u/RangoTheMerc

1. Game Boy Advance
2. Nintendo DS
3. Nintendo 3DS
4. SNES
5. Switch
6. GameCube
7. Wii
8. PS4
9. PS2
10. PS1

Not inherently ordered, per se, but separating Nintendo and Sony.

DS added a strong sound chip that the GBA lacked. It did both full 3D and 2D pixel sprites with a larger screen and more colors. More battery life than DS and had four brightness settings. Plus it was GBA compatible.

I feel the only upgrades that could match it were the DSi XL (great hand fit and IPS screen), the 3DS XL (sizable console), and New 3DS XL (improved eshop load times and SNES games available on eshop).

Watching the fanbase go from "Nintendo characters only" to "sensible third-party reps with a major history with Nintendo" to "anyone is viable" is probably one of the most enjoyable pipelines of any game series I have ever been down.

Ryu being the one to break down the "one character per publisher" barrier was one of my favorites in particular. Then followed up by Cloud "characters with history with Nintendo only" and then M-rated sex appeal Bayonetta was a particularly fun time.

Go back 25 years. Third parties seemed like an impossibility at the time. Snake broke the mold and Sonic was voted in right after.

Now move into 13 years ago. Who was the most requested character at the time? Mega Man.

There's no way that would happen today. Mega Man lost popularity when Inafune left Capcom. You would be more likely to get Steve. STEVE!

Back then, people thought we could only have one publisher rep per character. Ryu broke that mold by being the second Capcom fighter, shocking everyone.

But Cloud opened the floodgates. No longer was it about, "well so and so was impactful to video games or fighting games and has a history was Nintendo." Now everyone was fair game.

Request lists quickly changed from humble but often niche offerings of Nintendo characters to the true desires of characters they once never thought would get into Smash. Simon Belmont and Kazuya Mishima were no longer off the table.

Even indie characters once thought to be impossible have made their presence known. Shantae, Shovel Knight, Sans, and Cuphead have come in the form of spirits, assist trophies, or Mii fighters.

The landscape has changed considerably. People would mock you for requesting Cloud or someone else that wasn't first party or didn't have a major history in Nintendo. Now it's already been over a decade since that was the case.