Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[PLATINUM7]

Do you think that Characters having similar colors to each other could be a problem in this Fighter Pass?

No.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

id say at this point persona and nier are bigger and fire emblem and xenoblade are up there as well.

Arise doesn't look like it will do to well unfortunately.

On what grounds?

In what world is the Xenoblade franchise more successful than Tales?

 

[MarioRaccoon]

Maybe Chun Li was a scrapped idea that didn’t past from a name in a list. The Chorus Kids were worked enough time they included their file Series in Smash 4 but ultimately scrapped and didn’t return in Ultimate.

 

[Deleted member]

This is gonna sound like the dumbest Question ever, but I need to ask

Do you think that Characters having similar colors to each other could be a problem in this Fighter Pass?

For example, If say Velvet was in the game, Does that mean characters that have Predominantly Black and Red Colors will be Less likely, even if the Characters themselves are from different Franchises, Genres, have Different abilities, and not really similar in any other way?

Probably not since Joker and Byleth both wear black coats and are on Vol 1, but I also wouldn't say it sounds ideal to release characters with similar color palettes back to back. For instance, I don't think Hayabusa would release right after Sephiroth since they both wear black with silver pieces and wield swords even if they're fundamentally different from each other. If he were to be in Vol 2, it would have to be after CP9 releases.

 

[Icedragonadam]

Well If Chun-Li is in the game I think she'll be the June reveal. She's a huge character herself and not just in her thighs. And Ryu himself was revealed in June in Smash 4 so it would be a nice callback much like with Cloud & Sephiroth,

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Sakurai celebrating two anniversaries today.

2011年のきょう『いつの間に交換日記』配信。
北米、欧州はその1日後でした。 pic.twitter.com/X5ezcpXfoQ

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) December 21, 2020

1997年のきょう『ヨッシーストーリー』発売!! pic.twitter.com/lmAEvLzRue

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) December 21, 2020

 

[chocolatejr9]

Speaking of RPGs, I really hope Jibanyan is not one of remaining three characters, but I would not be surprised if he were.

So you have chosen DEATH.

(Okay not really, but you know what I mean).

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Gonna be honest.

Tales is like Fatal Fury / King of Fighters.

An influential and important franchise in its genre that gets downplayed because it isn't what the Smash crowd is currently playing.

Of course, once its included, it'll be treated as an obvious pick that everyone thinks is cool.

 

[Faso115]

You guys up for silly patterns?

The rest of the pass are going to be characters that debuted a year or couple of years before the previous DLC. So we have:

Min Min: 2017
Steve: 2009/2011
Sephiroth: 1997

Have fun filling out what comes before. Of course this is just a silly game

 

[frozolloyd]

id say at this point persona and nier are bigger and fire emblem and xenoblade are up there as well.

Arise doesn't look like it will do to well unfortunately.

Wow Arise isn't going to do well, huh? You must be a seer then because to my knowledge, Arise hasn't even been release yet. Also, this.
Tales of Arise is Most Anticipated Game in Famitsu's Poll (gamerant.com)
The game doesn't even have a release date yet, but was (back in November) still at the top of this list on this poll, beating out games like Monster Hunter Rise, RE Village, and Breath of the Wild 2.

 

[Ben Holt]

Good to see Sakura Wars up on that list.


Why not, exactly? Just curious.

I'm fine with any character in a general sense. I had no attachment to Terry, so he was just another toy in the toy box to me (I casually play all characters).
Jibanyan would be the same to me. Zero attachment to the character.

 

[DarthEnderX]

a) anybody who leaks something is just a lucky guesser, among the luckiest guessers alive and leaks never happen, or completely faked content

or

b) leaks happen sometimes, but like, <1% of internet “leaks” are real.

Then it’s far, FAR more obvious that b is correct when there is actual evidence out there to prove that they have happened, exist, and will continue to happen in the industry.

Yeah, but if B is correct, but you assume A, then you're right 99% of the time.

I like thiose odds.

 

[Strife]

Felt like sharing this nugget of wisdom after seeing a lot of the speculation over recent days.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Looking at Fighters Pass 1 with three sword characters, I'm not sure why he thinks a fighters pass is likely to strike a balance. I'm not sure what the purpose of balance would be in this case, they're going pick whatever characters they think can sell.

 

[Deleted member]

Off topic but my brother said the only Kingdom Hearts character he knew besides Sora was “that guy who looks like Sephiroth” and I had to tell him it was Sephiroth because he shows up there too and his dumbfounded reaction has been sending me to the f***ing stratosphere.

 

[7NATOR]

Looking at Fighters Pass 1 with three sword characters, I'm not sure why he thinks a fighters pass is likely to strike a balance. I'm not sure what the purpose of balance would be in this case, they're going pick whatever characters they think can sell.

I'm guessing because they might want to appeal to the broadest Audience with the Pass, that they not only try to choose characters that sell, but also Make sure each characters doesn't solely appeal to the Same Demographic as another character

Of course, as you mentioned, we got 3 Sword Characters (Well I guess Joker's Knife is a Sword, unless you mean Kazooie is the 3rd Sword), and all 3 are from JRPGs. However each of them were from Different types of RPG's (JRPG, Traditonal RPG, Tactical RPG)

In the Case of Byleth, they were added so Nintendo could have a character from a Game "People are playing Now".

Of course, they could have expanded the reach perhaps more, and the fact they didn't with the first pass perhaps shows that not all the characters in Pass 2 need to vary so heavily from each other, but I do think if a Potential character does appeal to an audience that's not tapped into yet, that's an advantage on their part

 

[MarioRaccoon]

Lloyd and Yuri will come to Ultimate...

As Mii Costumes when they announced Kos-Mos.

 

[chocolatejr9]

Off topic but my brother said the only Kingdom Hearts character he knew besides Sora was “that guy who looks like Sephiroth” and I had to tell him it was Sephiroth because he shows up there too and his dumbfounded reaction has been sending me to the f***ing stratosphere.

I think I'm starting to understand why KH3 didn't have Final Fantasy characters at launch...

 

[Cosmic77]

There's so much criteria people look at when they make their ideal "balanced" fighter passes. It's new vs old, games by genre, male vs female, character designs, first-party vs third-party, popularity by region, and probably a lot more that I can't remember from the top of my head.

The first pass didn't meet most of the criteria people use to determine if a pass is balanced, and I wouldn't be surprised if the second pass is similar. Can't see Nintendo caring about a majority of these issues.

 

[TheTuninator]

Looking at Fighters Pass 1 with three sword characters, I'm not sure why he thinks a fighters pass is likely to strike a balance. I'm not sure what the purpose of balance would be in this case, they're going pick whatever characters they think can sell.

"Balance" rules are created because the human mind is naturally inclined to see patterns, even when the reality is that (as we all know) Nintendo doesn't really care about this stuff at all.

 

[SharkLord]

I mean, depending on your "pure" definition, you can also say that Tales doesn't count because it's an ARPG.

I was mainly thinking of the "Gameplay with stats, spells, and usually a party" idea. Pokemon is more focused on the catching rather than having a set party, giving it a collecting aspect, while Dark Souls has a slower style mainly built around skill rather than stats, and Monster Hunter has a more unorthodox manner of progression primarily focused on boss fights. Kingdom Hearts would fit, but it still draws from Final Fantasy and Disney content, bound together with Nomura-grade Flex Tape.

Granted, I haven't played a lot of these games so I'm probably wrong regardless

 

[7NATOR]

Off topic but my brother said the only Kingdom Hearts character he knew besides Sora was “that guy who looks like Sephiroth” and I had to tell him it was Sephiroth because he shows up there too and his dumbfounded reaction has been sending me to the f***ing stratosphere.

Was the Sephiroth secret Boss fights the only thing your Brother saw related to Kingdom Hearts, because I wonder how he missed the other Characters that "Look like FF7 Characters"?

 

[JamesDNaux]

Looking at Fighters Pass 1 with three sword characters, I'm not sure why he thinks a fighters pass is likely to strike a balance. I'm not sure what the purpose of balance would be in this case, they're going pick whatever characters they think can sell.

You've missed the point entirely, it's not about who has a sword or not. Sephiroth doesn't mean we're suddenly gonna get villains, or second reps from existing third party franchises, just like Min Min didn't mean this pass was gonna be first parties, just like Banjo didn't mean DLC would be fan favorites, etc. Every character is decided on their own, completely unrelated to the rest of the characters on the pass, everyone gets in on their own merits, not to fill some arbitrary quota.

Basically there is no way to guess what Sakurai is gonna do.

 

[Strife]

I'm guessing because they might want to appeal to the broadest Audience with the Pass, that they not only try to choose characters that sell, but also Make sure each characters doesn't solely appeal to the Same Demographic as another character

Of course, as you mentioned, we got 3 Sword Characters (Well I guess Joker's Knife is a Sword, unless you mean Kazooie is the 3rd Sword), and all 3 are from JRPGs. However each of them were from Different types of RPG's (JRPG, Traditonal RPG, Tactical RPG)

In the Case of Byleth, they were added so Nintendo could have a character from a Game "People are playing Now".

Of course, they could have expanded the reach perhaps more, and the fact they didn't with the first pass perhaps shows that not all the characters in Pass 2 need to vary so heavily from each other, but I do think if a Potential character does appeal to an audience that's not tapped into yet, that's an advantage on their part

Fair enough.

My personal theory is that MinMin and Byleth switched places in the passes anyways so that would make sense.

And if they did switch I wonder if that was taken into account for this pass, might make Chun-Li as likely as Akuma in that case. I'm in a weird spot for her, because if they make her faithfull to the street fighter 5 rendition then I can see her playstyle brining something needed to the table, I would also see her having finesse over power(read as quicker) meaning she'll likely be top tier and more relevant to the meta. Even so I just think Akuma is a heck of a lot cooler.

"Balance" rules are created because the human mind is naturally inclined to see patterns, even when the reality is that (as we all know) Nintendo doesn't really care about this stuff at all.

I'm not thinking about balance. I think Nintendo hit the beats they wanted in the first pass and they're repeating it with the second.

 

[helloiamhere]

Speaking of RPGs, I really hope Jibanyan is not one of remaining three characters, but I would not be surprised if he were.

I really doubt it. Yokai Watch isn't even that popular anymore in Japan.

 

[SpecterFlower]

On what grounds?

In what world is the Xenoblade franchise more successful than Tales?

Worlwide xenoblade 2 outsold every tales game.

Arise will be launching on a dead console in japan (ps4) and a even deader console (ps5) it would be lucky to break 300k

in japan
not Worldwide

i believe old tales games were around 500k? let me check my MC sales.

 

[Perkilator]

Worlwide xenoblade 2 outsold every tales game.

Arise will be launching on a dead console in japan (ps4) and a even deader console (ps5) it would be lucky to break 300k

in japan
not Worldwide

Xenoblade 2 worldwide sales: 2 million as of November 2020

Tales series worldwide sales: Nearly 24 million as of 2020

How about you don't pull blatantly untrue facts out of your arse?

 

[SirBillyBob]

Nintendo Fans: Ok so our first character of FP2 was Min-Min so the rest of the pass must be first party but Steve was DLC fighter 7 so the next character must be Jonesy but-
Nintendo and Sakurai deciding on who gets chosen for FP2:

 

[Icedragonadam]

So trivia, Smash is literally the only crossover game Ryu is in but not Chun-Li. She always follows him wherever he goes but not here, she got passed over for Guile as an AT. Heck it makes me more inclined that she'll be the Capcom DLC rep.

 

[SpecterFlower]

Worlwide xenoblade 2 outsold every tales game.

Xenoblade 2 worldwide sales: 2 million as of November 2020

Tales series worldwide sales: Nearly 24 million as of 2020

How about you don't pull blatantly untrue facts out of your arse?

Tales

The Tales series, commonly known and referred to as the Tales Of series, is a series of action role-playing games developed and published by Bandai Namco. As of 2024, the series has sold more than 30 million units worldwide. One of the most successful entries in this series is Tales of Vesperia...

vgsales.fandom.com

take with grain of salt but most accurate i could find.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 surpasses two million copies sold

Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which originally released in December 2017, is confirmed to have sold over two million copies. It currently sits at a total of 2.05 million units worldwide as of June 2020. 160,000 copies were sold in the last few months. The last official number we had was 1.92 million...

nintendoeverything.com

xenoblade 2 7 thousand off of outselling symphonia as of a month ago.

i never specified series, arise will not be able to sell 2mil worldwide unless it get's really lucky but this is pretty off-topic.

Edit: oh maybe i worded it wrong? i'm not the best english sometimes.

Edit 2: rereading it xenoblade 2 sold 4 thousand more than symphonia.

 

[Slime Scholar]

So trivia, Smash is literally the only crossover game Ryu is in but not Chun-Li. She always follows him wherever he goes but not here, she got passed over for Guile as an AT. Heck it makes me more inclined that she'll be the Capcom DLC rep.

I can't remember every Capcom crossover off the top of my head, but this wouldn't shock me. Ryu and Chun-Li are basically Mr. & Mrs. Fighting Game. She's in all of the Capcom Vs. titles, Teppen, Project X Zone, etc. Smash is an outlier.

 

[7NATOR]

So trivia, Smash is literally the only crossover game Ryu is in but not Chun-Li. She always follows him wherever he goes but not here, she got passed over for Guile as an AT. Heck it makes me more inclined that she'll be the Capcom DLC rep.

Actually

While it's not built like a Crossover game, Chun-Li was not in Asura's Wraith. Instead there it was Ryu and Akuma (With Evil Ryu and Oni as well)

But you are right regardless of that. Chun-Li even follows Ryu into the Power Rangers Crossover

 

[Powerman293]

There's so much criteria people look at when they make their ideal "balanced" fighter passes. It's new vs old, games by genre, male vs female, character designs, first-party vs third-party, popularity by region, and probably a lot more that I can't remember from the top of my head.

The first pass didn't meet most of the criteria people use to determine if a pass is balanced, and I wouldn't be surprised if the second pass is similar. Can't see Nintendo caring about a majority of these issues.

Fighter's Pass 1 would have been perfect had Byelth not been added at the end. It felt well rounded at that point with new and old characters from a variety of genres. (And yes, I know two of those first 4 characters were JRPG characters).

 

[Mamboo07]

We all do this.

 

[Louie G.]

So trivia, Smash is literally the only crossover game Ryu is in but not Chun-Li. She always follows him wherever he goes but not here, she got passed over for Guile as an AT. Heck it makes me more inclined that she'll be the Capcom DLC rep.

Not exactly true...

...but in all seriousness, that's a good observation. Don't know if it means much in regards to Chunners in Smash (trying not to get my hopes up too much) but it's certainly something worth acknowledging.

 

[Shroob]

Well If Chun-Li is in the game I think she'll be the June reveal. She's a huge character herself and not just in her thighs. And Ryu himself was revealed in June in Smash 4 so it would be a nice callback much like with Cloud & Sephiroth,

I mean, the thing I think is ironic is that according to Capcom themselves, SF2's 30th anniversary falls in March.


Yeah, anniversaries usually means nothing.... we say as Sephiroth dropped like a literal day before a Final Fantasy one.

 

[JamesDNaux]

I'm doubting any Capcom 'rep' honestly, even starting to doubt Namco, I feel like the next two characters will be from unrepresented (via characters) companies, and the last one will probably be Nintendo. If anything, certainly one of the last three will be a new company, and Namco is far more likely than Capcom to get a new character imo, but what do I know. The only thing that's certain is that the final Nintendo character is Morsard from Fire Emblem: Five Apartments and a Condo, the latest game in the series which Sakurai himself will personally announce in Morsard's own dual reveal/presentation.

 

[TheBeastHimself]

lol imagine rest of the pass is only first party picks

 

[Louie G.]

If anything, certainly one of the last three will be a new company, and Namco is far more likely than Capcom to get a new character imo, but what do I know.

I believe most people are expecting Capcom over Namco due to the current trend of Mii Fighter costumes. In FP1, Capcom costumes were used as filler for passes without a central theme or enough costumes from that company to fill a batch of 5-6. This time around the "misc" role seems to be Namco, with Monster Hunter costumes still strangely absent and Heihachi and Gil thrown in alongside the unrelated Min Min and Steve.

I mean hell, you probably know this already but yeah. That's why I'm anticipating a Capcom character at least - and that logic worked for Square Enix too so I'm pretty comfortable sticking with that for now.

But y'know, that might not mean anything at all. It's just why I personally am expecting Lloyd to pop up any day now and for Namco to be finished. I know you're anticipating two new companies though which I think is pretty likely too - just with Capcom in place of your Nintendo pick.

 

[JamesDNaux]

I believe most people are expecting Capcom over Namco due to the current trend of Mii Fighter costumes. In FP1, Capcom costumes were used as filler for passes without a central theme or enough costumes from that company to fill a batch of 5-6. This time around the "misc" role seems to be Namco, with Monster Hunter costumes still strangely absent and Heihachi and Gil thrown in alongside the unrelated Min Min and Steve.

But y'know, that might not mean anything at all. It's just why I personally am expecting Lloyd to pop up any day now and for Namco to be finished.

So Capcom costumes show up in Pass 1 and that means we're getting a Namco character... that never happens.

And Namco costumes show up in Pass 2 and that means we're getting a Capcom character... see where I'm going with this?

Lloyd and Hunter costumes are just gonna show up when the next unrelated RPG character does.

 

[Deleted member]

The fun part about the Chun/Tales rumor is that it can be true without either fighter coming to fruition. Really leaves the door open for speculation.