Talk:List of fighters debuting in Super Smash Bros. Melee

Split Mr. Game & Watch back to his own article

This talk page section contains an unresolved talk page proposal. Please try to help and resolve the issue by voting or leaving a comment.

Current time: Tuesday, June 4, 2024, 12:56 GMT

Where's Mr. Game & Watch? (It's like Where's Waldo, except for how it's not like it at all.)

Recently, the wiki has been going through a lot of old articles from before SmashWiki was its own thing, and cleaning them up; either nixing non-Mario information from them or consolidating them into massive pages, like this. One of these, obviously, was to consolidate fighters into list articles like this, and give only brief coverage to non-Mario fighters in specific. One of these characters that got their article nixed was Mr. Game & Watch, repping the Game & Watch. So, no big deal, right? He debuted in Melee, he's a Smash character, end of question.

...Except, that doesn't quite cover the full story. Mr. Game & Watch has, in fact, appeared out side of Smash, and made cameos in many Mario-relevant games since his debut in Melee. A brief (possibly incomplete) list of relevant appearances:

• Probably most obvious his non-Smash debut in Game & Watch Gallery 4, where he hosts the Gift mode alongside Mario, and even has a speaking role(!!!).
• He made a cameo in Donkey Kong Country Returns, which we have pictured to the right.
• He's made multiple cameos in various WarioWare games, some of which are playable in Microgames and some of which are purely aesthetic in cutscenes or UI.
• The Shop owner from Wario Land 4 is based on his design, which is mentioned on his section on the current List form of the article.
• He apparently has a cameo in Odyssey (though the game's section in his current subsection fails to provide an image for this).
• Depending how loose you want to be, you could also claim the Game & Watch Gallery appearances and those various DSiWare releases are him being playable?

And in direct contrast to, say, a character like Young Link, another character who is solely a cameo (in Mario Artist and a few microgames) in the Mario series, Mr. Game & Watch has a direct speaking role in a game we give direct coverage for (Game & Watch Gallery 4) and has been the basis for other, decidedly Mario characters, such as the Shopkeeper from Wario Land 4. And besides, it's not like we haven't afforded the "don't merge to the list articles" thing to other characters already if they have a direct speaking or playable role; Mega Man has an article, and his main non-Smash appearance alongside Mario was a comic.

Mr. Game & Watch has effectively ascended beyond being just, a fighter representing the Game & Watch platform for Smash Bros., and has become Nintendo's own mascot representing the Game & Watch platform for basically everything else. And like, all of these are Mario series relevant cameos, for that matter--he's certainly made a few more appearances in games that aren't covered on the wiki (Rhythm Heaven Fever and Megamix come to mind!), so there feels like there's a little bit more to him than just being a Smash fighter, and subsequently being shuffled off to a corner of the list article. It feels reasonable enough to say that Mr. Game & Watch is relevant enough to Mario outside of Smash to get his article back.

Proposer: Camwood777 (talk)
Deadline: May 12, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. Camwood777 (talk) - Per the proposal, we feel like Mr. Game & Watch has the most compelling reason to have his article split back off.
2. Shadic 34 (talk) Was honestly surprised to see Mr. G&W get the axe, considering his appearance in G&WG4, among other minor appearances. I support resplitting his article.
3. ThePowerPlayer (talk) Per proposal.
4. Ahemtoday (talk) Per proposal.
5. Spectrogram (talk) Per his appearance alongside Mario, cameos just don't cut it
6. Hewer (talk) Per all.
7. Killer Moth (talk) Per all.

Comments

I just noticed that the deadline says "2011", this should probably be fixed. Dinoshi 64 Yoshi, Yoshi! 23:54, April 27, 2023 (EDT)