Even more specific: I'd bet that they realized it really close to shipping and didn't have time to code an exception other than just a single flag to prevent the summon.
"Render this object, but not its reflection" is a somewhat common flag in 3D engines, so I'm not sure it was some sort of code or time limitation. On the other hand: Mirrors -> Silver coating -> Vampire. Maybe they just payed attention to this little detail, so the exception wasn't needed. And as someone else pointed out: he does have reflection elsewhere, just not in (silver coated) mirrors.
It would be strange if true, given the famously insane level of detail that goes into Smash games. If you ever want to see dozens upon dozens of one off exceptions made for the smallest, most barely noticeable details, you should probably look at Smash Ultimate.
Alucard is not the only character that can't be summoned in Wii Fit Studio The Majora's Mask Moon, Andros, the Squid Sisters, Nikki, the girl from Fatal Frame all cannot be summoned in Wii Fit Studio If we count pokéball summons, you also can't summon Lugia and Lunala (they cannot appear in any indoor stages) nor Abra (cannot be summoned in walkoff stages)
Not having a reflection isn't actually traditional vampire lore, it's more to do with the silver that was used for mirrors, so a reflection in water and modern mirrors is possible
Well, the reason that silver was anathema to vampires has to do with its purity, and water (particularly running water) is another widespread symbol of purity. In fact, it's even one which some vampires have a weakness to! Aluminum-based mirrors should be fine, though.
I was thinking Andross, as he wouldn't be able to do his usual shoot from the background thing with the back wall in the way; and it seems yes, Andross also can't be summoned in Wii Fit Studio. Apparently there are actually eight Assist Trophies and three Pokéball Pokémon that can't be summoned in Wii Fit Studio.
I'm guessing having two of those Pokémon + Assist trophies would just _tank_ the framerate. Sort of like using multiple icies on fountain of dreams, especially on the 3ds.
Same! Alucard brushed my mind at the start for absolutely no reason (probably because I’ve heard this trivia before) but the whole time I was stuck on Andros because the wall is very up close.
There are a few other assist trophies that aren't allowed in to appear on Wii Fit Studio, but they all have technical reasons for doing so. This appears to be the only one that is intentionally done as a lore reference.
I think most of such Assist Trophies are actually not allowed on *many* stages with a prominent background feature that would interfere with their function or animations. The full list, according to Smash wiki, is the Moon from Majora's Mask, Nightmare, Andross, Devil, Nikki, Yuri Kozkata, the Squid Sisters, Lugia and Lunala. Abra is also missing, but that's mostly because Abra only works on stages you can fall off and you can't fall off in the Studio.
SPOILER WARNING 6:10 (and more specifically 6:16) Depending on the lore, vampires CAN have reflections (e.g. on a polished floor, a puddle, etc), just not in MIRRORS, because mirrors used to be made with SILVER-coated glass (nowadays it's aluminium), and it's that silver that won't reflect them, or causes them discomfort/harm. Though this also means that such a vampire actually wouldn't have any issues with using modern mirrors. :)
That is also why vampires won't show up in photographs. Early photographs invovled silver in the processing, I don't remember which part, so vampires won't appear in a photograph.
@@waywornwyrm8135 all film photography, in fact. The active ingredient being halides of silver (early on on silver nitrate, but nowadays typically silver bromide, silver iodide or silver chloride). Colour films uses the same process, but the silver halides will be replaced by dyes after development.
a couple things not mentioned in the video: Alucard is Dracula's name in reverse and he first appeared in one of the black-and-white Universal monster movies
I was thinking a technical reason, but more along the lines of 'too big'. So I was thinking Dr Kawashima. It's good to see the designers not change the mirror rendering because in perspective, which is a game of well over 100 characters, omitting one from one stage makes more sense.
There isn't over 100 characters, there are 89. Your point still stands, though there are, in total, around a dozen (iirc) different assist trophies and Pokémon that aren't available.
this was the first one i knew, and there are more than one character that cannot be summoned on that stage. many stages have characters that cannot be summoned.
I have logged more hours in Smash Bros Utimate than any other game, and I had absolutely no idea about this. This is a truly bonkers question to ask in a quiz show.
Even if they had reflections I wouldn't want to be in the same room as thin glass that can easily shatter covered with one of the two things that can kill me
i think you are mixing up vampires and werewolves. to my knowledge silver itself does nothing to a vampire. its silver bullets that kill werewolves and crosses often just happen to be made of silver, but its the holy symbol of the cross that hurts the vampire. a wooden one works just fine. although the reason they dont reflect in mirrors is indeed that silver is considered a "holy" metal (therefore able to kill a werewolf if used as a bullet) which refuses to show the image of a vampire and old mirrors were made by coating the back of a glass pane with silver.
I thought the answer was going to be “the wii fit balance board”. On the account of already being in the scene background. I remember that being a character in Smash at a certain point…
Tom was right when he said the summons are not the actual main characters, they are called Assist trophies, there is 27 of them and they are lesser known characters from a wide range of games, so that makes this question diabolically hard. I didn't know the answer and I have many many hours in all smash bros games. Once he said the wall thing I assumed a Casltevania vampire.
5:00 I would consider it pretty relevant whether the character we're looking for is - a fighter/playable character - or a support-trophy summon It might not matter for the reasoning behind it, but it greatly narrows down the list of suspects.
"you wanna finght a baby!" -looks at Kirby no, no I do *NOT* want to fight a baby seriously though I had no idea on this one even after "think of the walls of the gym" bit since it's not like you're viewing the stage through a mirror...right? my least nonsensical guess was that the nintendo mii avatar characters aren't allowed in there for some reason since they're the only other thing in the SSB series related to WiiFit ...weird answer though: even after hearing mirrors somehow equals no vampires _was_ the thing I just assumed there was a vampire on the cast that I don't know about since alucard doesn't have to deal with most of the vampire nonsense rules what with him _not being a vampire_ heck, in some of the stuff they have written involving him the entire reason for his prettyboybishounen appearance is it's him using being able to take care of his own appearance instead of having to summon a damned demon to do his makeup as a way for him to harass his dad.
I'm not sure about Assist characters, but the Wii Fit Trainer is a selectable character, and the game's philosophy about such conflicts is to replace *the background element* if the character is chosen. (The funniest example at the time it was announced was Spirit Train, which is normally driven by Toon Link, but if you're playing as *any* of the game's Links, the conductor will be replaced by Alfonzo instead. This is in spite of the fact that no playable Links are the same individual as the Link that drives trains.)
I don't like the phrase "couldn't be bothered" in this scenario, because that implies they just didn't want to. Ultimate had a very tight turnaround, so if this wasn't noticed until the end of development, it'd be much simpler to use the flag to remove an assist from the pool that they already had for the moon from Majora's Mask
Worth mentioning that vampires couldn't be seen in mirrors because they were originally made of silver. Also the reason they couldn't be seen in film based cameras (a silver compound is used to develop the photos).
As a massive smash fan and gamer in general even I didn’t get this one. The character brushed my mind at the start for no reason (I have possibly heard this trivia before EDIT: or it could’ve been the thumbnail) but the whole time I was stuck on Andros. Thanks to the comments I know I was sorta right, since multiple assist characters including Andros can’t be summoned to when playing on Wii Fit Studio.
It didn't annoy me more as y'all went on with games and actor/pop culture references you didn't know! Just hilarious to hear other people with similar struggles I've had, lol. Great to listen to!
My first thought was Snorlax, because he'd just be having a nap instead of going to the gym. Also, I think the games console Tom was talking about was the GameCube. I thought it was released earlier, but given that the Wii was definitely later than 2002 it must have been the GameCube, unless they're including handheld consoles which I'm less familiar with (think that's pre Nintendo DS though, so could be GBA?. Ok, I just looked it up and I think Tom may have got the year wrong (or it had a staggered release and the question was about a particular country/region), because (according to Wikipedia) both GameCube and GBA were released in 2001 and then the next console was the DS in 2004, followed by the Wii in 2006.
I can assure this is a very obscure fact about Smash Bros, even most fans don't know the answer, I have only heard about it once and completely forgot about it until this video was recommended to me.
There's like 7 or so characters from Assist Trophies (Majora's Mask Moon is one) who cant' be in Wii Fit Studio and like 3 or 4 pokemon. This isnt' a problem unique to Wii Fit Studio.
While Stuart is right about fanboys when Rebecca asks if Sonic is Nintendo I'd still loke to point out that he is in that game AND the previous Smash Bros. Also to Tom's point about main characters and summons where Stuart suggests it isn't relevant I'm inclined to disagree. While I don't think any of them have the working knowledge to make use of it and rule out certain characters we can be damn sure that a number of Smash Bros. mainstays are NOT going to be summons so they aren't the answer (Mario, Wario, Bowser, Samus, Kirby, etc.).
I knew this one, but I don't think it's very fair to ask to anyone that doesn't specifically play smash ultimate. There's so many characters and franchises and just the fact that it's a character from a game 30 years ago that was already the third in the series, they're way too obscure for most people to consider
I'd say Tom is right, they just didn't want to code the exception.
Even more specific: I'd bet that they realized it really close to shipping and didn't have time to code an exception other than just a single flag to prevent the summon.
If you hack the game and spawn Alucard in there, he has a reflection, so it is correct.
"Render this object, but not its reflection" is a somewhat common flag in 3D engines, so I'm not sure it was some sort of code or time limitation.
On the other hand: Mirrors -> Silver coating -> Vampire. Maybe they just payed attention to this little detail, so the exception wasn't needed.
And as someone else pointed out: he does have reflection elsewhere, just not in (silver coated) mirrors.
Had he been more familiar, I was thinking that he was going to mention Wario, being that he didn't want to set foot in a fitness centre.
It would be strange if true, given the famously insane level of detail that goes into Smash games. If you ever want to see dozens upon dozens of one off exceptions made for the smallest, most barely noticeable details, you should probably look at Smash Ultimate.
As ever, mega props to the person/people doing subs and colour coding by the person talking. Super duper helpful!
Glad it was helpful!
@@lateralcast For me not being a native English speaker, sometimes that's the only way I can understand everything being said...
@@thinkEdemme too but I am a native English speaker
Alucard is not the only character that can't be summoned in Wii Fit Studio
The Majora's Mask Moon, Andros, the Squid Sisters, Nikki, the girl from Fatal Frame all cannot be summoned in Wii Fit Studio
If we count pokéball summons, you also can't summon Lugia and Lunala (they cannot appear in any indoor stages) nor Abra (cannot be summoned in walkoff stages)
Browser is definitely the best Mario character.
Yeah! And Mario can beat him when he turns into a fire fox! (-:
As long as it's Edge and not Chrome.
@@NeUrOmAnCeRAI I think you'll find that Chrom is his own distinct Smash character.
Duck duck go kart
Browser definitely has his shell to protect himself from viruses
I love how Karen was like "...wut" for most of this, but then swoops in suddenly with the key bit. :)
as a smash player, i would say a majority of smash players dont know this trivia bit so them struggling was very funny but also i totally get it
Not having a reflection isn't actually traditional vampire lore, it's more to do with the silver that was used for mirrors, so a reflection in water and modern mirrors is possible
So the question is, is that the reasoning behind cameras too and, as such, are CCDs not affected?
Well, the reason that silver was anathema to vampires has to do with its purity, and water (particularly running water) is another widespread symbol of purity. In fact, it's even one which some vampires have a weakness to!
Aluminum-based mirrors should be fine, though.
Maybe the Wii Fit Studio is just ballin like that
Regarding vamps and water, they can't cross rivers according to the lore
"You're asking a bunch of nerds a video games question"
...yes?
The Super Relevant Bros joke sounds like something straight out of a tech diffs episode
I would've awarded mystery biscuits for that tbh.
Well, they had "Super Lehmann Brothers" as an award once
did rebecca call him "browser"? lol
Yup....
In the same game as Firefox. ;)
I was thinking Andross, as he wouldn't be able to do his usual shoot from the background thing with the back wall in the way; and it seems yes, Andross also can't be summoned in Wii Fit Studio. Apparently there are actually eight Assist Trophies and three Pokéball Pokémon that can't be summoned in Wii Fit Studio.
I'm guessing having two of those Pokémon + Assist trophies would just _tank_ the framerate. Sort of like using multiple icies on fountain of dreams, especially on the 3ds.
Same! Alucard brushed my mind at the start for absolutely no reason (probably because I’ve heard this trivia before) but the whole time I was stuck on Andros because the wall is very up close.
There are a few other assist trophies that aren't allowed in to appear on Wii Fit Studio, but they all have technical reasons for doing so. This appears to be the only one that is intentionally done as a lore reference.
I think most of such Assist Trophies are actually not allowed on *many* stages with a prominent background feature that would interfere with their function or animations.
The full list, according to Smash wiki, is the Moon from Majora's Mask, Nightmare, Andross, Devil, Nikki, Yuri Kozkata, the Squid Sisters, Lugia and Lunala. Abra is also missing, but that's mostly because Abra only works on stages you can fall off and you can't fall off in the Studio.
@@phineas81707 what about Abra on stages like Bridge of Eldin where it's only sometimes possible to fall off?
SPOILER WARNING
6:10 (and more specifically 6:16) Depending on the lore, vampires CAN have reflections (e.g. on a polished floor, a puddle, etc), just not in MIRRORS, because mirrors used to be made with SILVER-coated glass (nowadays it's aluminium), and it's that silver that won't reflect them, or causes them discomfort/harm. Though this also means that such a vampire actually wouldn't have any issues with using modern mirrors. :)
That is also why vampires won't show up in photographs. Early photographs invovled silver in the processing, I don't remember which part, so vampires won't appear in a photograph.
@@waywornwyrm8135
Basically all film and plate photography would be out. Electronic photography would be fine, so vidicon, CCD, CMOS.
@@waywornwyrm8135 all film photography, in fact. The active ingredient being halides of silver (early on on silver nitrate, but nowadays typically silver bromide, silver iodide or silver chloride). Colour films uses the same process, but the silver halides will be replaced by dyes after development.
In several vampire movies, they make the mistake of having vampires eat from silverware 😂
Came here to say this. :D
2:33 "Is Sonic... Nintendo?"
This is insulting in so many levels.
a couple things not mentioned in the video: Alucard is Dracula's name in reverse and he first appeared in one of the black-and-white Universal monster movies
It's weird knowing more about a subject than Tom Scott
As a Smash GEEK, I got this before the question was even finished. I should get a life
Why? This sounds like you are doing great in life
There are mushrooms for that.
@@thumper5555 ?
@@NeichoKijimura a 1 up mushroom gives you +1 life. That's how you get a life
@@thumper5555 No they don't, depending on colour and face. They make you shrink or grow :)
God its so funny seeing how everyones thought of “wii fit studio” differs from the actual stage which is basically blank
They didn't even mention Alucard is Dracula backwards lol
tbf i knew the answer and i only realised that now 😭
I love Tom Scott's normal stuff but it's hilarious seeing people get asked questions with nothing to do with their expertise
Vampires and Werewolves have similar issues with silver. But not in the way you think. Historically, mirrors were backed with silver!
I was thinking a technical reason, but more along the lines of 'too big'. So I was thinking Dr Kawashima. It's good to see the designers not change the mirror rendering because in perspective, which is a game of well over 100 characters, omitting one from one stage makes more sense.
There isn't over 100 characters, there are 89. Your point still stands, though there are, in total, around a dozen (iirc) different assist trophies and Pokémon that aren't available.
LOL I usually skip these trivia bits but I had to watch this one immediately because it features my favorites Becky and Karen!
I played Ultimate... but I guess not that much because I was still stumped
I love watching these clips twice so I can feel like a know it all the second time around
Loved Nintendo's attention to detail regarding this subject!
this was the first one i knew, and there are more than one character that cannot be summoned on that stage. many stages have characters that cannot be summoned.
I have logged more hours in Smash Bros Utimate than any other game, and I had absolutely no idea about this. This is a truly bonkers question to ask in a quiz show.
I temporarily forgot about the Smash Trophies and thought it was Wii Fit trainer because that is where they work lol
Remember kids, Browser can only be defeated when mario becomes a fire fox
As a witness to Sakurai's obsessive attention to detail, if true, this goes in a very small box of things they didn't want to do
I actually guessed the character from the silhouette in the thumbnail, but I couldn't guess the reason why until 5:15...
And then we had an episode of “Uhm, actually” instead :-)
I mean, I like videogames too, but this trivia-based question is not what I’d expected.
I was going threw my head of which assist trophy can't be summoned on the Wii Fit Studio stage and I kept second guessing my self a few time!
el-you-card
Browser
@@miblik Mary-o
You know, I didn't know this, but as soon as he told us to think about what's in a gym, I realized who it must be. Ashen's pretty good at hints.
BROWSER LMAOOOOO
Surprised they didn't mention "Alucard" Is just "Dracula" backwards.
"Merryo" "Toad! Yawshi! Browser! Peach!"
Even if they had reflections I wouldn't want to be in the same room as thin glass that can easily shatter covered with one of the two things that can kill me
i think you are mixing up vampires and werewolves. to my knowledge silver itself does nothing to a vampire. its silver bullets that kill werewolves and crosses often just happen to be made of silver, but its the holy symbol of the cross that hurts the vampire. a wooden one works just fine.
although the reason they dont reflect in mirrors is indeed that silver is considered a "holy" metal (therefore able to kill a werewolf if used as a bullet) which refuses to show the image of a vampire and old mirrors were made by coating the back of a glass pane with silver.
@@TheScarvig really? I thought the whole reason they didn't have reflections was because they were weak to silver
I thought the answer was going to be “the wii fit balance board”. On the account of already being in the scene background. I remember that being a character in Smash at a certain point…
Tom was right when he said the summons are not the actual main characters, they are called Assist trophies, there is 27 of them and they are lesser known characters from a wide range of games, so that makes this question diabolically hard.
I didn't know the answer and I have many many hours in all smash bros games. Once he said the wall thing I assumed a Casltevania vampire.
there are 59 assist trophies
Karen nailed it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I like how they're all stumped since none of them are familiar with video games *or* gyms.
5:00
I would consider it pretty relevant whether the character we're looking for is
- a fighter/playable character
- or a support-trophy summon
It might not matter for the reasoning behind it, but it greatly narrows down the list of suspects.
I thought it was going to be ironic, and Wii Fit Trainer couldn't be summoned.
"you wanna finght a baby!"
-looks at Kirby
no, no I do *NOT* want to fight a baby
seriously though I had no idea on this one even after "think of the walls of the gym" bit since it's not like you're viewing the stage through a mirror...right? my least nonsensical guess was that the nintendo mii avatar characters aren't allowed in there for some reason since they're the only other thing in the SSB series related to WiiFit
...weird answer though: even after hearing mirrors somehow equals no vampires _was_ the thing I just assumed there was a vampire on the cast that I don't know about since alucard doesn't have to deal with most of the vampire nonsense rules what with him _not being a vampire_ heck, in some of the stuff they have written involving him the entire reason for his prettyboybishounen appearance is it's him using being able to take care of his own appearance instead of having to summon a damned demon to do his makeup as a way for him to harass his dad.
I'd honestly have guessed the wii fit trainer, like maybe they're in the background doing a thing
I'm not sure about Assist characters, but the Wii Fit Trainer is a selectable character, and the game's philosophy about such conflicts is to replace *the background element* if the character is chosen.
(The funniest example at the time it was announced was Spirit Train, which is normally driven by Toon Link, but if you're playing as *any* of the game's Links, the conductor will be replaced by Alfonzo instead. This is in spite of the fact that no playable Links are the same individual as the Link that drives trains.)
I don't like the phrase "couldn't be bothered" in this scenario, because that implies they just didn't want to. Ultimate had a very tight turnaround, so if this wasn't noticed until the end of development, it'd be much simpler to use the flag to remove an assist from the pool that they already had for the moon from Majora's Mask
"Toad, Yoshi, Browser"
Ah yes, google chrome, my favorite mario character
Wow, never would have got that.
Worth mentioning that vampires couldn't be seen in mirrors because they were originally made of silver. Also the reason they couldn't be seen in film based cameras (a silver compound is used to develop the photos).
I knew it was Alucard from probably 30 seconds in lol
Becky is here. Tom keeps making me want to be in his friend circle
1:25 Did she just call Bowser Browser?
Me being very confused until I realized they were talking about help-trothpies halfway through xd
1:25 "browser" has me dead
everyone knows that Patrick Stewart played Captain Jack Harkness :P
What? Ashens? Wow.
As a massive smash fan and gamer in general even I didn’t get this one. The character brushed my mind at the start for no reason (I have possibly heard this trivia before EDIT: or it could’ve been the thumbnail) but the whole time I was stuck on Andros. Thanks to the comments I know I was sorta right, since multiple assist characters including Andros can’t be summoned to when playing on Wii Fit Studio.
I cannot believe Karen got that
It didn't annoy me more as y'all went on with games and actor/pop culture references you didn't know! Just hilarious to hear other people with similar struggles I've had, lol. Great to listen to!
My first thought was Snorlax, because he'd just be having a nap instead of going to the gym.
Also, I think the games console Tom was talking about was the GameCube. I thought it was released earlier, but given that the Wii was definitely later than 2002 it must have been the GameCube, unless they're including handheld consoles which I'm less familiar with (think that's pre Nintendo DS though, so could be GBA?.
Ok, I just looked it up and I think Tom may have got the year wrong (or it had a staggered release and the question was about a particular country/region), because (according to Wikipedia) both GameCube and GBA were released in 2001 and then the next console was the DS in 2004, followed by the Wii in 2006.
Remember when Patrick Stewart told Harry Potter to activate the flux capacitor?
As Tom is a Game Boy, he should be put in a Game Cube as punishment for not knowing about 2002 consoles.
The game cube was released before 2002 it was 2001
I understand why he chooses to go by the name Alucard lmao
Damnit, i know this one. Alucard innit. Mirror and all.
Having being a 70's teenager and never played any game console, I understood about 13% of that. I've heard of vampires and I once went to a gym. 😄
I thought Wario, why would he ever set foot in a gym.
I was thinking yoshi because he can't use any of the machines
"Mare-e-oh." "Browser." ffs.
No discussion on Dracula’s son having his name spelt backwards?
Alucard
The console that came out after the Nintendo 64 and before the Wii was the GameCube.
tsepesh, not tepes, though
I can assure this is a very obscure fact about Smash Bros, even most fans don't know the answer, I have only heard about it once and completely forgot about it until this video was recommended to me.
Adorian Fārenhaitsu Tsepeshu
Also Alucard is just Dracula backwards lol. Meaning he is the reverse of dracula I guess?
I'm a bit surprised that i knew this one off of the top of my head, guess wasting many hours a day watching trivia videos does pay off.
adrian farenheit tepez gotta be the goofiest name
As someone who only knows that one of the characters in Super Smash Bros is Sans Undertale, I was as lost as them.
There's like 7 or so characters from Assist Trophies (Majora's Mask Moon is one) who cant' be in Wii Fit Studio and like 3 or 4 pokemon. This isnt' a problem unique to Wii Fit Studio.
I believe the reason vampires can't be seen in mirrors is because they used to be made with silver.
Is that the "square hole" meme person?
... Browser?
You "know" Super Smash Bros is a "Fighting" Game? You want to unleash an internet war?
Wouldn't the Nintendo platform between the N64 and Wii be the GameCube?
1:22 Doesn't list Mario or Luigi?
Poor UK… got the GameCube in 2002.
Why are there spoiler alerts in the comments section for fun facts that aren't spoilers haha
Ah, the L. U. Card.
it's ok, sonic is in smash brawl so Becky wasn't far off
While Stuart is right about fanboys when Rebecca asks if Sonic is Nintendo I'd still loke to point out that he is in that game AND the previous Smash Bros.
Also to Tom's point about main characters and summons where Stuart suggests it isn't relevant I'm inclined to disagree.
While I don't think any of them have the working knowledge to make use of it and rule out certain characters we can be damn sure that a number of Smash Bros. mainstays are NOT going to be summons so they aren't the answer (Mario, Wario, Bowser, Samus, Kirby, etc.).
Is sonic a Nintendo property hurts so much
That was anticlimactic... But entertaining just the same.
Mayreo
I was guessing Yoshi because he's an animal and they might have a no pets policy in the gym.
I knew this one, but I don't think it's very fair to ask to anyone that doesn't specifically play smash ultimate. There's so many characters and franchises and just the fact that it's a character from a game 30 years ago that was already the third in the series, they're way too obscure for most people to consider
..... so WHAT was the console between N64 and Wii????
it's not the switch, is it?
Gamecube
@@flame9058 thank you so much xD
aw no... aw no..