Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[Rie Sonomura]

But what if

he’s working on the next smash already

 

[ahemtoday]

With Faust as half of his alts.

Man, Hero's really gotten people thinking alts can be of anyone these days, even completely unrelated characters. Smh

 

[Technomage]

But what if

he’s working on the next smash already

Hmmmmm, part of me doesn't really like that idea very much; not only could it lead to a letdown of an ending, but it also reminds me of how Smash 4 got abandoned due to focusing too much on Ultimate's development, which lead to a VERY unbalanced meta (though I acknowledge that he likely won't repeat that mistake, I'm still worried about the chance he'd repeat it again).

 

[Megadoomer]

Again, let’s keep things civil. Attacking others doesn’t make productive conversation.

On the topic of a “Sakurai pick”, I’m not really sure who could fit. Probably someone who influenced him in some way.

That's an interesting topic - I'm not really sure what games have influenced him. I know that he wanted to make an accessible fighting game after feeling bad about badly beating a beginner at King of Fighters 95, but we've already got Terry in Smash.

...unless...

Ryo Sakazaki in Smash, baby! Let's go!

(I'd probably prefer Rugal or Geese, but "accessible for beginners" isn't what comes to mind when I think of Geese, between his various counters that depend on the height of the attack and the input that's referred to as "the Pretzel", and Rugal could only be considered accessible for beginners because he's so freaking cheap)

 

[Technomage]

Man, Hero's really gotten people thinking alts can be of anyone these days, even completely unrelated characters. Smh

I see your point, but Faust and Baldhead are obviously the same person (it's even a deliberately poorly-kept secret).

 

[Guynamednelson]

not only could it lead to a letdown of an ending

That was inevitable anyway. For people expecting a continuation of Steviroth, at least.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

There's 0 evidence as far as I know of Kat being a "Sakurai pick". We don't even know if he has played Gravity Rush.

At least we know he owns Bloodborne thanks to some pictures he shared a long time ago, but that's it.

Hmmm? I swore he had played and praised Gravity Rush to my knowledge. Maybe I heard wrong.

 

[PacificFun]

He's played Gravity Rush and loved it apparently, but like...he loves a lot of games.

I don't see Nintendo and Sakurai breaking into the fortress that is Sony and coming out with a character that represents Playstation's dead horse.

 

[Pillow]

That's an interesting topic - I'm not really sure what games have influenced him. I know that he wanted to make an accessible fighting game after feeling bad about badly beating a beginner at King of Fighters 95, but we've already got Terry in Smash.

...unless...

Ryo Sakazaki in Smash, baby! Let's go!

(I'd probably prefer Rugal or Geese, but "accessible for beginners" isn't what comes to mind when I think of Geese, between his various counters that depend on the height of the attack and the input that's referred to as "the Pretzel", and Rugal could only be considered accessible for beginners because he's so freaking cheap)

Honestly if we get a 2nd SNK character that isn’t Fio or Nakoruru I’ll probably lose it and forehead flick my cat

 

[Guynamednelson]

that isn’t Fio

Bold of you to assume she wouldn't be Marco's alt and not the main character.

 

[PeridotGX]

I feel tempted to post the SNL skit, but instead, I'll say Garchomp confirmed for Smash.

That thing looks like it is incapable of walking and would fall, but I can't tell in which direction. That's impressive.

 

[Megadoomer]

There's 0 evidence as far as I know of Kat being a "Sakurai pick". We don't even know if he has played Gravity Rush.

At least we know he owns Bloodborne thanks to some pictures he shared a long time ago, but that's it.

Sakurai Live Stream Recap

An overview of what was discussed in Sakurai’s live stream!

sourcegaming.info

It's mentioned here that he played it in 2016, though Sakurai plays a LOT of games. (the article alone also mentions Odin Sphere, Yakuza, Just Cause 3, Fallout 4, and Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours, among others)

 

[Speed Weed]

If we get a SHMUP rep that’s also a Sakurai pick, it’d probably be someone from the 80s instead of Reimu

Sakurai has previously been shown to own an Opa-Opa figure

oh yeah. its all coming together

 

[Pillow]

Bold of you to assume she wouldn't be Marco's alt and not the main character.

That’s also acceptable

 

[ahemtoday]

I see your point, but Faust and Baldhead are obviously the same person (it's even a deliberately poorly-kept secret).

What are you talking about? Faust has a bag on his head. Dr. Baldhead has glasses on his head. They're completely different people.

 

[Ivander]

-Maybe Gordon Freeman?
-Possibly a Phantasy Star character?

I'm thinking those two cause didn't someone mention that Sakurai supposedly commented on Half-Life and how Nintendo-like it was and Sakurai does have history with Phantasy Star with him winning that contest regarding Phantasy Star II. And both Half-Life and Phantasy Star have been getting attention lately, with Half-Life Alyx releasing and Phantasy Star Online 2 coming to the West and New Genesis coming out for both Japan and the West.

I remembered three other characters who I feel are slept on as well.
-One is Saber from the Fate series.
-The other two are Bill Rizer and Lance Bean(as Bill's Alt) from Contra.

Oh, and Phantasy Star can work for a Dharkon-related trailer since Phantasy Star has Dark Falz/The Profound Darkness/The Primordial Darkness.

 

[Sephirothorsomethingidk]

Does sakurai like Tales?

 

[GilTheGreat19]

Near-Final Predictions:

These Last Two FP Characters will both be 3rd party, one eastern, one western.

MAY change.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Near-Final Predictions:

These Last Two FP Characters will both be 3rd party, one eastern, one western.

MAY change.

This aligns perfectly with my Reimu & LoL final two prediction

 

[GilTheGreat19]

This aligns perfectly with my Reimu & LoL final two prediction

Nice! Though I'm curious, why do some people think Reimu is super likely? Not saying she isn't.

 

[volbound1700]

Just a thought, but the New Zealand leak might be a page regarding Sakurai's retirement or ending Famitsu Column.

 

[PeridotGX]

I feel like arguing based on if Sakurai likes a game is pretty pointless. He likes a lot of games, and he hasn't even mentioned all the ones he does like.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Just a thought, but the New Zealand leak might be a page regarding Sakurai's retirement or ending Famitsu Column.

Why would a site leak for literally DLC involve that?

 

[volbound1700]

Why would a site leak for literally DLC involve that?

The leak was simple based on an extra "Page" of Announcements for Smash. That might be the announcement. We are still not sure it is a character, it is just a page missing in the file. It could also literally be nothing.

 

[Yoshi-Thomas]

Once again, this effectively means that the Character Pack 11, if revealed alone, will be the most hated thing in the community for a good while no matter who it is.

 

[GoodGrief741]

Viola from TimeSplitters 2? Good choice!

View attachment 316558

Born to a reclusive aristocratic countessa, her troubadour outfit is merely a guise to seek out evil and kill it with her trusty Shotgun. One example is her fight through Notre Dame in 1895. Learning about the missing maidens and reanimated corpses, she works her way through the Notre Dame Sewers to the rooftops all while fighting reanimated rotting diseased corpses, Undead followers who gave up their humanity for immortality and a giant Portal Daemon that towers the inside of the cathedral before she confronts the mad psychopathic serial killer who is behind the madness, Jacque De La Morte.

Dude that level gave me nightmares as a kid holy ****

Bold of you to assume she wouldn't be Marco's alt and not the main character.

It doesn't matter who you make the main alt, you put Fio in a game, she becomes the main character. That's just a law.

 

[Guynamednelson]

This aligns perfectly with my Reimu & LoL final two prediction

Don't you like my comments when I say things like "people are sleeping on the final character continuing to be low key"? Because League of Legends is too big to be a low key finale regardless of it not being considered by many.

 

[SharkLord]

Nice! Though I'm curious, why do some people think Reimu is super likely? Not saying she isn't.

The main things are A: Being mindblowingly huge in Japan, B: Having lots of internet notoriety thanks to the fanworks, and C: Being one of the biggest and oldest indie games available. The last point is kinda interesting, because compared to other indies like Shovel Knight and Cave Story, Touhou's big because of the fanworks surrounding the games and not the legacy of the games themselves.

Thing is, the official games are only semi-localized - You can get them on Steam, but you'll need to to patch in a translation yourself. Of course, if we're judging Touhou by the games alone and not the fanworks, it's presence in the speculation scene dries up pretty quickly. On the other hand, no other series in Smash is run by fanworks as much as Touhou, so when we do take those into account things get real muddy really quickly.

 

[SNEKeater]

He's played Gravity Rush and loved it apparently, but like...he loves a lot of games.

I don't see Nintendo and Sakurai breaking into the fortress that is Sony and coming out with a character that represents Playstation's dead horse.

Sakurai Live Stream Recap

An overview of what was discussed in Sakurai’s live stream!

sourcegaming.info

It's mentioned here that he played it in 2016, though Sakurai plays a LOT of games. (the article alone also mentions Odin Sphere, Yakuza, Just Cause 3, Fallout 4, and Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours, among others)

Thanks for the clarification. My bad then Michael the Spikester

Though it's true that Sakurai plays and likes a lot of games. But we don't know if he would rather have Kat instead of other Sony characters. Still, even if that was the case, he doesn't decide who gets in, or at least, his opinion isn't the only one here. I absolutely don't see Nintendo going out of their way to talk with Sony to get... Kat. She doesn't have something like Banjo that could help her, even if she's a small character.

As I previously said, when people think of Playstation first party games, people think of Uncharted, Gran Turismo, God of War, The Last of Us or Ratchet and Clank. Not Gravity Rush. Probably not even when it comes to cult series, where I'd say Wipeout, ICO, The Last Guardian or Shadow of the Colossus are more recognized and popular.

So IDK. I don't see why Sakurai would choose her, even if he likes her. Considering the representation of 3rd party companies so far. it does not look good for her as well. He would probably consider the best way to rep Playstation would be an established and popular character like Nathan Drake or Ratchet, to name 2 examples, and if for some reason he was inclined to rep the niche/cult side of Playstation, Wander from SotC is probably the best option.

I'd really like to be in a scenario of Kat being a serious candidate if we could get a Sony rep. But that's not really the case, unfortunately. She would be dope, but to me she's basically a dream pick.

 

[GilTheGreat19]

Y'all, they could change things up a bit and have CP11 be someone big. Maybe they learned something from how some fans perceived Byleth's reveal.

 

[2006ToyotaTacoma]

Y'all, they could change things up a bit and have CP11 be someone big. Maybe they learned something from how some fans perceived Byleth's reveal.

I really hope it's the Chief so we can get the oh-so fitting tagline: "Master Chief Finishes the Fight!"

 

[SharkLord]

Y'all, they could change things up a bit and have CP11 be someone big. Maybe they learned something from how some fans perceived Byleth's reveal.

Something worth noting is that the theory is that the low-key characters are at the end. Assuming we get a double reveal, both CP10 and CP11 are at "the end," so hypothetically speaking it could go either way.

There's also the opposing pattern if E3 having big reveals, which turns the whole thing into uncharted territory as the last time we got this sort of situation was all the way back in 2014, which was a much different time.

 

[Schnee117]

Y'all, they could change things up a bit and have CP11 be someone big. Maybe they learned something from how some fans perceived Byleth's reveal.

They would have finalised the choices before they saw Byleth's reception but yeah, it doesn't have to be a character that people downplay so hard that they start sounding unappealing.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Y'all, they could change things up a bit and have CP11 be someone big. Maybe they learned something from how some fans perceived Byleth's reveal.

Again, they cannot learn from how fans disliked Byleth. Not only were character plans finalized before Byleth was revealed, but they still added clones after Melee clone tantrums, WTF characters after ROB tantrums, and Byleth after Corrin tantrums.

 

[Technomage]

Once again, this effectively means that the Character Pack 11, if revealed alone, will be the most hated thing in the community for a good while no matter who it is.

Even more than Byleth and Corrin?

 

[Yoshi-Thomas]

Y'all, they could change things up a bit and have CP11 be someone big. Maybe they learned something from how some fans perceived Byleth's reveal.

No matter how big the character is, it won't help, I really don't think so.

Byleth was not as poorly received as Corrin and Bayonetta because we knew there would be more characters coming. So Byleth was never going to be the end of the DLCs.

CP11 is the end. Once it's revealed, all other characters are back in line for the next game. There is actually no character that would satisfy everyone.

The best strategy in my opinion would be to do what they always did previously: don't leave the last character being revealed or found alone. In Brawl, ROB, Lucario, Toon Link and Wolf were the final characters not revealed. By themselves, they would have been hated, however discovered together it ended up softening the blow (slightly).

In Smash 4, Dark Pit, Duck Hunt and Bowser Jr. wouldn't have been extremely well received, but we (should have) got them together. They were leaked, but at least the hatred was... Shared, to an extent.

Corrin, with Bayonetta, remains the most hated character of all times. However with Bayonetta there was some sort of compensation. At least it was not Corrin by himself.

In Ultimate, Incineroar was not sent to the front alone. Ken was also there, as well as Piranha Plant and the promise of five more characters. The reactions would have been more violent -especially after the Grinch fiasco- if there was no DLC planned at all.

For the final characters, there are not a thousand possibilities. Either you reveal them separately, and the last fighter will be hated no matter what.
Or you reveal both of them, and sure, you'll have a lot of backlash for ending the pass, at least you'll have make a good surprise by revealing two fighters at once at a major event, and trying to satisfy most people in one go.

Since revealing two characters at E3 would be the most logical thing, I am now fully expecting only one character during this event, LOL

 

[GilTheGreat19]

Again, they cannot learn from how fans disliked Byleth. Not only were character plans finalized before Byleth was revealed, but they still added clones after Melee clone tantrums, WTF characters after ROB tantrums, and Byleth after Corrin tantrums.

Fair.

Something worth noting is that the theory is that the low-key characters are at the end. Assuming we get a double reveal, both CP10 and CP11 are at "the end," so hypothetically speaking it could go either way.

That's the exact theory I based my post on. Either that theory remains strong or E3 crushes it to oblivion. We'll see.

 

[Technomage]

The last point is kinda interesting, because compared to other indies like Shovel Knight and Cave Story, Touhou's big because of the fanworks surrounding the games and not the legacy of the games themselves.

That has lead me to an idea of a double reveal/finale: Freddy Fazbear and Reimu Hakurei!

I added Freddy because FNAF, like Touhou, has AAAAAAA LLLLLLOOOOOTTTTT of fan games (to the point that its creator has even given support and funding the the most notable ones).

 

[Rie Sonomura]

No matter how big the character is, it won't help, I really don't think so.

Byleth was not as poorly received as Corrin and Bayonetta because we knew there would be more characters coming. So Byleth was never going to be the end of the DLCs.

CP11 is the end. Once it's revealed, all other characters are back in line for the next game. There is actually no character that would satisfy everyone.

The best strategy in my opinion would be to do what they always did previously: don't leave the last character being revealed or found alone. In Brawl, ROB, Lucario, Toon Link and Wolf were the final characters not revealed. By themselves, they would have been hated, however discovered together it ended up softening the blow (slightly).

In Smash 4, Dark Pit, Duck Hunt and Bowser Jr. wouldn't have been extremely well received, but we (should have) got them together. They were leaked, but at least the hatred was... Shared, to an extent.

Corrin, with Bayonetta, remains the most hated character of all times. However with Bayonetta there was some sort of compensation. At least it was not Corrin by himself.

In Ultimate, Incineroar was not sent to the front alone. Ken was also there, as well as Piranha Plant and the promise of five more characters. The reactions would have been more violent -especially after the Grinch fiasco- if there was no DLC planned at all.

For the final characters, there are not a thousand possibilities. Either you reveal them separately, and the last fighter will be hated no matter what.
Or you reveal both of them, and sure, you'll have a lot of backlash for ending the pass, at least you'll have make a good surprise by revealing two fighters at once at a major event, and trying to satisfy most people in one go.

Since revealing two characters at E3 would be the most logical thing, I am now fully expecting only one character during this event, LOL

He said it’d all end “soon” so yes I am banking on a double reveal now

 

[Yoshi-Thomas]

He said it’d all end “soon” so yes I am banking on a double reveal now

Don't be dramatic, he could just be talking about the end of the world.