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

Split Mr. Game & Watch back to his own article

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit this section or its subsections. If you wish to discuss the article, please do so in a new section below the proposal.

Split 14-1

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 (UTC)

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.
8. Waluigi Time (talk) Per all. (Can we split Samus back off next?)
9. Mario (talk) Mr. Game & Watch has his series of games get decent coverage in the wiki through the Game & Watch Gallery games. Mario even is sometimes in these games like Bombs Away or the cement factory. If we're going to restore this page, however, keep the focus on those games, limit the breadth of Smash Bros information like the insane detailling of those special moves (keep a simple list of what these moves reference; some of these even reference Game & Watch games that Mario is involved in.
10. SONIC123CDMANIA+&K(B&ATSA) (talk) Definitely. He shouldn't have been merged into this article.
11. Power Flotzo (talk) Per all, the appearance in G&WG4 is solid enough evidence to maintain the page.
12. SolemnStormcloud (talk) Per all.
13. SeanWheeler (talk) Honestly, I don't really like how all the fighters are relegated to a list now. I think we need a better system for dealing with crossovers in our coverage policy and not make Smash Bros into this special case. G&WG4 is a good enough excuse.
14. Koopa con Carne (talk) Sure. I misappreciated his importance in that Game & Watch Gallery 4 game when I merged him here. However, as per this proposal and its predecessor, his page should be restored with the special move info condensed into the Smash Bros. sections, as they are currently.

Oppose

1. Wikiboy10 (talk) Mr. G&W barely plays a major role in any non-adjectiveless crossover game; most of these roles are simple cameos. The WarioWare games feature multiple figures (which are not even implied to be the Mr. Game & Watch). Mind you, the idea and name for the "character" was created for Smash; all instances of the figure are just vague roles. We also don't cover every Game & Watch game on the wiki because not all of them are Mario-related. His role in Donkey Kong Country Returns is a one-off joke and rather pointless to make articles for. I guess we should make an article for Starfy because he appeared in one of the Mario & Luigi games as a poster. The Shop Owner only slightly looks like him. I guess we should make an article for Gyū-Maō because he served as an inspiration for Bowser. My point is that we aren't missing anything by not having an article on him. I doubt anyone on the Mario Wiki would even think of the "character" when searching him up and would want to know all the games he supposedly appears in or served inspiration for. I don't mean to be that assertive but I do have to prove the proposer and the supporters wrong here.

Comments

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

It seems to be fixed. SONIC123CDMANIA+&K(B&ATSA) (talk) 11:52, April 28, 2023 (CST)

oh god we made this proposal page at like 11PM sorry. Yeah, uh, it's definitely not 2011, the deadline should be 2023. Someone else fixed it before us, though; apologies for that. ~Camwood777 (talk) 12:56, April 28, 2023 (EDT)

@Wikiboy10 I just want to point out that the you forgot to mention Game & Watch Gallery 4, a game where Mr. Game & Watch plays a major role a host for one of the game modes, even having dialogue. That only I believe warrants him getting his own page. If it were just small cameos then I would agree with you, but he has a major role in a Mario game that isn't Smash Bros., and that alone is enough. Somebody may want to go onto this wiki and learn about Mr. Game & Watch's role in the the game and with that discover the other appearances he made in the franchise. --Killer Moth (talk) 13:09, April 28, 2023 (EDT)

I really need to see how effective of a role he plays; the page doesn't really explain it very well and I need a visual on it. Wikiboy10 (talk) 17:19, April 28, 2023 (EDT)

As far as we can tell, nobody's uploaded a video of every Present Mode message yet, but there's this video of the default message on a fresh save that explains Present Mode to the player, where Mario and Mr. Game & Watch both alternate lines explaining it. It's worth noting that, as far as we can tell, Game & Watch Gallery 4 is the only game in which he speaks in the first place. (And, yes, he has other lines that aren't showcased in the video itself, so it's not like he speaks only one line and never again.) ~Camwood777 (talk) 15:42, April 30, 2023 (EDT)

Since it looks like this is about to pass in a few hours (literally only 1 oppose to 14 supports), we'd like to note we made a draft for what the un-merged article could look like), taking the formatting from the OG article but the more concise descriptions of the Smash moveset coverage from the merge. The only parts we're fuzzy on is the fact that we're not quite sure the games are sorted how they should be? Looked at Balloon Fighter and Diddy Kong for an inspiration for how best to organize it, but again, we're not certain. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 13:05, May 11, 2023 (EDT)

Split the Ice Climbers to their own article

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit this section or its subsections. If you wish to discuss the article, please do so in a new section below the proposal.

Do not split 1-11

The Ice Climbers in Super Mario Maker.

So, before SmashWiki even existed, this wiki cleaned up a boatload of old articles by either nixing non-Mario information from them or amalgamating them into massive pages, like this. This was to consolidate fighters from the Super Smash Bros. series into list articles like List of fighters debuting in Super Smash Bros. 64, Melee, Brawl, Smash 4 and Ultimate, and give only brief and specific coverage to the non-Mario fighters that got their articles nixed. Among them was the Ice Climbers, hailing from the series of their own name, because they're best known for their appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series, right?

Mario wearing an Ice Climber outfit in a VS. System flyer

Well, you thought wrong, because these two have actually made appearances aside from the Smash Bros. series, and made dozens of cameos in Mario-relevant games since their debut in Smash Bros. Melee. Here is a list of (but not limited to, of course) relevant appearances:

• Their most obvious and biggest non-Smash appearance is Super Mario Maker, in their own Event Course based on their own game, Popo & Nana's Climbing Challenge, and where they can be unlocked.
• In the Game & Watch Gallery 3, you know the game, "Climber?" Well, it seems to be the predecessor of the NES game, Ice Climber.
• Mario wearing the outfits of characters that appear in each of them, with one of them showing Mario wearing a red Ice Climber outfit, in a flyer advertising a number of games for the VS. System.
• Popo making dozens of appearances (or at least, cameos) in the WarioWare series in Ice Climber-based microgames. Those appearances include:
  • Popo being the player in the Ice Climber microgame in WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! and WarioWare Gold, the Ice Climber microgame in WarioWare: Twisted!, and the Ice Climbers microgame in WarioWare: D.I.Y..
  • Popo appearing as the sprite in the third level of 8-Bit Hero in WarioWare: Touched!.
  • Popo making a cameo in the Ice Climber microgame (seen flying with the condor) in WarioWare: Get It Together!.

In conclusion with this, the Ice Climbers' representation in Mario-related games is overall on par with Young Link, who is solely a cameo (in Mario Artist and a few microgames) in the Mario series, but with their most major appearance in Super Mario Maker and Game & Watch Gallery 3, combined with making a few more appearances and relevant cameos in games that aren't even covered on the wiki (Kirby literally wears Popo's parka in Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land and Kirby Air Ride when you get the Freeze ability), the Ice Climbers are a bit more than just being Smash fighters. With all of this, the Ice Climbers made quite an effective ascent beyond representing the early timeline of Nintendo history through their own NES game (and their modified arcade version) and representing the NES/Famicom era through their appearance in the Smash Bros. series. So therefore, I think it's safe to say that these climbers are relevant enough to the world of Mario (aside from their obvious appearances in the Smash Bros. series) to have their own article.

Proposer: Soymilky (talk)
Deadline: July 14, 2025, 23:59 (UTC) Closed early on July 7, 2025, 23:59 (UTC)

Support

1. Soymilky (talk) First choice, as the proposer.

Oppose

1. EvieMaybe (talk) per the comments section, this feels unnecessary. this information would be better relayed in a "Crossovers with Ice Climbers" page, which does not need a proposal to be made.
2. Camwoodstock (talk) Per Evie. While we understand the draw of a character page, compiling all the Ice Climber references is far more lucrative in terms of coverage and form factor, and honestly, far more impressive to compile. And unlike a character page, a "Crossovers with Ice Climbers" page has enough material to be made non-contentiously, without a vote. This is less of a "no Ice Climbers", and more of a "please consider a different format"!
3. Hewer (talk) The Ice Climbers as characters are simply not notable enough to Mario to warrant their own page. For a crossover character to have its own page, it must have made a prominent appearance in a piece of Mario media that we fully cover, but the Ice Climbers have nothing beyond the kinds of cameos that many other non-split characters share. Young Link also doesn't work as an argument, the only reason he's "split" is because he's considered the same character as Link as far as this wiki is concerned.
4. Jdtendo (talk) Per all, we should rather make a "Crossovers with Ice Climbers" article.
5. Crossovers with Rykitu (talk) Crossovers with Per All.
6. Shadow2 (talk) Everything you've said in your proposal can be applied to many characters from the Smash Bros. series. The Ice Climbers aren't special.
7. Sorbetti (talk) Per all.
8. Power Flotzo (talk) Per all. Also, the {{Crossovers}} template has a link for "Crossovers with Ice Climber, so creating it would be a better idea.
9. Technetium (talk) Per all.
10. Altendo (talk) Per all.
11. Salmancer (talk) I believe currently the Super Mario Wiki deal is "do one notable thing in any Mario franchise game, get a page". Costume Mario, Event Courses and "playable in microgame" are all not considered notable, and currently a subject cannot gain notability by having a sufficient number of non-notable appearances. Hewer is right in that the Ice Climbers just don't qualify for a character page. Best of luck for writing the Crossovers with Ice Climber article though! (Which largely ends up being the same as a Ice Climbers character page given the section for "prominent crossover elements" would have a section for Popo and Nana.)

Comments

FYI, the merging into large pages is actually relatively recent on our part, and personally, I feel the Ice Climbers would do better being covered on a page that works similar to the Crossovers with The Legend of Zelda page, given the other elements they share (Nitpickers, the apparent fact that Ice Climber was a "warm up" for the SMB1 devs, etc). Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 16:53, June 30, 2025 (EDT)

Honestly, we'd prefer that; it would allow us to be a bit more broad in covering the specific appearances of stuff from that game, rather than just focusing in on the characters. Could we get an option for "Make a Crossovers with Ice Climbers page?" :o ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 16:59, June 30, 2025 (EDT)

That page can already be created per this proposal, so an option for it here isn't necessary. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 20:23, June 30, 2025 (EDT)

per Camwoodstock, this feels like the best approach — eviemaybe (talk) 17:50, June 30, 2025 (EDT)