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Perkilator

Perkilator

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Smash Legend 24 From The perpetual trash fire known as Planet Earth(tm)
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  • Perkilator
    My mother and I had a conversation about seeking game design as my passion, and it got me thinking: would it be feasible for Nintendo to open a game design school?
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    KneeOfJustice99
    KneeOfJustice99
    ...I guess it depends on what kind of "game design school" you'd be going for.

    If we were talking about an officially recognised educational institution akin to something like a university, the overhead in keeping that around and up to scratch feels like it'd make the whole thing more expensive than it's worth. Obviously I'm hardly an expert in the legal status of Japanese schooling or whatever, but that's just a shot in the dark.

    That said; running smaller-scale classes or workshops in schools? I reckon that's feasible, and honestly pretty plausible. It's hardly common amongst larger-scale game developers, but Nintendo's in a pretty good spot for that sort of thing. (If I remember rightly, I think Namco tried something similar in the mid-00s?)

    I guess my main question would be why Nintendo would open a "game design school" in the first place. If the idea is to encourage more people to get into the industry, it feels like a really overly expensive way of doing things; at the very least, running sponsored classes rather than an entire school feels more in line with how other industries handle onboarding & entry-level prep.
    Perkilator
    I’d like to see mods for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe that revamp some of the existing base game tracks to have unique routes on each lap, kind of like the Tour city courses in the Booster Course Pass. I had a dream where I was playing on Sweet Sweet Kingdom and it had exactly that: three unique routes per lap.
    Perkilator
    I’m making a Clodsire Smash moveset and the play style I have jotted down for it is “super heavy trapper”. Basically, a character who makes up for their lackluster speed and lag with not only superior strength, but also special moves that serve as traps and super armor that poisons opponents when struck by physical attacks (an adaptation of Poison Point).
    Perkilator
    I know it’s not a guarantee, but I still vehemently believe that Sakurai and Nintendo will at least try to get Banjo and Sora back for the next Smash game, with the latter being the ballot winner and the former being a runner-up.
    Perkilator
    If I was making the next Mario Kart, then I’d like to design the new courses in the same vein as Ninja Hideaway, Squeaky Clean Sprint, Piranha Plant Cove and the Tour city courses: courses with three unique paths on each lap (like Piranha Plant Cove and the city courses) that fully embrace their creative themes (like Ninja Hideaway and Squeaky Clean Sprint).
    Perkilator
    I just realized that Waluigi has only had two dedicated race tracks in Mario Kart: Waluigi Stadium and Waluigi Pinball. They're both bangers, don't get me wrong, but I'm surprised they're the only two with Waluigi's name.
    Perkilator
    You know those two episodes of Chowder called "The Wrong Address" and "The Wrong Customer" where two separate episodes took place at the same time? If the episodes of a cartoon just have to be split into two 11-minute episodes, then more cartoons should do episodes where the two 11-minute episodes take place simultaneously.
    Perkilator
    Okay, so…let’s say the next Smash had 50 veterans, 15 newcomers, and 5 Echo Fighters. That’s about 70 characters. What kind of roster would you guys be able to make with those numbers?
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    KneeOfJustice99
    KneeOfJustice99
    I guess it depends on what kind of roster we'd be expected to go for. I'll presume we're going for a true "sequel" to the series - so no major reworks, and a (reasonably) realistic selection process. With that in mind, I'll also presume this game's releasing around March next year as a launch-title for the "Switch 2", so no character picks from after October 18th, 2021 (taking into account that the project plan would need to be complete, and that'd give us around three years to develop the entire game, which - if we're taking some assets from Ultimate - might be plausible.)

    Probably the hardest part of the process, but something I managed to work my way through with what I'll describe as a process of elimination. I'll note that a lot of the characters I cut were moreso out of necessity than anything, and I don't mean it to come across as "your character isn't good enough" or something. Side note; Echo Fighters aren't included here, I'm presuming they're included in the "five echo fighters". Oh, and I'll run through this by series (but not in order) just to make things easier to read.

    (Third party franchises are marked in yellow.)
    • Super Mario: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Bowser Jr. Mostly obvious picks here, but I'll just take a second to note that I think Bowser Jr. is a genuinely good pick to keep going forward given his role as a midboss of sorts.
    • Donkey Kong: Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong. The King is cool, but I think he works well as a sort of one-off pick - and DK and DK together seems more logical in my mind, with Diddy having more recognition elsewhere.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Link, Zelda, Ganondorf. This is probably the most milquetoast decision I'll make.
    • Metroid: Samus, Ridley. Samus absolutely needs to stick around, and Ridley works well as a rival pick given his massive fan support. (Sorry again, K. Rool fans.)
    • Yoshi: Yoshi. He's cool. Nuff said.
    • Kirby: Kirby, Meta Knight, King Dedede. I don't see any real reason to get rid of any of these characters.
    • Star Fox: Fox. I think the argument that he needs to stick around because of his legacy to Smash and his moveset is a bit silly. That said, the Star Fox series is still a cool thing to keep around.
    • Pokemon: Pikachu, Mewtwo, Charizard, Greninja. Probably my second most milquetoast decision, if only that it gets thrown off a little by solo Zard. Developing the full Trainer Trio is just too much work.
    • Mother: Ness. People love the Mother series. I don't want an angrily-worded email from Toby Fox.
    • F-Zero: Captain Falcon. The series is going through a bit of a renaissance, and Falcon himself is decently popular, so we may as well keep him around.
    • Fire Emblem: Marth, Ike, Robin, Byleth. Another fairly obvious lineup of the "original", the "fan-favourite", the "renaissance", and the "big hit". I can sort of see an argument to replace Byleth with Alear, but I think Three Houses was a big enough deal to represent here on its own merits.
    • Game & Watch: Mr. Game & Watch. A big "retro pick". I tried to limit these where possible, but this one feels warranted.
    • Kid Icarus: Pit. Look, I think he's at least somewhat warranted in that he's unique. As for three roster spots, I'm not so sure. Pit himself is cool though.
    • Wario: Wario. Wah.
    • Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic. Our first third-party pick, and a pretty obvious one at that. I feel like I don't need to explain this.
    • Pikmin: Olimar. A series that's kind of come into its own as of recent, getting a lot more exposure than normal. I'd probably keep Olimar even if we were still waiting for Pikmin 4 now, though.
    • Animal Crossing: Villager, Isabelle. This is kind of what I was getting at earlier with "no big reworks". I don't really think "avatar characters" are too great in games like this, so if I was doing a full rework, I'd probably focus the AC representation on more characterised, well... characters. Even so, the current state of things is fine.
    • Wii Fit: Wii Fit Trainer. I've seen too many people treat this as a weird decision, and I don't understand it. Trainer's the example of a good rep for the "blue ocean" strategy of the Wii era. To the point where they technically replace the Miis. (The Miis are too heavy on development, IMO.)
    • Pac-Man: Pac-Man. THE arcade rep. Plus, Namco's more than warranted to represent, and while including either Kazuya or another TEKKEN pick might make sense, Pac-Man works perfectly in a game like this.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles: Shulk, Pyra/Mythra. They're both totally warranted, given the Switch is basically the Xenoblade console now. Except for X. Rip
    • Duck Hunt: Duck Hunt Duo. They're technically here over R.O.B., but that was a tough decision for me to make. It ultimately came down to Duck Hunt's history outside of just the NES/Famicom for me.
    • Street Fighter: Ryu. I actually wanted to have Terry in this role, but Ryu's a perfect representative for the traditional fighting game genre. He's also a good Capcom rep given he's from a series they actually choose to keep relevant.
    • Splatoon: Inkling. Similar situation to the AC characters, if this were up to me then I'd probably go with a different character; but in the current state of affairs this is still a totally justified pick.
    • Dragon Quest: Hero. Where Clod? I think Hero's a better representative of the RPG genre as a whole, and the choice to specifically represent FFVII was... weird. Besides, Dragon Quest is more than big enough to be justified.
    • Minecraft: Steve. It's ****ing Minecraft. Besides the fact that he was planned as early as 2015 like actually try and think of any other characters here your four year old iPad-addicted cousin who coughs exclusively with his mouth open would know about.
    Couple of notes on cut picks, because this one was pretty difficult to run through;
    • Daisy - I love her, but bringing her back in her current state doesn't make much sense to me. She's too similar to Peach to really be justified, and I don't think reworking Echo Fighters would really be on the table.
    • Dr. Mario - I love him too, but he's got a similar kind of issue. I'll go with another puzzle rep later, though.
    • Rosalina - The Galaxy games were a decently big deal and Rosalina's fighting style is pretty smart but at the same time I'm not really sure she's as warranted as other picks in the roster.
    • Piranha Plant - I genuinely wanted to keep them around but they got pipped to the post by some other series here and there and that sucks imo
    • King K. Rool - Like I mentioned I think Diddy lends to a bit more moveset and design variety. Again though I'm very sorry to the K. Rool fans for once again being left to starve
    • Sheik - Sheik's cool and everything but considering the actual reason for their inclusion was removed in Sm4sh and they've basically never appeared in anything canon ever again I think this is fair
    • Young Link - I wonder if we could justify Young Mario instead
    • Toon Link - I wonder if we could justify Toon Mario instead (jokes aside I think Toon Link totally has potential but I'd personally go with a different "toon-style" character to represent that artstyle)
    • Falco - I had to genuinely deliberate on whether to keep Fox, Falco's cool but he has to go, I'm sorry
    • Wolf - See above
    • Jigglypuff - Don't pretend to act surprised that she's on the chopping block, she's absolutely cool but the writing's been on the wall since like Brawl
    • Pichu - Cool to bring back and a neat rep of "baby Pokemon" I guess but I don't really think they're justified when Pokemon specifically has so many other characters to pull from.
    • Squirtle - I think including Pokemon Trainer outright would be too development-intensive. That said, I think it'd be neat for "normal" Pokemon to have trainers running around in the background. Maybe the trainer in question would be based on their games of origin, so Pikachu gets the Let's Go trainers, Charizard gets Red or Leaf, and Greninja gets Calem or Serena (while Mewtwo doesn't get a trainer because they're so sigma.)
    • Ivysaur - See above.
    • Lucario - So like I get the argument for keeping Lucario given his popularity and movie and whatever but at the same time I feel like the "prominent pokemon here for having a movie" role is perfectly suited to Mewtwo and by this logic we should have the Unown as their own dedicated roster spot. If I had a bit more space he'd stick around though
    • Incineroar - Cool character concept but kind of just got cut due to the whole process of elimination thing going on. rip
    • Lucas - Absolutely a cool pick and I think his similarities and differences to Ness are really unique but let's not pretend that Mother 3 will ever get localised worldwide (jokes aside I think M3 content otherwise would still be a cool call)
    • Ice Climbers - A difficult retro cut, but I think there's probably better ways to go. It probably says a lot that I almost feel worse about cutting them due to their Smash gimmick than I do about cutting them because of their role as Ice Climber representatives.
    • Roy - Roy's cool, but his characterisation in Smash is nothing like in his source material, and I think Ike's both a better "heavy" character of the returning FE picks while also being a fan-favourite.
    • Chrom - Chrom's cool too, but I don't think he's really warranted when we already have Robin.
    • Corrin - I think their moveset is cool, but I've never played Fates and apparently everyone hates it.
    • Dark Pit - I know people **** on this character all the time but I think he's another victim of the whole "no major reworks" rule I'm putting in place. Sorry.
    • Palutena - She's cool, and I do love "mage-type" characters, but she's difficult to justify in a limited roster.
    • Snake - When considering how limited space is, I think Snake - while a cool pick - is kind of difficult to justify in some ways. That's not even getting into the difficulties in including him anyway.
    • R.O.B. - This hurt. Like I mentioned in the Duck Hunt section, it kind of came down between him or them as representatives for a prominent Nintendo peripheral that led to success, but Duck Hunt got in because of the whole bowling alley thing they had going on ten years earlier. I'd probably include R.O.B. as an Assist Trophy.
    • Mega Man - He kinda hurt to cut honestly but I think the difficulty here is that in a limited roster his role is kind of... redundant? Capcom already has Ryu as a more prominent representative and Sonic kind of already fills the role of "platforming character with Nintendo history". I would absolutely keep other stuff from the series though.
    • Little Mac - Little Mac is totally a cool pick that I'd love to keep around, but he wound up being in the awkward situation where I needed to make space for other picks here and there. (It's also worth questioning whether Nintendo would feel comfortable promoting older Punch-Out!! stuff nowadays, given a lot of the characters in that series are quite stereotypical in design.)
    • Mii Fighters - Probably an unpopular call but I think they're too development-intensive, and while I did actually have the Mii Brawler as a solo pick for a while (because the money from Mii costumes is probably a factor) it occurred to me that the money from Mii costumes probably isn't that much when you could just as easily sell cosmetics for the rest of the cast and make way more.
    • Cloud - So like, Final Fantasy is a massive deal, but I feel like this would probably be an unlikely pick to be able to bring back given how big a deal it is that the FFVII remake is PS-exclusive? Plus, I don't really think Cloud is a great representative of JRPGs as a whole when compared to Hero. This one kind of hurts in a way because I do like his inclusion, but yeah, I think it's kind of justified.
    • Sephiroth - As funny as it would be to include Sephiroth and cut Cloud, it's not happening. Sorry.
    • Bayonetta - This is actually a choice I had to deliberate on for a while, but ultimately, her still technically being a third-party developed character (despite being published by Nintendo) was what pushed it over the edge. Five third-party picks feels like more than enough in a roster of 50 veterans.
    • Simon - Similar issue of redundancy to Mega Man, honestly. He's a cool pick, and it's kind of a shame to cut him, but given the Castlevania series isn't really active nowadays beyond pachinko stuff, he makes sense to cut in my mind. (I'd still keep the Dracula's Castle stage, though. That's cool.)
    • Richter - I considered keeping him, but when I decided to cut Simon, it felt pretty necessary to cut Richter. Sorry bro, you're a real one.
    • Joker - This was actually one of the picks I struggled with the most, because despite being the character who caught us all by surprise back in 2018, he actually feels pretty warranted now; what with Persona generally being a much bigger deal, a multi-platform series, and with Atlus' Nintendo history in consideration as well. Ultimately, it came down to whether I wanted to double-dip with JRPGs with Hero, and I felt it'd be a bit redundant with that in mind.
    • Banjo & Kazooie - For as popular a pick as these two were, it - firstly - felt a little odd to me to suggest including two Microsoft characters, and - secondly - occurred to me that a lot of people don't really play them now they're in the roster? I feel like keeping B&K content (or even Rare content as a whole) would be a good call, though.
    • Terry - Pipped to the post by Ryu. If I had a bit more space to work with I'd probably include him because of his role in inspiring the series but also because SNK is pretty fun to represent. That said, I'd probably keep a lot of other content where possible; it'd be fun to have a Geese assist trophy or a Rugal boss.
    • Min Min - Another difficult choice, if only because she's a cool representative for one of the more recent Nintendo franchises to come about, but she kind of got pipped to the post by some other picks.
    • Kazuya - I think Ryu's better-suited to representing fighting games, while Pac-Man's better-suited to representing Namco. Kazuya's also got the issue in that he's quite developer-intensive given how sprawling his movelist is... and I also think that movelist is kind of antithetical to the simple, "pick-up-and-play" nature of the Smash series' design philosophy. (Steve gets away with it because it's ****ing Steve.)
    • Sora - Similar issue to Cloud in that while Sora's totally a popular pick, I feel oversaturating the third-party roster with Square-Enix would be a bad move. (There's also Disney licensing to consider, which could run the risk of making things even more difficult.)
    This one's going to be presented in a slightly more sensible way where I'll do it character-by-character. Again, as mentioned earlier, the 18/10/21 rule applies here.
    • Sidon (The Legend of Zelda) - An additional character for the series with a bit more recency, working as a Switch-era representative, and with multiple appearances in both mainline games and spin-offs? I'd say Sidon's kind of a sleeper pick with that in mind. He'd be a trident-user with some water-based attacks, but I'd keep inspiration from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity sparse.
    • E.M.M.I (Metroid) - Ridley's an older "villain pick" from the series, so E.M.M.I works well as a more recent pick overall. This being over Raven Beak might make people raise an eyebrow, but E.M.M.I was a massive part of Dread's marketing - and I don't think it'd be logical or realistic to include a character like Sylux in "preparation" for Metroid Prime 4.
    • Bandanna Waddle Dee (Kirby) - Yeah, this is a fairly logical pick to round out the Kirby series a bit. Dees are pretty common enemies in the series too, so you could think of this as a sort of spiritual successor to Piranha Plant in some ways. And hey, who doesn't like a spear user?
    • Toxtricity (Pokemon) - I don't think a Gen IX pick is realistic at this time period, so going with a Gen VIII pick felt logical... and this might be mostly personal bias, but I think Toxtricity would be a good pick for typing alone (Electric / Poison) not to mention their punk-rock themes. Toss in the Amped / Low Key forms as some sort of stance change and you're golden.
    • Hisuian Decidueye (Pokemon) - Legends: Arceus was a pretty big deal, as was Gen VII, and I think this character does a good job of having its own kind of identity while also representing a prominent feature of the series; regional evolutions. Plus, a Grass type is always fun to include too.
    • Anna (Fire Emblem) - I'd not have her as a true shopkeeper (the next character fills that role well), but I do like the idea of her being able to use a variety of weapons and items from throughout the series that she can pull out of her bag. She'd also get a redesign specific to Smash based on her appearances from throughout the series, rather than being based on a specific incarnation of herself.
    • Tom Nook (Animal Crossing) - Another pick from the massively popular Animal Crossing series feels obvious to me, and Nook having some kind of shop-centric concept or gimmick behind him feels like a decent choice in my mind. I don't really have many notes on this aside from that the "two flickies" thing would be pretty funny with his apprentices having to attack for him every so often.
    • Noah & Mio (Xenoblade Chronicles) - This feels kind of obvious to me, but the specifics of how they'd function as a pair are a little less obvious. I'd ideally like them to be different from something like the Aegis, though. Maybe it'd be fun to have both characters on the screen, but your special moves are performed by the character you're not controlling, who'd be waiting in the wings, attack, and then become controlled by you?
    • Octoling (Splatoon) - Having the Octoling as an entirely new character might seem odd, but I think there's more than enough justification for them being a kind of Villager/Isabelle situation. They'd use different weapons from the Splatoon series, and would keep their more militaristic vibe. (Note that this is based almost entirely on Octo Expansion rather than Splatoon 3 due to the 18/10/21 rule.)
    • Takamaru (The Mysterious Murasame Castle) - Think of him as our new retro pick. And, considering he was in Super Mario Maker 2 of all things (not to mention his game getting a bit more prominent in Western markets), I don't think this would be entirely unprecedented. (It'd be fun to have his design based on that seen in Samurai Warriors 3 if we were including Koei stuff.)
    • Lip (Panel de Pon) - Another weirder "retro" pick, but similarly kind of justified by the appearance of (some of) her games in more recent playable forms in international markets. Coupled with her Stick being in this series since Melee, and she seems fine to me. That aside, a puzzle rep is fun to play around with, and I'm sure there's potential in playing around with her fairy magic alongside her puzzle game pedigree.
    • Rabbid Mario (Mario + Rabbids) - This seems like a weirdly obvious pick to me, in some ways. While Rayman's still a popular character in his own right, the Rabbids are something that Ubisoft's been trying to make a thing forever; and the Mario + Rabbids series actually performed really well on the Switch.
    • Bomberman (Bomberman) - I was never going to cut Konami completely out of the picture, and keeping around one of their more continually relevant series seems like a decent way to do it. I don't really have many notes here aside from the fact that if we were doing character cosmetics, the various Konami-themed Bombers would effortlessly make for a wealth of costumes that people would probably eat up.
    • Cadence (Crypt of the Necrodancer) - Okay, this might seem like an odd pick at first glance, but when considering the context behind it, I feel like it makes more sense. Nintendo's "Nindies" thing has morphed into entire Indie Directs and a big focus on promoting those games on their eShop - and a big part of this was with Cadence of Hyrule, marking a pretty prominent collaboration between Nintendo and Brace Yourself. Plus, Cadence herself is a representative of the Rogue-like, dungeon-crawler, and rhythm genres. Chat, am I cooking?
    • Reimu Hakurei (Touhou Project) - This feels almost obvious to me, in a lot of ways. Even beyond representing a new genre (vertical shooter / danmaku) or her prominence in social media circles the world over, Touhou is just... massive. Unreasonably massive. To the point where I would genuinely go as far as to say she could have the potential of being a Steve/Sora-level inclusion. (At least in Japan.)

    • Funky Kong (Donkey Kong) - He's a decently popular character, has decent history, some prominence in other crossovers, and has been playable in the Donkey Kong series with a NEW FUNKY MODE. He'd be neat.
    • Lyn (Marth) - Perhaps an odd pick, given Lucina already fills the role, but I think Lyn's in a good spot in terms of representing the GBA games (which I think is decently important) but also working as a faster and more agile character overall. She'd have a couple of changes here and there; maybe a bow for her neutral special and a slightly reworked counter that she can control the direction of, like Lucario's.
    • Louie (Olimar) - A more obvious pick in my mind. He's a reoccuring character in the series, but his association with bugs could maybe give him some more unique specials overall. I also came across this neat idea that all of his Pikmin should be Bulbmin, which would be pretty fresh in my mind.
    • Ken (Ryu) - So like, I wanted to include Akuma in this role as a secret fighter, but at the same time, the fact that Ken was specifically namedropped as the "original" Echo Fighter means he kind of needs to stick around. Side note that I didn't mention with Ryu; I think that the Street Fighter content should be expanded beyond just Street Fighter II. Even if the SF6 costumes aren't their default, there's plenty more music and stages they could include. (Then again, Kapukon Yu would go hard.)
    I might be lowballing overall, I wasn't really keeping count and my final lineup only comes up to about 60, but yeah.
    Perkilator
    There was a problem fetching the tweet
    Definitely either Iori or Nakoruru for me.
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