LogFAQs > #916930489

See, being new to Smash is only good for a small boost. But here's the secret. Each time you appear in a Smash game? The boost gets bigger. Remember, Metroid Prime wasn't even out when Character Battle I happened. Super Metroid is certainly an all-time classic, but being one of the Original Twelve (and the Original Eight, at that), surely gave her the added strength to be a Noble Niner right from the start. (Though maybe people put too much weight on the lack of a Metroid game since SM at the time of CBI; it's only a year older than Chrono Trigger and actually had a PAL release on its initial system to boot.) Kirby, of course, gets most of his strength from Smash even now. Same goes for Captain Falcon. And of course, Fox. He had a pretty decent contest this year even though he hasn't had a game anyone really cared about since 1997. (Star Fox Zero got panned for being too much of a retread of 64, but given how poorly received every game since then has been with the exception of the literal SF64 remake on the 3DS, why shouldn't they try to stick with what people liked?)

And it most certainly has trickled down to Melee's cast of newcomers, or at least, some of them. Conventional wisdom coming into this year was that no one really cares about Peach; she's just an apathy vote magnet. Which...okay that would actually be a pretty decent explanation for why she gave Alucard a better match than either of his next two opponents; this contest's format made "apathy vote magnet" a surprisingly strong thing to be. And of course, Mewtwo is still the second-most consistently strong Pokmon...actually let's face it, Mewtwo should probably be ahead of Charizard in the adjusted X-Stats, because Division 7 is in a horrendous place in the raw X-Stats. Guess which one made it into Smash first. Don't get me wrong, a lot of Smashers would be strong anyway. But Zelda has been there since Melee, and more importantly, there was a kind of big Legend of Zelda game out recently. You know, the series with her name in the title? She was, as usual, only a supporting character despite being the title character, but she still had a pretty decent presence, not to mention one of her best designs yet, which, again, was used for her appearance in Smash Ultimate.

Also, if that bit about the Smash Boost becoming stronger with each successive appearance is true? It really explains a lot of characters getting these massive boosts. And sure enough, they did exactly that. Cloud recovered from his signs of weakness in 2013, and Bowser hasn't looked this good since he gave Snake a scare in 2005.

You figured it out yet?

That's right. This was the first Character Battle since for WiiU/3DS came out. And since they made a point of bringing back everyone from Melee, Brawl, and WiiU/3DS (the original roster has been present in every game anyway), even ill-advised decisions like Pichu, it's a 100% guarantee that any character in Wii U/3DS had their Smash counter incremented by 2 since the most recent contest. So, yeah, there were bound to be some absolutely ridiculous power boosts. Long live NintendoFAQs.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.