Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[Þe 1 → Way]

I think Sephiroth fits the fan pick.

Does he? I hadn’t seen any talk about him until his announcement. He seems more like the “Character you never knew you wanted” pick. If we have gotten an FP2 fan pick, I’d say thats Steve.

 

[Speed Weed]

Imagine we get an assist trophy promotion but it's this guy:

I'd be pretty happy, personally. I want to see what Sakurai had in mind for him during Smash for Wii U/3DS' planning stage.

This is the best timeline and I'm sad that it won't happen

 

[GilTheGreat19]

Don’t they work on more than one character at a time? Unless the next character is even harder to make than what they did for Steve, then I don’t see why we’d be waiting ‘til December unless they want to for some marketing reasons…and I’m not sure which character would be harder than Steve…

Genuine answer: Jonesy....?
Dude's got a bunch of weapons he could swap between, he could build like Steve...


Another genuine answer: Chell
Hopping around portals, programming how their coordinates would place around the screen, and animating them and Chell's body..?

 

[Theguy123]

Does he? I hadn’t seen any talk about him until his announcement. He seems more like the “Character you never knew you wanted” pick. If we have gotten an FP2 fan pick, I’d say thats Steve.

I wouldn’t even put Steve under fan pick as well. It’s an obvious choice for Nintendo to include him. Minecraft is the best selling game in the world. Steve and minecraft feels more of a business side than a fan pick.

 

[Inferno7]

This is true.
We'll see, I suppose.


Theguy123 So using this infamous chart

^This data was based on Twitter responses after DLC character reveals on official Nintendo Twitter accounts. This ofc doesn't represent the opinion of every Smash Bros. player in the respective regions, but its gives an idea as to what kinds of characters people in different regions want.

Some of these characters could've been popular ballot picks back in the Smash 4 ballot days. So borrowing your quote "popular fan pick", we can see a few of these have already happened RELATIVE TO ULTIMATE. Byleth, Steve, and Sephiroth. Perhaps Steve was a popular ballot pick? The ballot opened in April 2015, and we didn't know about Cloud yet for months so perhaps it's not possible that Sephiroth was even a popular choice.

And I can't really explain all the other characters you see. Some of these guys were possibly high placing ballot picks, some weren't. We don't know.

I can't believe Japan is so based.
No wonder they cater to them.

 

[GilTheGreat19]

I can't believe Japan is so based.
No wonder they cater to them.

Inferno7 is pleased

 

[Inferno7]

RIP Evelynn tho, she ain’t for good boys and girls of all ages

Lol
Also just imagine;
"Yasuo, ints the battle!"

 

[blackghost]

Don’t they work on more than one character at a time? Unless the next character is even harder to make than what they did for Steve, then I don’t see why we’d be waiting ‘til December unless they want to for some marketing reasons…and I’m not sure which character would be harder than Steve…

steve was by far the most complex character not only becuase of the mining and blocks and what that required from old stages, but we could see clear changes from the steve demo by sakurai to release.

kazuya is prob second because sakurai openly admitted to needing to rework/modify kazuya prior to launch.

some compnaies do create and deisgn characters from scratch after the revious DLC is done. Namco does this with soulcalibur 6. Nintendo doesnt do this we know they dont because we know kazuya and steve and byleth and terry both had demos filmed within a week of each other. Nintendo strteching out the release dates has nothing to do with "shilling" or getting paid its all just business strategy. Revealing a character during holiday season is free adveetisment and will help sales. its not complicated.

why do smash fans expect every character to come back no other fighting game does that. nuking the roster wouldn't go over well (see soulcalibur 5 and street fighter third strike original release) but smahs has characters that arent essential and fans act like they are. Shrinking the roster allows them ot rework and update some characters that need it (gannon, dk, puff, ect)

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I can't believe Japan is so based.
No wonder they cater to them.

Aside from Gundam and Arle, all their most wanted are anime swordfighters.

 

[Guynamednelson]

I mean, if it's a character that requires changing quite a bunch of stuff like with Steve with the stages and textures or something similar that requires alot of programming, I could see why it would take 6+ months.

Steve still had a similar development cycle to characters that didn't require every stage to be edited. Remember, Sakurai said he didn't reslly start development until the lockdown.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

The last CP is from Dark Souls, Bandai-Namco will double dip this time and would destroy all theories. So, nobody would see it coming. In consequence, we will have a parallelism with FP1:

Joker - Chosen Undead (Both very popular 2016 M-rated japanese games, Persona 5* - Dark Souls 3)
Hero - Sephiroth (biggest Square-Enix IPs)
Banjo - Steve (western IPs, both owned by Microsoft)
Terry - Kazuya (fighting games)
Byleth - Min Min and Pyra/Mythra (Nintendo characters from Switch games).

*P5 was released at august 2016 in Japan.

Then watch as like all other theories this one breaks.

 

[TheCJBrine]

Genuine answer: Jonesy....?
Dude's got a bunch of weapons he could swap between, he could build like Steve...


Another genuine answer: Chell
Hopping around portals, programming how their coordinates would place around the screen, and animating them and Chell's body..?

I was thinking about Jonesy tbh and maybe Sackboy.

Chell might be difficult, though I think teleport mechanics and placing the portals would be a lot simpler unless they make them just like they are in the original game (so you can see Chell in two spots at once and see through the portals, which would be really cool).

Still though, based on how the spacing has been so far, I’m not sure it’d require a December date…

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

I wouldn’t even put Steve under fan pick as well. It’s an obvious choice for Nintendo to include him. Minecraft is the best selling game in the world. Steve and minecraft feels more of a business side than a fan pick.

It kinda feels like both. A big businss pick with a lot of fan support.

Same with Xenoblade. Rex was a big request so putting in the closest thing possible to him and promoting XC2 made sense.

FP2 is lacking a pure Banjo style fan pick. (Which looking back now was your original post lmao. Came full circle)

 

[Inferno7]

Aside from Gundam and Arle, all their most wanted are anime swordfighters.

And who's to say that's bad?

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

This is true.
We'll see, I suppose.


Theguy123 So using this infamous chart

^This data was based on Twitter responses after DLC character reveals on official Nintendo Twitter accounts. This ofc doesn't represent the opinion of every Smash Bros. player in the respective regions, but its gives an idea as to what kinds of characters people in different regions want.

Some of these characters could've been popular ballot picks back in the Smash 4 ballot days. So borrowing your quote "popular fan pick", we can see a few of these have already happened RELATIVE TO ULTIMATE. Byleth, Steve, and Sephiroth. Perhaps Steve was a popular ballot pick? The ballot opened in April 2015, and we didn't know about Cloud yet for months so perhaps it's not possible that Sephiroth was even a popular choice.

And I can't really explain all the other characters you see. Some of these guys were possibly high placing ballot picks, some weren't. We don't know.

This really hammers home just how many people want Sora. Then he’ll get in and twitter will cry anyway

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Don’t they work on more than one character at a time? Unless the next character is even harder to make than what they did for Steve, then I don’t see why we’d be waiting ‘til December unless they want to for some marketing reasons…and I’m not sure which character would be harder than Steve…

Anybody akin to Pokemon Trainer. Doing three transformations total instead of two is significantly harder to balance as is. It's why people were weary of Agumon at one point, or the same reason nobody considered Young Link with Masks legit viable either. It was pretty clearly impossible to get that done within a reasonable amount of time.

I don't even think it's likely to take that long, but we already saw that Min Min, who is not even like Steve's difficulty, took freaking forever. If it's more complicated than either of those two, which is possible, we're in for a long road ahead.

 

[GilTheGreat19]

This really hammers home just how many people want Sora. Then he’ll get in and twitter will cry anyway

Doesn't that happen with every reveal?

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

Doesn't that happen with every reveal?

Its extra ironic considering Sora seemingly has the most Twitter support.

 

[GilTheGreat19]

and maybe Sackboy.

Dear god I'd love to get Sackboy (I like his design, and watched some gameplay from A Big Adventure)
I never played his games tho; Why would be hypothetically take that long?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

And who's to say that's bad?

It isn't, didn't imply it was.

 

[3BitSaurus]

So you're saying Bard has a chance...

I mean, I think his moveset and playstyle would probably fit a little bit better than, say, Ivern. Bu we all know you'd really be maining the Meeps.

RIP Evelynn tho, she ain’t for good boys and girls of all ages

Y'know, I do wonder how Smash could do stealth sometimes. MOBAs and some competitive FPS games do it, but I'd argue it's harder in a fighting game because all players need to have roughly the same information displayed in the same way on screen.

 

[DarthEnderX]

I mean, if it's a character that requires changing quite a bunch of stuff like with Steve with the stages and textures or something similar that requires alot of programming, I could see why it would take 6+ months.

Steve didn't take 6+ months, and he was being made simultaneously with other characters.

This is the last character. It's the ONLY one still being worked on.

Imagine we get an assist trophy promotion but it's this guy:

Barfarooni...

 

[GilTheGreat19]

Y'know, I do wonder how Smash could do stealth sometimes. MOBAs and some competitive FPS games do it, but I'd argue it's harder in a fighting game because all players need to have roughly the same information displayed in the same way on screen.

I mean it's a completely different game (and genre) but I can use a Skylanders example
Stealth Elf

She has a move called "Stealthier Decoy" where she disappears completely but leaves behind a decoy image that enemies could be drawn to. In a hypothetical Smash Moveset of said character, maybe make it such that only the player playing as Stealth Elf can see both herself and the decoy, while under the opponent's perspective, said person could only see the decoy.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

I mean it's a completely different game (and genre) but I can use a Skylanders example
Stealth Elf

She has a move called "Stealthier Decoy" where she disappears completely but leaves behind a decoy image that enemies could be drawn to. In a hypothetical Smash Moveset of said character, maybe make it such that only the player playing as Stealth Elf can see both herself and the decoy, while under the opponent's perspective, said person could only see the decoy.

Issue is that’d probably only work on online. If in person and they’re all playing on one switch with a dock connected to a tv and multiple controllers, how would that work?

 

[TheCJBrine]

Dear god I'd love to get Sackboy (I like his design, and watched some gameplay from A Big Adventure)
I never played his games tho; Why would be hypothetically take that long?

I haven’t played his games either, I just think he seems cool. I think you can build or do some creative stuff in Little Big Planet, which is why I mentioned him, though I’m not entirely sure.

 

[ahemtoday]

I mean it's a completely different game (and genre) but I can use a Skylanders example
Stealth Elf

She has a move called "Stealthier Decoy" where she disappears completely but leaves behind a decoy image that enemies could be drawn to. In a hypothetical Smash Moveset of said character, maybe make it such that only the player playing as Stealth Elf can see both herself and the decoy, while under the opponent's perspective, said person could only see the decoy.

How does this work in local multiplayer?

 

[pupNapoleon]

I do wonder if this last character is gonna be the “popular fan choice” character.

You know, the one that’s a fan request character. None of the characters in this pass have been because of fan requests so far even though they have been popular picks.

Min min was a special request from the arms creator

Sephiroth was to fix clouds content

Pyra and myphra was base roster content that didn’t make the cut and not specifically that “fan requested character” yes it has its popularity but it was more of putting them in because they were too late for base roster

And Steve was more of a business situation since he comes from the best selling game in the world.

We’re still missing that “popular fan pick”. It could be someone who’s massive or it could be someone who is just midish or it could be someone who is small.

We’ll know it’s the popular pick though because sakurai would specifically mention it like he did with banjo.

I don't think any of these facts came from legitimate information. I havn't read anything of the sorts that Sephiroth was to 'fix content,' that Min Min was requested by the director of ARMS (other than being the choice ONCE an ARMS character was already chosen), that Steve is a business situation. In fact, adding a full character to 'FIX' the content of another is based off a pretty poor argument in the first place.

 

[3BitSaurus]

I mean it's a completely different game (and genre) but I can use a Skylanders example
Stealth Elf

She has a move called "Stealthier Decoy" where she disappears completely but leaves behind a decoy image that enemies could be drawn to. In a hypothetical Smash Moveset of said character, maybe make it such that only the player playing as Stealth Elf can see both herself and the decoy, while under the opponent's perspective, said person could only see the decoy.

Issue is that’d probably only work on online. If in person and they’re all playing on one switch with a dock connected to a tv and multiple controllers, how would that work?

How does this work in local multiplayer?

Yeah, that's the issue.

Even with good online, local multiplayer is still a big thing in fighting games - it's how tournaments are run too, unlike MOBAs or FPS games, where they pretty much rig a specific network, but each player is still playing in a separate screen. That's a big reason why stealth doesn't seem to lend itself too well. After all, if your opponent can see you stealthing and calculate where you are because you're sharing information onscreen, the point is pretty much moot.

Reminds me of screenlooking on local multiplayer FPS games, really.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

This really hammers home just how many people want Sora. Then he’ll get in and twitter will cry anyway

I mean Twitter crying about something is a universal constant of life.

 

[pupNapoleon]

I wouldn’t even put Steve under fan pick as well. It’s an obvious choice for Nintendo to include him. Minecraft is the best selling game in the world. Steve and minecraft feels more of a business side than a fan pick.

If this is the case, then what makes a fan pick?
A character that is super popular among fans, but not popular enough for Nintendo to ever choose to include?
So, the only fan pick option is Geno?

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Its extra ironic considering Sora seemingly has the most Twitter support.

I mean the people supporting him and the people who would complain at his reveal are probably two different groups. Social media just tends to amplify the negative in everything.

 

[pupNapoleon]

Aside from Gundam and Arle, all their most wanted are anime swordfighters.

The fact that Gundam is on that 'most wanted' list is enough to invalidate it based on incongruencies. Gundam is not a video game character. If non video game characters can be on that list, I am positive we would see other nonvideo game characters on that list, such as, clearly Goku. And apparently, probably Iron Man.

This really hammers home just how many people want Sora. Then he’ll get in and twitter will cry anyway

And in this light- I must ask- did this poll just come out of the blue? I don't ever recall seeing a validity claim on the creators, much less any proof that these were the votes.
I've taken it to be a list made up by an individual, or small group, looking to promote and validate their own picks.

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

I mean the people supporting him and the people who would complain at his reveal are probably two different groups. Social media just tends to amplify the negative in everything.

Yeah buts its much more fun to imagine some guy hunkered over his PC saying “God Sakurai nobody asked for Steve give us Sora” then after he gets added saying “God not another anime Swordsman.”

 

[Michael the Spikester]

So, the only fan pick option is Geno?

Bandana Dee, Crash Bandicoot, Dixie Kong, Rayman, Sora, etc.

Also forgetting Geno is a costume so he's not happening.

 

[pupNapoleon]

I mean it's a completely different game (and genre) but I can use a Skylanders example
Stealth Elf

She has a move called "Stealthier Decoy" where she disappears completely but leaves behind a decoy image that enemies could be drawn to. In a hypothetical Smash Moveset of said character, maybe make it such that only the player playing as Stealth Elf can see both herself and the decoy, while under the opponent's perspective, said person could only see the decoy.

This wouldn't be feasible, as Smash can be played by all players on the same TV.

 

[Theguy123]

I don't think any of these facts came from legitimate information. I havn't read anything of the sorts that Sephiroth was to 'fix content,' that Min Min was requested by the director of ARMS (other than being the choice ONCE an ARMS character was already chosen), that Steve is a business situation. In fact, adding a full character to 'FIX' the content of another is based off a pretty poor argument in the first place.

Sakurai literally states in the arms presentation that min min was a request from the arms director

Everyone in the world can see minecraft was a business decision as minecraft is the best selling game in the world

Sakurai literally said the Rex mii costume was an apology to fans for not being able to add xenoblade content into base roster when he added it so it’s not far fetched to suggest pyra and myphra was meant to be base roster content.

And the final fantasy content was soo lacking it’s not to far fetched to suggest sephiroth was added to fix the content that cloud came with.

The only one that’s reaching is the sephiroth part

 

[pupNapoleon]

Bandana Dee, Crash Bandicoot, Dixie Kong, Rayman, Sora, etc.

Also forgetting Geno is a costume so he's not happening.

No, all of those examples are picks that, under the user I quoted, could be considered 'Nintendo picks.'
My point with the post you quote is that, if a character is a fan pick, it's also gotta be a Nintendo pick, because Nintendo does well if its something the fans want.

Sakurai literally states in the arms presentation that min min was a request from the arms director

Everyone in the world can see minecraft was a business decision as minecraft is the best selling game in the world

Sakurai literally said the Rex mii costume was an apology to fans for not being able to add xenoblade content into base roster when he added it so it’s not far fetched to suggest pyra and myphra was meant to be base roster content.

And the final fantasy content was soo lacking it’s not to far fetched to suggest sephiroth was added to fix the content that cloud came with.

The only one that’s reaching is the sephiroth part

Sakurai said that Min Min was the ARMS character chosen by the director, not that the director of ARMS came up to him and asked for a character. This is a huge difference.
Additiionally, Min Min was the most popular character of ARMS, anyway- she had the biggest social media response after her debut (in ARMS), she was the winner of the ARMS canon game due to popularity.

Your points on Pythra are the only ones in your initial post that 1- make sense, 2- are based on information we know.

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

And in this light- I must ask- did this poll just come out of the blue? I don't ever recall seeing a validity claim on the creators, much less any proof that these were the votes.
I've taken it to be a list made up by an individual, or small group, looking to promote and validate their own picks.

The original post by Gil explains it. Its not a poll. Rather just a compilation of of requests people made on twitter.

It isn’t entirely accurate, but its enough to give at least an idea of where each region stands on requests.

 

[Theguy123]

If this is the case, then what makes a fan pick?
A character that is super popular among fans, but not popular enough for Nintendo to ever choose to include?
So, the only fan pick option is Geno?

A character who is chosen on popularity and not for business decisions or to fix base roster content.

They could be hugely popular or just have a decent enough fans backing them.

For example if the next character was, as an example eggman (because I don’t know many examples) and Nintendo/sakurai came out and said they had many requests for him then he’d be a popular pick. He Doesn’t have anything to promote and he isn’t a huge pick as he’s never usually brought up in dlc speculation.

Probably not the greatest example but you get what I mean though, someone who’s not promoting anything and isn’t put in to make up for lack of content.

 

[WeirdAlFan101]

While I will concede that I'm not hopeful for Geno's chances as much as the next guy, saying it's because of his costume doesn't really mean anything.

Y'know, since although we got Pythra, it was originally considered to make Rex the X2 rep, who had a costume revealed on launch day. And Kazuya being chosen over Heihachi wasn't because of his costume, either.