 Remember Gino? He's back in me form. Again, originally introduced as a costume for the me-fighter in Super Smash Bros. 4 on the Wii U and 3DS, Gino had been missing from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. With the release of Sephiroth as part of the fighter's past volume 2, Gino's costume is making a return. While it's nice to see Gino get some love in Smash, many Super Mario RPG fans are disappointed that the character isn't getting the full fighter treatment. This frustration is understandable, and from the sounds of it, Masahiro Sakurai feels your pain. He's been pushing for Gino to get a more significant role in Smash for years. When the Gino costume was originally added to Smash 4, Sakurai was asked why such an old, mostly forgotten character had been referenced in the game. He said, To tell the truth, it's because I wanted Gino to be a playable character. He has a gun for a hand, and I think he fits in really well with Smash. During Brawl, I thought it would be great if I could add him, but in the end it didn't become a reality. He's very popular. When talking about older characters, Gino always gets a lot of requests. He didn't appear as a fighter, but I was able to achieve something kind of close to that as a Mii costume. Alas, as Sakurai has recently pointed out, he doesn't always get his way when selecting new Smash characters. He said, When thinking about new fighters for this game, we don't just pick my favourites or draw from a hat. More often than not, these discussions start by Nintendo approaching me with an idea. Of course, if I can't do that idea justice, I'll tell them no. So, no matter how popular Gino may be, and no matter how much Sakurai himself might want to include him as a full fighter in Smash, this isn't likely to happen unless the higher-ups at Nintendo really want to see it happen. That is particularly unlikely, considering that the company is actively moving away from traditional role-playing games set inside the Mario universe, and doesn't seem eager to revisit their collaboration with Square Enix. According to Kensuke Tanabe, director of Super Mario the Origami King, since Paper Mario's sticker star, it's no longer possible to modify Mario characters or to create original characters that touch on the Mario universe. This change in approach for Mario RPGs comes straight from Shigeru Miyamoto, who has actively discouraged game designers from putting stories in their games. According to Tanabe, there were two main things that Miyamoto-san said from the start of Sticker Star. It's fine without a story, so do we really need one? And, as much as possible, complete it with only characters from the Super Mario world. It's likely that Miyamoto is opposed to characters like Gino, who expand the Mario world because they stray from his specific vision for the franchise. Hence why the Paper Mario series is deliberately shown to be separate from the traditional Mario canon. Not to pile on Miyamoto, but he has also had similar conversations with Yoshiaki Koizumi. The two of them have often butted heads when it comes to storytelling in games, and Miyamoto is generally unimpressed when Koizumi tries to expand the lore of the Mario universe. A character like Gino stands in star composition to the simple, clearly defined direction that the Mario series has taken in recent years. Meanwhile, Yoshihiko Mayakawa, director of Super Mario RPG, has said that he's in no hurry to try and revisit this universe. He said, Actually, I don't feel like I want to return to that world and use those characters in another game. I feel like I was able to accomplish what I wanted to with that world and those characters and the gameplay ideas that came out of those, and now I mostly feel like I want to make something different. So with Nintendo remaining apprehensive about bringing Gino back into the spotlight, or adding new characters to Mario RPGs in general, it's unsurprising that the company has rejected Sakurai's pleas to get Gino into Smash. Thus, if you're disappointed that Gino is only available as a Me Fighter costume, bear in mind that Sakurai is trying his best. This costume might not be what you've been hoping for, but it's something. That's the moral of this story. You won't always be able to have everything you want in life, but that's okay. Things do feel a little bit better in that moment where we're appreciating the things that we do have.