The Koopa Bro. said:
Mister Wu said:
Honestly, Rio kept all the core roster and on 3DS even managed to add Birdo and Dry Bones before Mario Kart, why would you want to remove new characters that didn't do anything bad to the core roster?
For some reason, I just have something against the Koopalings. There's nothing specifically wrong with them, It's just that I disliked them, especially when Bowser Jr., in my opinion, is a more likeable character.
Same thing applies to the Deadly Six & Sonic Riders character. Unlike the Koopalings, I don't consider either of these groups of character as main Sonic character
(1. Possibly not the correct word 2. I'm giving Sticks a chance as she appeared in the most recent main series Sonic game (if Sonic Boom is a main series game))
It's perfectly fine to dislike the Koopalings and prefer Bowser Jr. over them, I still think that Mario & Sonic implemented them in one of the best ways: first of all, each of them has its own animations and model with correct body proprortions, unlike in SSB4; secondly, as I stated before, to add them they didn't have to remove characters from the main roster, in fact, the characters of the main roster still get a preferential treatment.
As an example, let's think about Bowser Jr.:
- in the 3DS version, he is playable in two events instead of the single event each of the Koopalings is playable in
- in the Wii U version, he's playable in all events, while each of the Koopalings is playable in only one event
- in the arcade version, he's playable in all events as well, while the Koopalings aren't featured at all
the idea of not introducing all of the Koopalings probably allowed this "respect" of the core roster, generating a different situation from that of Mario Kart 8 where the toll on the roster was pretty much acknowledged by the director. Even though I like Lemmy and Morton, I prefer this situation if anything because it clarifies that the Koopalings are seven individual characters - something SEGA seems to have clearly in mind when dealing about teams, as it treated the Team Chaotix, the Babylon Rogues and the Deadly Six in the same way, as teams made of individual characters.
Speaking of the Babylon Rogues, surprisingly the Sonic Riders series was developed directly by Sonic Team, making them "core" Sonic characters from a devlopers' point of view, even more than Sticks who comes from a Western reinterpretation of the Sonic Universe, Sonic Boom, in which Sonic Team was barely involved. As Northern Verve noticed, the Deadly Six are even more "core" characters, as Sonic Lost World is effectively the last main Sonic platform game directly developed by Sonic Team. We can argue that they are more or less blatantly based on the Koopalings, but we could say the same of those bunnies in Super Mario Odyssey so...
I would also like to point out something important: since the failure and closure of Sonic Runners, Mario & Sonic has become the main (and only!) spin-off series of the Sonic universe. Unless SEGA loses the licensing from the IOC due to consistently bad results, I see them continuing it because it's the main chance for them to show the various characters of the Sonic universe in a different context - I now understand why trivia and dialogues were added in the Wii U version of Rio in this sense; it was funny seeing that some of these dialogues and trivia also resulted useful for our Wiki, such as the Waluigi and Wario case, the current status of the Koopalings and even the return of Italy as possible country of origin of Mario (something that was stated in Japan in the '90s!)!
