Jibanyan just would be a big no. From what I know, the series basically dropped off in japan, and never really could make it in the west at all. DQ at least has a huge, big history in japan.
It's still a lot more popular than many other third-party franchises in Japan. And with Yo-kai Watch 4 coming out for Switch, the series could start picking back up again. It'd be the best choice for a Level-5 rep, and it'd also be in Nintendo's interest since they publish the Yo-kai Watch games outside of Japan. It'd probably be more unique than most other potential characters, too.
Pretty meh.
I'm excited for Erdrick no, but everything after that doesn't interest me. Ryu would be kind of cool but that's it.
That's mostly how I feel about those characters too (Jibanyan's the only one that I'd truly love to see, and I've also been rooting for a Dragon Quest fighter 'cause it feels like such a glaring omission), but I'm trying to guess what's most likely, not what I'd most want (I'd have thrown Rex, Chorus Kids, and Tails on there if that was the case).
Isn't "Hero" a bit too generic for Erdrick's name in Smash?
You could say the same for Villager, couldn't you? It seems like the character is largely known as "Yūsha" in Japan (along with other Dragon Quest protagonists) despite technically having a name, and the equivalent here is "Hero" (
which also seems to be used in place of "Erdrick" in merchandising). And "Hero" covers more bases than "Erdrick" anyway, 'cause it can refer to any Dragon Quest protagonist (multiple of which could be represented as alts).
I feel like Sakurai would gravitate more towards the beginning of the Resident Evil series, and that narrows it down to Chris and Jill. Jill always seemed more popular than Chris from what I've seen and people are yearning for more female representation.
I also think it'd be down to either Jill or Chris, but I'm not completely convinced that Jill would definitely be chosen over Chris given that Chris seems like he has more prominence in the series. Could they work as echo fighters of each other, I wonder? I honestly have no idea, as someone who's not very familiar with Resident Evil.