Unused character

An unused character is a term referring to a character who was planned to be in a game, but was cut due to several reasons. This page will follow all 5 games in the series and their characters. There are 3 types of unused characters: Considered, Planned, and Scrapped. Their meanings are listed below.

Considered: If a character was considered, it means that they were suggested as playable characters before development. Planned: If a character was planned, it indicates that they were set to be playable in a game. Scrapped: If a character was scrapped/cut, it implies that the character was being worked on in development before being cut.

Considered

 * Marth

Planned

 * Mewtwo

Scrapped

 * Bowser
 * King Dedede

Bowser was strongly considered for the original Super Smash Bros. game, with Shigeru Miyamoto stating in an interview that Bowser would be in the game, but Bowser was completely scrapped from the final game instead.

King Dedede was "partially complete" as a playable character, but was cut due to a lack of development time.

Marth was considered to be playable, but due to the limited development time, he wasn't added in.

Mewtwo was set to be a playable character, but was dropped for unknown reasons.

Bowser, Mewtwo, and Marth would later debut in Melee, while King Dedede would be added in Brawl.

Considered

 * Takamaru
 * Ayumi Tachibana
 * Bubbles (Clu-Clu Land)
 * ExciteBike racer
 * Balloon Fighter
 * Mach Rider
 * Urban Champion fighter
 * Solid Snake
 * Sonic The Hedgehog
 * Banjo And Kazooie
 * James Bond

Planned

 * Wario

Scrapped

 * Lucas

Lucas was originally meant to replace Ness as a playable character in Melee, but due to the cancellation of Mother 3 on the Nintendo 64 as a result of the disappointing failure of the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive, Ness was retrieved. Lucas would later make his debut in Brawl.

Wario was a highly requested character for Melee, but ultimately, he was not added. This is because of time constraints and Sakurai did not want too many Mario characters. However, he did state that he could have added Wario to Melee if he had more time to develop the game. Sakurai also stated that he could have used development time dedicated to either Mewtwo or Marth and Roy to add Wario instead, but he decided against it. Wario would later be playable starting from Brawl.

According to Masahiro Sakurai, he stated that Hideo Kojima asked him if Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid could be a playable character in Melee. When the request took place, however, development was too far in to even add another character. Snake would later debut in Brawl.

Yuji Naka, the former head of Sonic Team, explained that Sonic was greatly considered for Melee, but was not added because of time constraints. Sonic would later debut in Brawl.

Sakurai stated that 5 different characters (including the Ice Climbers) were all considered for the NES era fighter. The characters who were considered include a Balloon Fighter, an Urban Champion character, Bubbles from Clu-Clu Land, the Ice Climbers, and an ExciteBike racer. Despite of all this, Sakurai chose the Ice Climbers.

Judging by Sakurai's words, James Bond and Banjo And Kazooie were difficult to include in Melee due to copyright, but they were not actually planned to be playable. Banjo And Kazooie would make the cut in Ultimate as DLC fighters.

Takamaru and Ayumi Tachibana were considered for inclusion in Melee, but due to the lack of familiarity in the West, Sakurai decided against them. Ayumi Tachibana would still be included in Melee regardless as a trophy, while Takamaru would be absent completely.

Considered

 * Pac-Man
 * Mii Fighters
 * Nintendog
 * Geno
 * Ridley
 * Blastoise
 * Krystal

Planned

 * Villager
 * Young Link

Scrapped

 * Plusle and Minun
 * Mewtwo
 * Roy
 * Dr. Mario
 * Toon Zelda
 * Toon Sheik (believed to be Tetra)
 * Dixie Kong

According to Sakurai, the Villager from Animal Crossing was planned to be a playable character, but was removed because Sakurai felt that the Villager "wasn't suited for battle".

Mii Fighters were also considered to be playable in Brawl, but the idea was decided against as Sakurai did not think the Miis were entertaining enough characters, they weren't meant to be fighting characters, and he did not want bullying incidents to happen. Villager and Miis would later debut in Smash 4.

Pac-Man was suggested by Shigeru Miyamoto as a playable character, but Sakurai didn't go with the idea as he wasn't sure about how Pac-Man would be implemented. However, Sakurai would know how to add Pac-Man in Smash 4 later on.

Sakurai wanted to include Geno as a playable character, but for unknown reasons, this did not occur. However, Geno would be added as a Mii Fighter costume in Smash 4 instead.

Krystal from Star Fox was considered to be playable in Brawl, but she was ultimately excluded due to time constraints, and Sakurai felt that Krystal's movements were not similar enough to Fox and Falco, so he would have to start from scratch. Wolf was ultimately chosen over Krystal, as Sakurai stated that Wolf's moves would only require 70% of the effort needed to add a new character. Krystal would make an appearance in Ultimate, but she only appears as an Assist Trophy.

According to Sakurai, Blastoise was considered to be part of the Pokémon Trainer's team, but he was replaced by Squirtle instead as Sakurai felt that Squirtle was more interesting as a character and he wanted to balance the stages and sizes of the Pokémon.

Young Link was considered to be retained as a playable character in Brawl, but due to the release of The Wind Waker without delays, it was decided that Toon Link would replace Young Link as a newcomer fighter instead. Young Link would later return in Ultimate.

A Nintendog was briefly considered to be playable, but was dropped as Sakurai felt that Nintendogs weren't well-suited for battle and would work better as an item instead.

Sakurai was asked by a fan if Ridley from Metroid was considered a playable character, Sakurai stated that he had excluded Ridley from Brawl because Ridley would be too slow for a fighter. Sakurai additionally mentioned how difficult it would be to add Ridley. However, Ridley would debut in Ultimate.

Dixie Kong was originally planned to team up with Diddy Kong, where the pair would fight alongside each other as a tag-team, based on their mechanic in Donkey Kong Country 2. However, the idea was removed since this was far too difficult to implement. Therefore, Diddy Kong was kept in Brawl as a solo fighter while Dixie Kong would be excluded.

Dr. Mario, Roy, and Mewtwo appear in the game files, suggesting they were planned to appear in Brawl as playable characters. Roy has an unused victory theme, while Mewtwo has an unused victory theme and an unused Wii remote selection sound. All of these files are empty when you play them, so we can't take a listen to these sounds to acknowledge what they would have been. Despite these mysterious sound files, Dr. Mario doesn't have an audio file, but he has unused character file. The 3 characters would ultimately return in Smash 4, with Roy and Mewtwo being DLC fighters while Dr. Mario would be brought back in the base roster. Strangely, the new filename of Dr. Mario is "mariod", which was believed to be a debug character of Mario.