably the biggest Nintendo characters they could have added at this point in time. I have no doubts that they'll be in the next game.

Rayman
We're certainly getting up there in 3rd Party numbers now, I think with Bayonetta we've hit a 7th for all time, 6 in just one game. A number that is likely to increase moving forward. And I can't help but think this limbless wonder would be the perfect way to start. Rayman is a huge deal in gaming, has a huge legacy and is one of gaming's legitimate all-stars.

Banjo-Kazooie
I don't think anyone could dispute that Banjo-Kazooie would be a staple of the Smash Bros. series by now had Rare not been bought out by the evil Microsoft Corperation (heh). No character I could think of would be more appropriate for entering Smash Bros. Maybe one day.

Master Chief
Halo is quite simply one of the biggest success stories in the history of gaming, and the Master Chief could honestly be the biggest gaming character who is not in Smash already. Halo has set the standard for FPS games with every release, and has broken all kinds of sales records over the years.

In the interest of keeping things interesting, I've included characters from as many different genres as possible, and ones that appeal to different subsets of fans. Let me know what you guys think in the comments! -TheAnvil

Description
With Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and 3DS coming to a screeching end, I decided that now was the perfect time to put together a mock up of essentially how I think the Smash 5 roster should look (not will look).

I want to talk through essentially my thought process behind this, so if you're interested, my thoughts will be listed below!

Firstly, aesthetically I initially wanted to arrange the character selection boxes into the shape of the Smash logo, but it wasn't really working with the number of characters I wanted to use for this. I ended up going with a more traditional format and honestly it lends a little more credibility to the design as every Smash Bros so far has been arranged with a square box format. I decided that I would go for a more "out of this world" motif with the background by having stars shining. It kind of highlights that these are stars of gaming, I think. The shades of soft blue are to complement the space motif. The characters are arranged by their debut series date (multiples, then individuals), top down.

If it's not entirely clear, the top icons are for: adjusting time, swapping between battle types (time, stock etc), Amiibo support, and Custom Fighters (disabled).

Now onto the real fun, the characters!

Nearly every single character from Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and 3DS returns in this version (including all DLC characters). I feel like these games are near-perfect in terms of how they play, and visually I could not imagine much of an improvement, so why not just build on top of what's already here? I mean, it's what we all want, is it not? The sole exception of characters returning are the Mii Fighters, instead I opted for ONE Mii character. This is because I believe that a generic Mii should be the default selection, and it could then be used in all different game modes, not just select modes as in the current Super Smash Bros. Of course, this Mii could still be customised for personal use in offline modes.

71 characters in total.
56 returning from Wii U /3DS.
12(13*) newcomers.
2 returning cut veterans.
1* previous alternate costume turned character.

From L/R, T/B:
Waluigi
What is probably quite a controversial pick, I wanted to represent every corner of Mario's gaming empire in my roster. We've got his normal platformers, we've got his RPG games, we've got his puzzle games, so we also need his sporting games. Nobody embodies this more than Waluigi, a character literally invented to appear in sporting games.

Paper Mario
As previously mentioned, I wanted to represent every corner of Mario's games. Paper Mario is a long running RPG series, featuring many games that are nothing short of masterpieces. As he's made out of paper, he can contort his body into basically any shape. This would make for a very compelling moveset by my estimations.

King K. Rool
Donkey Kong has been criminally under utilised in every previous Smash game so far. Something I believe that should be rectified sooner, rather than later. King K. Rool's popularity is almost inargueable. As the main villain of the Donkey Kong franchise, he's something of an icon of gaming. Mario has his Bowser, Donkey Kong has his King K. Rool!

Dixie Kong
Dixie was a character who nearly made it into Brawl in a rather bizarre capacity, but it's time for her to enter the Smash Bros fray for real. Being one of Nintendo's first female characters to star in her own video game(s) has got to count for something.

Tingle
The Legend of Zelda franchise hasn't received a proper new character since Melee, and that needs to change. While it's somewhat hard to really pick a character who is as important as Link, Zelda or Ganondorf, I believe that Tingle would be the most appropriate pick. Not only is he a recurring character within some of the most popular Zelda games, but he has actually starred in 3 games of his own. He's a protagonist of Zelda. He would also make for a great joke character.

Ridley
Controversial doesn't begin to describe Ridley. For everyone who desperately wants this large purple dragon in Smash Bros., there is someone else who would rather eat glass than have him included. I am actually indifferent to him, but you can't deny his huge popularity. Functionally it could be difficult to add him, but I believe that there is a way to do it, somehow.

Ice Climbers
The only reason this Ice Climbing duo was cut from the current game was due to technical limitations set in place by the 3DS system. With those concerns gone we should see their return.

Wolf
Wolf's being cut in between Brawl and Smash 4 stings. It really stings. With Star Fox Zero releasing shortly, hopefully Star Fox can finally be great again, and bring Wolf along for the ride!

Takamaru
Takamaru was the character I picked to be the "surprise" character, I initially decided upon Balloon Fighter, but after I decided to include Tinge I opted to change it to a different retro character from Nintendo's history. Takamaru may have been included in Smash 4 had he been more well known outside of Japan.

Alph
Only a costume in Smash 4 (thanks again 3DS technical limitations) I would really love to see Alph fleshed out into his own character. He can use his own ship for his Final Smash, and hopefully he can use Rock and Flying Pikmin in his moveset! Pikmin is about to see a 4th entry in its series, so it would be nice to see another proper character for this long-running series.

Articuno
I have to admit, Articuno is kind of a place holder. It would be more appropriate to put a Pokemon from Gen 7 (or perhaps 8) on here, but unfortunately none of those actually exist yet. Articuno however would be an optimal choice on a personal level. If I'm thinking of the most different kind of Pokemon possible, a bird one would have to be right up there. An Ice type is also something distinctive from not only the rest of the Pokemon, but the rest of the cast, so it's really killing 2 birds with one stone. No pun intended. Being from Gen 1, he's much more recognizable to the majority of casual fans than Pokemon who debuted in Gen 2 and beyond.

Inklings
Really, I'm staggared that the Inklings didn't make it onto this iteration of Smash Bros. Splatoon is such a huge success for them, the Inklings would have been probably the biggest Nintendo characters they could have added at this point in time. I have no doubts that they'll be in the next game.

Rayman
We're certainly getting up there in 3rd Party numbers now, I think with Bayonetta we've hit a 7th for all time, 6 in just one game. A number that is likely to increase moving forward. And I can't help but think this limbless wonder would be the perfect way to start. Rayman is a huge deal in gaming, has a huge legacy and is one of gaming's legitimate all-stars.

Banjo-Kazooie
I don't think anyone could dispute that Banjo-Kazooie would be a staple of the Smash Bros. series by now had Rare not been bought out by the evil Microsoft Corperation (heh). No character I could think of would be more appropriate for entering Smash Bros. Maybe one day.

Master Chief
Halo is quite simply one of the biggest success stories in the history of gaming, and the Master Chief could honestly be the biggest gaming character who is not in Smash already. Halo has set the standard for FPS games with every release, and has broken all kinds of sales records over the years.

In the interest of keeping things interesting, I've included characters from as many different genres as possible, and ones that appeal to different subsets of fans. Let me know what you guys think in the comments! -TheAnvil