Waluigi is not a household name – unless you play video games, then you are very aware about this character’s controversy. 

Waluigi is a video game character who was created by Nintendo for their popular series Mario Bros, first appearing back in 2000 for the spin-off game, Mario Tennis. After his appearance in Mario Tennis, he’s been in all kinds of Mario spin-offs that include: The Mario Party, MarioKart, Wario Ware, and all of the Mario sports games. From the looks of it, Waluigi has appeared in many games where he is playable, but he’s never been playable in one of the most famous fighting games, Super Smash Brothers. 

Super Smash Brothers is a fighting game and it’s one one Nintendo’s biggest franchises that features many Nintendo characters and some non-Nintendo characters. The game overall has a character roster of ninety – eight, but Waluigi is not yet one of the playable characters. Even though he’s not playable, he’s still game, but he’s considered an “assist” character if the player gets an item in the game called an assist trophy. According to the Washington post, “Assist trophies are basically soulless effigies of other characters that players can pick up, bringing the depicted creature to life for mere seconds. They’re golems’.”

 Back in 2018 when Super Smash Brothers Ultimate had its first presentation, many people were very disappointed to find out that he was still an assist trophy in the game. Nintendo has also never stated why this character [Waluigi] is not in the game, it’s always been up to interpretation on why Nintendo hasn’t put him in the game. Due to him being absent from previous smash brothers games, it has led to Waluigi becoming a major meme amongst the gaming community. Several memes were created about this

character being neglected by its creator and over the years Waluigi has been know as a, “wronged, strangely sexual antihero who suffers one injustice after another” according to the Washington Post. 

His outfit consists of overalls over his purple shirt, a purple hat with an inverted  L in the middle of his hat, which makes him an opposite of Luigi, who wears green overalls and wears a L in his hat. Waluigi is very tall and skinny, which made his body type one of a kind in the Mario franchise. Back when Waluigi was first created in 2000, many people didn’t really like his original character, and thought he was a weird add-on that didn’t need to be included in the franchise, but over the years that opinion from the community has changed. Anthony Wasley, a big fan of the Smash franchise and teacher at Hall, shared his opinions on the controversy. He says, “ Loves Waluigi as a character, the color makes sense, his body is very lanky, which he can relate to.” Wasley also shared that he thinks that there’s no reason why Waluigi should be in that game and that, “Any argument that Nintendo can make on why Walugi is not in Smash is flawed”. One of Hall’s Smash Brothers eSports coaches, Sebastian Fortuna, also had strong about the character as well. He mentioned, “If Wario is in the game, then Waluigi should be in the game. ”Walugi was never created with a backstory, the only reason why he was created in the first place was for Wario to have a tennis partner and for Luigi to have a rival. Fortuna also remarked that, “Waluigi should have been one of the last fighters that they should have been a part of the game,” he’s very certain that Waluigi will be included in future Smash Brother games. 

After not making it onto the roster again in the most recent installment of the series, Walugi has started to become included in more Mario spin-off games. Waluigi has been showcased in several Mario games, including Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Tokyo 2020 & Mario Golf: Super Rush. In 2022,  he’s been confirmed to be a playable character in the next Mario sports game; Mario Strikers Battle League, which has a set release date for June 26 of this year. Waluigi is still a very popular character within the Mario franchise, including the gaming community, and as time progresses, there is a chance he could have his shot at making it into the next Smash Brothers game in the near future.