The time has come for us to decide whether or not we cover Super Smash Bros. We've had a discussion like this back in October 2013 and we decided not to cover them. Here are a few points of the opposing side:
- It's not Sonic - So what? We've got Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Alex Kidd, NiGHTS, Billy Hatcher and Mega Man. And we have a rule that if a character appears in two games with Sonic, he can have a page. Sonic appeared in two Super Smash Bros. games, so these Nintendo characters qualify.
- Sonic isn't a main character - Yes he is. Super Smash Bros. have no central protagonist. All the playable characters are main. He may be a third-party character, but that is why he's advertised a lot. He's the only veteran to get his own trailer in Smash 4. He and Snake were the secret characters that have been publicized a lot in Brawl. Yeah, he was unlockable in Brawl, but he's a starter in Smash 4. And while he had a small appearance in the Subspace Emissary as a Deus Ex Machina, at least he saved everyone from the main villain, who only appeared at the end of the story. And if you chose to play as him, he defeated Tabuu and saved the whole world of Nintendo from destruction. At least he isn't a post-game boss fight like Wolf, Jigglypuff and Toon Link. And since Brawl is the only game in the series to have a story, story shouldn't matter. And in Smash Bros. terminology, a main character is a character that a player likes to use a lot. I use Sonic a lot, so Sonic is my main.
- We'd be another Smash Wiki - No we won't. We'd only cover the Smash 4 veterans. Even though we lifted the playability requirement when we decided to cover Sonic & Mega Man: Worlds Collide, Smash characters will need to be playable to count because if we covered the assist trophies, stages, trophies and cameos, we'd have too much Nintendo. And since Sonic didn't appear in Melee or the N64 game, we won't cover those two games. If this revote passes, we'd only move my userspace articles of Link, Kirby, Pikachu, Samus Aran, Fox McCloud, Pit, Captain Olimar, Marth, Princess Zelda, King Dedede, Lucario, Diddy Kong, Zero Suit Samus, Sheik, Charizard, Ike, Captain Falcon, Meta Knight, Ganondorf, Falco Lombardi, Ness, Jigglypuff, Mr. Game & Watch and R.O.B.. Just those 25 characters. We won't have cut characters like Lucas or Solid Snake, and we won't have anynewcomers nor will we have Dr. Mario or Mewtwo. We can have the Smash stages Green Hill Zone and Windy Hill, but we won't have any of the other stages.
- Smash 4 wasn't released yet - Now it is. The first voting was in October 2013 when Sonic was just announced for Smash 4. That was way too early and technically, Sonic hadn't made his second Smash appearance yet. We could only fully cover Brawl on those pages which is not good for our crossover coverage. Now that Super Smash Bros for Wii U came out four months ago, and I'm enjoying it with Sonic, this point is no longer valid. Sonic has made two Smash appearances. These characters have made two appearances with Sonic. This is the reason why I'm doing the revote, because of the previous vote being too early and I thought maybe with the game out, some people could change their minds.
- Smash doesn't count - Then how did Donkey Kong get his page before Bowser Jr.? I was there back in 2010. Bowser Jr. kept getting deleted while Donkey Kong had his own page just covering his appearances in Brawl and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. Bowser Jr. was eventually protected from creation. It wasn't until Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games came out that Bowser Jr. was allowed here. If Brawl didn't count, then how come Donkey Kong's page wasn't deleted?
- More admins and experienced users voted delete - So? This is a community vote, not an admin vote. Everybody's vote counts. A five year old girl could vote here for all I care and it will still count. Every vote counts. If only the admin votes count, my whole proposal would be meaningless because I am not an admin. You know what happens when Sega makes a Sonic game and thinks only of themselves and not the player? The game will end up terrible.
So let's end this debate once and for all. If Support wins, my userspace characters will be moved. If Oppose wins, I'm going to mark my userspace characters for deletion. I'm going to keep score for everyone who votes. The previous vote lasted two weeks, so I want this vote to be two weeks just to be fair. Everyone vote counts. And if I lose this again, I won't be bringing Smash to Sonic News Network ever again. This is the discussion to end it all!