Smash Ultimate has 74 Characters, yet lacks Black/Brown characters (READ OP)

it's a game that sells the popular iconic characters and I think Nintendo is picking the cast from there.

correct me if I'm wrong. i'm also not familiar with all things Nintendo

Are you able to at least customize the character's color?

I'm also wondering, are game companies required or obligated to represent everyone in the world, and why would they do it if the resources and context don't fit their goals, objectives, and or ideas? I often see posts similar to this.

rumyhy said:

you do not seem to be the audience for this game

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¿Por qué? Because I'd like to see commonsensical representation for minorities in a game that very well could use some cast diversity? Or because I dare criticize Nintendo?

Japanese are still very conservateur (and some racism still) so im not all that surprise

Pirarucu said:

To all the people saying this is just a gaffe, an unintentional omission, remember that Shantae, M. Bison, Twintelle, and many more PoC characters were consciously passed over, in favor of two washed up, white or white-coded has-beens from Castlevania that literally wield whips. You can't make this stuff up. Nintendo, where is the representation?

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None of those characters are anywhere near as popular as the Simon/Richter combo. Street Fighter is already represented in the cast of characters, including some characters from a monstrously popular series like Castlevania is a great addition - if you're not a fan, that's okay too.

ARMS came out far too late into the development cycle of Smash for inclusion of those characters as full fighters. I would expect there's a high probability of one of them becoming a DLC character. I really like the idea of adding Twintelle and would love for her to make a DLC appearance.

Pirarucu said:

¿Por qué? Because I'd like to see commonsensical representation for minorities in a game that very well could use some cast diversity? Or because I dare criticize Nintendo?

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well, most, if not all of the characters chosen are to please fans because of how mechanically interesting they are, their legacy or just because they're amusing, but here you are being very concerned with your consumer product to be as woke as you question why Simon and Richter Belmont from one of the most beloved retro game franchises are included.
Smash is about video games.
You're about diversity.
This game isn't for you.

Different places have different race-relations, different views on who is in-group and out-group. Isn't dismissing one groups representation or another as 'not counting' insensitive and culturally narrow-minded? More representation is needed, that is for sure, but we shouldn't just limit it to our own culturally prescribed definitions.

Pirarucu said:

To all the people saying this is just a gaffe, an unintentional omission, remember that Shantae, M. Bison, Twintelle, and many more PoC characters were consciously passed over, in favor of two washed up, white or white-coded has-beens from Castlevania that literally wield whips. You can't make this stuff up. Nintendo, where is the representation?

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I can't tell if this is a joke or if you honestly think those characters are more deserving. Also calling iconic characters from an iconic series "washed up...has-beens" is just embarrassing. You couldn't have constructed a more laughably transparent and biased argument. Bison is the only one who might be at their level and I doubt many people even know he's suppose to be a POC (from Thailand?)

Winterreise said:

None of those characters are anywhere near as popular as the Simon/Richter combo. Street Fighter is already represented in the cast of characters, including some characters from a monstrously popular series like Castlevania is a great addition - if you're not a fan, that's okay too.

ARMS came out far too late into the development cycle of Smash for inclusion of those characters as full fighters. I would expect there's a high probability of one of them becoming a DLC character. I really like the idea of adding Twintelle and would love for her to make a DLC appearance.

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I can understand adding one, but adding TWO Castlevania characters over a black or brown character, of which there plenty that are popular - Shantae outstrips Simon and Richter by a mile in terms of recognizability - is just rubbing salt into the wound. Yes, there was already Street Fighter representation: then why add Ken? I'd like to think this was simply an innocent mistake, but try as I might, I can't consciously be so naive.

Pirarucu said:

I can understand adding one, but adding TWO Castlevania characters over a black or brown character, of which there plenty that are popular - Shantae outstrips Simon and Richter by a mile in terms of recognizability - is just rubbing salt into the wound. Yes, there was already Street Fighter representation: then why add Ken? I'd like to think this was simply an innocent mistake, but try as I might, I can't consciously be so naive.

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Echo fighters require an absolute franction of the development time and funds to make. I would agree with you if they were two separate characters, but Ken and Richter are echoes of Ryu and Simon and didn't require significant development efforts.

Shantae is not more recognizable or popular than Simon or Richter, that's just patently false.

The only naivete here is assuming that Nintendo "passed up" on black or brown characters.

Pacouranga said:

Accusing the game of having "no black or brown characters" and categorizing all light-skinned characters as White (like actually Anglo or Northern European) while none of the PoC or even literally just brown characters are black or brown enough for you, is transparently weird and the mental gymnastics you'd have to go through to make it work out are mind-boggling.

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Black and Brown was meant to refer to both skin tone and race and PoC is plainly meant to refer to people who do not originate from Europe. It's apparent what OP meant and it's obvious what you are trying to do with this bullshit.

psychowave said:

i really hate this myth. how many non-feminine female characters are there in video games? like, zarya, and that's about it? let's stop this "~capable female characters can be feminine too uwu~" crap. we know. they almost always are.

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Feminine =/= Has a traditional female body
Athletic =/= Does physical activity

Twintelle is simultaneously a fashion model with her own fragrance AND a toned gym rat who we've actually been shown doing anaerobic exercise instead of just cardio-vascular or stretching workouts.

So maybe think your posts through before you come at someone, yeah?

Pirarucu said:

I can understand adding one, but adding TWO Castlevania characters over a black or brown character, of which there plenty that are popular - Shantae outstrips Simon and Richter by a mile in terms of recognizability - is just rubbing salt into the wound. Yes, there was already Street Fighter representation: then why add Ken? I'd like to think this was simply an innocent mistake, but try as I might, I can't consciously be so naive.

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Do you think Shantae is more recognizable in Japan? The planning board for characters was done in Japan, they are going to base their decisions on their common sense, that's just the reality of the situation.

The Adder said:

Feminine =/= Has a traditional female body
Athletic =/= Does physical activity

Twintelle is simultaneously a fashion model with her own fragrance AND a toned gym rat who we've actually been shown doing anaerobic exercise instead of just cardio-vascular or stretching workouts.

So maybe think your posts through before you come at someone, yeah?

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calm down. i'm not "coming at" anyone. i'm a woman who is very tired of this "athletic women never get to be feminine!!" narrative. they almost always do. there's barely any gender nonconforming women in media, especially in video games.

but thanks for mansplaining femininity to me.

Gotdatmoney said:

Black and Brown was meant to refer to both skin tone and race and PoC is plainly meant to refer to people who do not originate from Europe. It's apparent what OP meant and it's obvious what you are trying to do with this bullshit.

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Race and skin tone are two wildly different things and OP being ambiguous about which they mean while categorically denying the existence of any Non-White and darker-than-light-pink characters is disingenuous and impossible to argue for. Because either they meant race, in which case Ryu is Japanese and not White, so they are wrong, or they meant skin tone in which case Little Mac is brownish, so they are wrong.

Pacouranga said:

Race and skin tone are two wildly different things

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Which is why he was referring to "both" like I said.

Because either they meant race, in which case Ryu is Japanese and not White, so they are wrong,

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He said black or brown. He didn't say Japanese.

or they meant skin tone in which case Little Mac is brownish, so they are wrong.

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The point of skin tone and race is so someone doesn't do exact stupid shit you're doing where they take an obviously European based character with a slightly darker complexion and go "DIVERSITY DIVERSITY". Again, you're plainly transparent. You're not fooling anyone.

Gotdatmoney said:

Which is why he was referring to "both" like I said.



He said black or brown. He didn't say Japanese.



The point of skin tone and race is so someone doesn't do exact stupid shit you're doing where they take an obviously European based character with a slightly darker complexion and go "DIVERSITY DIVERSITY". Again, you're plainly transparent. You're not fooling anyone.

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So is Ganondorf White or just light-skinned?

psychowave said:

calm down. i'm not "coming at" anyone. i'm a woman who is very tired of this "athletic women never get to be feminine!!" narrative. they almost always do. there's barely any gender nonconforming women in media, especially in video games.

but thanks for mansplaining femininity to me.

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We're on the internet you're just an avatar and a name and I doubt you click everyone's profile name before responding to them. Put it in your post and I'll give your point of view on the subject more weight than I otherwise would.

The Adder said:

We're on the internet you're just an avatar and a name and I doubt you click everyone's profile name before responding to them. Put it in your post and I'll give your point of view on the subject more weight than I otherwise would.

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lmao, of course you're doubling down instead of apologizing. don't assume everyone on the internet is male.

Forget it, not worth it. If you try to be moderate people will label you Nazi or SJW depending of what you say.

psychowave said:

lmao, of course you're doubling down instead of apologizing. don't assume everyone on the internet is male.

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That's not a double down. That's literally "i would have done something differently had I have known." It's an admission of error absent an actual apology.

As for your second point? You're not wrong,

The Adder said:

That's not a double down. That's literally "i would have done something differently had I have known." It's an admission of error absent an actual apology.

As for your second point? You're not wrong,

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no, you were justifying yourself. you even told me to announce that i'm a woman, because it's apparently my job to do that instead of you spending 0.5 seconds to click on my profile and check.

but whatever, have a nice day

psychowave said:

no, you were justifying yourself. you even told me to announce that i'm a woman, because it's apparently my job to do that instead of you spending 0.5 seconds to click on my profile and check.

but whatever, have a nice day

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You too.

I will never not campaign for Doc Louis, Punch-Out has more games than Kid Icarus after all.

Pirarucu said:

I can understand adding one, but adding TWO Castlevania characters over a black or brown character, of which there plenty that are popular - Shantae outstrips Simon and Richter by a mile in terms of recognizability - is just rubbing salt into the wound. Yes, there was already Street Fighter representation: then why add Ken? I'd like to think this was simply an innocent mistake, but try as I might, I can't consciously be so naive.

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Shantae? Not many knows this character. Its absolutely niche and not even comparable with Castlevania characters, a serie with dozens of games and a TV show.

Is there a list that breaks down how many human characters and how man non-human characters there are?
Then we can look at the human characters and see from that list. From the characters I know, Ganondorf is the only brown skinned character. Yes he is not technically human, he is Hylian, but he is closest to perhaps middle Easter. Are there any Gerudo in Smash Bros? They are also brown skinned so that might count.
I dont know the human character number count and of that the percentage of dark skinned characters, but they are clearly much in the minority.
Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi are all Italian.
What about Peach? What about Toad? Are their dark skinned toads?
Actually I think it would be cool if there were Toad characters based off of different types of mushrooms.

This aint it

Pacouranga said:

Race and skin tone are two wildly different things and OP being ambiguous about which they mean while categorically denying the existence of any Non-White and darker-than-light-pink characters is disingenuous and impossible to argue for. Because either they meant race, in which case Ryu is Japanese and not White, so they are wrong, or they meant skin tone in which case Little Mac is brownish, so they are wrong.

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So do you just not understand that black/brown people exist or are you intentionally making the argument that Little Mac is a brown person?

Italians are definitely white, what the fuck lmao.

Pirarucu said:

Shantae outstrips Simon and Richter by a mile in terms of recognizability

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[Citation Needed]

Spinluck said:

Italians are definitely white, what the fuck lmao.

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You got me there chief.

So Smash has been around for nearly 20 years.

Ganondorf was introduced in melee 2001 and has been the only visibly non fair skinned human for 17-18 years.

And in 2018 we definitely need more visible PoCs.

Smash needs more diverse demographics in playable characters -- skin tones, hair types, etc..

OsakaDon said:

Is there a list that breaks down how many human characters and how man non-human characters there are?
Then we can look at the human characters and see from that list. From the characters I know, Ganondorf is the only brown skinned character. Yes he is not technically human, he is Hylian, but he is closest to perhaps middle Easter. Are there any Gerudo in Smash Bros? They are also brown skinned so that might count.
I dont know the human character number count and of that the percentage of dark skinned characters, but they are clearly much in the minority.
Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi are all Italian.
What about Peach? What about Toad? Are their dark skinned toads?
Actually I think it would be cool if there were Toad characters based off of different types of mushrooms.

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These are all the characters


It's a bit hard to break down, but of all the "human "characters" we have 42.
Of those, 3 of them aren't real characters and are more just avatars (Wii Fit Trainer, Inkling, Villager) and and the latter have dark skinned and opposite gendered variants, so I'll just remove them, so we have 39.

Of the remaining, Mario, Dr. Mario, Luigi, and IIRC Little Mac are Italian.
Link, Zelda and Peach are presumably European given the Peter Pan influences on the original Zelda (could be Japanese though)
Pokemon Trainer is probably Japanese considering he's based on Red who's from Kanto which was literally modeled after a region in Japan
Ryu is Japanese, Ken is American
Ganondorf seems based on some desert culture so based on the Middle Eastern or Northern African?
Given Dracula's Eastern European roots, I think we can assume Simon and Richter are also from that region
Palutena, Pitt and Dark Pitt I guess are Greek?

As for the others, who knows

Spinluck said:

Italians are definitely white, what the fuck lmao.

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Well, there was a period of time where they were not considered to be. "White" is, like any other descriptor of race, an unreliable term completely divorced from biology or science. So what is considered to be White or Black or anything else has changed a lot over time. This is why these words simply are not useful when trying to talk very precisely about anything, especially fictional characters from nonexistent worlds invented by a game designer.

I mean, how do you even describe the "race" of someone like Lyn from Fire Emblem? She is the child of a man from European-style nobility, at least in social customs, and her mother was from a tribe based heavily on Mongolian steppe nomads, but the art style of the game tends to obscure any differences there may be between those ethnic groups. Even her, a character used to tell a story about overcoming racism, is really hard to label using real world ethnicities.

It's why it is more practical to talk about things like skin tone and cultural trappings.

I am all for inclusivity, but some people just for look them in the wrong places. I am a minority and not once have I ever wondered about diversity in Super Smash Brothers. Do people actually relate to characters from that franchise? It is mostly made up of anthropomorphic characters, and other imaginary characters, including humans. Not once have I ever wondered why Nintendo wasn't including people from my race/skin tone.

I honestly read the thread title and went "what?"

Now, if you are talking about a franchise like GTA or Uncharted, TLOU, etc... and those games didn't have any black or minority characters in them then this would be a great discussion, but I just don't get the criticism here. Am I missing something?

Pirarucu said:

Shantae outstrips Simon and Richter by a mile in terms of recognizability

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By what metric? Simon is the face of Castlevania and his debut game has sold more than the entire Shantae franchise. He's a pillar of gaming history. I can understand calling out, say, Daisy or a Fire Emblem character, but criticizing Castlevania for being included makes no sense at all to me.

I'd like to see it more too, but the old guard franchises of the 80s and 90s don't have much to work with, and newer franchises are starting to improve with various skin tone options but rarely have them as the default MC (with Splatoon 2 being an exception to that rule).

That being said, Elma, Octoling, Twintelle and Urbosa are all characters I see potential in making it into the game sooner or later and would add a refreshing bit of color to the roster. I do think Nintendo has a bit more onus on them than the rest of the industry to diversify their roster, but I don't necessarily mind that. They can do it.

In the case of SSB, it's just a reflection of the lack of black/brown characters in gaming, especially in Japan.

You know what would be really cool but will never happen? Prince of Persia! Even though he can look really white depending on the game, lol.

TwinBahamut said:

Well, there was a period of time where they were not considered to be. "White" is, like any other descriptor of race, an unreliable term completely divorced from biology or science. So what is considered to be White or Black or anything else has changed a lot over time. This is why these words simply are not useful when trying to talk very precisely about anything, especially fictional characters from nonexistent worlds invented by a game designer.

I mean, how do you even describe the "race" of someone like Lyn from Fire Emblem? She is the child of a man from European-style nobility, at least in social customs, and her mother was from a tribe based heavily on Mongolian steppe nomads, but the art style of the game tends to obscure any differences there may be between those ethnic groups. Even her, a character used to tell a story about overcoming racism, is really hard to label using real world ethnicities.

It's why it is more practical to talk about things like skin tone and cultural trappings.

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I'm aware that things get a lot deeper when we approach them at the root, but semantics isn't the way to tackle this issue. When a dark haired Italian w/blue eyes is applying for a job in the states, they aren't crossing out White on that job application, they are circling it in. That's that to me, and a majority of them identify as white here so I ain't gonna be Googling their descendants or family trees. I'm going to take their word for it. I myself am Haitian-American, but I identify as a black man in America regardless of some of my own Tiano roots or the fact that my parents were born islanders.

There is straight up not a single person that is black or even hispanic/latino playable in the game. Sure, it's cool to have a black Villager or Inkling skin option I guess... but that's not their default.

Many of these characters that are ambiguous in their background are clearly made up of prominent Eurocentric traits or features, and this is fairly common in Japanese anime or media. Outside of that fact, Smash is extremely diverse, but it magnifies this issue of racial/ethnic diversity in gaming as a whole.

Pirarucu said:

To all the people saying this is just a gaffe, an unintentional omission, remember that Shantae, M. Bison, Twintelle, and many more PoC characters were consciously passed over, in favor of two washed up, white or white-coded has-beens from Castlevania that literally wield whips. You can't make this stuff up. Nintendo, where is the representation?

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Is this a troll post? I honestly can't tell any more.

Spinluck said:

I'm aware that things get a lot deeper when we approach them at the root, but semantics isn't the way to tackle this issue. When a dark haired Italian w/blue eyes is applying for a job in the states, they aren't crossing out White on that job application, they are circling it in. That's that to me, and a majority of them identify as white here so I ain't gonna be Googling their descendants or family trees. I'm going to take their word for it. I myself am Haitian-American, but I identify as a black man in America regardless of some of my own Tiano roots or the fact that my parents were born islanders.

There is straight up not a single person that is black or even hispanic/latino playable in the game. Sure, it's cool to have a black Villager or Inkling skin option I guess... but that's not their default.

Many of these characters that are ambiguous in their background are clearly made up of prominent Eurocentric traits or features, and this is fairly common in Japanese anime or media. Outside of that fact, Smash is extremely diverse, but it magnifies this issue of racial/ethnic diversity in gaming as a whole.

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Why should the world have to follow the US's racial categorization system?

Im not sure why but I never realized Twintelle was Black.

Razgriz-Specter said:

Snake is part Asian.

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lol

You can sugar coat it I guess, but at the end of the day he is "part Asian" in writing only. His character is literally inspired by and modeled after white movie stars.

Dark Cloud said:

Ganondorf is one.

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Yeah, as a villain.

Spinluck said:

I'm aware that things get a lot deeper when we approach them at the root, but semantics isn't the way to tackle this issue. When a dark haired Italian w/blue eyes is applying for a job in the states, they aren't crossing out White on that job application, they are circling it in. That's that to me, and a majority of them identify as white here so I ain't gonna be Googling their descendants or family trees. I'm going to take their word for it. I myself am Haitian-American, but I identify as a black man in America regardless of some of my own Tiano roots or the fact that my parents were born islanders.

There is straight up not a single person that is black or even hispanic/latino playable in the game. Sure, it's cool to have a black Villager or Inkling skin option I guess... but that's not their default.

Many of these characters that are ambiguous in their background are clearly made up of prominent Eurocentric traits or features, and this is fairly common in Japanese anime or media. Outside of that fact, Smash is extremely diverse, but it magnifies this issue of racial/ethnic diversity in gaming as a whole.

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Well, no, semantics isn't the issue, and I wouldn't really say someone like Mario is a substitute for better and more diverse representation or anything like that. I wasn't trying to defend the post you were quoting or even really criticize your comment, just kinda used your reaction as a springboard for some of my own thoughts.

I'm still of the camp that says it would be really cool for Elma to get in the game as DLC, at least as a start.

KtSlime said:

Why should the world have to follow the US's racial categorization system?

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Categorize it however you like. I only look at it the way I do because no matter how many sub-categories you break it down into, less white or kinda white is still white in this scenario. If you ask most people what race Mario is, they are going to tell you white, unless I am mistaken and even then they decided to design both Mario brothers to look like the whitest Italians possible lol. Peach and Daisy don't really help their case either, both are princesses of a fictional world but are still very clearly white women. I mean, I am not sure what to say or what we are even arguing here.

Pirarucu said:

Shantae outstrips Simon and Richter by a mile in terms of recognizability

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I am dying here.

808s & Villainy said:

These are all the characters

It's a bit hard to break down, but of all the "human "characters" we have 42.
Of those, 3 of them aren't real characters and are more just avatars (Wii Fit Trainer, Inkling, Villager) and and the latter have dark skinned and opposite gendered variants, so I'll just remove them, so we have 39.

Of the remaining, Mario, Dr. Mario, Luigi, and IIRC Little Mac are Italian.
Link, Zelda and Peach are presumably European given the Peter Pan influences on the original Zelda (could be Japanese though)
Pokemon Trainer is probably Japanese considering he's based on Red who's from Kanto which was literally modeled after a region in Japan
Ryu is Japanese, Ken is American
Ganondorf seems based on some desert culture so based on the Middle Eastern or Northern African?
Given Dracula's Eastern European roots, I think we can assume Simon and Richter are also from that region
Palutena, Pitt and Dark Pitt I guess are Greek?

As for the other's who knows

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Very nice breakdown. Seems logical.
But yea, gaming in general has pretty few dark skinned lead characters.

Spinluck said:

Categorize it however you like. I only look at it the way I do because no matter how many sub-categories you break it down into, less white or kinda white is still white in this scenario. If you ask most people what race Mario is, they are going to tell you white, unless I am mistaken and even then they decided to design both Mario brothers to look like the whitest Italians possible lol. Peach and Daisy don't really help their case either, both are princesses of a fictional world but are still very clearly white women. I mean, I am not sure what to say or what we are even arguing here.

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More diverse representation in skin color is important. America may blanket categorize Italians as white, which would mean they don't count as diversity, however if Japan considers the character Italian, that means they are foreigners, which means they are being diverse. It's not as diverse as it could/should be, but it all is a matter of perspective. Humans are really diverse in skin pigmentation, so there are people considered black in America, who have lighter skin that some people who are considered white, or asian. The only solution is to have lots of skin pigmentations in the game.

KtSlime said:

Why should the world have to follow the US's racial categorization system?

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Should the world still lean on white or fair skin being the qualities of a hero? Or to the point here a default in media (games, movies, etc?