Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[LiveStudioAudience]

I think Eggman works well for the same reason Sonic himself does. Their core design and nature allows for enough range of portrayals and takes that they can fit in a serious or comedic setting depending on the writing.

 

[Megadoomer]

Nah. He's just a dumpy loser outside his robots.

He can canonically outrun Sonic outside of his robots. (I realize that's not to be taken super seriously, but I find it funny)

Besides, a smaller mech like the one from Sonic the Fighters could work while allowing him to incorporate attacks from his many, many boss fights. (Bowser Junior's clown copter stores a cartoonishly large amount of weapons/objects, so whatever mech Eggman uses, even a small one, could do the same)

 

[Otoad64]

Tbh just give me Tails, Knuckles and Eggman(as either playable or boss) and we're good.

Shadow can come too for the modern Sonic fans, but I wouldn't want him as the only new Sonic character.

Rouge has the advantage of debuting in the same game as Shadow so she's not a complete unknown...plus ya know...the internet...but she doesn't need to be playable really.

Blaze and Silver definitely have their fans too but they debuted in what was considered the worst Sonic title bar none until an unfinished Sonic Boom came out...and at least Boom had a funny cartoon series to make it worth the pain.

Blaze actually debuted in Sonic Rush for the DS

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I'd say Blaze got off pretty lucky compared to Silver. Not only is she not presented as a gullible idiot, but her sections in 06 are among the most tolerable in the entire game, neither of which can be said for him.

Honestly if you had a modern game based around Sonic, Shadow, and Blaze, it'd probably do pretty well. They're similar enough that you could keep the focus on one type of gameplay (avoiding the complaints that have dogged Adventure 1/2 and 06) but also different enough that the distinct nature of their particular abilities would make it rewarding to play all three of their campaigns.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I'd say Blaze got off pretty lucky compared to Silver. Not only is she not presented as a gullible idiot, but her sections in 06 are among the most tolerable in the entire game, neither of which can be said for him.

Honestly if you had a modern game based around Sonic, Shadow, and Blaze, it'd probably do pretty well. They're similar enough that you could keep the focus on one type of gameplay (avoiding the complaints that have dogged Adventure 1/2 and 06) but also different enough that the distinct nature of their particular abilities would make it rewarding to play all three of their campaigns.

Blaze is interesting because she has never been hated by Sonic fans, she's consistently been beloved and is one of the few characters to not be ruined by the post generations writing, Silver being the only other that comes to mind as they managed to make Silver a lovable dweeb there

 

[Technomage]

He can canonically outrun Sonic outside of his robots. (I realize that's not to be taken super seriously, but I find it funny)

True, but to be fair, I'm not sure whether that's a natural ability he has or he's wearing mechanical boots that increase his speed. But that's just a theory.

 

[Dinoman96]

I think the more positive reception towards Blaze comes from how generally well regarded Sonic Rush is, and also the fact that she didn't introduce another half hearted gameplay style, instead just being a variation of Sonic's regular gameplay in that game.

Like really that's pretty much the core issue of "Sonic's ****ty friends", the majority of them in Adventures and onwards just kept piling more and more bad and half-assed gameplay styles that detracted from the overall experience. No one really minded Tails and Knux in the classic games because they had the same basic gameplay as Sonic, just with different abilities like flying or gliding. Same thing with Mighty and Ray in Sonic Mania Plus.

It's like, look at Mario 3D World, that game has just as many playable characters as Sonic Adventure does. But the difference is that Peach, Luigi, Toad and Rosalina are all essentially just variations of Mario's regular gameplay with different abilities/stats (Peach can float, Luigi jumps higher, Rosalina has a melee attack and Toad runs faster/jumps lower). It's not like playing as Luigi suddenly turns the game into a bad Luigi's Mansion knockoff with a complete different set of levels and mechanics. Captain Toad is the only playable character in that game that has his own gameplay style, which were just short little mini-games presented every now and then.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I think the more positive reception towards Blaze comes from how generally well regarded Sonic Rush is, and also the fact that she didn't introduce another half hearted gameplay style, instead just being a variation of Sonic's regular gameplay in that game.

Like really that's pretty much the core issue of "Sonic's ****ty friends", the majority of them in Adventures and onwards just kept piling more and more bad and half-assed gameplay styles that detracted from the overall experience. No one really minded Tails and Knux in the classic games because they had the same basic gameplay as Sonic, just with different abilities like flying or gliding. Same thing with Mighty and Ray in Sonic Mania Plus.

It's like, look at Mario 3D World, that game has just as many playable characters as Sonic Adventure does. But the difference is that Peach, Luigi, Toad and Rosalina are all essentially just variations of Mario's regular gameplay with different abilities/stats (Peach can float, Luigi jumps higher, Rosalina has a melee attack and Toad runs faster/jumps lower). It's not like playing as Luigi suddenly turns the game into a bad Luigi's Mansion knockoff. Captain Toad is the only playable character in that game that has his own gameplay style, which were just short little mini-games presented every now and then.

This will always be at the heart of the debate about stuff like the Adventure games and Unleashed. Sega took the wrong lesson from the criticism of the first two via removing the cast rather than having them play closer to Sonic, and the latter is consistently going to be a tough sell to people given that half the game is in a genre they may not want in their Sonic titles.

 

[Otoad64]

I think Sonic games should still have multiple gameplay styles, so long as they're good gameplay styles

 

[Technomage]

Hey, with all this talk of Crash Bandicoot being a highly likely DLC candidate, along with the fact that I talked about a Coco alt. more than once recently, I gotta ask: How likely would Crash be to have a Coco alt? Or is Coco's body structure too different from Crash's to make an accurate alt?

 

[Otoad64]

Hey, with all this talk of Crash Bandicoot being a highly likely DLC candidate, along with the fact that I talked about a Coco alt. more than once recently, I gotta ask: How likely would Crash be to have a Coco alt? Or is Coco's body structure too different from Crash's to make an accurate alt?

wouldn't work, especially since they have different personalities

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Hey, with all this talk of Crash Bandicoot being a highly likely DLC candidate, along with the fact that I talked about a Coco alt. more than once recently, I gotta ask: How likely would Crash be to have a Coco alt? Or is Coco's body structure too different from Crash's to make an accurate alt?

Not likely. They both have different dimensions. If anything she'd be more likely to be an Echo which won't be happening given how far we are into this Pass assuming Crash is one of the last two.

 

[Technomage]

wouldn't work, especially since they have different personalities

Ah, I forgot to take personalities into account. ^^;

Not likely. They both have different dimensions. If anything she'd be more likely to be an Echo which won't be happening given how far we are into this Pass assuming Crash is one of the last two.

Yeah, I had a feeling that body structure would be a huge problem.

 

[ahemtoday]

Aw, man, I missed Sonic talk! I'm always down to talk about that.

Anyway, yeah, I do think the absolute maximum for Sonic rep is Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Eggman, and Shadow. I'd love to see Gamma or Silver or Chaos 0, but, like... I might just want another Sonic fighting game at this point.

In any case, Metal Sonic as a Sonic echo has never really made that much sense to me. I mean. not even from a relevance standpoint. The problem is, I think people bring this up because they think Shadow is unique enough to get his own moveset, but Metal's even less like Sonic. I can't remember him actually using a Spin Attack, for one thing.

If you made Shadow an echo, I'd be fine with that. It'd line up with how he is in SA2 and Heroes, where he controls basically identically.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

I really did enjoy the “idea” of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. I love the characters so seeing them work together in a Banjo-Kazooie type collectathon with intermittent speed sections would’ve been a dream game for me. The execution and the beat-em-up style of gameplay was already enough to turn me off and then there’s what Sega did to the development team which was... awful. Even Sonic Lost World had some great ideas but was ultimately not great because they didn’t capitalize on it for the whole game and thus you might as well just stop playing after the desert world.

Anyways I’d love for them to try again at either instance but more likely than not they’ll either stick with the Boost games or swap back to the Adventure style and the Adventure style in particular is one that I’m not particularly fond of.

 

[YoshiandToad]

I really did enjoy the “idea” of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. I love the characters so seeing them work together in a Banjo-Kazooie type collectathon with intermittent speed sections would’ve been a dream game for me. The execution and the beat-em-up style of gameplay was already enough to turn me off and then there’s what Sega did to the development team which was... awful. Even Sonic Lost World had some great ideas but was ultimately not great because they didn’t capitalize on it for the whole game and thus you might as well just stop playing after the desert world.

Anyways I’d love for them to try again at either instance but more likely than not they’ll either stick with the Boost games or swap back to the Adventure style and the Adventure style in particular is one that I’m not particularly fond of.

If you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend watching one of the behind the scenes of Sonic Boom, which explains where it went wrong.

This one's my preferred version but there's a couple of Youtubers that go in to the depths of how the team got screwed by Sega themselves:

It's an interesting watch if nothing else. Could have been great! If all the executive meddling and last minute changes and being decided upon as a Wii U exclusive at the last second when it wasn't using a compatible engine...and...

...just...just watch the video. Holy crap did Sega set this game up for failure.

 

[SpecterFlower]

Hey, with all this talk of Crash Bandicoot being a highly likely DLC candidate, along with the fact that I talked about a Coco alt. more than once recently, I gotta ask: How likely would Crash be to have a Coco alt? Or is Coco's body structure too different from Crash's to make an accurate alt?

as likely as all the ARMS characters being alt's of each other.

 

[Megadoomer]

Not likely. They both have different dimensions. If anything she'd be more likely to be an Echo which won't be happening given how far we are into this Pass assuming Crash is one of the last two.

I could see an echo fighter happening - we got two characters in one as part of the most recent challenger pack, so it seems possible that they could include an echo fighter with one of these last two challenger packs as an added bonus.

At the very least, I wouldn't rule it out entirely, as long as the echo is a clone of the character that's included, or another character from the same series as the character that made it in - I could see us getting Crash and Coco, or Eggman and Metal Sonic, or even Phoenix Wright and Edgeworth, though I don't know how likely that last one is since Edgeworth seems much more serious than Phoenix.

 

[Technomage]

I could see an echo fighter happening - we got two characters in one as part of the most recent challenger pack, so it seems possible that they could include an echo fighter with one of these last two challenger packs as an added bonus.

Ah, that could be a neat little surprise; could also keep things a bit fresh.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

I could see an echo fighter happening - we got two characters in one as part of the most recent challenger pack, so it seems possible that they could include an echo fighter with one of these last two challenger packs as an added bonus.

At the very least, I wouldn't rule it out entirely, as long as the echo is a clone of the character that's included, or another character from the same series as the character that made it in - I could see us getting Crash and Coco, or Eggman and Metal Sonic, or even Phoenix Wright and Edgeworth, though I don't know how likely that last one is since Edgeworth seems much more serious than Phoenix.

I mean given how far late we are into this Pass, I just can't see it and felt they would have done it sooner if that was the case.

Also the difference with Pyra & Mythra is being like Zelda and Sheik only classified as separate fighter numbers.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

I mean given how far late we are into this Pass, I just can't see it and felt they would have done it sooner if that was the case.

Also the difference with Pyra & Mythra is being like Zelda and Sheik only classified as separate fighter numbers.

Pyra and Mythra are far more similar to each other than Zelda and Shiek are. If anything I feel like Mythra is the closest thing we’ll get to an echo in DLC.

 

[DarthEnderX]

Really? He hasn't always had his best moments, but a dumpy loser? The man who enslaved a whole mini-planet via time travel, blew up half the moon, chained five whole planets to an interstellar amusement park and came 1% close to finally conquering the world? Just to name a few?

Yeah, but not on foot!

Pyra and Mythra are far more similar to each other than Zelda and Shiek are. If anything I feel like Mythra is the closest thing we’ll get to an echo in DLC.

Yeah, Pyra and Mythra are basically Echoes only with different Specials.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

But apparently Mythra isn't classified as an Echo so...

One would see her in a way being more familiar with Dr. Mario.

 

[JOJONumber691]

Coco is actually the main reason why I simply can"t see Crash happening. Coco makes a legal mess with Activision to the point where you gotta question if it's even worth it to include Crash if Activision is going to force you into making Coco an Echo.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Coco is actually the main reason why I simply can"t see Crash happening. Coco makes a legal mess with Activision to the point where you gotta question if it's even worth it to include Crash if Activision is going to force you into making Coco an Echo.

Hypothetically speaking I don't see why due to this Nintendo wouldn't just make Crash be the exceptional character in the pack having an Echo if it were to happen.

 

[Otoad64]

Coco is actually the main reason why I simply can"t see Crash happening. Coco makes a legal mess with Activision to the point where you gotta question if it's even worth it to include Crash if Activision is going to force you into making Coco an Echo.

why would Activision force them to make Coco an echo?

 

[Technomage]

Coco is actually the main reason why I simply can"t see Crash happening. Coco makes a legal mess with Activision to the point where you gotta question if it's even worth it to include Crash if Activision is going to force you into making Coco an Echo.

I don't know what copyrights and stuff Coco has, so can you please explain it to me (and explain it in a way a layman can understand, too)?

 

[cashregister9]

why would Activision force them to make Coco an echo?

"Activision Bad and Greedy give like"

There is no mandate requiring Coco to be in something with Crash. Or if for some ungodly reason there is then I can totally see Coco being a costume, I imagine Crash in smash would be a Banjo style unique design and they can just, alter coco to fit the hitboxes better.

 

[chocolatejr9]

What is up with Walmart Canada Gaming?

Happy bday, 117! We actually got John a little something to celebrate.

Just need an address... 🎊 pic.twitter.com/rgAwcVUvVz

— Walmart Canada Gaming (@WalmartCAGaming) March 7, 2021

 

[Cyberfire]

What is up with Walmart Canada Gaming?

Happy bday, 117! We actually got John a little something to celebrate.

Just need an address... 🎊 pic.twitter.com/rgAwcVUvVz

— Walmart Canada Gaming (@WalmartCAGaming) March 7, 2021

The admin is a huge Smash nerd. They're always doing stuff like this.

 

[Wigglerman]

What is up with Walmart Canada Gaming?

Happy bday, 117! We actually got John a little something to celebrate.

Just need an address... 🎊 pic.twitter.com/rgAwcVUvVz

— Walmart Canada Gaming (@WalmartCAGaming) March 7, 2021

Memeing.

 

[SKX31]

What is up with Walmart Canada Gaming?

All of the text.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

What is up with Walmart Canada Gaming?

Happy bday, 117! We actually got John a little something to celebrate.

Just need an address... 🎊 pic.twitter.com/rgAwcVUvVz

— Walmart Canada Gaming (@WalmartCAGaming) March 7, 2021

Papagenos video intensifies

I feel it coming.

 

[Garteam]

let's play a fun game that can actually have a winner (in the next 7 years)

here's the third party percentage in each smash game

SSB64-0%
SSBM-0%
SSBB-5.13%
SSB4-3.48%
SSBU-20% (so far)

what doe everyone think the next smash games 3rd party percentage will be? this is the first time Nintendo went with "gaming all stars" instead of "Nintendo all stars" and even if some company's were difficult to work with in the beginning the sales of smash ultimate seems to have brought most companies on board to the point where smash get's special privilege's and discount's.

im going to say this trend continues and the next game will at launch have a...

SSB6-45%

percentage. of 3rd party's to first party's.

anyway goodnight! im barely awake so I think i'll just go to sleep now.

I'm gonna say 60:40 in favour of first parties for the newcomers and 75:25 in favour of first parties for the whole roster. I think what's going to happen with Ultimate will happen again for the next Smash game (which I could likely be Ultimate Deluxe), where the base roster newcomers are mostly owned by Nintendo and the DLC newcomers trend towards outside companies (although not as hard as the base roster did with first parties).

I don't know if there will ever be a Smash game where 45% of the total roster is non-Nintendo though. Nintendo already gets a big head-start given that all but 4 of the characters introduced in Smash's first 15 years of life were first parties. To elevate that, you would need to cull a significant chunk of the roster and add third parties almost exclusively for the base game's newcomers. I don't know if Nintendo would be comfortable with kicking some of their pre-established characters out and passing over rising stars to fulfill this task, nor do I think Sakurai would want to cut a bunch of fan favourites and avoid potentially interesting characters.

 

[Evil Trapezium]

Coco is actually the main reason why I simply can"t see Crash happening. Coco makes a legal mess with Activision to the point where you gotta question if it's even worth it to include Crash if Activision is going to force you into making Coco an Echo.

bottom text

 

[SpecterFlower]

I'm gonna say 60:40 in favour of first parties for the newcomers and 75:25 in favour of first parties for the whole roster. I think what's going to happen with Ultimate will happen again for the next Smash game (which I could likely be Ultimate Deluxe), where the base roster newcomers are mostly owned by Nintendo and the DLC newcomers trend towards outside companies (although not as hard as the base roster did with first parties).

I don't know if there will ever be a Smash game where 45% of the total roster is non-Nintendo though. Nintendo already gets a big head-start given that all but 4 of the characters introduced in Smash's first 15 years of life were first parties. To elevate that, you would need to cull a significant chunk of the roster and add third parties almost exclusively for the base game's newcomers. I don't know if Nintendo would be comfortable with kicking some of their pre-established characters out and passing over rising stars to fulfill this task, nor do I think Sakurai would want to cut a bunch of fan favourites and avoid potentially interesting characters.

my 45% mostly came from if cut's were going to happen other than knami i don't see anyone jumpin off the train, here's how i look at it.

100% coming back
90% coming back
80% coming back
70% coming back
60%coming back
50% coming back


i could se 35-45% but with ultimate sales numbers i doubt anyone will jump off, I'm confident everyone in 80% and above is coming back and i expect everyone except joker snake and simon (and richter) to come back (even than i still think they probably will). with a higher third party to Nintendo ratio than ever before added.

 

[Otoad64]

to me judging who's coming back is a tough call because we really don't know what form Smash 6 will take.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

Do you guys think we're getting another first party or no? I can see the last two being one last big third party around E3 time and ending with a first party who's relatively popular but might be considered underwhelming.

Either way, I'm so happy with our first party picks!
View attachment 306240

I lean towards doubting it on the basis of how first parties have been done so far in this game. The three first party DLC fighters we've gotten have all originated from Switch specific entries, and I'm not sure there's a whole lot on the table at this point that hasn't generally been ruled out by content in a post "extra characters/Volume 2 world."

• Age of Calamity is ruled out due to the Spirit Event (and what a shame as I was finally on board with that version of Impa in Smash)
• Pokemon Sword/Shield seems ruled out due to the Spirit Event as well
• Ring Fit Adventure - Despite being the best selling new IP that threatens to dethrone even Splatoon, Spirit Event
• Astral Chain - Spirit Event
• Splatoon 2 or 3 - Callie and Marie costumes came with Min Min and we've always seen the character be paired with content from its franchise if relevant like that, so that presents as a huge red flag to me for Splatoon getting more.
• Paper Mario: The Origami King - Spirit Event
• Animal Crossing New Horizons - Spirit Event
• Luigi's Mansion 3 - Poltergust G-00 was prominently added to Luigi's moveset in base game (maybe more arguable on this front it as it was added in base game and thus would technically not be subject to the same disconfirmation line of thinking that we ascribe to content that game post the decision to continue DLC, but I haven't really seen a whole lot to steer me in thinking Luigi's Mansion representation is a priority).

Those are some of the bigger Switch era titles without playable representation in some form that could benefit from their general decision making with a focus on Switch titles. Like people may push to argue on the disconfirmations on the basis of new Spirit Events and what not, but that's been the general logic I think a lot of people have operated from and is what I'm going to operate on as well. I don't see a whole lot of options that fit within this general focus on new titles on Switch. I'd say the only Switch title I've seen recently that seems truly absent as a newer title is Famicom Detective Club and Ayumi Tachibana, who'd be neat, but I'm still sort of skeptical about that franchise being a priority for Smash when it's just now being localized for the first time.

Now we could move to other non Switch centric entries or less directly related. Dixie Kong and Bandanna Dee do come to mind as options, as does Waluigi for the mythical promotion that people are chasing. If we're getting any more first parties, I would lean towards them as sort of the central trio of "more fan requested, bigger first party characters not currently playable in Smash" I'm never sure on Waluigi at this point, so he could be a wild card of sorts I admit (and on a personal level, I'd rather him be a bonus fighter if such a thing was to exist cause a Challenger Pack built on Mario stuff with Waluigi doesn't interest me in the slightest). Bandanna Dee kind of falls under the seemingly intentional decision to not focus on newer Kirby stuff and Kirby sort of feels in a weird place right now as a franchise if I'm being honest (Nintendo seems to have pulled a little back from Kirby relative to what I've come to expect, I think likely in service of focusing on a newer entry that maybe approaches things differently). And Dixie Kong I could see potentially as well, but DK also feels in a weird position with just the port of Tropical Freeze currently on Switch. So just in terms of priority for Nintendo in picking, I don't personally see a huge push on these characters.

Now there are absolutely a ton of third parties ruled out like Bandai Namco and Capcom stuff alongside like Sora and other specific characters. So it's a whole unknown, but there does seem to be more options on the third party board right now than I see on the first party with what ground the DLC and Spirit Events have covered so far.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Except for Jigglypuff, we can certainly say the original 12 will return.

Sonic also being the most likely 3rd party rep to return.

 

[SpecterFlower]

to me judging who's coming back is a tough call because we really don't know what form Smash 6 will take.

im assuming it's going to cull the existing roster immensely, probably have a 60 character roster with probably 20 of that being newcomers at launch.

Except for Jigglypuff, we can certainly say the original 12 will return.

Sonic also being the most likely 3rd party rep to return.

I think bayonetta is the most likely since Nintendo funds and publishes all her games, i actually think she won't be a 3rd party for much longer..

also bamco develops the games so i think pac man is tied with sonic for likelyness.