Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[Speed Weed]

To condense the length of a million years into a couple points based on what I know:

• Speed Weed likes Sega and digs deep into their library
• Most people don't dig quite as deep
• Speed Weed feels miffed that numerous characters are ignored, with the only Sega characters usually brought up being another Sonic character, whoever becomes the hot stuff in speculation (Yakuza, Sakura Wars, Puyo Puyo, and recently Phantasy Star), whoever shows up a lot in crossovers (NiGHTS, Billy Hatcher), and recently Super Monkey Ball because it just decided to become the big crossover thing lately
• Speed Weed views Billy as being emblematic of the surface-level Sega spec that irritates him a lot, since he showed up in a few crossovers and gets a disproportionate amount of focus despite starring in a single game that wasn't that big for Sega in the grand scheme of things

At least, that's what I've gathered based on the convos I've seen and been part of. Anyways, while we're discussing overlooked Sega characters Vyse seems like a cool dude from what little I've read of Skies of Arcadia and my music teacher recommended the game once so that gives a pretty good mental image. If I may, what can Vyse do and does he have any unique mechanics that could be translated to Smash?

That's pretty on point, though I think it's best I explain it through my own words.

So imagine if someone was discussing Nintendo and their vast range of notable IP, and they talk about Mario, Zelda, Pokémon, Animal Crossing...and then Mole Mania and FlingSmash. That's what a lot of SEGA discussion feels like, especially here. People will talk about the super surface-level stuff like Sonic, Persona, Monkey Ball and Puyo, and then they'll suddenly be mentioning Billy Hatcher and Ristar in the same breath as those. It's getting kind of annoying, and I feel like Eggman's rise to becoming the ultra-popular speculation pick he is today has only made things worse. Like, things weren't exactly perfect back then either, but at least we talked about a wider range of IP! We still talked about stuff like Yakuza and Sakura Wars and Streets of Rage and ****! Now it feels like surface-level SEGA discussion has mostly been monopolized by Eggman, Dunkaccino Nahobino and Arle, with Phantasy Star gaining traction as a darkhorse - which is something I'm genuinely super happy about, but even then, a ton of people aren't even bothering to look any further into the franchise at all and are pretty much just acting like only PSO2 exists and taking Matoi at face value as The Pick just cause she was in the 4chan fake leak.

And ultimately that's what gets to me, cause it feels like a lot of people in this community's perception of SEGA is just Sonic-adjacent scrimblos and whatever John Speculationman tells them is super duper likely. What really annoys me is when people bring up these IP as examples of SEGA's other IP besides their Really Big Ones, and then say something like "well uhhhh you see after these small few big ones all they really have is a bunch of random dead franchises lol". I am utterly sick and tired of that bull**** narrative. Jesus ****ing Christ, if you're going to skip over a bunch of other notable and important IP to mention ****ing Billy Hatcher, then of course it's gonna look like all they have after their surface-level stuff is a bunch of random dead IP!

If I ever see anyone mention SEGA's IP going something like "well you have uhhhhhhh sonic and persona and puyo puyo and monkey ball i guess and after that you have stuff like vectorman so not much of value really" I swear to ****ing god.

also wtf your music teacher is based

Yeah, pretty much. if I'm not mistaken, both Vyse and Gillius were axed from the original ASR, but I'm glad they made it into Transformed.

Overall, the thing with the All-Stars series is that it's great at pulling from corners of Sega's library that aren't in the spotlight at the time. The Bonanza Bros. being in the original caught me off-guard, that's for sure, as did Ristar as a flagman, the Burning Rangers track and Race of Ages in the sequel.

On the other hand, it's weird that arguably some of the most popular Sega franchises aren't there at all. It would be like having Ray MKIII, Chibi-Robo, Isaac, Andy and Starfy in Smash, but no Kirby and Animal Crossing content whatsoever.

Personally, I'd really love for them to pull an "Everyone is Here" for the next All-Stars, but with more added series like Puyo, Yakuza, PS and SW. Maybe content from something like Vectorman or Ecco the Dolphin. Hell, add Segata Sanshiro too - I heard he was also a scrapped character in the original ASR.

Well, see, the thing is, I do actually really like the Bonanza Bros having been chosen despite their lack of importance. I do really like deep cuts.....when they're A. actually interesting, and B. actually treated as deep cuts. And that's kinda why I don't really like Billy Hatcher - it's not just that he's obscure, cause obscure picks can be dope! It's that I just find him kinda boring and I feel that SEGA crossovers of that time tended to treat him a bit too well - of course, it doesn't exactly help that I see a bunch of people treat him as the Greatest Thing Ever In History when I could probably name, like, 50 SEGA IP I like more lol. In contrast, I find the Bonanza Bros. to generally have more interesting designs, and they felt a lot more like they were meant to be weird deep cuts. So I like them more.

So, like, I have to admit: as much as I do think series like Puyo and Yakuza absolutely should be in a hypothetical next All-Stars Racing 3.....it does kinda bother me when people treat the All-Stars rosters as the ****up Of The Century cause these big properties weren't in it. Cause A. you have to understand the context of the time, it really wasn't Sumo's fault, and B. they oftentimes act really dismissive towards the SEGA characters that were included when, like.....most of them were perfectly good choices???? Like, sure, my distaste for Billy Hatcher is well-documented at this point and maybe I could've done with another House of the Dead character over Zobio and Zobiko, but all the others I can think of right now were at least some degree of banger choices, to be honest. And that's why I don't like when people treat all these characters as Dumb Irrelevant Picks That Need To Make Room For The Actually Important Franchises - the only one that actually deserves that one IMO is Billy Hatcher, but everyone else is good! Everyone else can stay!

And ultimately it kinda bothers me when people only bring up The Really Really Big IP and a bunch of 90s scrimblos as potential characters they could include in an All-Stars Racing 3, cause there's a ton of inbetween stuff I think would be so cool. These big franchises should absolutely be in, and you could maybe throw Ristar in as a treat for the fans, but there's just so much more potential! You can add stuff like Streets of Rage and Valkyria Chronicles and Wonder Boy and Virtual-ON! You can give Panzer Dragoon or Burning Rangers playable representation! SEGA owns Technosoft now, you could throw Thunder Force in there! I think an amazing relatively deeper cut would be Green from Gunstar Heroes in the Seven Force. And there's still a bunch of other things I haven't even mentioned. So you see, there's a ****load of potential for an All-Stars Racing 3, and it's not that I dislike obscure characters - I love obscure characters - I just feel like Billy in particular has more than had his time in the sun at this point, and I'd rather we make room for other, much more interesting characters, including some cooler deep cuts.

Basically, I don't like when people dismiss anything that isn't in SEGA's top 10 sales figures, but I don't like when people hold up some random scrimblo they made once as the second coming of Christ either. There's gotta be a balance there. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

I'm not wrong, that's how the conversation went. I do know things have changed since then though, but Reimu discussion didn't really pick up in response so I don't quite remember how. Just out of curiosity, is Touhou Kabuto Burst an official game in the series or a fan game?

I believe Kabuto Burst is in that weird area of Touhou games that are officially sold but are more akin to I guess doujin material? Touhou's situation with games is very odd because ZUN allows people to make games and sell them even when he doesn't oversee them, and Kabuto Burst is one of those, but the fighting game, Antinomy of Common Flowers, is an official fighting game ZUN worked on with another team, and it did receive an official translation.

Some of the Touhou mangas are officially translated as well, a lot of the shooters have come out on Steam, and the gacha game Touhou Lost Word, created by GoodSmile, has a global release now so there are plenty of ways for people in the west to be aware of the characters if they weren't already beforehand.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Reimu does feel like one of those more niche third party characters too that we'd get similarly to or .

It's a possible final character though there's the argument that she's too niche outside Japan similarly to Takamaru or Sakura.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

Touhou has so much possibility for content that I really do hope Reimu's the last character. It has so many characters that Spirits would be a cakewalk, the music is top notch, and the stage is a pretty easy choice with Hakurei Shrine being an obvious location. I fully believe Reimu can fit that "kills Galeem AND Dharkon" type of character, seeing her dodge Galeem's light beams would be really cool visually, and I mean come on, stopping the "ultimate battle of light and dark" with a character that uses a Yin-Yang?

She has fighting games to base her design and normals off of while still using ZUN's art for Spirits and the like, and it'd be really easy to negotiate since ZUN is only one man and has expressed interest in Reimu being in Smash before (which was stated in like October 2019, so it fits in the timeline).

Plus since Yoko Shimomura has done so much DLC music, hearing her remix a Touhou track would actually be so powerful like you don't understand

 

[Schnee117]

Pass 1 + Plant

Terry > Joker >> Byleth > Plant >> Hero >>> Banjo

• Terry just needs his Garou jacket and music to be as perfect as he can be, otherwise there's really no complaints to be had
• Joker isn't my preferred Persona character, you'd have to dig through most of the P3 cast (with two recasts), Yu, Kanji, Naoto, Chie and Makoto first, but he's stylish and I like that he brought Persona 3 and 4 content
• Byleth is a character I really wouldn't have minded if they just stuck to really exploring what whipswords can do and made use of Divine Pulse, instead we got a boring "weapon master" that went surface level with the weapons although Aymr is really fun to at least land, also needed to bring God-Shattering Star but otherwise, Three Houses is great so I'm glad its here
• Plant's a fun idea and I like what they tried to do, but the execution is awful
• I don't care for DQ but I could be tempted in future
• I really do not care for Banjo

Pass 2

Sephiroth > Kazuya > Steve >> Min Min >>> Pyra/Mythra

• Sephiroth's really fun and he brought in more great Final Fantasy content, the Sephiroth challenge was a really cool idea too but that suffered from Smash AI being awful
• Kazuya does a fantastic job with regards to Tekken and I love the content he brought along, but I prefer Soul Calibur for my Namco fighting games but he does come very close to Sephiroth regardless
• Steve's a great addition even if I knew his moveset was never gonna click. His stage is really cool too, I just wish he had more music
• I don't care for ARMS
• XC2 is one of my least favourite games ever made for a wide amount of reasons so I'll leave it at something nice instead: the music is great even if some tracks didn't quite get through unscathed

 

[Sucumbio]

I think something important to note is that most things that don't get "official" localizations are things that very few people in the west know or care about. That's not the case with Touhou. Spend any amount of time on the internet and you will find that it's so not the case, in fact, that I don't think it'd be the same kind of obstacle for the series as it would be for something that truly has no presence outside of its borders. I doubt anyone upstairs is squabbling over a technicality like that if Reimu did in fact get brought up.

I have to agree with this. Plus and correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Mother basically a Japanese only game way back when he was in 64? Heck Fire Emblem for that matter.... Both seem to be Japanese mainstays that western audiences would doubtfully recognize (back then) which is kinda why I don't associate regionally specific characters with smash inclusion chances...

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Like I said, I'm not super knowledgeable, but wouldn't a trademark for Hakurei Shrine just mean that Zun's finally getting serious about his IP?

That aside, I've gone on before about how Quote should be "the" indie rep because Cave Story is the OG indie title, but that's not exactly fair since I think Touhou has been running around since the late 90s?


Two of these are rumored mii costumes from a certain someone, if I remember. I like Gunvolt a lot, so being cucked again in a Mii wave would just be the sendoff...


I have nowhere near the authority to tell you that you're wrong, but I will tell you that Touhou Kabuto Burst is on the Switch and there's a fighting game with a yet to be determined release date coming to the Switch as well.

The Knight was from the LoL rumor iirc. Ori… I heard it from Fatman (so it can be discarded) but iirc it didn’t explicitly say Mii

 

[DanganZilla5]

I get Speed Weed's frustration. I would like to talk about Streets of Rage, Sakura Wars, Vectorman, Ristar, Altered Beast, etc. more often but I get the vibe that there aren't a lot of people around here that care about those stuff. Which is fine but it would certainly have helped subside burnout for longer if people took more characters seriously.

And that's the circle of Smash. People complaining about the community talking about only 5 characters and what do they do? Keep bringing up those 5 characters. And honestly I'm part of the problem too as there were points where I was heavily advocating for characters like Doomguy and Crash (And I still do, I just don't think they are realistic at this point). But I at least try to sprinkle in some others characters like how I try to push Bill Rizer and Crypto.

 

[volbound1700]

Does anyone know if there is a major IP that Sakurai loves that is not in Smash? I could see the final character being someone special to Sakurai.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

BTW, r/smashbros is doing a fan poll of people's most wanted characters both for the last slot and for characters who have been Mii'd, Assist Trophied or in the background of a stage, (aka characters considered possible for the next Smash game).

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

 

[WahHahaha]

BTW, r/smashbros is doing a fan poll of people's most wanted characters both for the last slot and for characters who have been Mii'd, Assist Trophied or in the background of a stage, (aka characters considered possible for the next Smash game).

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

"NOTE: Characters who already have major cameo appearances in Ultimate (Assist Trophies, Mii Costumes, etc.) should not be written in."

What a dumb poll. "You can write whoever you want in, but if your character is someone I don't think will be in the game because of arbitrary fan rules, you can't have them as your most wanted"

 

[Rie Sonomura]

BTW, r/smashbros is doing a fan poll of people's most wanted characters both for the last slot and for characters who have been Mii'd, Assist Trophied or in the background of a stage, (aka characters considered possible for the next Smash game).

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

Not signing in on my Google account for it but is Fiora on the list of characters considered possible for next smash?

 

[RileyXY1]

I have to agree with this. Plus and correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Mother basically a Japanese only game way back when he was in 64? Heck Fire Emblem for that matter.... Both seem to be Japanese mainstays that western audiences would doubtfully recognize (back then) which is kinda why I don't associate regionally specific characters with smash inclusion chances...

Earthbound on the SNES was released in the US.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Not signing in on my Google account for it but is Fiora on the list of characters considered possible for next smash?

Yeah, she is, but only the >!Cyborg version!<.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

The sticking point for with Reimu for me is that she is an entirely plausible for Smash... but more for base game than DLC. The Fighters passes have played things fairly safe regionally, and the most Japan oriented paid character was from a series that almost every single mainline title localized in the West and was a mainstay over at least two portable consoles.

It’s probably a flawed assumption on my part but that feels like as far as they’re willing to go in terms of paid Eastern appeal fighters.

 

[Deleted member]

The sticking point for with Reimu for me is that she is an entirely plausible for Smash... but more for base game than DLC. The Fighters passes have played things fairly safe regionally, and the most Japan oriented paid character was from a series that almost every single mainline title localized in the West and was a mainstay over at least two portable consoles.

It’s probably a flawed assumption on my part but that feels like as far as they’re willing to go in terms of paid Eastern appeal fighters.

It's probably just the company I keep but I actually have a hard time finding people who don't at least know of Touhou. Thanks to the prevalence of the internet, there just aren't that many "Japan oriented" things anymore. I'm a bit of a pessimist on this subject, but in my opinion Touhou's biggest weakness as far as Smash representation goes is that it wouldn't advertise anything and therefore wouldn't maximize profits on its inclusion.

 

[Perkilator]

I'm still mostly dipping from here for a while, but here's a little thing I thought of; who's your most wanted for CP11, and who do you wish was playable in the base game (not including fighters who are DLC)?

My most wanted for CP11: Sora
Character I wish was playable in base: Shadow

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Love to see it.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

I have to agree with this. Plus and correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Mother basically a Japanese only game way back when he was in 64? Heck Fire Emblem for that matter.... Both seem to be Japanese mainstays that western audiences would doubtfully recognize (back then) which is kinda why I don't associate regionally specific characters with smash inclusion chances...

The conversation kinda just went like this:

"Well the series is technically Japanese only, but it is sold in the west, and the community is big enough that they make their own translation patches, which isn't something that you really see."

"OK but the fact that the community has to do translations itself means that it's so niche it might as well not exist in the western sphere."

"But it does though, and has a huge community that's always making fan projects, some of which have even broke into the main stream."

"I have never heard of this stuff, so it's not mainstream. You are overestimating the series way too much."


I may have given the other side of the argument a bit more of a villainous/disingenuous light than I meant to, but I do think some of the writing off of Touhou comes from the idea of "I don't know what it is and I know a lot, so obviously it's pretty niche". I fall into that mindset as well, but like, sometimes you've gotta consider that you might just not know it because you're not in the demographic for it. For example, I bring up Guild Wars 2 and others bring up Phantasy Star Online 2, which from what I understand are some of the biggest MMOs on the market, and most people here are pretty unfamiliar with them both; We just don't know our MMOs, which is fine, but I don't think that makes them inherently niche.

 

[3BitSaurus]

That's pretty on point, though I think it's best I explain it through my own words.

So imagine if someone was discussing Nintendo and their vast range of notable IP, and they talk about Mario, Zelda, Pokémon, Animal Crossing...and then Mole Mania and FlingSmash. That's what a lot of SEGA discussion feels like, especially here. People will talk about the super surface-level stuff like Sonic, Persona, Monkey Ball and Puyo, and then they'll suddenly be mentioning Billy Hatcher and Ristar in the same breath as those. It's getting kind of annoying, and I feel like Eggman's rise to becoming the ultra-popular speculation pick he is today has only made things worse. Like, things weren't exactly perfect back then either, but at least we talked about a wider range of IP! We still talked about stuff like Yakuza and Sakura Wars and Streets of Rage and ****! Now it feels like surface-level SEGA discussion has mostly been monopolized by Eggman, Dunkaccino Nahobino and Arle, with Phantasy Star gaining traction as a darkhorse - which is something I'm genuinely super happy about, but even then, a ton of people aren't even bothering to look any further into the franchise at all and are pretty much just acting like only PSO2 exists and taking Matoi at face value as The Pick just cause she was in the 4chan fake leak.

And ultimately that's what gets to me, cause it feels like a lot of people in this community's perception of SEGA is just Sonic-adjacent scrimblos and whatever John Speculationman tells them is super duper likely. What really annoys me is when people bring up these IP as examples of SEGA's other IP besides their Really Big Ones, and then say something like "well uhhhh you see after these small few big ones all they really have is a bunch of random dead franchises lol". I am utterly sick and tired of that bull**** narrative. Jesus ****ing Christ, if you're going to skip over a bunch of other notable and important IP to mention ****ing Billy Hatcher, then of course it's gonna look like all they have after their surface-level stuff is a bunch of random dead IP!

If I ever see anyone mention SEGA's IP going something like "well you have uhhhhhhh sonic and persona and puyo puyo and monkey ball i guess and after that you have stuff like vectorman so not much of value really" I swear to ****ing god.

also wtf your music teacher is based

Well, see, the thing is, I do actually really like the Bonanza Bros having been chosen despite their lack of importance. I do really like deep cuts.....when they're A. actually interesting, and B. actually treated as deep cuts. And that's kinda why I don't really like Billy Hatcher - it's not just that he's obscure, cause obscure picks can be dope! It's that I just find him kinda boring and I feel that SEGA crossovers of that time tended to treat him a bit too well - of course, it doesn't exactly help that I see a bunch of people treat him as the Greatest Thing Ever In History when I could probably name, like, 50 SEGA IP I like more lol. In contrast, I find the Bonanza Bros. to generally have more interesting designs, and they felt a lot more like they were meant to be weird deep cuts. So I like them more.

So, like, I have to admit: as much as I do think series like Puyo and Yakuza absolutely should be in a hypothetical next All-Stars Racing 3.....it does kinda bother me when people treat the All-Stars rosters as the ****up Of The Century cause these big properties weren't in it. Cause A. you have to understand the context of the time, it really wasn't Sumo's fault, and B. they oftentimes act really dismissive towards the SEGA characters that were included when, like.....most of them were perfectly good choices???? Like, sure, my distaste for Billy Hatcher is well-documented at this point and maybe I could've done with another House of the Dead character over Zobio and Zobiko, but all the others I can think of right now were at least some degree of banger choices, to be honest. And that's why I don't like when people treat all these characters as Dumb Irrelevant Picks That Need To Make Room For The Actually Important Franchises - the only one that actually deserves that one IMO is Billy Hatcher, but everyone else is good! Everyone else can stay!

And ultimately it kinda bothers me when people only bring up The Really Really Big IP and a bunch of 90s scrimblos as potential characters they could include in an All-Stars Racing 3, cause there's a ton of inbetween stuff I think would be so cool. These big franchises should absolutely be in, and you could maybe throw Ristar in as a treat for the fans, but there's just so much more potential! You can add stuff like Streets of Rage and Valkyria Chronicles and Wonder Boy and Virtual-ON! You can give Panzer Dragoon or Burning Rangers playable representation! SEGA owns Technosoft now, you could throw Thunder Force in there! I think an amazing relatively deeper cut would be Green from Gunstar Heroes in the Seven Force. And there's still a bunch of other things I haven't even mentioned. So you see, there's a ****load of potential for an All-Stars Racing 3, and it's not that I dislike obscure characters - I love obscure characters - I just feel like Billy in particular has more than had his time in the sun at this point, and I'd rather we make room for other, much more interesting characters, including some cooler deep cuts.

Basically, I don't like when people dismiss anything that isn't in SEGA's top 10 sales figures, but I don't like when people hold up some random scrimblo they made once as the second coming of Christ either. There's gotta be a balance there. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Er, how do I put this... I think you bring up some pretty good points, but at the same time I can't help but think you're taking this a little bit on the personal side. Being simply ignorant of something (as in, having no prior knowledge of said thing) and acting dismissive because you have no prior knowledge are two very different beasts.

That's kind of why I keep saying that a lot of these "dead IPs" are brought up because they were receiving entries on Nintendo consoles, and the timing means that people you'd find in the scene now would remember them for this period. Even then, it's rare to see names like Amigo or Billy Hatcher, whose last games came out two or three generations ago. The people who do mention them probably just... like the games. That's about it.

Come Smash 6, I kinda doubt you'll even be seeing some of these names in speculation if they don't get new entries. Instead, we'll probably hear a lot more often about Axel Stone, Alex Kidd and Akira, because their franchises are getting stuff now. Recency bias plays an even bigger part in speculation these days than legacy bias, I'd say. You gotta remember this is the same fanbase where a lot of people said K.Rool wasn't happening because he was "irrelevant".

Ultimately, I do agree that there needs to be a balance - and for what it's worth, I do praise Sumo for that. The were probably limited in what they could do, much like Ludosity is limited in NASB. Too many deep cuts and you risk alienating the more casual fanbase. Too little and the choices can come across as uninspired. I guess maybe I just want more different series, and that's why I can't help but praise choices like the Bonanza bros in ASR. Also I have no idea why they'd cut certain picks like Opa-Opa and Billy Hatcher from the sequel - must have been the budget.

 

[Metal Shop X]

Opinion on DLC characters:

Pass 1:

: Still think he is funny.

: Got a gun and is top tier, neat I guess

:Funny to watch, less to play

: I swear I like his inclusion, I didn't forgot him on purpose.

: He is cool, but punching peoples isn't OK


: If not for MKLeo, would have prefered Dimitri or even Claude/Edelgard (slighty more biased toward Claude, but axe are cool)

Pass 2:


: She exist and that annoy some peoples from what I heard


: What the **** do I do?


: Finally the FF7 content we deserved...oh and he is cool too.


: Good choice, but where is Malos tho?


: So cool, yet so hard to use.

 

[BlondeLombax]

All I know about Touhou is that a number of GMod animators really like the soundtracks in a lot of the games. Not hard to see why, what I’ve heard is quite a bop.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

Also I have no idea why they'd cut certain picks like Opa-Opa and Billy Hatcher from the sequel - must have been the budget.

Billy was I think stated to be because they couldn't think of kart ideas for him which is ludicrous because there are aquatic and flying animal buddies in Billy Hatcher that would've worked fine as a base with an egg forming around him and Billy doing his crowing to break it and finish the swap. Opa-Opa was probably a victim of the transformation system, since Opa-Opa was his own vehicle in the original and therefore had no way to transform in the sequel.

 

[3BitSaurus]

I get Speed Weed's frustration. I would like to talk about Streets of Rage, Sakura Wars, Vectorman, Ristar, Altered Beast, etc. more often but I get the vibe that there aren't a lot of people around here that care about those stuff. Which is fine but it would certainly have helped subside burnout for longer if people took more characters seriously.

And that's the circle of Smash. People complaining about the community talking about only 5 characters and what do they do? Keep bringing up those 5 characters. And honestly I'm part of the problem too as there were points where I was heavily advocating for characters like Doomguy and Crash (And I still do, I just don't think they are realistic at this point). But I at least try to sprinkle in some others characters like how I try to push Bill Rizer and Crypto.

SoR was brought up quite a bit after 4 released - the recency bias I talked about. And Sakura Wars seems to have a pretty loyal and somewhat vocal fanbase inside the Smash community - kinda like KOS-MOS. If you stick around long enough, you'll probably see Sakura being brought up every once in a while. In fact, aside from the usual Puyo/Yakuza/Monkey Ball/Atlus IPs circle, I'd even argue she's one of the most consistently brought up.

Love to see it.

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So you mean to say they're

e x p a n d i n g d o n g

 

[Gengar84]

I'm still mostly dipping from here for a while, but here's a little thing I thought of; who's your most wanted for CP11, and who do you wish was playable in the base game (not including fighters who are DLC)?

My most wanted for CP11: Sora
Character I wish was playable in base: Shadow

There are a ton of characters I’d love to see but most are very unrealistic. Out of semi-realistic options, I’d go with:

Most wanted CP11: The Battletoads
Base game: Lu Bu

 

[Rie Sonomura]

I'm still mostly dipping from here for a while, but here's a little thing I thought of; who's your most wanted for CP11, and who do you wish was playable in the base game (not including fighters who are DLC)?

My most wanted for CP11: Sora
Character I wish was playable in base: Shadow

Most wanted for CP11: Octoling, Off the Hook, LoL or Neku
Character I wish was in base: Elma, Black Shadow, Reimu

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

I'm still mostly dipping from here for a while, but here's a little thing I thought of; who's your most wanted for CP11, and who do you wish was playable in the base game (not including fighters who are DLC)?

My most wanted for CP11: Sora
Character I wish was playable in base: Shadow

Most wanted for CP11: Reimu, Monokuma
Wish was in base game: Bandana Dee

 

[Mushroomguy12]

I'm still mostly dipping from here for a while, but here's a little thing I thought of; who's your most wanted for CP11, and who do you wish was playable in the base game (not including fighters who are DLC)?

My most wanted for CP11: Sora
Character I wish was playable in base: Shadow

My most wanted for CP11: Sora, Phoenix Wright
Character I wish was playable in base: Dixie Kong, Krystal

 

[Gengar84]

It’s tough for me to separate the two categories because my most wanted characters are the same as the ones I wanted for the base game.

 

[3BitSaurus]

Billy was I think stated to be because they couldn't think of kart ideas for him which is ludicrous because there are aquatic and flying animal buddies in Billy Hatcher that would've worked fine as a base with an egg forming around him and Billy doing his crowing to break it and finish the swap. Opa-Opa was probably a victim of the transformation system, since Opa-Opa was his own vehicle in the original and therefore had no way to transform in the sequel.

Opa-Opa and the ChuChus' absence are weird too imo - since so many characters have made-up vehicles, I don't see what the issue would have been with making Opa-Opa run around with its legs or create wheels, for example. Pretty much every character has some level of creative liberty used in their rides.

 

[Hex D. Jess]

I'm still mostly dipping from here for a while, but here's a little thing I thought of; who's your most wanted for CP11, and who do you wish was playable in the base game (not including fighters who are DLC)?

My most wanted for CP11: Sora
Character I wish was playable in base: Shadow

My most wanted for CP11: Decidueye
Character I wish was playable in base: Decidueye

The **** is tunnel vision?

 

[Speed Weed]

Er, how do I put this... I think you bring up some pretty good points, but at the same time I can't help but think you're taking this a little bit on the personal side. Being simply ignorant of something (as in, having no prior knowledge of said thing) and acting dismissive because you have no prior knowledge are two very different beasts.

That's kind of why I keep saying that a lot of these "dead IPs" are brought up because they were receiving entries on Nintendo consoles, and the timing means that people you'd find in the scene now would remember them for this period. Even then, it's rare to see names like Amigo or Billy Hatcher, whose last games came out two or three generations ago. The people who do mention them probably just... like the games. That's about it.

Come Smash 6, I kinda doubt you'll even be seeing some of these names in speculation if they don't get new entries. Instead, we'll probably hear a lot more often about Axel Stone, Alex Kidd and Akira, because their franchises are getting stuff now. Recency bias plays an even bigger part in speculation these days than legacy bias, I'd say. You gotta remember this is the same fanbase where a lot of people said K.Rool wasn't happening because he was "irrelevant".

Ultimately, I do agree that there needs to be a balance - and for what it's worth, I do praise Sumo for that. The were probably limited in what they could do, much like Ludosity is limited in NASB. Too many deep cuts and you risk alienating the more casual fanbase. Too little and the choices can come across as uninspired. I guess maybe I just want more different series, and that's why I can't help but praise choices like the Bonanza bros in ASR. Also I have no idea why they'd cut certain picks like Opa-Opa and Billy Hatcher from the sequel - must have been the budget.

See, what I meant with people acting dismissive and dead IP and all that isn't just these random IP being brought up at all, but rather this situation I've seen plenty of times:

A. Person makes a short summary of The Noteworthy SEGA Things

B. Mainly mentions, like, the big ones

C. After that, they also give brief mention to some smaller stuff.....but instead of mentioning the IP SEGA have that are still notable and important but just not quite as big as The Big Ones, they skip straight to random stuff like, again, Billy and Ristar

D. They say something like "so as you can see, sega don't exactly have that many noteworthy franchises aside from the few really big ones"

It pisses me off because it's almost kinda like the "who killed Hannibal?" meme. If you're going to completely scrub off a bunch of noteworthy properties and skip straight to giving honorable mention to stuff that's a thousand times less important, then of course SEGA's franchise library will look much less impressive than it actually is.

 

[AreJay25]

I'm still mostly dipping from here for a while, but here's a little thing I thought of; who's your most wanted for CP11, and who do you wish was playable in the base game (not including fighters who are DLC)?

My most wanted for CP11: Sora
Character I wish was playable in base: Shadow

Most wanted for CP11: Rayman
Character I wish was in base: Bandana Dee

This more or less mirrors what I wanted to happen in Smash 4 as well lmao

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

Opa-Opa and the ChuChus' absence are weird too imo - since so many characters have made-up vehicles, I don't see what the issue would have been with making Opa-Opa run around with its legs or create wheels, for example. Pretty much every character has some level of creative liberty used in their rides.

The ChuChus might have also been from the apparent fact that they couldn't do duos or bikes for some unknown reason in Transformed? Which is why the Bonanza Bros. and Zobio & Zobiko were cut I think, along with Shadow losing his bike. I would think the ChuChus would fall into duo/group territory, but I dunno if that's the actual reason.

 

[N3ON]

I think something important to note is that most things that don't get "official" localizations are things that very few people in the west know or care about. That's not the case with Touhou. Spend any amount of time on the internet and you will find that it's so not the case, in fact, that I don't think it'd be the same kind of obstacle for the series as it would be for something that truly has no presence outside of its borders. I doubt anyone upstairs is squabbling over a technicality like that if Reimu did in fact get brought up.

I'm aware of Touhou's online fanbase and I still think if the main series is completely officially unlocalized that would indeed give pause to those making the decisions. Companies aren't going to value unofficial patches the same way fans do.

I have to agree with this. Plus and correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Mother basically a Japanese only game way back when he was in 64? Heck Fire Emblem for that matter.... Both seem to be Japanese mainstays that western audiences would doubtfully recognize (back then) which is kinda why I don't associate regionally specific characters with smash inclusion chances...

Since then they've gone on record to admit characters with a regionally exclusive presence aren't the kind they look to add. That was Sakurai's stance with Takamaru, and Lucas wouldn't have been added if Sakurai had known Mother 3 was going to remain a Japan exclusive.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

See, what I meant with people acting dismissive and dead IP and all that isn't just these random IP being brought up at all, but rather this situation I've seen plenty of times:

A. Person makes a short summary of The Noteworthy SEGA Things

B. Mainly mentions, like, the big ones

C. After that, they also give brief mention to some smaller stuff.....but instead of mentioning the IP SEGA have that are still notable and important but just not quite as big as The Big Ones, they skip straight to random stuff like, again, Billy and Ristar

D. They say something like "so as you can see, sega don't exactly have that many noteworthy franchises aside from the few really big ones"

It pisses me off because it's almost kinda like the "who killed Hannibal?" meme. If you're going to completely scrub off a bunch of noteworthy properties and skip straight to giving honorable mention to stuff that's a thousand times less important, then of course SEGA's franchise library will look much less impressive than it actually is.

The weird thing is this is almost certainly the case because the mainstream and the obscure are probably the only things people are aware of when it comes to Sega's properties, and I don't think that's the case for any other company.

EDIT: Well for example, I'm sitting here like "Sega properties? Let's see there's the big ones, and then there's stuff like Echo the Dolphin, Space Channel 5, Crazy Taxi and...what's a Streets of Rage?"

OK I do know what Streets of Rage, but it doesn't really come to mind when I think of Sega first, and I think I also confuse it with Final Fight.

 

[Gengar84]

My most wanted for CP11: Decidueye
Character I wish was playable in base: Decidueye

The **** is tunnel vision?

I’m just curious, is Decidueye your favorite Pokémon or do you want it in Smash for another reason like you think it’s moveset would be really fun? Gengar has always been a favorite but it shares my top spot with Cofagrigus, Golisopod, and Orbeetle. Out of those, I went with Gengar for both relevance and moveset potential.

 

[Dinoman96]

I have to agree with this. Plus and correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Mother basically a Japanese only game way back when he was in 64? Heck Fire Emblem for that matter.... Both seem to be Japanese mainstays that western audiences would doubtfully recognize (back then) which is kinda why I don't associate regionally specific characters with smash inclusion chances...

Earthbound had released in the US. It just wasn't released in PAL region, meaning it and Fire Emblem were the only series that didn't have a proper worldwide release prior to their inclusions in Smash.

But, well, that was all a long, long time ago. Smash has grown into a far bigger franchise since its inception and it's only natural that Nintendo/Sakurai would want priortise characters from games that have a global presence. Lucas was the last "region exclusive" character to be added, and we now know that it was basically a mistake on Sakurai's part, just as Marth and Roy were. Literally every single newcomer since then have been from games with full WW releases.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

The weird thing is this is almost certainly the case because the mainstream and the obscure are probably the only things people are aware of when it comes to Sega's properties, and I don't think that's the case for any other company.

Mid-level Sega franchises really seem to struggle in the consciousness of various fans. Kind of speaks to the impactful power of the Console Wars (and numerous releases on consoles) that something like Ristar is still remembered when even Alex Kidd has only recently regained any relevance.

 

[Speed Weed]

EDIT: Well for example, I'm sitting here like "Sega properties? Let's see there's the big ones, and then there's stuff like Echo the Dolphin, Space Channel 5, Crazy Taxi and...what's a Streets of Rage?"

OK I do know what Streets of Rage, but it doesn't really come to mind when I think of Sega first, and I think I also confuse it with Final Fight.

ok but I would actually consider Crazy Taxi and SC5 to be among "the ones of inbetween importance" and not outright random obscure stuff