The Real Reason Krystal Was Cut From Super Smash Bros.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the most ambitious entry in its franchise, due in part to its huge roster of fighters. Not only does the game star surprise DLC entries such as Persona 5's Joker and Final Fantasy 7's Sephiroth, it also brought back characters who were axed from previous entries, as well of several new summonable Pokémon and Assist Trophy characters, Then again, Nintendo needed to pad out the Assist Trophy roster since Isabelle and Dark Samus were upgraded to playable character status. One of the characters to join the Assist Trophies was Star Fox's Krystal.
Krystal has acquired a sizable fanbase since her debut in the Zelda-esque Star Fox Adventures (which was originally conceived as a standalone title), and with that stardom came an interest in playing as Krystal in the Smash franchise. Once upon a time, she was a serious contender for one of Super Smash Bros. Brawl's character slots. However, series director Masahiro Sakurai's dreams of letting Fox McCloud fight his girlfriend in Smash were eventually tossed in the bucket.
So what happened? Why was Krystal ultimately passed over? Keep reading to find out.
You are running out of time, Star Fox
Super Smash Bros. history is full of characters who almost made the final cut but didn't. For example, Blastoise was part of the Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Pokémon Trainer trio before it was replaced with Squirtle for balancing purposes. So why was Krystal dropped? Was it a balancing issue or a time issue? According to Sakurai, the latter.
During an interview with Nintendo Dream (translation provided by Source Gaming), Sakurai revealed that Krystal was supposed to be in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but the dev team didn't have enough time to model her. Unlike the clone character Falco, the developers couldn't just take Fox's model, tweak it, and call it a day to create Krystal — she had to be built from the ground up. But the team still needed one more character to fill out the roster, so they picked a fighter who could be modeled on the fly and was popular to boot: Wolf O'Donnell.
Even though Wolf is widely derided as a clone character, that negative connotation is why he made it into Brawl. Sakurai estimated that creating Wolf took around 70% of the effort that Krystal would have required. Sometimes corners have to be cut in video game development.