Super Roster Maker - Nintendo vs. Sega

The rivalry between Nintendo and Sega is a classic part of the video game industry’s history. While today, Nintendo could be seen as the victor of the old-school console wars, with Sega having bowed out to become a third-party developer, back in the 8 and 16-bit era, Nintendo and Sega ruled the gaming landscape. Since then, games like Super Smash Bros., Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, and Project X Zone have mixed together characters from both companies, but fans still speculate about seeing an equal crossover between these once bitter rivals.

That is the basis of this Super Roster Maker, Nintendo vs. Sega.

We will be creating a hypothetical fighting game roster with an equal number of characters from both Nintendo and Sega. I will be following the template I used for some of my other Super Roster Maker articles to create the roster here. Aside from that, there will be a maximum of only four characters per franchise, so no one series makes up the bulk of one side’s roster. (Looking at you two, Mario and Sonic.)

PART 1: THE ICONS

In this part, I will choose a small number of characters for each side that represent both companies, as an example of their current image in the gaming landscape.

Nintendo’s picks are:

Mario (Super Mario), Link (The Legend of Zelda), & Charizard (Pokemon)

For Nintendo’s Icons, these three franchises are some of Nintendo’s highest earning series and for many people, there are the first series that come to mind when people think of Nintendo. Mario and Link may not need much explanation, but Charizard was chosen for Pokemon over the series mascot Pikachu as Charizard is at a comparable size to a normal person, which a good deal of the roster is going to be. Pikachu being canonically small may need some a work-around to be viable in a setting like this.

Sega’s picks are:

Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog), Bayonetta (Bayonetta), & Joker (Persona)

While Sonic is fairly obvious, being Sega’s mascot, Bayonetta and Joker have their main basis of inclusion here as their inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The fact that they were chosen to represent Sega alongside Sonic in a roster with multiple video game all-stars proves that they have massive appeal in the gaming space.

PART 2: THE FIGHTERS

For this section, we will be looking at the fighting game site Eventhubs for two popular competitive games from each company and pulling the most popular or highest tiered characters from those games to add to the list (two from each game). We will also add a third, more obscure fighting game and add two characters each from those games selected by what posters on different fan forums said were the best or most popular characters in those games. Nintendo’s games were Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Pokken Tournament DX, and ARMS, while Sega’s games were Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, and Eternal Champions.

Nintendo’s picks are:

From Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Ganondorf (The Legend of Zelda) & Peach (Super Mario)

From Pokken Tournament DX: Lucario & Aegislash

From ARMS: Min Min & Twintelle

Sega’s picks are:

From Persona 4 Arena Ultimax: Akihiko Sanada & Yu Narukami

From Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown: Sarah Bryant & Akira Yuki

From Eternal Champions: Larcen Tyler & Trident

PART 3: THE STARS

In this portion, we’ll pick one character each to represent eight current or upcoming games from each company. These characters and the games they are from represent the current range offered by each publisher and a roster like this could serve as an advertising vehicle for those franchises.

Nintendo’s picks are:

Tom Nook (Animal Crossing: New Horizons)

Toxtricity (Pokemon Sword & Shield)

Ring Fit Athlete (Ring Fit Adventure)

Bowser (Super Mario Odyssey/Super Mario Maker 2)

Zelda (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)

Cadet Howard (Astral Chain)

Byleth (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)

Samus Aran (Metroid Prime 4)

Sega’s picks are:

Dr. Eggman (Sonic Forces)

Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza 6: The Song of Life)

Sakura Amamiya (Sakura Wars)

Ryuji Sakamoto (Persona 5)

Jin (Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom)

ARKS Cadet (Phantasy Star Online)

Selvaria Bles (Valkyria Chronicles 4)

Jack Frost (Shin Megami Tensei V)

PART 4: THE WILD CARDS

Now, the final section, the Wild Cards. This is where we’ll see some more variety in character picks. For both sides, we’ll pick characters for three different sub-categories: two each for game developers’ favorite characters, two each for fan favorite characters, and three each for either obscure characters or characters that can be tied to experimental ideas or presentations.

Nintendo’s Dev Favs: Kirby (Kirby) & Fox McCloud (Star Fox)

Our developer favorites for Nintendo are Kirby for Mahahiro Sakurai and Fox McCloud from Star Fox for Shigeru Miyamoto. Special note about Kirby, while I said earlier that Pikachu was excluded for being a canonically small character and Kirby is about the same, a potential work-around for this is to have Kirby pilot a mech (like in the game Kirby: Planet Robobot) for most of his attacks.

Sega’s Dev Favs: Goro Majima (Yakuza) & Aiai (Super Monkey Ball)

Our developer favorites for Sega come from Sega president Hajime Satomi for Goro Majima and game developer Toshihiro Nagoshi for Aiai.

Nintendo’s Fan Favs: Luigi (Super Mario) & Isabelle (Animal Crossing)

Sega’s Fan Favs: Segata Sanshiro (Sega Saturn) & Ryo Hazuki (Shenmue)

Not much to explain here. These characters were chosen through different fan polls and forum polls where these characters ranked high in popularity.

Nintendo’s Experimental Picks: Andy (Advance Wars), Dillon (Dillon’s Rolling Western), & Isaac (Golden Sun)

Coming from the Advance Wars series of strategy games, Andy could use various kinds of military weaponry or call in attacks from vehicles like tanks or fighter jets. Dillon, from his self-titled series of tower defense games, could work like a Nintendo version of Sonic, using a lot of rolling and dash attacks while mixing things up with some Wild West style gunplay. Finally, Isaac, protagonist of the cult-hit RPG Golden Sun, can use sword attacks, magic, Psynergy powers, or call in his party members to help with bigger attacks.

Sega’s Experimental Picks: Beat (Jet Set Radio), Zobio & Zobiko (The House of the Dead), NiGHTS (NiGHTS)

Beat, from the hip-hop styled 3D platformer Jet Set Radio, could have a moveset based around skating tricks, speed, spray paint/graffiti tags, and possibly calling in other members of the GGs for help. Zibo & Zobiko, the undead protagonist couple from the Japan-only game The House of the Dead EX, could use attacks themed around some of the series other zombies of monsters and possibly some gunplay elements calling back to the series’ main gameplay. Finally, NiGHTS, from his self-titled aerial adventure series, can have a moveset based around flying, shapeshifting, and possibly some kind of reality warping effects. (His games are based around dreams after all.)

FINAL RESULTS

Nintendo’s Characters: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Charizard, Lucario, Aegislash, Toxtricity, Link, Ganondorf, Zelda, Min Min, Twintelle, Isabelle, Tom Nook, Ring Fit Athlete, Cadet Howard, Byleth, Samus, Kirby, Fox, Andy, Dillon, Isaac

Sega’s Characters: Sonic, Dr. Eggman, Bayonetta, Joker, Ryuji, Yu, Akihiko, Akira, Sarah, Larcen, Trident, Kiryu, Majima, Sakura, Jin, ARKS Cadet, Selvaria, Jack Frost, Aiai, Segata, Ryo, Beat, Zobio & Zobiko, NiGHTS

Our final roster gives us a total of 48 characters, with 24 for each side and representing a total of 31 different series. Super Mario, Pokemon, and Persona each have four characters, The Legend of Zelda comes in with three, and the rest all have one or two characters each. (I kind of expected Sonic to get the full four characters here, but I guess Sega likes to spread the love a little more.)

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What did you think of this roster? Who do you think should make it into a Nintendo/Sega crossover? Make yourself heard in the comments below.

Thanks for coming!

Super Roster Maker - Nintendo vs. Capcom

Nintendo vs. Capcom is a topic I’ve covered on here before. The idea of two of the best-known studios in classic and modern gaming coming together for one big fighting game project is a dream game for many and if it is ever announced, it is sure to garner lots of attention.

After watching a review video relating to a different fighting game, I recently came to an idea as to how a roster like this might be built. The video will be linked below, but it basically states that the characters added fall into four different categories. They are:

1 - the icons/biggest characters for each studio’s biggest series

2 - characters involved in previous fighting games and were either popular or top-tier picks

3 - characters representing series that are currently relevant and successful or have a new high-profile project currently under development

4 - wild card characters that are either developer favorites, fan favorites, or have potential for a creative or wacky move-set idea or presentation

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 - The Completionist

(I can't insert the video, so here's the link.)

Using those categories, we can piece together a viable hypothetical roster for Nintendo vs. Capcom. To keep things fair, a series can only have a maximum of 4 characters, but spin-off series, like Donkey Kong Country or Mega Man X, can count as their own separate series.

Part 1: The Icons

This will probably be the shortest section. For this, we will pull one character each from each studio’s biggest franchises. For Nintendo, the big three are Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokemon, and for Capcom, the big three are Mega Man, Street Fighter, and Resident Evil.

The picks are:

Mario (Super Mario) 

Link (The Legend of Zelda) 

Charizard (Pokemon)

Mega Man (Mega Man)

Ryu (Street Fighter)

Leon Kennedy (Resident Evil)

The first two for each company were probably a given, but the last ones may need some explaining. Pikachu may be the mascot of the Pokemon franchise, but for a fighting game where most of the combatants are in a size range comparable to average humans, Pikachu may be a bit too small for main consideration in an outing like this, so his spot was given to a larger Pokemon that was just as popular, if not more so, Charizard. As for Leon Kennedy, Resident Evil 4, which Leon is the main character in, is widely regarded as one of the best games of all-time by different sources and it started out as an exclusive for the Nintendo GameCube. So, the main character of a very successful game with a strong connection to Nintendo; a strong case for inclusion here.

Part 2: The Fighters

To figure out these characters, we’re looking at Eventhubs, a website for fighting game news and competitive guides for fighting games old and new. Eventhubs features up-to-date tier lists for different games as well as popularity lists showing pick rates for a roster’s characters. 

For this section, we’ll choose 4 Nintendo fighting games and 4 Capcom fighting games, then use Eventhubs’ lists to choose the number one most popular character and the number one highest tier character to add to our roster. Though if a game has third party guest characters, those will be ignored. If a game isn’t featured for one or both lists, an alternate method of selection will be chosen and explained below.

Our 4 Nintendo games are Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. 4, Pokken Tournament DX, and ARMS, as all are currently supported or popular fighting games. The case is the same for our 4 Capcom games, Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Street Fighter V, and Darkstalkers 3. By taking just two characters per game, that will give us 8 total for each side.

The picks here are:

For Super Smash Bros. Melee: Marth (Fire Emblem) & Fox McCloud (Star Fox)

For Super Smash Bros. 4: Captain Falcon (F-Zero) & Diddy Kong (Donkey Kong Country)

For Pokken Tournament DX: Lucario & Mewtwo

For ARMS: Twintelle & Min Min

For Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite: Jedah Dohma (Darkstalkers) & Dante (Devil May Cry)

For Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Zero (Mega Man X) & Nathan Spencer (Bionic Commando)

For Street Fighter V: Karin Kanzuki & Cammy White

For Darkstalkers 3: Morrigan Aensland & Lord Raptor

For most of these characters, it was easy. They were either at the top of the popularity or tiers lists or close to the top. Eventhubs didn’t have popularity lists for Darkstalkers 3 or Pokken Tournament DX, but Morrigan was chosen as the “popular” character since she seems to be a favored addition for Capcom crossover games anyway and Lucario was chosen as he was in the top 3 for the tier list and has been a consistently popular Pokemon (see his inclusion in the Smash Bros. series if you need further proof).

Since ARMS isn’t featured at all on Eventhubs, a character poll on the site Nintendo Life (http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/05/poll_who_is_your_favourite_arms_fighter) showed that Twintelle was the most popular character and a community tier list found on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/ARMS/comments/8hikdz/results_of_arms_tier_list_poll_may_2018/) showed that Min Min, who placed second on the popularity list, is also a high-ranking powerful character.

Part 3: The Stars

In what is likely to be another short section, there will be one character pulled from each of the series listed here, each being a significant character from those series. A list of recent and future releases (https://www.giantbomb.com/capcom/3010-367/published/) shows the series that Capcom is currently paying attention to include Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, Mega Man, Mega Man X, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Dead Rising, and Ace Attorney. Meanwhile, the series currently listed on Nintendo’s own website as having best-selling games for the Nintendo Switch and 3DS include Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Splatoon, Donkey Kong Country, Pokemon, and Fire Emblem with some notable future releases including a new Metroid game and DLC for the current Xenoblade Chronicles game.

The Nintendo picks are:

Bowser (Super Mario)

Ganondorf (The Legend of Zelda)

Agent 3 (Splatoon)

Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong Country)

Decidueye (Pokemon)

Robin (Fire Emblem)

Samus Aran (Metroid)

Rex (Xenoblade Chronicles)

Bowser and Ganondorf made it in as the main villains of their respective series, Samus and Donkey Kong made it in as the main heroes of their respective series, Rex is the main character of the most recent Xenoblade game, Agent 3 is now a recurring character in the Splatoon series (with a boss battle in Splatoon 2 now giving her/him a confirmed set of weapons and skills to work with), Robin represents the modern Fire Emblem games with Marth representing the classic era, and Decidueye is a popular Pokemon with the current Gen 7 games.

The Capcom picks are:

Vergil (Devil May Cry)

Albert Wesker (Resident Evil)

Dr. Wily (Mega Man)

Sigma (Mega Man X)

Akuma (Street Fighter)

Monster Hunter (Monster Hunter)

Frank West (Dead Rising)

Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney)

The first five made it in as the main antagonists of their respective series, Frank and Phoenix make it in as recurring protagonists of their series, and a Monster Hunter makes it in to represent the different kinds of hunters that players can use in the games (like the Monster Hunter in Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite).

Part 4: The Wild Cards

For this section, we will be adding two of each of the previously mentioned kinds of wild card characters, with each side getting two developer favorites, two fan favorites, and two characters with experimental move-sets. For extra appeal, the experimental characters will be from more obscure series that neither company has utilized in a while, because part of the draw of these rosters is seeing what characters will be revived for these games.

Nintendo Dev Favs: Wolf O’Donnel (Star Fox) & Kirby (Kirby)

For Nintendo, the developers focused on were Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai. Miyamoto has said on different occasions that he wishes the Star Fox series was more popular and Sakurai’s main series to work on apart from Smash Bros. has been the Kirby series. Taking one character from each game gives us Fox’s main rival from Star Fox, Wolf O’Donnel, and Kirby from the Kirby series. As I stated in a previous article, to remedy any concerns about Kirby being too small, equipping him with one of the mechs from the game Kirby: Planet Robobot would put him more with the other characters size-wise.

Capcom Dev Favs: Mike Haggar (Final Fight) & Batsu Ichimonji (Rival Schools)

The developers focused on for Capcom were Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono and Capcom fighting game director Hideaki Itsuno. The bulk of Ono’s experience in gaming is with Street Fighter and while the series itself has already hit its maximum here with 4 characters, Mike Haggar from Final Fight would serve as a good nod to Ono, as Final Fight has heavily crossed over with Street Fighter as of recent games. For Itsuno, the fighting series Rival Schools was one of the earlier series he worked on and he has hinted at different times at an interest in reviving the series, so the series’ main character Batsu Ichimonji would make sense as a roster addition here.

Nintendo Fan Favs: Zelda (The Legend of Zelda) & Luigi (Super Mario)

Capcom Fan Favs: Jill Valentine (Resident Evil) & Arthur (Ghosts N Goblins)

The case is the same here for both Nintendo and Capcom. Numerous fan polls have consistently listed these characters as being very popular, even reaching the top 10 on many of the lists relating to their studios.

Nintendo Experimental Characters: Isaac (Golden Sun) & Andy (Advance Wars)

Best known for their time on Nintendo handhelds, the main characters from Golden Sun and Advance Wars are still popular among fans who fondly remember their games. Isaac can not only use a sword, but also Psynergy abilities to not only attack the opponent but also potentially manipulate the battlefield. Andy, being a more militaristic character can call in potential aid from infantry, tanks, or other vehicles seen in the Advance Wars games.

Capcom Experimental Characters: Rei (Breath of Fire) & Zack & Wiki (Zack & Wiki)

There were a few characters who could represent the Breath of Fire series, with Breath of Fire 3 being one of its more popular entries, but since there already is a “Ryu” in the game and Nina seems like a bit less of a fighter than some other characters, Rei seemed like the next logical choice, with a good mechanic for him being to call in some of his allies for different moves and combos, including Ryu and Nina. As for Zack & Wiki, the stars of a high-ranking but low-selling game on the Wii, Zack could be the main fighter, with Wiki assisting him in some moves, and they both could use items and puzzle elements from their game as attacks or battlefield manipulation.

FINAL RESULTS

So, now, we have our final roster. Both sides have 25 characters, giving us an even roster of 50. If that seems like a big number, it’s the same size as the final version of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and smaller than the roster of the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Also, keep in mind, that for a game as highly anticipated as Nintendo vs. Capcom might be, the developers would probably want to give gamers more bang for their buck.

 Emphasis on the bang.

Nintendo Side: Mario, Bowser, Luigi, Link, Ganondorf, Zelda, Charizard, Lucario, Mewtwo, Decidueye, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Marth, Robin, Fox, Wolf, Twintelle, Min Min, Samus, Kirby, Captain Falcon, Agent 3, Rex, Isaac, Andy

Capcom Side: Mega Man, Dr. Wily, Ryu, Karin, Cammy, Akuma, Leon, Wesker, Jill, Morrigan, Jedah, Lord Raptor, Dante, Vergil, Zero, Sigma, Spencer, Monster Hunter, Frank West, Phoenix Wright, Haggar, Batsu, Arthur, Rei, Zack & Wiki

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A custom-made roster like this is sure to leave out a lot of people’s favorite characters. (Heck, if I were to just pick my own favorite characters to put in here instead of setting up rules and guidelines, this roster would look very different.) So, what are your thoughts on this article? What characters would you choose for Nintendo vs. Capcom? Would you set up guidelines for inclusion or just pick your favorites? Make your voice heard in the comments below. Thanks for coming!