Really made me understand the purchase price of Animal Crossing Bells anonymity that big streamers/youtubers and actors pay. Well worth the price IMO but it's undoubtedly a factor.

There was little to no regard for Sakurai from the west in the day. I remember there was a favorite webseries of SSB pieces made from spritework and there was an whole joke of Ridley, Geno, Mega man, along with some different characters getting mad they weren't from the game and Geno only fireblasting all Japan for this. It had been like, in retrospect, incredibly fucked up

You're right that there was lots of hate and disrespect towards Sakurai, but Smash Kingdom was all in good fun and generally featured lots of dark comedy.

Yeah there are a few straight up death dangers in there.

That being said I really do wish Skull Kid was in the exact same amount of demand now because he was then. Zelda still has gotten no longer meaningful representation, and Skull Kid stays the best choice to give the franchise it is much deserved new fighter--and yet he's been largely forgotten in discussions about new characters.

Yeah, Skull Kid is the only Nintendo choice that I REALLY need left. I'd honestly be really pleased with Midna or Tetra as well. Just SOMEONE to signify Zelda that isn't a Triforce Trio incarnation.

I've a feeling that we're likely to get BOTW Zelda, and while I do think that could be cool I would be disappointed if Zelda's just meaningful representation because freaking MELEE are another Zelda.

I knew someone was gont say that, but basically in my mind she's different enough from Zelda to where I'd be fine with it. Hell she is not even really"Zelda" before the final third of the game, and even at the end she goes straight back to her pirate roots. She feels different from Zelda is essentially what I'm getting at. Personality wise, design wise, everything is more Tetra compared to Zelda.

Impa is a fairly close second however, I gotta say. Zelda is radically underrepresented, and that may be partially because of lack of recurring characters which aren't among those three, but involving Skull Kid, Impa, and buy Animal Crossing Items Midna, there is definitely room for another new character from the series.