LogFAQs > #917036121

See, now you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. I never said that it doesn't exist for the first one, nor did I say that later ones are what "made them noticed". It's really no different from any other case where characters get stronger and stronger the more games they have. That's why the majority of the Noble Nine are lead characters from long-running franchises. I suppose my only mistake was wording it as though this was specifically a characteristic of Smash.

It isn't. Any high-profile release will boost a character, and more releases means more boosts, in theory. The famed "Kingdom Hearts boost" of 2003 is the exact same thing. However, as I noted back in the Mewtwo-GLaDOS write-up, there's the risk of overdoing it and weakening your brand by churning out rehashes of the same game over and over again. Assassin's Creed is a good example of a franchise that fell into this trap, and it shows in the franchise's results in these contests. Altair's failure to make the bracket at all and Ezio's first-round blowout loss to Zelda marked the first time for either one of them that they missed the second round since their games were released, but not one of the leads from later games has even made a contest. That is Smash's true strength--even its weakest entries are still considered strong games.

Also, it speaks to another trend that I've spoken of--the nostalgia bias. For Pokmon, the general rule is that the two most recent generations get shit all over and anything older is looked upon fondly, though there is a minority that will never see anything from the GBA era or later as being good. For Final Fantasy, it's a little tougher to tell, in part because the release schedule has slowed down so much that even XII is over a decade old--hell, even XIII is getting pretty close to a decade old and that's the second most recent non-MMO. So you're right, I did word things poorly. It would be more accurate to say that each new Smash game increases the value of having been in previous ones. Again, if you doubt the veracity of this, just compare 2002 Pikachu, 2008 Pikachu, and 2018 Pikachu. The first one was a chump, the second a dangerous midcarder who slayed the threatening joke character, and the third a Noble Nine breaker. That's because being one of the Original 151 and the Original 12 didn't mean much when GSC and Melee were the most recent games in those series, but it meant something when DPP and Brawl were and it means a hell of a lot when it's USUM and Ultimate.

Edit: Also, I see your edit. I feel it doesn't really flow without some of the parts you took out, but I reworded that section to avoid directly referencing you and instead put "if you're reading these write-ups in order", which is true enough and I frequently refer back to my own earlier write-ups so the fact that I'm referring to something in your analysis rather than my own is irrelevant.

I also corrected my write-up because LMS was right; Zelda missed '04 after debuting in '03. I had honestly forgotten that she'd been in '03 until I looked it up, but I must've glossed over the absence of '04; I think it's because normally characters that debuted in '02 or '03 have their first text block on their history page after the '04 contest and another one after each contest from '05 on, but Zelda's first one is after '05.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.