>>40911160>but game freak specifically chose greninja to shill into smash, which immediately disproves the narrative that greninja got no attention for three years.GameFreak and TPC gave Sakurai a variety of Pokemon to choose from, and he chose Greninja on his own rather than literally only being given Greninja and being told "you put in Greninja or we're out".
>it didn't even exist until gen 6, conveniently around the time when game freak wanted to shill a certain new starter.Or maybe they decided that the new ability fits both the literal chameleon AND the ninja frog.
>>40911229>no, because they didn't get the extreme marketing push that greninja got from day one of gen 6.Please show me where Greninja was heavily marketed above all other Gen 6 Pokemon from the literal beginning of Gen 6's hype season or release, because I'm pretty sure the spotlight was more on the old Pokemon that received Mega Evolutions until the leaks and datamines came forth and revealed Greninja's existence and true potential, and that, even with this turn of events in mind, GameFreak and TPC made no effort to prioritize marketing Greninja until the fans themselves gave it its popularity.
By the time Greninja was revealed for Smash, it was already naturally popular, and this gave it a further boon when GameFreak and TPC saw just how many people got hyped to see it in Smash, which then spurred the decision to make Greninja the recipient of Ash's "Not A Mega because we forgot to make a Gen 6 Mega that isn't Diancie" for the anime, and without Greninja's success, they most likely would have never made this form since none of his other Pokemon sans Pikachu were popular enough to warrant it, and giving it to Pikachu would require them to asspull an explanation for why he's not going to use this hypothetical "Ash-Pikachu" after Kalos despite the clear advantage it brings despite the easily-managed exhaustion.
