The next Smash Brothers game

[MagmarFire]

...

Oops.

Indeed. You can't have too many fighters, either. A Dragoon would be most welcome.

A Dark Knight would be cool. For some reason, I like that class in Chocobo's Dungeon...

[pizzadudemanguy]

I dunno...that sounds a little too generic. The Ice Climbers are fine since they actually have names, but what if we had like "the Balloon Fighter!" or the "Excite-biker!" or some other characters like that? It's like, "the winner of this battle is an unknown entity of this particular class and/or race!"

"Ha ha! I'm nameless and I defeated Mario! Bow before my lack of a title!"

[Gamefreak]

What about the Onion Knight from Final Fantasy III?  He takes on the likes of Kefka, Cloud, and Sephiroth in Dissidia.  And he has no name.

[MagmarFire]

Plus, isn't Yoshi technically a species? I'm not a large Mario buff, so I could be wrong.

[Hi no Seijin]

Yoshi is the name of the species.

[pizzadudemanguy]

Ah, but Yoshi is also an individual character, much like Toad. They are both part of a species of the same name, but "Yoshi" and "Toad" just happen to be named after their own species and are more important in multiplayer Mario spin-offs than other Yoshis or Toads.

As for the Onion Knight, don't you yourself get to name him?

[Gamefreak]

Yeah, but in Dissidia, he's known only as the Onion Knight.

[pizzadudemanguy]

But he is not AN onion knight, he is THE Onion Knight.

[MagmarFire]

And Meta Knight's known as Meta Knight. If we keep this part in mind, it might not be that surreal for the Onion Knight.

Actually, it kind of makes it a bit funny.

[pizzadudemanguy]

Right! Meta Knight is a Meta-Knight known as Meta Knight. There's also Sword Knight, Blade Knight, Ax Knight, Javelin Knight, etc. and they're all Meta-Knights.

[Uximadesk]

What about Pikachu? He's just a Pikachu after all.

[Pale Dim]

Exactly. Another example would be Link, you can name him anyway you want, but he will always be known as Link.

[pizzadudemanguy]

As for Pikachu and the other Pokemon...let's ASSUME they're all special Pokemon that differentiate them from the others in their species by their nature's in the anime. In fact, the pokemon that were chosen in this game are clearly chosen by their anime popularity.

Pikachu-Ash's

Jigglypuff-The "stalker"

Lucario-From the movie

Even if they aren't these particular pokemon, their attributes are based upon them.

[darkphantomime]

SO? What's your point? A class is a class is a class, everything's generic. Even the pokemon trainer is supposed to be 'generic', it's not like it actually matters.

[pizzadudemanguy]

The only point I have in any of this is that a character needs to have some background before being selected as a playable character in a SSB game. They need a well-developed personality that has been previously established or no one will care.