R.O.B. (video game character)

R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) (ロボット, Robot) is a Nintendo character representing the toy R.O.B. from 1983 as part of the NES, being a playable character in Mario Kart DS and the Super Smash Bros. series since Brawl, and has made cameo appearances in many Nintendo games since 1990. While he started off as a bad toy, he has redeemed himself when he became a video game character.

Why He Rocks Now

 * 1) He is a very unique character, being based off of a bad toy. However, he has been massively redeemed when he became a video game character.
 * 2) He is very faithful to the toy he was based on, and is a decent representation for the NES.
 * 3) He has made plenty of cameos in Nintendo games since the 1990s, such as StarTropics (1990) for NES, F-Zero GX (2003), the WarioWare series, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2015, 3DS), and the Star Fox series.
 * 4) He appears in Mario Kart DS as a playable character, and he is fun to play as.
 * 5) His karts that are also from Mario Kart DS, ROB-BLS, which is a faithful reference to Stack Up, an NES game that uses the toy R.O.B., and ROB-LGS, which is a kart that appears like "legs" for R.O.B., are both cool and awesome.
 * 6) His appearance in the Super Smash Bros. series since Brawl is awesome.
 * 7) Some of his moveset references some Nintendo games, which is creative:
 * 8) * His Robo Beam is a reference to Kirby’s Laser copy ability in the Kirby series in function, and the flashing red LED on R.O.B.'s head being an indicator of Robo Beam's charge is a throwback to when the red light flashed to indicate that the toy R.O.B. was ready for use with the NES;
 * 9) * His Arm Rotor’s spinning animation is similar to R.O.B.'s victory pose in Mario Kart DS. The toy R.O.B. in real life could also rotate its arms, albeit at a much slower pace than Arm Rotor;
 * 10) * His Robo Burner is similar to how he seemingly hovered in the air in a Star Fox-themed microgame from WarioWare: Smooth Moves, when he was a boss.
 * 11) * His Gyro move is based on the ones his toy counterpart used for Gyromite (another NES game using the toy).
 * 12) He can pull out Gyro items via his down special, Gyro, which is a unique and sometimes entertaining way to fight.
 * 13) His moveset is very accurate to what a fighting robot would do, as he has moves that robots would have, like lasers, fighting skills, other weapons (like Gyros), and hovering with automatic recharging fuel.
 * 14) The voice he has sounds perfectly accurate to what noises robots normally make.
 * 15) After Brawl, R.O.B. becomes more expressive, and gives him more of a personality:
 * 16) * Since Smash 4, he appears angry while charging his up and down smash attacks, and during his down throw and Arm Rotor. He also appears sad when he is grabbed, like if he is scared and does not know what will happen next.
 * 17) * In Ultimate, his victory animations have been updated to be more expressive:
 * 18) ** The first one where he spins his arms and rotates his head, and flexes his arms while rotating his head, now has him advance forward slowly on the ground while he rotates his hands before performing the rest of his victory pose;
 * 19) ** The second one where he hovers in the air and spins, then lands and rotates his head while continuously lowering and rising his arm base, now has him advance forward before taking off, and he spins twice in quick succession before landing;
 * 20) ** The third one where he turns his head and flashes the lights in his eyes, now has him spin once before vigorously clapping three times while flashing the lights in his eyes in a more exaggerated manner, then continuously slightly rising his arms and clapping, slowly lowering them after each clap.
 * 21) His design is faithful to his toy counterpart.
 * 22) Regardless of what you think of the toy R.O.B., the video game character R.O.B. is a better representation for Nintendo and a good redemption for the character’s history.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) He had a bad start as a toy for the NES, though to be fair, his purpose was to help rejuvenate the world's interest in video games following the 1983 North American video game crash.
 * 2) Like Mr. Game & Watch, as of yet, he does not have a clear personality.

Trivia

 * The R.O.B. peripheral has a product ID of HVC-012. This appears as his name in the Japanese version of Mario Kart DS, in the filenames of stickers related to him, and is even referenced in Palutena's Guidance regarding him.

Comments
