The Weakness of those Born in the 2010s

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I guess it took them a year to grow up.

A year ago, I wrote an article about how I bullied a bunch of Zoomer (Generation Z) characters that began existence from 2000 to 2009 in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It was an event tourney. For some context, there was also a tournament on the 1980s (which I thought I should've been able to participate in) and a tournament on the 1990s (which I thought I should've been able to participate in if not for the 1980s). Those were all about three to four months apart (December 2019, February 2020, then June 2020).

Last weekend, there was a new event tourney: Born in the 2010s, dedicated to “stages and fighters from between 2010 and 2019!” (AKA super-Zoomers.) This was over a year apart from the previous one. Since the 200Xs tournament, Min Min, Steve, Sephiroth, Pyra and Mythra, and Kazuya have all been added as playable characters for an additional fee. Of those, Min Min, Steve (why is he allowed when Minecraft and its playable character existed in 2009?), and Pyra and Mythra were born in the 2010s, according to the tournament. Fellow DLC characters Joker and Byleth were also born then.

Since I haven't and won't buy any of those five DLC characters, my only character options were Lucina, Chrom, Dark Pit, Greninja, Robin, Shulk, Corrin, Inkling, Isabelle, and Incineroar. (40% of those are terrible Fire Emblem characters, and from bad Fire Emblem games at that! Another 20% are Pokémon.)

There's a point I'm trying to make—at least as represented by new characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the 2010s have sucked. I wouldn't say that as a general gaming period it's been bad—there's been lots of great games from that decade. There are certainly worthy new characters that aren't represented in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that were born then—I'm an advocate for Ring Fit Adventure playable character representation as opposed to just being Spirits. A lot of the new intellectual property from that time period have been indie game characters that won't stand the test of time, though. (Several characters, including a majority of those that participated in the Born in the 2010s tournament, also will not stand the test of time and are flavours of the year.)

By the way, why isn't Hero allowed in this tournament? Hero has been in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate since before the 1980s tournament happened, yet Hero hasn't been allowed in the tournaments for the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s, or the 2010s. This is despite Erdrick's game releasing in the 1980s, Solo's game releasing in the 1990s, Eight's game releasing in the 2000s, and the Luminary's game, Dragon Quest XI, releasing in the 2010s. I'd be cool with having Hero representation in every tourney, but they're in none. It doesn't make sense. At least if I'm only allowed in the 2000s tournament because of Bowser Jr., Hero should be allowed in this 2010s tournament because of the Luminary...

You may also remember I picked Dark Pit before in the Dark Reunion event tourney.

I picked and won with Dark Pit because I really like Kid Icarus: Uprising, even if I also really like the Splatoon games. Dark Pit is at least easy to pick-up-and-play as a character; Inkling is a bit more complicated and I've never liked how Splat Bomb is summoned by Down+B because it's not intuitive to me. And as a character, even if I think Dark Pit is an emo twit, that's technically still more personality than Inkling. (It's all of the non-playable characters that have personality in the Splatoon games, though one of Inkling's alts is Agent 3 of the first game's story mode, who has an amazing and spoilery existence in Splatoon 2 that unfortunately isn't referenced in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.)

I can understand why they waited a year for this instead of three months—they wanted to pad the roster a bit more. But there's very few new franchises (Xenoblade Chronicles, ARMS, Splatoon) here—it's mostly a cast of side characters and irrelevant recent advertisements.


If YOU as a person were born in the 2010s, you're too young to be on KoopaTV and you must leave the website and never come back until you're 13 or over. That's a legal policy. (Also, it's hard to believe that little kids would enjoy KoopaTV's content anyway, though Ludwig personally would've when he was under 13.)


Ludwig last wrote an event tourney article for the Fighters of Many Faces event.
The next event tour to get a KoopaTV article is True Grit Triumphs. This isn't a thematic tour... just one with very bad game design.