A Nintendo Direct aired a few days ago and it showed off some new Super Smash Bros. Ultimate stuff. Terry Bogard, a recurring fighter throughout SNK’s franchises, was confirmed days after it was leaked that Smash was going to have an SNK character. While that leak spoiled the surprise, the internet got a true shock when Sans Undertale got in as a Mii Gunner skin, accompanied by Toby Fox’s signature tune, Megalovania.

In all this, there’s some Smash fans complaining. There’s always going to be complaining about new characters in Smash, as there are plenty of people that prefer other characters to go in; regardless of how viable or nonsensical that is. However, the most common character that people clamor for, the one that people think deserves a spot over actual fighting game legends and modern iconic characters, is Geno.

I don’t care about Geno. I don’t care for this puppet man and I don’t think he deserves to be in Smash.

Geno is one of the original party members from Super Mario RPG. He is a spirit inhabiting a doll that conveniently comes with a gun; He acts wizened and serious in comparison to the goofiness of the rest of the cast. A result of this is that he’s inexplicably viewed as one of the coolest characters in the Mario franchise. However, Geno’s only actually appeared in Super Mario RPG. Besides a cameo appearance in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga and his costume and spirit in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Geno only lives on in the hearts of fans.

Those fans are real vocal when it comes to Smash, viewing any new character they dislike as a “wasted character slot,” as if that character joining the roster somehow prevents Geno from joining. Honestly, I don’t think Geno deserves to be in Smash. Geno’s only appeared in one actual game and a rather old one at that, so he doesn’t have the same current pop culture sway as Joker from Persona 5 and Sans.

Speaking of which, we have to acknowledge the impact of said games. Persona 5 is regarded as one of the best modern JRPGs and Undertale was a hit indie game that broke into the mainstream. People that want Geno over Terry Bogard display an ignorance of fighting game history, seeing as SNK is part of the fabric of fighting games. Meanwhile, while Super Mario RPG is a classic, it didn’t set a historical precedent, nor does it have the pop cultural impact.

You can argue, “hey, Ice Climbers and ROB only got one or two games that are obscure and bad, but that didn’t stop them!” See, even if that’s true, they were in different circumstances. They weren’t DLC, they were planned for the game from the start, along with a whole bunch of more popular, more well-known picks. With DLC, it’s different. A whole bunch of obscure picks for DLC won’t sell fighter packs. The DLC has to be broader stuff with mass appeal to convince people to buy into them.

You can say that people didn’t ask for Piranha Plant, but consider two things. One: Piranha Plant was free DLC for early adopters, so it was more like incentive for people that were already planning on buying the game. Two: Piranha Plant has appeared in almost all the Mario games, so it’s instantly more recognizable than Geno to the average gaming audience. Compared to the rest of Smash Ultimate’s DLC characters, Geno is a huge nobody.

To me, Geno is just the ultimate nostalgia bait. Not to say that other characters don’t have nostalgia behind them, but that’s Geno’s only real selling point. In all honesty, if Geno were to actually get in, it’d just be because people never shut up about him than any sort of merit.

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