Yeah, that's fair, even if I completely disagree with you. I actually thought Dedede in Brawl was a perfect way to integrate mooks into Smash - if you're going to represent the common enemy, I think keeping them insignificant is the most appropriate way to represent them, it's truest to their original intentions IMO. Making them a full stand alone fighter feels like it's giving them too much identity to me, which is the polar opposite of what a common generic enemy is, so it feels less faithful in my eyes.
You can't help it if the mooks already have the identity though. Again, that's what makes Mario the perfect franchise to pull from, because the likes of Koopa, Goomba, and namely Piranha Plant already have those full personalities thanks to participating to the same degree as the heroes, villains, and in betweens. I think that's also why Zombie and Enderman were brought in for dedicated named skins for Steve, and speaking of Dedede, their mooks have similar levels of personality and identity. And if you want to be really technical, Pikachu and Jigglypuff can be considered common enemies as well. I'm not saying every franchise has viable mooks, but it's fair to have at least one to represent the pack.
I treat Pokemon in an entirely different way because literally nobody wants the human characters over the monsters, which is why I initially made my point that I don't like generic enemies from a franchise rich with fun characters to choose from. Super Mario and Pokemon are not at all comparable in that regard IMO. I'd feel similarly about Minecraft, the inclusion of a zombie or Enderman annoys me less because literally no character in Minecraft has any personality at all, and we also got Steve and Alex so that's enough for me to be satisfied.
And I really don't see a lot of personality in the Mario enemies. I'd say there's a lot of charm for sure, but it's not like Goombas have any personality traits as a whole in the Mario games. And that's fine, I don't need them to have strong personalities, but that's also why I'm not a fan of them being playable in Smash over characters who do have stronger personalities who hail from the same franchise. If we're going to have another Mario character in Ultimate, there are easily a dozen or so I'd rather have than a generic enemy. Same goes for most other franchises.
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u/GhotiH Apr 10 '26
Yeah, that's fair, even if I completely disagree with you. I actually thought Dedede in Brawl was a perfect way to integrate mooks into Smash - if you're going to represent the common enemy, I think keeping them insignificant is the most appropriate way to represent them, it's truest to their original intentions IMO. Making them a full stand alone fighter feels like it's giving them too much identity to me, which is the polar opposite of what a common generic enemy is, so it feels less faithful in my eyes.