The Curious Case of Ganondorf

Oh Ganon. You're probably the second most iconic villain in Nintendo history. You're always around to battle the various reincarnations of Link and Zelda. Whether you're a Gerudo, a blue pig demon, or whatever the hell Calamity Ganon is, you always have a fun and memorable boss fight.

Naturally the demon king would join the ranks in the Super Smash Bros. series. And yet Ganondorf remains the source of much controversy and debate in the Smash community. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that he is Captain Falcon semi-clone (clone in Melee). It is a bit strange that the great king of evil from the Legend of Zelda has the moveset of a racecar driver from a completely different series. Especially since Ganon has such a wide history of games to pull attacks from. It also doesn't help that in Brawl and SSB4, he's been pretty garbage competitively. Even despite his higher ranked position in Melee, which is still only mid-tier, he struggles in a meta game dominated by spacies and Sheik. So the question I pose for you this. What do you want changed about Ganon in future installments? Should he get a new moveset or should he retain his current moveset with some balance tweaks?

Before answering, I feel like a little background is important. As some of you may know, Melee had a very fast and rushed development. As a result, some corners had to be cut. When creating the roster, initially only 20 characters were to be included (19 if you don't count Sheik). With the remaining time that Sakurai had available to him, he could either add one more unique fighter, or add more characters who would be clones. Sakurai opted for the clone route and we got the six Melee clones. Going through the game data shows that Ganondorf was the very last character added to Melee. Sakurai even states that he was very lucky to make it in. Sakurai saw the huge demand for Ganon and a couple of factors helped seal his inclusion. One, his body frame was similar to Captain Falcon, so that gave them a solid foundation to work from. Two, they also had a Ganondorf model from an old Gamecube tech demo available to them. Put those two things together, add some darkness effects, and make him slower and stronger and bam, you've got Ganondorf.

So that's why Ganon is the way he is. He got a lot of tweaks in Brawl to move him to semi-clone status, but he still shares a lot with Falcon. As for why he has retained this moveset, the answer is simply tradition. While many characters have gotten some major moveset changes across games. An overhaul to make Ganon more game accurate is sorta unprecedented in the series thus far. Sakurai likely doesn't want alienate the fans who have been maining Ganondorf since the old days. A moveset overhaul would essentially mean losing your main that you've had for years and years. No one wants to lose their main.

Where do I fall in this debate? Well, Zelda is my favorite game series and Ganondorf is probably my favorite video game villain. I would love to see him depicted as the great demon king he truly is. But I've also grown to love Ganon's smash moveset for how fun he can be. So I offer the best of both worlds. Many have said it before but is they decide to revamp the Dorf, give his old moveset to Black Shadow and add him as a Falcon semi-clone. It would also show the F-Zero series some much needed love. As for Ganondorf's new moveset, I've come up with one. Click the spoiler tag to see it.


I probably spent way too much time on that but whatever. I want to know what you guys think.

Here's my probably bad analysis from someone who hardly follows competitive smash and doesn't know Zelda much:

Honestly I'm not sure about what I think they should do to his moveset. Sure, there's no real reason for him to still have Falcon's moveset, however I enjoy playing as him, especially because of his unique aspects, his side special and down special in particular. His other moves are slower and harder hitting than Falcon's which makes him fun to forward tilt or jab people with just because of the brute force.

Ganondorf really should have a unique moveset since he's his own character and represents his series, but having a Falcon moveset doesn't reflect that much at all. Having swords or at least a partially changed moveset would be better for him.

But my biggest issue/concern/whatever the word I'm looking for is that Ganondorf doesn't have a consistent appearance. He looks very different in every game (cause thats just how Zelda works I guess) and half the time he doesn't even appear. It would be much easier for Ganondorf (and the Zelda characters in general) to have their own seperate Smash appearance that doesn't become out of date with each instalment. For example, do what Hyrule Warriors did and make your own non-canon version. I don't know what the fans would think of that but that's just what I want to see I guess.

From a competitive standpoint Ganondorf really needs a way to deal with projectiles, his slow movement and lack of a projectile himself bring him down considerably against those with one. He also doesn't have many good options for an opponent who is shielding, as none of his attacks (aside from the incredibly slow up tilt) have got any good shield-breaking properties. Having a move like Ryu's side tilt could be a possible solution. He could grab, but his grabs aren't as good for comboing as other characters. Ganondorf doesn't have much of a combo game because almost all of his attacks send opponents far away instead of nearby and have a lot of endlag, combine that with slow movement and hitting twice in a row becomes more of a challenge.

In short: he's hard to update since he keeps changing appearance and he's too slow to be any good competitively. Idk what they should do, but some new things and buffs would be nice.

i think they should change ganondorf and bring in black shadow to act as the old ganon playstyle

Ninelevendo said:

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With regards to his design consistency, Smash has always gone with the most recent shared incarnations for the Triforce trio. In Melee, it was OoT and for Brawl, they updated to the Twilight Princess aesthetic, with Sheik even getting a design based on some unused TP concept art.

The reason SSB4 still uses TP designs instead of Skyward Sword designs is because Ganondorf isn't in that game. Had he been I feel like all three would have been updated. But they want to maintain consistency among the three. Since BOTW lacks a humanoid Ganon, I can't see them updating them in a future title either. Maybe a skin for Link and Zelda.

I think with a new Ganondorf, they can make him be just as fun as the old Ganondorf, and I think bringing Black Shadow to retain the old Ganondorf moveset is a good idea. Look at Ganondorf in Hyrule Warriors, tell me he didn't kick ass in that game.

The problem with giving Ganondorf's moveset to Black Shadow is that F-Zero has never really been relevant enough to have more than one character, especially now since it hasn't had a game since 2004. I also don't think adding another F-Zero character is gonna jump start the series; the only time where that happened was Kid Icarus but that was a different case altogether.

Yeah, there isn't a need to have another F-Zero character, when the moves are completely made up, and the series has been halted. People who say Ganon's current moves should go to Black Shadow remind me of that Capcom guy who said MvC characters are just functions. Like it or not, Ganon's current moveset is part of the character, just like the other characters in Smash. For the most part, his play style just feels evil.

I think the best approach is to slightly Luigify him. Like Smash V could give him a completely unique and faithful down special and two new ariels. That way, both moveset and Zelda fans are happy.

What if they made classic Ganon a separate character, with his default form being Agahnim and then turning into the trident wielding beast for his Final Smash?

I like the two separate Ganons as a solution. People may complain about "roster space" and if that's so, I guess you can just divide Ganon's space in half or do it like in Brawl with Sheik and Zelda or Pokemon Trainer. That would mean virtually creating a new character though.

LeftyGreenMario said:

I like the two separate Ganons as a solution. People may complain about "roster space" and if that's so, I guess you can just divide Ganon's space in half or do it like in Brawl with Sheik and Zelda or Pokemon Trainer. That would mean virtually creating a new character though.

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Well we already have two Links and two Zeldas. Two Ganons wouldn't hurt. Pig Ganon with a trident would be pretty cool.

And if Mario can have seven and Pokemon and FIRE FUCKING EMBLEM can have six, a sixth Zelda character is pretty reasonable.