Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[Perkilator]

What does Sora have aside from being related to Disney?

He may not be Lara Croft levels of popular, but to say he's not iconic in any way is simplpy untrue. His Wikipedia page's Reception section should tell you all you need to how about his popularity.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

There's also difference between popularity and iconic also. Lara Croft being THE female video game protagonist and Sephiroth one of gaming's most iconic villains. Hell, Devil May Cry revolutionized hack-n-slash games as Halo did for FPS.

What does Sora have aside from being related to Disney?

Beyond greatly popularizing action RPGs when they started gaining steam in the late 90s/early 00s, I'd say its tied with the Capcom vs series as the most famous franchise to crossover gaming and non gaming media IP's.

 

[SNEKeater]

Perhaps I was sleeping under a rock or something but why is it then I never knew who Sora even was until like the 2010s whereas I've known those other two longer even before I was a teen? Hell I even knew who Dante was before Sora.

There's a difference between popularity and iconic also. Lara Croft being THE female video game protagonist and Sephiroth one of gaming's most iconic villains. Hell, Devil May Cry revolutionized hack-n-slash games as Halo did for FPS.

What does Sora have aside from being related to Disney?

Maybe Kingdom Hearts didn't revolutionize the industry or created a genre (which is what DMC did by the way) but the series is just very very popular, and so is Sora. I don't know if he's as known as certain characters but he's a very popular name, that's undeniable.

Not my case but I'd also argue that Kingdom Hearts was probably the first introduction to RPGs/action games for a lot of young people.

In any case you don't need to change gaming or create anything in order to be popular and known.

 

[RouffWestie]

I knew who Sora was before I knew who any of the Final Fantasy characters in it were, aside from Tidus and Wakka

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Everyone grows up differently I guess so whose to judge? Never would have taken Sora being up there with the likes of Mario, Sonic, Lara Croft, Crash Bandicoot, and such.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

Just saying, but everybody knows what Pepsi is.

 

[Froggy]

There's also difference between popularity and iconic also. Lara Croft being THE female video game protagonist and Sephiroth one of gaming's most iconic villains. Hell, Devil May Cry revolutionized hack-n-slash games as Halo did for FPS.

What does Sora have aside from being related to Disney?

This is the thing with Laura, when you say she is THE female video game protagonist, we may think about it and agree with you. But when gamers think of female protagonists, she really isn't what comes to mind. The only people who associate Laura as the face of female gaming are those more familiar with her movies and merchandise, and a lot of them aren't even aware she originates from a video game franchise. When actually gamers think of leading female characters, Samus and Chun-Li come to mind much more than Laura Croft does.

As for what Sora, Kingdom Hearts essentially brought back the love for action RPG-esque games to a new generation. As beloved as Final Fantasy is, its primarily for the older generation that grew up with it. Kingdom Hearts is essentially the new gen Final Fantasy(and to a lesser extent new Zelda), calling Sora and Icon might not exactly be correct but his impact on gaming has been huge.

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

My personal experiences with Sora was having virtually no idea who he was till early Ultimate speculation, it was basically just the design. Though, Kingdom Hearts 3 was basically a HL3 style legend till it finally came out. So he was certainly iconic if his game could reach that status.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

This is the thing with Laura, when you say she is THE female video game protagonist, we may think about it and agree with you. But when gamers think of female protagonists, she really isn't what comes to mind. The only people who associate Laura as the face of female gaming are those more familiar with her movies and merchandise, and a lot of them aren't even aware she originates from a video game franchise. When actually gamers think of leading female characters, Samus and Chun-Li come to mind much more than Laura Croft does.

As for what Sora, Kingdom Hearts essentially brought back the love for action RPG-esque games to a new generation. As beloved as Final Fantasy is, its primarily for the older generation that grew up with it. Kingdom Hearts is essentially the new gen Final Fantasy(and to a lesser extent new Zelda), calling Sora and Icon might not exactly be correct but his impact on gaming has been huge.

And I'll agree on that. Sora is definitely popular, I'm just not certain if I'd rank him with the likes of being iconic as Pac-Man, Mega Man, Mario, Sonic, Lara Croft, and Crash Bandicoot.

 

[SNEKeater]

Just saying, but everybody knows what Pepsi is.

Pepsi confirmed as our next character. That's it. Not Pepsiman, just a Pepsi.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Just saying, but everybody knows what Pepsi is.

But do more people know Coke than Pepsi?

 

[Cutie Gwen]

There's also difference between popularity and iconic also. Lara Croft being THE female video game protagonist and Sephiroth one of gaming's most iconic villains. Hell, Devil May Cry revolutionized hack-n-slash games as Halo did for FPS.

What does Sora have aside from being related to Disney?

You say that as if being related to Disney's a teeny tiny thing when the reality is that KH's massive, with Kingdom Hearts 3 being up there with Half Life 3 as the most anticipated video game title. Also, I like how your comparison has Dante when KH's lifetime sales are 30 million compared to DMC's 22. I don't like KH but come on dude

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Pepsi confirmed as our next character. That's it. Not Pepsiman, just a Pepsi.

Finally, the first playable rep of the Food Universe.

 

[SNEKeater]

Finally, the first playable rep of the Food Universe.

It was long overdue. Food never got the correct representation in Smash until now.

 

[Louie G.]

Lara Croft has always felt to me like a character who people bring up solely because of her role as a 90s gaming icon and less so because of... anything else. Like, Lara has never struck me as a very exciting character all things considered, but maybe that's just me. I'm just not immediately pumped about a character just because they're a big name and Lara does nothing for me in the realm of the content she would bring with her or her personality or moveset potential.

I'm sure she has her genuine supporters, but I honestly don't even hear anyone talk about Tomb Raider anymore otherwise so a lot of the time it comes off more like checking off boxes for the most iconic video game characters.

Smash is very much a meeting of gaming legends, but being a gaming legend in and of itself isn't always enough to be a good choice for Smash? There's a fine line that's really hard to explain, but Lara has just never been a very interesting choice in my eyes.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Would you guys really consider Sora as iconic as Mario, Crash, Lara Croft, Mega Man, Sonic, and Pac-Man?

Popular sure which I'll agree on but unsure of being as iconic as those characters.

 

[Technomage]

Would you guys really consider Sora as iconic as Mario, Crash, Lara Croft, Mega Man, Sonic, and Pac-Man?

Popular sure which I'll agree on but unsure of being as iconic as those characters.

Hmmmmmmm, I don't think so...

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Hmmmmmmm, I don't think so...

I should probably word myself more clearly next time because that was the point I was trying to make or perhaps I did and you guys misinterpreted what I was trying to say.

 

[Froggy]

And I'll agree on that. Sora is definitely popular, I'm just not certain if I'd rank him with the likes of being iconic as Pac-Man, Mega Man, Mario, Sonic, Lara Croft, and Crash Bandicoot.

Again, impact to gaming is not the same as iconship. Minecraft is the best selling game in the world, but is Steve as iconic as Mario or Pacman? Of course not. But is his inclusion less important than Pacman's is? I'm not so sure about that

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Lara Croft has always felt to me like a character who people bring up solely because of her role as a 90s gaming icon and less so because of... anything else. Like, Lara has never struck me as a very exciting character all things considered, but maybe that's just me. I'm just not immediately pumped about a character just because they're a big name and Lara does nothing for me in the realm of the content she would bring with her or her personality or moveset potential. I'm sure she has her genuine supporters, but I honestly don't even hear anyone talk about Tomb Raider anymore.

Smash is very much a meeting of gaming legends, but being a gaming legend in and of itself isn't always enough to be a good choice for Smash? There's a fine line that's really hard to explain, but Lara has just never been a very interesting choice in my eyes.

She falls into the category of being wholly well known but quite as well wanted. To drawn a somewhat odd comparison; many people know and are somewhat familiar with Double Dragon, but even among beat em up franchises Streets of Rage arguably has more support in regards to Smash, and DD isn't that much higher in status than Final Fight, despite the latter having fewer games and high profile media like a TV series and a movie.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Sorry again everyone, I should have been more clear on what I was trying to say.

 

[SNEKeater]

Would you guys really consider Sora as iconic as Mario, Crash, Lara Croft, Mega Man, Sonic, and Pac-Man?

Popular sure which I'll agree on but unsure of being as iconic as those characters.

No, but almost no one is at that level, so I don't think it proves a point against Sora.

And I'd argue guys like Ryu could be there, even before Lara Croft or Crash. But maybe that's just me.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

This is the thing with Laura, when you say she is THE female video game protagonist, we may think about it and agree with you. But when gamers think of female protagonists, she really isn't what comes to mind. The only people who associate Laura as the face of female gaming are those more familiar with her movies and merchandise, and a lot of them aren't even aware she originates from a video game franchise. When actually gamers think of leading female characters, Samus and Chun-Li come to mind much more than Laura Croft does.

As for what Sora, Kingdom Hearts essentially brought back the love for action RPG-esque games to a new generation. As beloved as Final Fantasy is, its primarily for the older generation that grew up with it. Kingdom Hearts is essentially the new gen Final Fantasy(and to a lesser extent new Zelda), calling Sora and Icon might not exactly be correct but his impact on gaming has been huge.

You already admitted you're biased against Lara to the point you keep calling her Laura but I really don't know if your other women in gaming argument holds up, especially with Samus. I've never touched a Tomb Raider game for longer than 2 minutes but Lara's absolutely a bigger deal than Samus, the original Tomb Raider's sold nearly 8 million copies since 1996, compared to Metroid's lifetime sales of 17 million. Samus has legacy for obvious reasons, but when one game outsells the entire Prime trilogy, meaning it includes the best selling Metroid game and already secured a playerbase, Samus is clearly smaller outside of the Nintendo scale

 

[osby]

Would you guys really consider Sora as iconic as Mario, Crash, Lara Croft, Mega Man, Sonic, and Pac-Man?

Popular sure which I'll agree on but unsure of being as iconic as those characters.

No.

Also hot take maybe but I also wouldn't group Crash with the rest of those.

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

I feel like we should consider icon in terms of generations as well. Most of you seem to have grown up in the nineties, where Crash was gigantic and well known, and Steve didn’t even exist. Contrast that with kids who grew up in the 2000s and 2010s (Like me), and Crash is barely known whilst Steve is a behemoth.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Something that's worth noting is that its harder for any contemporary figure in gaming to be as big as a Mario or Pac-Man not only because they were so early in the media's history but also because gaming is such much bigger now and the industry is far less monopolized by a few ridiculously big franchise figures. There was a time where playing games in North America was often referred to as "Playing Nintendo". As big as Mario is now, his control of the percentage of video game sales was even bigger once upon a time.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I think Lara's thing is that she's not very Nintendo focused so those who grew up on Nintendo obviously know her, but chances are they didn't play the games. I'm guilty of this too as I've only really started expanding my horizons relatively recently, but my mother can only recognize like 5 characters from video games, Lara Croft being one of them.


Sidenote, I still need to figure out how to get a 360 controller to work with the Steam version of the first Tomb Raider lol

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Off to play more Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Be on my phone while playing.

 

[UltimateCyborgOverlord]

Y'all are talkin about FOOD being represented in Smash. When is my boy Ronald McDonald coming to Smash? McDonald's used to be the place for 3DS Spotpass stuff so there's Nintendo importance there, but also


Look at him! There was that one video game where he beat up an alien and just sat there smiling at hime while he begged him to stop beating him up. Ronald can fight. Smiling all creepily as he gazes upon his beaten foes.

Only trouble would be he'd have different names across versions. In Japan he'd be "Donald McDonald" (true story, look it up. Basically "Ronald" is hard to pronounce for Japanese so he's called Donald) and elsewhere "Ronald McDonald". And you KNOW his reveal trailer would involve the LITTLE Mac.

 

[PeridotGX]

I feel like we should consider icon in terms of generations as well. Most of you seem to have grown up in the nineties, where Crash was gigantic and well known, and Steve didn’t even exist. Contrast that with kids who grew up in the 2000s and 2010s (Like me), and Crash is barely known whilst Steve is a behemoth.

Thank you! I'd genuinely say there's an argument that Spyro is more iconic than Crash for our generation, because he was the mascot of Skylanders for awhile.

 

[YoshiandToad]

Would you guys really consider Sora as iconic as Mario, Crash, Lara Croft, Mega Man, Sonic, and Pac-Man?

Popular sure which I'll agree on but unsure of being as iconic as those characters.

I think it depends on the generation you grew up in.

Like we talk about Crash Bandicoot a lot now, but he was very much a forgotten legend until N-Sane trilogy revived him.

Meanwhile Sora has been pretty busy with his own franchise and gaining traction to the point he's nearly caught up with Megaman in sales.

 

[Ramen Tengoku]

There's only like.. a handful or so smash characters in a roster of 80+ that I can consider objectively iconic

Not every character will or should stand up to them in notrriety so I don't know why we should be comparing every potential inclusion to these anomalies like they're the standard

 

[Louie G.]

I feel like we should consider icon in terms of generations as well. Most of you seem to have grown up in the nineties, where Crash was gigantic and well known, and Steve didn’t even exist. Contrast that with kids who grew up in the 2000s and 2010s (Like me), and Crash is barely known whilst Steve is a behemoth.

This community always tends to be blindsided by the implementation of more modern icons. About half of our DLC has debuted within roughly the last decade, which I think is an observation that goes over a lot of people's heads as they continue to predict three 80s-90s icons as our final characters.

The problem is that it's pretty tricky to hone in on which modern characters Nintendo would want to focus on. I certainly would have never ever predicted Joker, and I thought ARMS had totally missed its shot. The reason it's easier to talk about older characters is likely because of the long legacies they've already established, so there's more to work with when structuring an argument for their inclusion. It's something I think about a lot and I still don't really have a firm answer on myself - but I think Nintendo is really setting out to celebrate games both old and new.

 

[Froggy]

You already admitted you're biased against Lara to the point you keep calling her Laura but I really don't know if your other women in gaming argument holds up, especially with Samus. I've never touched a Tomb Raider game for longer than 2 minutes but Lara's absolutely a bigger deal than Samus, the original Tomb Raider's sold nearly 8 million copies since 1996, compared to Metroid's lifetime sales of 17 million. Samus has legacy for obvious reasons, but when one game outsells the entire Prime trilogy, meaning it includes the best selling Metroid game and already secured a playerbase, Samus is clearly smaller outside of the Nintendo scale

I don't recall admitting anything about being biased to Lara Croft. I genuinely thought her name was spelled Laura as Laura is the most more common spelling of that name.

Tomb Raider has sold a lot more than Metroid, but as others have mentioned that was a lot more relevant in the 90s compared to two decades later. As such I'd bet Metroid Prime 4 would sell at least as well at the last Tomb Raider game released. Lara is passed her prime while Metroid has remained beloved which is why I say most gamers think of Samus before Lara. You have a point this may be more true in the Nintendo world, but when speculating smash characters, obviously what happens in the Nintendo world is going to be more important than what happens outside of it.

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

Thank you! I'd genuinely say there's an argument that Spyro is more iconic than Crash for our generation, because he was the mascot of Skylanders for awhile.

Oh my god I haven’t heard Skylanders since forever, that brings back so many memories. I once had the entire original set.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I don't recall admitting anything about being biased to Lara Croft. I genuinely thought her name was spelled Laura as Laura is the most more common spelling of that name.

Tomb Raider has sold a lot more than Metroid, but as others have mentioned that was a lot more relevant in the 90s compared to two decades later. As such I'd bet Metroid Prime 4 would sell at least as well at the last Tomb Raider game released. Lara is passed her prime while Metroid has remained beloved which is why I say most gamers think of Samus before Lara. You have a point this may be more true in the Nintendo world, but when speculating smash characters, obviously what happens in the Nintendo world is going to be more important than what happens outside of it.

she'd be taking Sora's spot in Fighters Pass 3, so I'd rather she not be included in the game

This is bias. While preferences obviously exist, it's telling you said you'd rather not have her.


Bruh no way in hell is Prime 4 gonna sell over 4 million copies, Metroid's NEVER been a heavy hitting franchise and 4 million's seen as low considering the rest of the reboot trilogy sold like 7 million each.

 

[osby]

I don't recall admitting anything about being biased to Lara Croft. I genuinely thought her name was spelled Laura as Laura is the most more common spelling of that name.

Tomb Raider has sold a lot more than Metroid, but as others have mentioned that was a lot more relevant in the 90s compared to two decades later. As such I'd bet Metroid Prime 4 would sell at least as well at the last Tomb Raider game released. Lara is passed her prime while Metroid has remained beloved which is why I say most gamers think of Samus before Lara. You have a point this may be more true in the Nintendo world, but when speculating smash characters, obviously what happens in the Nintendo world is going to be more important than what happens outside of it.

Not trying to start a debate but saying that Lara Croft has passed her prime compared to Samus is a little funny considering the state of Metroid franchise in the... last decade, really.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

With third party fighters in Smash I think most can generally be sorted into three categories with acknowledgement that many have overlap between them:

-Notable Nintendo History - Mega Man, Simon/Richter, Banjo-Kazooie
-Significant to Video Games and/or Their Genre - Ryu/Ken, Hero, Pac-Man, Sonic, Snake, Cloud, Sephiroth, Terry, Steve
-Contemporary Popular Hits - Joker, Bayonetta, Steve (again).

Lara belongs to the second group, its just that her kind of significance doesn't register to a lot of people in the same way other potential fighters do; to the point where many would advocate a Doom Slayer or Scorpion because their respective relative prominence does take priority in their minds.

 

[UltimateCyborgOverlord]

I wonder if that May 2019 list will turn out to be mostly accurate in the long run. Even with Min Min as an addition, most of the list is not terribly far off as a general idea of who Nintendo would consider for Smash.

Also, I spent quite a bit of time entertaining the idea that Amaterasu could actually have been picked for this pass. A dangerous hope, especially since she's probably the only character here I'd be emotionally invested in, but if Sephiroth can skip the queue of Square-Enix candidates due to sheer coolness...

Y'all talkin the one with 40 dudes on it, right? What I call "the pitch meeting list". AKA a bunch of suits got around the table and threw names at a whiteboard, and then from that list they had a higher rank super top level of suits and producers and such actually cull it to what might actually be possible (behind closed doors hence why our 4chan leaker wouldn't know which ones were picked ultimately) and then brought it to Sakurai asking if it could be done.

SUPPOSING that it's true and not total malarkey, and there there are no more Min Min "Nintendo producers said you HAVE to put in this character for sure" type situations, then FROM THAT LIST, my predictions for the final three are (in no particular order) :

1. Chun-Li or Shantae
2. Porky or Hayabusa
3. Crash or Spyro

So yeah. The last three IMO (under the presumption that this list of pitched ideas is true) are either Shantae, Hayabusa and Crash or Chun-li, Porky and Spyro.

 

[Dalek_Kolt]

My first exposure to Sora was this one Flash animation series I can't find right now.
Given how the height of internet humor back then was referencing a popular game or show without any context, I didn't bat an eye at this anime boy with clown shoes interacting with Square and Disney characters.