Characters as Costumes & Costumes in General

[Quillion]

...or adopt a more traditional costume/color system.

Considering so many Nintendo protagonists in the Switch era alone have earned dress-up capability to varying extents, I hope this is the case.

 

[Kirbeh]

Considering so many Nintendo protagonists in the Switch era alone have earned dress-up capability to varying extents, I hope this is the case.

They had the right idea with Wario in Brawl and Mac in Smash 4, with the alts getting their own full sets of colors. I don't know why they walked that back.

Even if it was to keep every character at 8 costumes, I'd still have to ask why?

Costume distribution still winds up lopsided because some characters actually get to have unique alts while others don't.

And even for those that do, it's done oddly as well. Mario gets three unique costumes but the two alts only get 1 color. Characters like Wario get an even split between his outfits. Joker gets two looks which could work as an even 4/4; split but they went with a 6/2 instead for whatever reason.

Even in cases like Bowser Jr and the Koopalings, if they kept the same system and just upped the costume count to 16 like Smash 4 Little Mac, you could just give each Koopa one alt color at the very least.

Plus, even if not every character is going to get an alt costume, people would still like the extra colors. You could even fill a lot of them out with colors that got replaced over the course of series. And it's like there's a shortage of other color combos to with. Plenty of other palettes to reference old art, power ups, other characters or even more original stuff that just looks nice.

 

[fogbadge]

They had the right idea with Wario in Brawl and Mac in Smash 4, with the alts getting their own full sets of colors. I don't know why they walked that back.

at a guess i'd say the more limited development period ultimate had

 

[Oracle Link]

Speaking of personalitys!
What about dark link? Dark meta knight and stuff!
You know evil versions of heroes i mean Dark pit is much nicer (and similar looking) than those two yet hes a diffrent character!
Granted the dark Link costumes probably exist cause that way you get two dark links Smol and big!
But Still ive seen people say we should just put all 4 main kirby knights over meta although only dark works somewhat!

Galacta has a lance and morpho has a giant sword!


On a diffrent note cxhampion link really should just HAVE All classic links as alts i mean he literally wears their outfits:
Champion

Classics:

<Only if you dont give toon link this look
Others:

These are just a couple of his wardrobe I would personally say the all the Champions, Classics and Dark and fierce deity would suffice!

 

[Quillion]

Speaking of personalitys!
What about dark link? Dark meta knight and stuff!
You know evil versions of heroes i mean Dark pit is much nicer (and similar looking) than those two yet hes a diffrent character!

Giving the Dark Link costumes different idles, taunts, and probably entrance anims doesn't sound bad tbh.

The three other Kirby knights, not so much.

 

[Perkilator]

I know it's unlikely that SEGA would allow it, but Dr. Eggman is another potential newcomer who has a surprising amount of potential for alts.

1. Modern Eggman
   • Default
   • Sonic Riders
   • King Shahryar
   • Mr. Tinker
2. Classic Eggman
   • Default
   • Pajama concept art
   • “Bee” concept art
   • Eggrobo

 

[KneeOfJustice99]

Tangentially related take, but if the Smash series were to go on, one thing I'd like to see is a more modern format for character customisation when it comes to costumes, alts, and so forth. Here's an (edited) mockup I threw together a while back;

Essentially...

• You select a "costume" and a "colour" seperately.
• Each "costume" can have minor unique elements as needed beyond just a different model - things like voicelines, appearances of attacks, and victory animations could change too. This wouldn't change gameplay elements, though - that's reserved for echo fighters.
• Obviously some of these costumes would be entirely different characters, some would be alternate costumes... and some could literally just be made up for the sake of looking cool, or references to entirely other things.
• Each "costume" also has 12 default alts designed by the dev team with different references in mind - or just to look cool. In this example, Mario's "Modern" costume has a Fire Mario alt.
• Additionally, they'd have four more custom alts you could put together with a colour wheel. For each character, it wouldn't go much deeper than just being able to select a "colour" prominent on them and change it - so for Mario, you could change the blue of his overalls, the red of his shirt and hat, and maybe his skintone. (This works as a form of customisation that wouldn't need moderation, so you don't need to worry about Mario calling you a slur every time he does a forward smash or something.)

Giving the Dark Link costumes different idles, taunts, and probably entrance anims doesn't sound bad tbh.

This would go really hard, honestly. One additional thing I'd recommend - y'know how when characters walk or run in Mementos, there's that effect around their feet? I think it'd be cool for Dark Link to have a unique thing where when running or walking, he has a splashing water effect around his feet - as in, calling back to his boss fight in Ocarina of Time. I can't imagine it'd cause too many headaches balance-wise, right?

 

[Oracle Link]

Tangentially related take, but if the Smash series were to go on, one thing I'd like to see is a more modern format for character customisation when it comes to costumes, alts, and so forth. Here's an (edited) mockup I threw together a while back;

Essentially...

• You select a "costume" and a "colour" seperately.
• Each "costume" can have minor unique elements as needed beyond just a different model - things like voicelines, appearances of attacks, and victory animations could change too. This wouldn't change gameplay elements, though - that's reserved for echo fighters.
• Obviously some of these costumes would be entirely different characters, some would be alternate costumes... and some could literally just be made up for the sake of looking cool, or references to entirely other things.
• Each "costume" also has 12 default alts designed by the dev team with different references in mind - or just to look cool. In this example, Mario's "Modern" costume has a Fire Mario alt.
• Additionally, they'd have four more custom alts you could put together with a colour wheel. For each character, it wouldn't go much deeper than just being able to select a "colour" prominent on them and change it - so for Mario, you could change the blue of his overalls, the red of his shirt and hat, and maybe his skintone. (This works as a form of customisation that wouldn't need moderation, so you don't need to worry about Mario calling you a slur every time he does a forward smash or something.)

This would go really hard, honestly. One additional thing I'd recommend - y'know how when characters walk or run in Mementos, there's that effect around their feet? I think it'd be cool for Dark Link to have a unique thing where when running or walking, he has a splashing water effect around his feet - as in, calling back to his boss fight in Ocarina of Time. I can't imagine it'd cause too many headaches balance-wise, right?

Yes More costumes would be great although 12 colours might be too much i think 10 or 8 colors are better!

 

[fogbadge]

I know it's unlikely that SEGA would allow it, but Dr. Eggman is another potential newcomer who has a surprising amount of potential for alts.

1. Modern Eggman
   • Default
   • Sonic Riders
   • King Shahryar
   • Mr. Tinker
2. Classic Eggman
   • Default
   • Pajama concept art
   • “Bee” concept art
   • Eggrobo

no eggman nega?

 

[Oracle Link]

Spoiler: Toon link alt pictures

Here are the ALts:
Hero of Winds Default:
1. Default
2. Red
3. Blue
4. Purple
5. Zelda 1
6. Dark Link

Outset island link:
7. Outset island link

Conductor Link:
8. Conductor link

"toy" Link:
9. Default
10. Shadow Link

 

[Kirbeh]

So, I've been thinking about what kind of costumes to give for Pokémon since they generally don't wear clothes. Actual costumes do exist already, with even Smash doing this through hats and accessories for Pikachu, Jigglypuff and Pichu. Full on alternate costumes though remain a bit more limited.

An idea I've been thinking about is adding trainers to the solo Pokémon as their "costume." The Pokémon themselves still need something else on their bodies to differentiate them from each other but I think it'd a neat way to rep more of the human characters by adding them as background trainers for certain Pokémon.

So as an example:

Solo

Chase

Elaine

Poké Kid

Red

Solo

Maylene

Riley

Korrina

Cynthia

Solo

Elio

Selene

Masked Royal

Prof. Kukui

Then the trainers themselves could also have palette swaps to match the Pokémon or even different outfits themselves in certain cases, like using some of what was introduced in Masters EX, etc.

 

[fogbadge]

So, I've been thinking about what kind of costumes to give for Pokémon since they generally don't wear clothes. Actual costumes do exist already, with even Smash doing this through hats and accessories for Pikachu, Jigglypuff and Pichu. Full on alternate costumes though remain a bit more limited.

An idea I've been thinking about is adding trainers to the solo Pokémon as their "costume." The Pokémon themselves still need something else on their bodies to differentiate them from each other but I think it'd a neat way to rep more of the human characters by adding them as background trainers for certain Pokémon.

So as an example:

Solo

Chase

Elaine

Poké Kid

Red

Solo

Maylene

Riley

Korrina

Cynthia

Solo

Elio

Selene

Masked Royal

Prof. Kukui

Then the trainers themselves could also have palette swaps to match the Pokémon or even different outfits themselves in certain cases, like using some of what was introduced in Masters EX, etc.

nope you’ve put in kukui, terrible idea

 

[Kirbeh]

nope you’ve put in kukui, terrible idea

What's wrong with Kukui exactly? Is it an anime thing? (Haven't watched the Pokémon anime past Gen 4.) Otherwise, Incineroar doesn't have as many options, hence why I technically used Kukui twice.

 

[fogbadge]

What's wrong with Kukui exactly? Is it an anime thing? (Haven't watched the Pokémon anime past Gen 4.) Otherwise, Incineroar doesn't have as many options, hence why I technically used Kukui twice.

I spent all of gen 7 listening to him talk about how great he was and then found he only made a league just so he call himself champion

 

[KneeOfJustice99]

So, I've been thinking about what kind of costumes to give for Pokémon since they generally don't wear clothes. Actual costumes do exist already, with even Smash doing this through hats and accessories for Pikachu, Jigglypuff and Pichu. Full on alternate costumes though remain a bit more limited.

An idea I've been thinking about is adding trainers to the solo Pokémon as their "costume." The Pokémon themselves still need something else on their bodies to differentiate them from each other but I think it'd a neat way to rep more of the human characters by adding them as background trainers for certain Pokémon.

So as an example:

Solo

Chase

Elaine

Poké Kid

Red

Solo

Maylene

Riley

Korrina

Cynthia

Solo

Elio

Selene

Masked Royal

Prof. Kukui

Then the trainers themselves could also have palette swaps to match the Pokémon or even different outfits themselves in certain cases, like using some of what was introduced in Masters EX, etc.

To be honest, I've always quite liked the idea of Pokémon having trainers in the background by default (aside from instances where that wouldn't make sense, like Mewtwo) and this honestly seems like a cool way of handling it

 

[Kirbeh]

I spent all of gen 7 listening to him talk about how great he was and then found he only made a league just so he call himself champion

I didn't think he was a very interesting character myself, but that seems like kind of an uncharitable recollection/misinterpretation of events. I only play Pokémon games once, so perhaps I'm misremembering, but he was more of a goofball who just really wanted Alola to have its own league after taking on the one in Kanto no? Given the fact that's he's the one spearheading the project, has actual league experience, and is genuinely one of, if not, the strongest trainer in the region, him being its first/default champion just makes sense, doesn't it?

 

[fogbadge]

I didn't think he was a very interesting character myself, but that seems like kind of an uncharitable recollection/misinterpretation of events. I only play Pokémon games once, so perhaps I'm misremembering, but he was more of a goofball who just really wanted Alola to have its own league after taking on the one in Kanto no? Given the fact that's he's the one spearheading the project, has actual league experience, and is genuinely one of, if not, the strongest trainer in the region, him being its first/default champion just makes sense, doesn't it?

maybe, but the bit where he confronts guzma made he seem rather condescending. plus the way everyone acts as though you do love the guy didn’t help

 

[Kirbeh]

maybe, but the bit where he confronts guzma made he seem rather condescending. plus the way everyone acts as though you do love the guy didn’t help

The other characters don't act as though you, the player, like the guy though. They like him, because he's a well-known and respected member of the community, he's the region's professor after all.

I also don't read the confrontation between the two to paint Kukui all that poorly either. Guzma entered the encounter already being the cocky and condescending one. The whole point of that scene was that he and Team Skull are you know, the bad guys; disliked by the general public. This is also reflected in the two being sort of parallels in some ways, hence why they have the two meet in the first place.

Kukui did take a jab, but it was less about putting Guzma down and more about trying to convince him that he's on the wrong path. He even follows it up with the usual spirit of adventure and friendship with your Pokémon spiel.

That's neither here nor there though.

Back to the actual thread topic, now that you brought up Guzma, I'd personally like to see his sunglasses be given to a Pokémon as a costume/accessory. Any other characters in mind who you want them to pull from for that sort of thing?

 

[fogbadge]

The other characters don't act as though you, the player, like the guy though. They like him, because he's a well-known and respected member of the community, he's the region's professor after all.

I also don't read the confrontation between the two to paint Kukui all that poorly either. Guzma entered the encounter already being the cocky and condescending one. The whole point of that scene was that he and Team Skull are you know, the bad guys; disliked by the general public. This is also reflected in the two being sort of parallels in some ways, hence why they have the two meet in the first place.

Kukui did take a jab, but it was less about putting Guzma down and more about trying to convince him that he's on the wrong path. He even follows it up with the usual spirit of adventure and friendship with your Pokémon spiel.

That's neither here nor there though.

Back to the actual thread topic, now that you brought up Guzma, I'd personally like to see his sunglasses be given to a Pokémon as a costume/accessory. Any other characters in mind who you want them to pull from for that sort of thing?

i meant it was like the game was trying to tell you to like him. as for them being opposites it might have worked better if they had both had actually failed at becoming a trail captain as guzma thought. instead it was he chose not to cause he could do what ever he wanted cause he's so great.

as for a pokemon wearing guzma's glasses i feel like i've seen that somewhere. i think maybe in pokemon go they had a a special pikachu, probably, wearing them. so there is precedent for it

 

[Perkilator]

Tangentially related take, but if the Smash series were to go on, one thing I'd like to see is a more modern format for character customisation when it comes to costumes, alts, and so forth. Here's an (edited) mockup I threw together a while back;

Essentially...

• You select a "costume" and a "colour" seperately.
• Each "costume" can have minor unique elements as needed beyond just a different model - things like voicelines, appearances of attacks, and victory animations could change too. This wouldn't change gameplay elements, though - that's reserved for echo fighters.
• Obviously some of these costumes would be entirely different characters, some would be alternate costumes... and some could literally just be made up for the sake of looking cool, or references to entirely other things.
• Each "costume" also has 12 default alts designed by the dev team with different references in mind - or just to look cool. In this example, Mario's "Modern" costume has a Fire Mario alt.
• Additionally, they'd have four more custom alts you could put together with a colour wheel. For each character, it wouldn't go much deeper than just being able to select a "colour" prominent on them and change it - so for Mario, you could change the blue of his overalls, the red of his shirt and hat, and maybe his skintone. (This works as a form of customisation that wouldn't need moderation, so you don't need to worry about Mario calling you a slur every time he does a forward smash or something.)

I honestly like this idea a lot! With that being said, let’s say each character had 4 costumes each, with each costume having a unique set of 12 colors. Which characters would benefit the most from a system like this?

 

[Kirbeh]

I honestly like this idea a lot! With that being said, let’s say each character had 4 costumes each, with each costume having a unique set of 12 colors. Which characters would benefit the most from a system like this?

I think the question is less who would benefit most and more who would struggle the most to fill those 4 sets. I think most of the characters currently in Smash could fill out 4 unique costumes quite easily, it's when you get to single/limited appearance characters or special cases like that you run into cases where they won't really have any options unless you start creating Smash original costumes.

 

[KneeOfJustice99]

I honestly like this idea a lot! With that being said, let’s say each character had 4 costumes each, with each costume having a unique set of 12 colors. Which characters would benefit the most from a system like this?

I reckon it depends how you handle them. Characters from games with actual costume systems (like Mario in Odyssey or Link in the Wild series) obviously have a ton of potential, but I'd also suggest characters with prominent redesigns like... well, the rest of the Zelda cast!

I think the question is less who would benefit most and more who would struggle the most to fill those 4 sets. I think most of the characters currently in Smash could fill out 4 unique costumes quite easily, it's when you get to single/limited appearance characters or special cases like that you run into cases where they won't really have any options unless you start creating Smash original costumes.

That said, this is a fair point. I don't think Smash-original costumes would necessarily be a bad thing, though - R.O.B., for instance, springs to mind as a character with a lot of cool fan-made costumes in projects like Project M - and you could probably do really cool stuff with characters like Wii Fit Trainer.

G&W specifically is gonna struggle though. Rip.

 

[Perkilator]

I think the question is less who would benefit most and more who would struggle the most to fill those 4 sets. I think most of the characters currently in Smash could fill out 4 unique costumes quite easily, it's when you get to single/limited appearance characters or special cases like that you run into cases where they won't really have any options unless you start creating Smash original costumes.

Fair. In that case, a neat compromise would be for characters to have a minimum of one costume and an upper limit of four costumes. Basically, some characters would have four costumes, some characters would have two or three costumes at most, and some characters would only have one costume (that being their default one).

 

[Kirbeh]

Fair. In that case, a neat compromise would be for characters to have a minimum of one costume and an upper limit of four costumes. Basically, some characters would have four costumes, some characters would have two or three costumes at most, and some characters would only have one costume (that being their default one).

I mean, ideally (for me at least,) there wouldn't necessarily be an upper limit. Obviously, they couldn't add every costume a character has ever had for cases like Link or Mario, but I would say 4 would be a good limit for base game with that limit being raised through DLC costumes. This would probably have to result in an uneven distribution, but it is what it is given certain characters simply lack sources to pull from.

I reckon it depends how you handle them. Characters from games with actual costume systems (like Mario in Odyssey or Link in the Wild series) obviously have a ton of potential, but I'd also suggest characters with prominent redesigns like... well, the rest of the Zelda cast!

That said, this is a fair point. I don't think Smash-original costumes would necessarily be a bad thing, though - R.O.B., for instance, springs to mind as a character with a lot of cool fan-made costumes in projects like Project M - and you could probably do really cool stuff with characters like Wii Fit Trainer.

G&W specifically is gonna struggle though. Rip.

I'd personally love to see some Smash original costume designs, though I understand that these are less likely and more dependent on approval from the original devs on a per character basis.

I do love PM's VB and Wii costumes for though I can't say I could see Nintendo proper doing something like that. He's a toy robot though, so I'm sure there are plenty of directions they could go with for costume options. Similar deal for , I think you could easily squeeze out a couple of costumes that reference other NES titles. Costumes based on the characters from Wild Gunman and Hogan's Alley would be a good start. Just give the dog a cowboy hat and scarf combo for WG and a police cap for HA.

is a pretty easy case too imo. It's not a huge change, but there is the Wii Fit Plus version of her costume that replaces the tank top with a sports bra. Otherwise, you could lean into the overall fitness angle and give her other sportswear/athletic wear as costumes. Stuff like a track and field uniform, tracksuit, swimsuit, maybe even a leotard and leggings like in old aerobics/workout videos.

gets a little tricky, but I think you could just give them different kinds of jackets and winter wear. In this case I could see the Smash team actually doing something similar to the PM bear costume for example.

is really the only one where I've genuinely no idea what they could do or if it'd even be worth actually doing anything. In the past they maybe could have actually done the Ms. Game & Watch idea that occasionally gets thrown around. Post Ultimate though, I don't think it'd be feasible given how much the character changes for so many of their animations. Game & Watch would probably have to settle as the one character with no alternate costumes. But honestly, I think that's okay, he looks so distinct already and costumes don't really mix well with his animation style.

 

[ninjahmos]

They should add Masked Dedede as a costume for King Dedede.

That, and I think they should also add in Masked Dedede's theme.

 

[Kirbeh]

They should add Masked Dedede as a costume for King Dedede.

That, and I think they should also add in Masked Dedede's theme.

Either that or make Masked Dedede a Shin Akuma style boss you can face under the right conditions in classic mode or elsewhere depending on what modes we get next time.

 

[SharkLord]

I think it depends on how feasible it is to make someone a costume, or even an Echo Fighter. Preferrably, they'd get to be an Echo with some occasional unique movements or even a unique move, but for a lot of Echoes the differences are so minute they're just glorified costumes.

I'd be fine with some characters being an Echo/costume, but if they have some unique stuff they could do as a standalone fighter I think I'd prefer that. That said I'd be open to fighters getting more unique costumes in general; Feels like a bit of wasted opportunity to not capitalize on that

 

[LukidukeBubz]

I think the question is less who would benefit most and more who would struggle the most to fill those 4 sets. I think most of the characters currently in Smash could fill out 4 unique costumes quite easily, it's when you get to single/limited appearance characters or special cases like that you run into cases where they won't really have any options unless you start creating Smash original costumes.

Easy: Use G&W different games.
Ik they use those for his moves but I’m sure there are some variants that could be doubled or haven’t been used yet.

Also, does this mean we can get rid of Young Link and Toon Link and have them be his costumes? The costumes could be similar to echos/extra links in a way.

This would essentially get rid of echo fighters while at the same time giving each fighter 4 echo fighters. It’s scary, imagine having to be able to fight against 4 variants of 80 characters, each with 8 colors. The options would be endless.

I love it. We need this for the Switch 2 SSB.

 

[Perkilator]

Quoting myself from the next Smash thread:

You guys know how with NASB, the characters were only allowed to have official alternate appearances as alternate costumes? Honestly, I think that might serve to the benefit of Noah and Mio, since Xenoblade 3 has plenty of alternate outfits for them. What other characters (be they newcomer or veteran) do you think would benefit from their alts consisting entirely of official alternate appearances?

 

[fogbadge]

It would be nice to have dragon kazooie

 

[Guynamednelson]

Also, does this mean we can get rid of Young Link and Toon Link and have them be his costumes?

Do you really want giant right-handed Young Link and giant right-handed realistically-proportioned Toon Link?

 

[Kirbeh]

Quoting myself from the next Smash thread:

I assume you're using "costume" the way Smash currently does and referring to both colors and the actual costume changes right?

I personally disagree with handling things this way as we'd lose a lot of Smash original color options. Even if they're not references or canon, it's nice to simply have some cool color combinations as options.

Plus, not every character is going to have enough options anyway.

For characters that do have that kind of variety then by all means. I do want more actual costumes to be included.

Preferably though, I'd like to have a mix of both canon and Smash originals, hence why my biggest gripe is the 8 slot limit that doesn't differentiate between palette swaps and proper costume changes.

This limit already cost us some fan favorite and outright iconic (and funnily enough, canon) colors like Fire Mario.

I know it's unlikely as costumes seem to be a much lower priority but I'm still hoping Smash eventually adopts a more standard system like Street Fighter (and most other fighting games.)

You get actual different costumes, each with their own full set of colors.

 

[Deleted member]

Ngl, I do wish they did do Dragon Quest amiibo of the alternate characters. It is kinda dissapointing that I got the three characters I voted for in the Smash Ballot back in the day (Roy, Sora and the DQ8 Hero) and I can't own an amiibo of one of them.

Besides that sad situation, I am cool with characters getting in at least as costumes. I was happy when MegaMan.Exe was playable in some shape, and I would be happy if Alex Kidd eventually got as lucky.