u/Trick-Bottle-9288

I mean, yes, I will admit that hail from a very obscure game series and they were surprisingly chosen over more popular NES reps like Duck Hunt (so it's no wonder it's seen as rightfully crazy for them to be in Smash Bros. all the way up to Ultimate), but think about it again.

While Ice Climber was very obscure for it to be picked for Smash Bros. and we have more popular NES reps (like Duck Hunt), like I said before, Ice Climber's still a NES classic that shouldn't really be underestimated, and I think it's super underrated. Ice Climber and its arcade version (VS. Ice Climber) are both pretty good games that serve as fairly enjoyable and nostalgic trips, even if they're a bit too difficult because of the jump physics (unless you master them and you really lock in with your jumps, it isn't really too much of a problem to deal with). Besides, if the jump physics weren't so shitty, this game would be so boringly easy. Not just that, if there's 2 players involved playing this game, it can become just as fun as Duck Hunt! There's been a lot of positive reviews about this game regarding all this (for more detail btw). Also, Ice Climber was among the top 100 Famicom games ranked by Japan (at 22nd place, to be specific) and the arcade version of the game was listed by Game Machine as the 8th most successful table arcade unit of the month in April 1st, 1985 (the game's debut year, btw). And Computer Entertainer gave the game 3.5 out of 4 stars. Hell, even the former president of Finland, Mauno Koivisto, had his son-in-law say that Ice Climber was his favourite game here! Like, holy shit. I couldn't believe it.

As for why they were chosen for Smash Bros. starting from Melee, Sakurai wanted a retro representative from the NES/Famicom era with a unique, dynamic playstyle, and the Ice Climbers were the most interesting and easiest of the bunch to translate and adapt to Smash, not just because of Ice Climber's simultaneous 2-player gameplay allowing for Popo and Nana to be a unique two-in-one character in Smash, which is a big standout among the other candidates (such as Mach Rider, Balloon Fighter, Bubbles, and even Duck Hunt), but also because those other NES/Famicom candidates for Smash didn't really have what it takes/makes them readily made for Smash, even Duck Hunt (despite pretty much representing the NES era, they weren't really fitting for a fighting game back at that time, so designing a moveset for them would be both confusing and challenging). Besides, Sakurai wanted to revive a forgotten/obscure franchise and turn into a "retro" representative and to represent Nintendo's history, and with the amount of positivity Ice Climber just got that I listed above, Ice Climber was pretty much a correct choice (along with Game & Watch, another case of a "retro" series, not from the NES/Famicom era btw, chosen to represent Nintendo's history, and was also a forgotten franchise and just more of an artifact of Nintendo's early history when newer consoles like the Game Boy, Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 came out, and the Game & Watch series was discontinued at 1991, until Smash Melee came out and gave the Game & Watch series a specific, composite mascot, which is Mr. G&W, to act as an amalgamation of the entire series in order to give a face to the franchise as a whole for it to be revived), before Pit and R.O.B. were included in Brawl, and Duck Hunt was finally included in SSB4.

So what gives? How come people think that the Ice Climbers are irrelevant, even with all this? Just wondering.

Goodbye, SMG4.

WBB: The Movie - Officer Murphy's Mistake (Comic)

We Bare Bears: Movie ending scene, but with a little twist.

Is Pac-Man still a good character even after he dropped to B+ tier?

The Poppy Rangers vs. Agent Trout. (Update+)