The Ashley and Red Thread.

Yeah, nothing new of Ashley in official news, but plenty of other things to talk about her. I'm pretty sure she's still a popular character amongst fans of Nintendo and WarioWare.

There's a reason Nintendo was milking Ashley's fame, it helped her a lot. I remember when she was announced for Mario Maker. It's weird considering 9-volt would have probably fit better due to already having sprites for the format, but Nintendo choose wisely there
 
Another Smash game, another Mario Party, another refusal to use Ashley. Given how anxious Mario games always are to acknowledge the Yoshi’s Island and DKC series, I never understood why Wario games are the exception. It’s not even because they aren’t platformers, since Wario platformers absolutely do exist and don’t get acknowledged either. Not even in Smash.

Thing about Ashley in Smash though is that, I really don’t think there’s a single person in the current Smash dev team who would call themselves a “Wario fan.” The lack of characters, the stages, Wario’s moveset, and good golly that barebones music selection. Fangame after fangame represents Wario far better than the real Smash, and the real Smash does not take note. I don’t think they’re gonna put Ashley in Smash under their current director, no matter how much she deserves it. If all she’s done now isn’t enough, what is?
 
Greedy said:
Given how anxious Mario games always are to acknowledge the Yoshi’s Island and DKC series, I never understood why Wario games are the exception. It’s not even because they aren’t platformers, since Wario platformers absolutely do exist and don’t get acknowledged either. Not even in Smash.
Click to expand...
It's not like Wario's car and bike were in Mario Kart.

It's not like Dr. Mario 64 was pretty much all Wario Land 3 characters.

It's not like the Game & Watch Gallery series and Mario's Super Picross had Wario Land characters.

It's not like Bull Wario got a cameo in Mario Kart 7.

It's not like Rudy got mentioned by name in Fortune Street.

It's not like Wario has the Shoulder Charge in Mario Sports Mix.

It's not like DDR Mario Mix had a Wario World remix.

It's not li...you get the point.

Don't get me wrong, it could be a bit more at times, but what the Mario spin offs have done to this day is a more sincere sign of them caring about the Wario series as a whole then to just put Ashley into everything and call it a day. Remixing the Hurry Up jingle from Touched in Super Mario Party for instance really shows how well they know their Wario stuff.
 
I’ll be honest, I only knew about those first two things. That Super Mario Party one is the biggest shocker you’ve listed, that’s rad.

The vast majority of those are either extremely minor cameos or over 10 years ago though. The Wario Bike isn’t in Mario Kart 8, for example; why cut that?

Even still, none of those would be as significant an acknowledgement as a fully playable character from those games. Heck, I wouldn’t “just add Ashley and call it a day,” I’d add a Diamond City track that has actual references in it unlike the MKGP track, add lots more Wario music to Smash, and so on. Heck, a “Hurry Up Bomb” Cup sounds rad.
 
Greedy said:
I’ll be honest, I only knew about those first two things. That Super Mario Party one is the biggest shocker you’ve listed, that’s rad.

The vast majority of those are either extremely minor cameos or over 10 years ago though. The Wario Bike isn’t in Mario Kart 8, for example; why cut that?

Even still, none of those would be as significant an acknowledgement as a fully playable character from those games. Heck, I wouldn’t “just add Ashley and call it a day,” I’d add a Diamond City track that has actual references in it unlike the MKGP track, add lots more Wario music to Smash, and so on. Heck, a “Hurry Up Bomb” Cup sounds rad.
Click to expand...
Those are just a few select examples, I could also bring up the Amiibo Party board in Mario Party 10, Wario's (and Ashley's) mystery suit in Mario Maker or the Shoulder Charge from Mario Golf World Tour, did you know about that one:
tumblr_inline_pfij21rrYj1tkvvqt_250.png


I bet you didn't. Wario references in Mario spin offs are a lot of things, but they aren't uncommon, I have an entire series of posts on my blog, dedicated to disproving the idea that Mario doesn't acknowledge the Wario series, because it's easy to claim that when you don't do any research or play them for yourself.

And yeah, playable Wario characters in Mario aren't really a thing, but we also haven't had any DK characters besides Diddy since 2008 and the babies and Kamek are pretty much Mario characters too anyways and that's not even going into retro Mario characters, spin off characters like Koopa Kid or the Mario Strikers robots or the RPG characters, if anything Wario's cast get's more then they ever did.
 
I'd rather take all those Wario things and huck them out the window in favor for Ashley being used in the Mario spinoff series. fan favorite and heavily acknowledged by Nintendo. I'll be shocked if the next few Mario games like Kart would not include Ashley.
 
I love Ashley and all and I don't think she's a completely unreasonable want despite the current memeing but I think framing her as being this no-brainer inclusion who got unjustly snubbed is a bit much; she's a side character, whose bulk of appearance is in short cutscenes bookending completely unrelated minigames, in a series that looked like it had one foot in the grave at the time the design document smUsh got written. And deciding which characters get in Smash involves a lot of timing issues and behind-the-scene politics we're not privy to, I'd wager.

For my $0.02, I really do think it's inevitable she'll show in Mario spinoff games due to her insane sustained popularity in Japan. But probably not as part of the base roster (at least at first)
 
Regardless, she is still the top choice if they were ever to add a character exclusive to WarioWare. I think it's inevitable that they'll consider adding WarioWare characters, Ashley is likely gonna be the first one to be added into a Mario Spin-off.
 
I did know about the Super Mario Maker thing of course, but like, that’s kinda easy to ignore when the same amount of acknowledgement goes to Tingle and Babymetal. I guess at least they acknowledged her before they acknowledged King K. Rool? You could say that at least?

Still, “no DK characters besides Diddy” =/= no DK characters. It’s just as much as “no Wario characters besides Ashley.” A subtle nod once every five games isn’t exactly what I’d call the Wario series’ due credit.
 
No kidding. There's some serious dedication in that mod though, just in terms of how much got edited for the sake of this idea.
 
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