Talk:Alph

I think this page should be merged with Olimar. While Alph is indeed a separate character from Olimar in the Olimar series, he is treated as an alternate "costume" here; despite the separate announcer calls and even separate mesh, Alph shares the moveset, and the game's records classify Alph as the same as Olimar; getting KOs with Alph equates to getting KOs with Olimar. The reason Koopalings, another model swap with separate announcer names, is that they're separate characters in the Mario series. I highly doubt that the Koopalings will get their own articles in other wiki series' articles due to similar logical reasons, not because we should follow exactly what every other wiki does. If Alph makes additional appearances as a separate entity, like a Smash Bros. anime where he plays a major role and sticks his Beam Sword to where the sun don't shine on Wario, then we can make this article. But, removing assumptions, this should be merged with Olimar. Any other thoughts? 17:21, 3 January 2015 (EST)
 * The MarioWiki is, I believe, the only wiki to actually create individual articles for SSB elements besides the actual SSB Wiki, so we can't exactly compare ourselves to anyone else. In any case, Alph may share the same moves (Dark Pit, Roy, and others have some sort of relevance here, I think) and stats, but he's still rather individual, since he does have his own announced name when he's fighting with his unique mesh. I'd vote for keeping the article.
 * Dark Pit and Roy share similar animations and even hitbox properties, but some, if not all their attacks have different properties, especially how and what damage is done. Roy hits harder at the base of the sword, Roy is harder to KO and falls faster than Marth, and Dark Pit has Electroshock, which the trajectory is different (Pit's sends people up, Dark Pit is diagonal, more horizontal). Alph has wholly no gameplay differences. Not to mention, Roy and Dark Pit have their own set of trophies, whereas Alph has only one trophy which does acknowledge that Olimar has a playable alt, but it doesn't necessarily mean he should be treated as an individual character. He does have different announcer calls and a different crowd cheer, but Smash 4 is the first game where we even had full separate characters and drastically different meshes as alts (Daisy Peach has slightly different gloves, but it's still considered a recolor and not actually Daisy anyway). Appropriate announcer calls and crowd cheers would make sense for these drastic model swaps, but in the end, the game treats Olimar and Alph, and Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings as one entity due to these reasons:
 * The records keep track of Olimar rather than Olimar AND Alph. One KO for Alph is a KO for Olimar.
 * Completing Single Player mode as Alph gives you an Olimar trophy.
 * Completing a challenge with Alph, but it requires Olimar is counted.
 * Olimar gets his own set of trophies: Regular, Final Smash (in Wii U), and an alt. Alph is an independent trophy you find via normal means, via RNG.
 * By keeping the Alph article, I think we may mislead our readers in that Alph is a clone rather than an alternate costume. Characters like Dark Pit and Lucina are right at the boundary of extremely similar, but separate clonedom, and Alph is sadly not within this boundary. Finally, whatever the Alph article may offer is already covered by Olimar, making it redundant at best anyway. 18:04, 3 January 2015 (EST)

Merge Alph with Captain Olimar
This article should not be a standalone article as discussed above. Time Turner hasn't responded at all after my last comment, so I decided on my smelly bacteria-ridden guts that it's a sign to start proposing.

It can be argued that Alph gets his own announcer calls and name change, but that's really the extent of the pro-split side. While that may give Alph an identity, Alph is still treated as a mere extension of Olimar, sharing his records, trophies, and other data with him. He's treated as an alternate costume, a very convincing one who has his own set of recolors, but an alt in the end. Think of him as an official Brawl mod rather than his own character. You know, Project M in SmashWiki doesn't separate their Mario and Dr. Mario counterparts even though Dr. Mario throws pills instead of fireballs, which is still more of a difference between Alph and Olimar (since Dr. Mario can't set off blast boxes as easily). We're not SmashWiki, but consider the logic between this and there.

It can also be argued that Alph is a separate character. The problem with this argument, however, is we're treating Alph beyond the scope of what this wiki can cover. We should view Alph from the eyes of MarioWiki covering some Smash Bros. information, not from the eyes of NintendoWiki, Pikipedia, or SmashWiki (in SmashWiki's case, SmashWiki is obliged to cover background information for every playable character).

Clones are not a good counter argument. Not only do clones have their own slots, they have a different playstyle than the original, have their own records, and have their own trophy set. Alph, other than that alt trophy, has none of the above.

Finally, by giving Alph his own article, we may be misleading our readers (especially those not well-versed in Super Smash Bros. or reading ) into thinking Alph is indeed one more character in the Smash 4 roster. No, as of this writing, we have 49 different movesets, equating to 49 characters, not 57 characters. If not, the links to Alph alongside with Olimar are redundant at best and accomplishes inadequately for Alph to have his own page.

The article does no harm, but it's a useless, redundant article, and that's why it needs to be merged.

Update: Baby Luigi has made a great point in demonstrating why Alph should be merged. We don't create articles for She-Slime or Metal Slime even though they are distinct Dragon Quest enemies, despite being recolors. She-Slime and Metal Slime also have their own names (and their own announcer calls if the game had an announcer). But, like Alph, they're counted as the original character in the records.

Proposer: Deadline: June 24, 2015, 23:59 GMT

Merge

 * 1) See comments above as well if you need to, as well as viewing a bit of the opposing side.
 * 2) While Alph himself is a separate character from Olimar in general and I generally don't like the idea of merging him because of it, he is still an alternate and in this wiki, we cover content that relates to the Mario series, we don't cover Alph as a character like his wiki would. For now I put my vote here.
 * 3) - Alph isn't a separate thing in gameplay term, merely a costume with a different name. Also see my comment below.

Keep split

 * 1) - I don't see the harm in having a little page for the character. It states clearly in the article that he's a mere alt costume, the slash in the nav template also indicates that he's not a separate fighter from Olimar, and the game articles only list him in Olimar's entry in the roster (as his "alternate character"), so it hardly seems misleading to the readers, just thorough. If Assist Trophies get pages, why not alt fighters? As long as we're only covering his role in SSB, it's not coverage creep, since SSB is given full coverage here.
 * 2) Per Walkazo
 * 3) Per Walkazo.
 * 4) Per Walkazo. Also, this is currently the only case like this aside from the Koopalings, so it's not like we have anything prior to go off of and follow.

Comments
@Walkazo I don't see the harm in a redirect other than searching, but a redirect conveys to the reader immediately that he is an alt. As I stated, the character data, trophy sets, and unlocking methods don't show Alph as a separate entity, so there is still little reason to keep this as separate. In the navigational templates and in the relevant game articles, it's better if Alph is shown in plain text. This article offers little information that isn't already covered in Captain Olimar, so that's why I went with a merge. 19:54, 10 June 2015 (EDT)

@Walkazo: I could easily argue that She-Slime or Metal Slime could get its own article, alongside adding it on the nav template considering that it's also a distinct, separate entity in Dragon Quest games and also is named differently in Mario Sports Mix; this isn't causing much harm either. But let's put things into perspective. We don't cover the Pikmin series, therefore, let's assume that Alph's Smash Bros. appearance is his only appearance in any game (and it's really his only appearance in Mario-related media). In this game, he shares many elements as Olimar, including records and trophies. He's practically the same character as Olimar, barring the announcer voice and stuff, in which my former examples also have. I personally think this article's existence is redundant, considering that we can easily state that Alph is an alternate costume for Olimar in Olimar's article. If Alph does get to appear in Mario-related media, cameo/easter egg or what not, as his own distinct entity, I'd disagree with merging it. 19:59, 10 June 2015 (EDT)


 * Crossovers like SSB and Mario Sports Mix get full coverage, so actually, yeah, those things probably should get full articles. The ides is that users who want to read about the crossovers should be able to do that without leaving the wiki. Say I want to know who Alph is, do I want to get redirected to Olimar? No, I just wanna read about Alph, and this page has all the basics I would expect - where he's from and who he is, his role in SSB, a couple pics, and external links for further reading: boom, satisfaction. - 20:10, 10 June 2015 (EDT)
 * Just so the info's out there, we did merge those radio conversation characters from Smashs (Krystal, Panther, Otacon, etc.) to one page a while ago. That might be relevant to this discussion.
 * You're assuming that if we redirect the page to Olimar, we throw all information about Alph out the window and just say he's an alt when that's not the intended goal of this proposal. All info about Alph can easily be incorporated into Olimar's article (Alph, the protagonist of Pikmin 3, is an alternate costume for Olimar...see this is not difficult at all). And honestly, if people want to read more about the crossover series, there's a reason we add a NIWA template at the very bottom of every page, or hyperlink them to other wikis for more in-depth info on them. Giving them separate articles is a bit of a coverage creep, considering that these characters only appear as alternate costumes in the Mario series and therefore should be treated as such, in the context of the Marioverse, even with the background information the character has. 20:18, 10 June 2015 (EDT)
 * Walkazo, your arguments are reminding me of how we merged all those Scarescraper ghosts. Within our own Mario series, palette swaps/alts, despite having their own names, still get merged into their parent articles. Perhaps those got merged for navigational ease, but they were merged mostly because they're, in the end, just recolors. Having a different model is the same has having different textures in that sense, so what makes Alph so special? And yes, Time Turner brought up an interesting point: full coverage doesn't necessarily mean creating articles better served as redirects to parent articles and covering information from there. 20:32, 10 June 2015 (EDT)
 * You'll notice that I didn't vote on either Scarescraper proposal, nor on the radio conversation one, because I didn't agree with those merges either, but didn't feel I had a strong enough reason to oppose (and frankly, couldn't be arsed to debate about it either way). But Alph isn't a recolourd ghost or a talking head, he's a playable character, and I think we should have a page for him. - 21:03, 10 June 2015 (EDT)
 * But the Slimes are playable characters too..., if that's the talking head you're referring to? He's technically a playable character, but ultimately an elaborate alternate costume for a playable character. I don't see how having the distinction of being playable makes it different; an alternate costume is an alternate costume. 21:11, 10 June 2015 (EDT)
 * Nah, the radio folks are the talking heads. And I already said I think the alt Slimes should get pages too. Well, to me, he's ultimately a playable character, and only technically an alt costume, and so I think he should still get an article based on the first part. - 21:48, 10 June 2015 (EDT)
 * It all boils down to interpretation and personal preference, I guess. XD 22:00, 10 June 2015 (EDT)
 * Yep. - 22:04, 10 June 2015 (EDT)

@Lumastar: Well akshually, though not in Smash Bros, there's a similar case: the Slime in Mario Sports Mix gets different names (which correspond to different type of slimes in Dragon Quest-ie: different characters) for each of its colors. --Glowsquid (talk) 22:55, 10 June 2015 (EDT)