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

Split Mr. Game & Watch back to his own article
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: Deadline: May 12, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) - Per the proposal, we feel like Mr. Game & Watch has the most compelling reason to have his article split back off.
 * 2) 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) Per proposal.
 * 4) Per proposal.
 * 5) Per his appearance alongside Mario, cameos just don't cut it
 * 6) Per all.
 * 7) Per all.
 * 8) Per all. (Can we split Samus back off next?)
 * 9) 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) Definitely. He shouldn't have been merged into this article.
 * 11) Per all, the appearance in G&WG4 is solid enough evidence to maintain the page.
 * 12) Per all.
 * 13) 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) 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) 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. 23:54, April 27, 2023 (EDT)
 * It seems to be fixed. 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. 13:05, May 11, 2023 (EDT)