Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[Perkilator]

I thought Sakurai said he wanted to put 2D Pac-Man in Brawl, but couldn't think of a moveset for him and therefore refused the 2D design.

He actually said both of those things (well, kinda about the Brawl one). And yes, I'm serious.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I thought Sakurai said he wanted to put 2D Pac-Man in Brawl, but couldn't think of a moveset for him and therefore refused the 2D design.

It's what Sophitia said.

To be more clear, Miyamoto suggested Pac-Man for Brawl. Sakuria couldn't figure out a good way to implement him at the time, which is why the idea never came to fruitition.

In 4, Bandai-Namco joined the team for the game, and gave him ideas of how to make him playable. Sakurai's only thing is that he wanted to use his classic design, not the modern design. Bandai-Namco said yes to the classic design, and the rest is history.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

I'm pretty sure most of the Pac hate back in Smash 4 was just people being terrified at the thought of THIS thing getting in

Ghostly Adventures was a thing that existed during the 2013-2014 period of Smash 4 speculation, so naturally people thought that this was what we were gonna get and thus tried rationalizing Pac-Man not getting in because of it.

There were lots of similar fears among other 3rd Parties when it came to horrific abomination variants.

Thankfully Sakurai knows how to pick the correct iterations of characters.

 

[Lamperouge]

There were lots of similar fears among other 3rd Parties when it came to horrific abomination variants.

Thankfully Sakurai knows how to pick the correct iterations of characters.

Not sure how there was ever any fear for "Grotesque Steve" making it in considering that's not an official design.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Not sure how there was ever any fear for "Grotesque Steve" making it in considering that's not an official design.

Well fear isn’t always rational. It still existed nonetheless.

 

[Dinoman96]

Yeah, not sure how Ugly Steve is even comparable considering it's just some stupid 4chan troll thing and not like, an actual redesign used in an official game lmao

IIRC most people weren't worried about N&B Banjo showing up because, well, Smash had gone with the retro designs for Pac-Man and Simon Belmont at that point, so it was only natural that Banjo would follow suit. We didn't really know how they were going to approach Pac-Man during the early days of Smash 4.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Not sure how there was ever any fear for "Grotesque Steve" making it in considering that's not an official design.

Hell, nobody really feared the Bad Boxart MegaMan design either. The only one of fear was the Nuts & Boltz design other than Pac-Man's. And both of those are not even that off from the original design, just being modern variants. Though Pac-Man's modern design isn't even bad, it's just that it's associated(despite not starting that way) with the Ghostly Adventures TV Show, which isn't very popular. Nuts & Boltz was a massive deviation from the original gameplay, so that's a bit more understandable, but the design is still clearly the same point, just a different style. It still looks like the character. That fan-made Steve design and the Bad Boxart MegaMan barely resemble the original whatsoever.

Didn't Bad Boxart MegaMan only appear in one fighting game after Smash, anyway? Which makes that comparison very weird cause it has zero relation to Smash itself. If it was the other way around, that'd be a legitimate thing to think on.

 

[Fishbunjin is cool]

ToFu Santa hat HLG no Twitter: "If you could have ANYTHING put into Smash Ultimate in 2021. What would you add to the game? https://t.co/iVCHrb6K5s" / Twitter
Just crash. the rest i don't care.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Didn't Bad Boxart MegaMan only appear in one fighting game after Smash, anyway? Which makes that comparison very weird cause it has zero relation to Smash itself. If it was the other way around, that'd be a legitimate thing to think on.

Nope, Street Fighter X Tekken was Mega Man’s most recent major appearance before his Smash reveal I believe, at least for fighting games. This was hot off the heels of him being rejected for MVC3, both vanilla and Ultimate, (instead X was just a skin for Zero) and the cancellations of Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe, so there was a lot of fears Capcom “hated” Mega Man due to Inafune’s departure at the time, not unlike the belief prior to Ultimate that Konami would “never” allow Snake to return due to bad blood with Kojima (which is why his return blindsided everyone so much). Bad Box Art Mega Man was the icing on the cake.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Nope, Street Fighter X Tekken was Mega Man’s most recent major appearance before Smash I believe, at least for fighting games. This was hot off the heels of him being rejected for MVC3 (instead X was just a skin for Zero) and the cancellations of Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe, so there was a lot of fears Capcom “hated” Mega Man due to Inafune’s departure at the time. Bad Box Art Mega Man was the icing on the cake.

Ah. I couldn't remember on that one.

That at least is a weird design that doesn't remotely resemble the original character regardless. And then we got classic, with no voice, which made the Banjo-Kazooie thing already silly as is, and further shown how the fear is unwarranted with Pac-Man getting his more popular design as is.

Regardless, the Steve thing made no sense to post. It's not official.

 

[Ivander]

I mean, the in-game models and expressions of Nuts & Bolts Banjo & Kazooie don't really do them good. On the other hand, the CG Banjo & Kazooie on the box art of Nuts & Bolts looks honestly pretty decent.

Like when you look at that compared to the models in-game, there feels like a big difference.

Like it's the eyes and the fur/feathers that really make or break them. The eyes look great and expressive on the above and the fur and feathers don't overtake the eyes and expressions and therefore they look like pretty decent.
On the bottom on the in-game models, the eyes look smaller and a lot more lifeless and the fur and feathers really stick out too much. Also the fur looks a lot more darker compared to the above which looks a lot lighter. It makes the models stick out like a sore thumb.

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

Regardless, the Steve thing made no sense to post. It's not official.

Not entirely, I believe the fear was that the team would think Minecrafts design was to simplistic, and detail it up, leading to something similar to grotesque Steve.
The picture is just a stand in for peoples fears, not the actual fear of that exact design.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Not entirely, I believe the fear was that the team would think Minecrafts design was to simplistic, and detail it up, leading to something similar to grotesque Steve.
The picture is just a stand in for peoples fears, not the actual fear of that exact design.

It's a completely irrational fear and still never made any sense. There is no realistic Steve or any Minecraft character to begin with. It was never a thing. And as we can see, never actually was one. It was a troll move.

The detailed up designs actually exist in stuff like Minecraft Dungeons, giving things like more proper character expressions, as well as the basic game boxart being a lot more clean than Steve's in-game design.

It doesn't remotely compare to official unpopular designs either way.

 

[PeridotGX]

Dodrio will probably be a Mii Costume with the next fighter.

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

It's a completely irrational fear and still never made any sense. There is no realistic Steve or any Minecraft character to begin with. It was never a thing. And as we can see, never actually was one. It was a troll move.

The detailed up designs actually exist in stuff like Minecraft Dungeons, giving things like more proper character expressions, as well as the basic game boxart being a lot more clean than Steve's in-game design.

It doesn't remotely compare to official unpopular designs either way.

It definitely doesn’t make sense, but it was something I actually heard quite a lot. Irrational fears are quite common

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Irrational fears are quite common

Especially on the internet.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Not sure how there was ever any fear for "Grotesque Steve" making it in considering that's not an official design.

The fear was that attempting to do what Sakurai did with the Ice Climbers and Duck Hunt would result in an ugly mess for Steve. And then Sakurai didn't even bother.

 

[ROBnWatch]

Dodrio will probably be a Mii Costume with the next fighter.

I would love to hear the explanation for this line of thinking. (Not trying to be hateful, just genuinely interested.)

 

[Jocario Zero]

This is true I remember the Ghostly Adventures hate, but the argument of 'not a big deal to video games' was probably the worst angle they could have gone for.

I saw someone once that argued that Pac-Man and Sonic where "not allowed" to be in the same game because of the Sonic Boom Tv-show and Pac-Man Ghostly Adventures beeing on different tv channel...i'm not making this up.

 

[ChunkySlugger72]

Lara Croft is definitely incredibly iconic and is still popular today, but I think it's not too much of an exaggeration to say she's past her current peak in popularity.

In the late '90s, Lara was in an elite sect of video game characters like Mario, Sonic, and Pac-Man. She had completely transcended the medium to become a general pop culture phenomenon that everyone recognized. She was the type of character that someone's aunt who has never touched a video game system in her life would know. In an early episode of King of the Hill, a prime-time comedy on one of the United States' most popular networks, Peggy not knowing who she was a punchline to show just how out of date her understanding of youth culture to a lowest-common-denominator audience.

However, much like N Sync and Mike Myers, Lara Croft and Tomb Raider ran into trouble throughout the early 2000s that quickly dimmed what was once a bright star. General franchise fatigue, combined with the erosion of goodwill amongst the hardcore fanbase due to the mediocre Chronicles and outright bad Angel of Darkness, saw a rapid decline in sales and a decrease in brand recognition.

Obviously, the franchise has rebounded with the Legend and Reboot trilogies. Likewise, people still care about Lara Croft. Otherwise, people wouldn't have thrown a massive fit when the Reboot trilogy tried to recharacterize her. However, she's closer to a Mega Man or Snake than a Mario nowadays; someone that most people who play video games know and who has transcended the medium to an extent but has failed to become hyper-recognizable to a general audience.

Grew up watching "King of the Hill" and remember that reference, It also reminds me how Crash Bandicoot was also able to get referenced on "The Simpsons"

You know you made an impact when you get referenced in one of the most iconic, greatest and longest running running TV sitcoms of all time.

 

[SpectreJordan]

I think they both have their merit, but I think people put a little too much stock in Crash. I guess it's kinda like a Banjo vs Steve sort of thing again, except Crash doesn't have the longterm fan demand that Banjo did and Overwatch isn't quite as big as Minecraft... but at its core it's pitting a modern icon of the company against a classic one.

I slightly lean toward Tracer in part just to shake things up a bit and also because of Overwatch's significant worldwide esports presence and Nintendo's own involvement with Blizzard and bringing OW to Switch - around the time that we may have seen characters discussed or planned. I believe people sleep on 'modern' all stars a lot in favor of classic mascots and icons so I still believe Tracer is worth the time of day.

I think Crash (as well as Master Chief & Lara Croft) is similar to where he doesn’t need to be a current poll topper when they picked the characters to get in. Those characters are popular & important enough to warrant their inclusion. Sakurai & Nintendo probably know how big Crash is just like those three I mentioned.

Activision has been pushing the Crash series a lot in the past couple years, so I could see them being fine with the Crash pick over something like Overwatch.

However, Overwatch is one of my favorite games ever (haven’t played in a while though) so I’d be very happy if Tracer got in. It doesn’t seem too likely after Jeff’s comments about Smash though. I’d be hyping her up as a potential blindside pick if it wasn’t for that comment.

To guide this back towards Smash discussion...

I think people vastly overrate KOS-MOS.

Xenosaga does have some influence and history, and Monolith does love her, but I can't see Sakurai or Nintendo picking her. Especially over Elma and Rex, the Nintendo owned Xeno games that actually sold well.

I have to agree. It’d be the smallest third party franchise/character ever added to Smash by a long shot. I know her creators love her, but why would they want her in instead one of their more recent hits like Rex or Elma?

The “she sells merchandise” argument is one of the funniest arguments I’ve seen for a character. Waifu merchandise is a completely different (& smaller) market than DLC for the highest selling fighter ever. By that logic, they GOTTA put Fate’s Saber in... Ngl that’d be hype though.

 

[PeridotGX]

I would love to hear the explanation for this line of thinking. (Not trying to be hateful, just genuinely interested.)

for me, humor is defined as "making jokes that random pokemon will be in smash".

though i guess dodrio could actually be a deluxe mii brawler. the hands can be the two other heads.

 

[Deleted member]

Alright first post of 2021 on this thread for me.

Byleth is currently the newest character added to Ultimate with Three Houses debuting in 2019. Min Min is currently the most recent character in Vol 2 with ARMS releasing in 2017. What is the general consensus around Vol 2 including a character debuting between 2019 - 2021?

To me, it's definitely possible, but the only 2 series that come to mind are Pokemon and Hades. The well feels pretty dry in that regard, but I can't just rule it out over not there being many options that I know of.

 

[PK-remling Fire]

It's a completely irrational fear and still never made any sense. There is no realistic Steve or any Minecraft character to begin with. It was never a thing. And as we can see, never actually was one. It was a troll move.

The detailed up designs actually exist in stuff like Minecraft Dungeons, giving things like more proper character expressions, as well as the basic game boxart being a lot more clean than Steve's in-game design.

It doesn't remotely compare to official unpopular designs either way.

iirc the fear stemmed from the possibility of the Minecraft character looking like the designs from pic related, though the memes about it eventually evolved into grotesque steve.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

iirc the fear stemmed from the possibility of the Minecraft character looking like the designs from pic related, though the memes about it eventually evolved into grotesque steve.
View attachment 298041

...So a good design? I barely remember those.

Fear still never made sense to me, and not cause of the classic designs existing. Honestly, these look great to me. Far better than the Nuts & Boltz designs, anyway. They're just slightly more animated/cartoony. That said, I'm glad they went with his more classic design.

 

[PSIGuy]

What is the general consensus around Vol 2 including a character debuting between 2019 - 2021?

If they include a character that new, I can't see them not being from an already proven franchise. Byleth is pretty new, but Nintendo already know they can lean on Fire Emblem. Same for Pokemon. In that respect I think there's a world of difference between Byleth and Minmin. And we have precedent with the likes of Corrin getting in over Elma or any other character that could've been promotional in 2015.

Also I'm not willing to discard the possibility that we end up getting a remake which gets treated as a new game and we end up with Arvis or something.

 

[Garteam]

Alright first post of 2021 on this thread for me.

Byleth is currently the newest character added to Ultimate with Three Houses debuting in 2019. Min Min is currently the most recent character in Vol 2 with ARMS releasing in 2017. What is the general consensus around Vol 2 including a character debuting between 2019 - 2021?

To me, it's definitely possible, but the only 2 series that come to mind are Pokemon and Hades. The well feels pretty dry in that regard, but I can't just rule it out over not there being many options that I know of.

I do think we'll get a character from a game that will release in 2021, given the fact Nintendo saved a character to fill this niche the last two times. However, I don't know if the character themselves will be older than Byleth. We may get a character who is already established, but plays a big role in this new entry and brings content from said entry with them. I'd say it depends on whether the new release has a revolving door cast or not.

 

[ROBnWatch]

for me, humor is defined as "making jokes that random pokemon will be in smash".

though i guess dodrio could actually be a deluxe mii brawler. the hands can be the two other heads.

Ah, OK. Wasn’t sure if it was a joke or serious prediction.

 

[PK-remling Fire]

...So a good design? I barely remember those.

Fear still never made sense to me, and not cause of the classic designs existing. Honestly, these look great to me. Far better than the Nuts & Boltz designs, anyway. They're just slightly more animated/cartoony. That said, I'm glad they went with his more classic design.

eh, to each their own. I never really liked those designs at all. Reminds me too much of those old minecraft youtube animations

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

eh, to each their own. I never really liked those designs at all. Reminds me too much of those old minecraft youtube animations

Yeah, they basically don't look bad to me at all. I get why fans wouldn't like 'em though. They aren't anywhere near as bad as the troll design made by 4chan either way. ...Hell, I'd take Bad Boxart MegaMan over the 4chan one, since that's at least kind of funny. It was just poor timing of when it showed up in the crossover game due to Irafune leaving. It was more meant as a joke, not some kind of knock against the person.

 

[7NATOR]

I Don't think we will get another character that debuted in 2019 or later. That's just way too late at this point, unless the series has special Privilege's like Pokemon and Fire Emblem

The only Type of Characters I could have seen fit that merit was an Apex Legends character, and that was because of factors like closer relations with EA and potential rumors, but I think if an Apex Character was being considered for Smash, it's in the talking phase for next game, not this DLC

Beyond that, there's Pokemon, but between the Spirit event and Team Rocket costume, along with the fact that the time to have a Pokemon reveal be the most relevant has passed, I doubt Pokemon.



I do think however, that as of this Moment (Unless things change) we're 99.99% going to get another character that debuted in the 2010's

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Nope, Street Fighter X Tekken was Mega Man’s most recent major appearance before his Smash reveal I believe, at least for fighting games. This was hot off the heels of him being rejected for MVC3, both vanilla and Ultimate, (instead X was just a skin for Zero) and the cancellations of Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe, so there was a lot of fears Capcom “hated” Mega Man due to Inafune’s departure at the time, not unlike the belief prior to Ultimate that Konami would “never” allow Snake to return due to bad blood with Kojima (which is why his return blindsided everyone so much). Bad Box Art Mega Man was the icing on the cake.

While I'm sure Capcom meant nothing dubious by the Bad Box Art version's inclusion, as a fan of the MM series it is hard not to see the failure of Tekken x Street Fighter ever getting released and the real Mega Man's appearance in the much bigger successes of Smash 4/Ultimate as just a tiny bit amusingly karmic.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

...So a good design? I barely remember those.

The visual designs are fine, and I'm sure people make skins like them all the time. I think the issue is that the way these characters move just...doesn't look quite right, particularly with how their mouths work (it can get pretty wonky). As far as adapting the limited animation goes, Minecraft Dungeons and Super Smash Bros. did it way better.

Minecraft Dungeons also cleaned up the visual style better. It's not as gritty as Minecraft's, but it's not that weird, plasticy promo look either.

 

[DarthEnderX]

Speak for yourself brother, there’s a whole bunch of bullet hell lovers that are pretty vocal about S&P.

Sure sure. It's the Smash forums. No matter how forgotten something is, someone will always remember it here(especially if it was a trophy).

Normal people do not rememer C&P.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

The visual designs are fine, and I'm sure people make skins like them all the time. I think the issue is that the way these characters move just...doesn't look quite right, particularly with how their mouths work (it can get pretty wonky). As far as adapting the limited animation goes, Minecraft Dungeons and Super Smash Bros. did it way better.

Minecraft Dungeons also cleaned up the visual style better. It's not as gritty as Minecraft's, but it's not that weird, plasticy promo look either.

I mean, that's fair. I was speaking on what the designs looked like. I have yet to see them in action, so.

...I'll take your word for it.

 

[Guynamednelson]

I was referring to Sin and Punsihment Star Successor, probably should have worded that better.

To be fair a lot of people would've learned about S&P during the Wii era anyway, with that, Saki's AT, and the international VC release of the first game.

 

[SpectreJordan]

Yeah there doesn't really seem to be a lot of middle-ground with KOS-MOS. My stance is evident, but it seems like people think she's either overrated or underrated. And I get where you're coming from, but I wouldn't exactly call KOS-MOS a character that hasn't crossed our minds before.

The only other character that comes to mind who really isn't within the top tier of candidates for their company, but still gets discussed basically as if they were (now that Geno is gone) is Phoenix Wright. At least he has some fanbase popularity. KOS-MOS' is lacking.


I haven't played Xenosaga, but I think she'd be really cool. I like her design and I could see dedicating some time to her if the playstyle clicked. Other than maybe Klonoa, she'd be my Namco character of choice, and was on my FP2 mockup.

I'd be happy to see her, I just think her chances get way overrated, bolstered by shoddy reasoning.

They still consider Ace Attorney important enough to include in promotional pics like this with other current big names.

You have to realize that Smash is made in Japan and mostly aimed at Japanese audiences, though. It's part of the reason there aren't very many western IPs with playable characters in Smash, outside of Minecraft (the most successful western game in Japan) and Banjo-Kazooie (a former Nintendo IP that was a cult hit there in the N64 era).

The majority of Smash’s audience is western though. I think the reason is a mix of the language barrier, which doesn’t seem to be as big of an issue anymore due to improvements in technology & companies actively wanting to join Smash.

As well as the majority of the Japanese third parties we’ve gotten so far being bigger than any western option besides

* are certainly bigger than any realistic western options.

While, are on a similar level to the bigger western options.

are the odd ones out, but they all have their own reasons for being in. Like Bayo being adopted by Nintendo, Persona 5 blowing up in popularity & SNK being a historical company who was easy to work with.

The list of really big Japanese franchises/characters is starting to thin out, so I definitely think Nintendo will be diving more & more into the western well in the future. Third party wise, It’ll probably be a mix of big western characters & mid-tier western characters like Dante & Yuri, so Japanese fans aren’t completely left out.

*Street Fighter’s sales numbers aren’t the highest. But it’s actually the 8th highest grossing game series ever.

 

[Garteam]

Here's a question that's been kicking around in my head for the past few days.

We know Sakurai was proud of himself for balancing between new and old faces when selecting the first Fighter's Pass, with two characters from the 2010s, two from 20th century, and a third that was from a new game but had skins and was based on an archetype in his series that went back to the '80s.

As such, we don't really have any reason to assume that Sakurai wouldn't take this balance into consideration again. Thus far, we've gotten a character from an IP that's only 3 years-old () and a character from a game that's over 20 years-old in a series that's over 30 years-old (). However, seems kind of like a gray area, seeing how a 9-year-old piece of media (albeit one that still gets regular updates) feels neither new nor retro.

So, do you guys think Sakurai categorizes Steve as a classic character or a new face?

 

[Noler_Mass]

Man, Kingdom Hearts is one the quintessential game of the PS2, one of the best selling consoles of all time. It was such a bizarre cross-over that set a precedent (even for crossovers like smash bros to look for bigger names) in the industry which is often emulated. Sora might be newer, but he’s absolutely an iconic character to gaming. KH is one of those games that even non-gamers know about.

And don’t get me started on the Keyblade!

 

[SpectreJordan]

Alright first post of 2021 on this thread for me.

Byleth is currently the newest character added to Ultimate with Three Houses debuting in 2019. Min Min is currently the most recent character in Vol 2 with ARMS releasing in 2017. What is the general consensus around Vol 2 including a character debuting between 2019 - 2021?

To me, it's definitely possible, but the only 2 series that come to mind are Pokemon and Hades. The well feels pretty dry in that regard, but I can't just rule it out over not there being many options that I know of.

I’d say only Nintendo characters would be eligible for that. & even then, it’d only be new ones for established franchises.

I think Sakurai & Nintendo might be hesitant about adding instantly adding new franchises to Smash. It could be why we waited until FP2 for Arms & why Ring Fit/Astral Chain aren’t in FP2.