Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[Cutie Gwen]

Yo anyone else remember that back when we got Brave, some people thought it'd be Sora because Valour Form is Brave Form in Japan and the stats indicated that Brave would be floaty? Hindsight's a ***** lmao

 

[7NATOR]

7NATOR thinking of your absolute heckin chonker I can’t believe I actually typed that of a post earlier and about early negotiations

Would you say EA is another candidate? The Sims, Apex Legends, and the like?

Didn't get to answer, but Yes. More specifically, I think there is Merit to the Apex thing, or at the very least, the idea of the game being represented in Smash as a Series, seemingly for Smash 6, and also Especially since Doug Bowser is in the cards, and he has Experience with EA.

I think Appealing to FPS or Shooter fans is gonna be a Big Draw of appeal for the Next Smash game. Besides EA, Epic Games seems to be on board, Bethesda seems to be one board, who is now owned by Microsoft, who seems to be on board. I think we might see all of these Companies get characters

 

[Strider_Bond00J]

I may be several hours late, but man what a finale to Smash Bros. The only gripes I have were Doomguy getting Mii'd and it being at such a late hour in my timezone making it difficult to get to sleep.

Parroting a similar post I made, I almost thought we would end on The Chosen Undead/Ashen One of Dark Souls, but man Sora is a truly magical send off for Smash Ultimate. I honestly written him off as an impossibility because of Disney, but seeing the Keyblade complete with the Mickey Mouse keychain holy crap... Similar to Steve, I couldn't have been happier to be proven wrong, though Steve had more of a hilarity to the reveal and how I warmed up to Minecraft, Sora on the other hand is a truly magical and impossible dream come true.

He looks great and his fighting style isn't over the top like we've had for previous newcomers, but has its own unique elements to it. Hollow Bastion as the stage is a great choice and the transition to Dive to the Heart is gorgeous too. I do think 9 songs for Kingdom Hearts is a bit too limited for a series as well-regarded for music like KH, but we can only have so much of Disney/Square Enix's generosity.

"Magical" is the best word I can say to describe Sora's inclusion. He was nowhere in my most wanted list due to how I thought it'd just be an impossibility because of Disney, but man was I wrong - Sakurai and his team fought tooth and nail to bring Sora to Smash Bros, and if he is the final character Smash Bros ever sees for a long time, then I am happy with that outcome.

 

[osby]

Yo anyone else remember that back when we got Brave, some people thought it'd be Sora because Valour Form is Brave Form in Japan and the stats indicated that Brave would be floaty? Hindsight's a ***** lmao

I think the real question we need to ask ourselves is this: Are Keyblades brave instruments?

 

[3BitSaurus]

The fact that we don't have Re:Mind tracks or Rage Awakens causes my rage to awaken. Granted, my main exposure so far is just watching some dude beat up all the Re:Mind bosses but with style so I'm kinda biased, but c'mon, man. The intense boss themes would fit Smash like a glove.

It's one of my few nitpicks tbh. I know the team did their best with what they had, but the lack of KHII songs in particular hurts my soul. Especially because so few of the boss themes made it (3) and they're all from KHI.

Xemnas' themes would have been great, but alas...

 

[Momotsuki]

This reminds me, acting like Brave made things certain and silenced any speculation is... pretty revisionist. And that's the point of the codenames, and why they make perfect sense when you work backwards from already knowing who the fighter is, but otherwise can seem so vague.

It's so that if they flub and leave mentions of it in the game data... it doesn't completely spoil it beyond dispute. We saw it with Brave, and "well, lock it in, it's Erdrick, obviously" is simply not what happened. Of course, many did come to this conclusion, perhaps most, but it wasn't unanimous! And that's the whole idea.

The ill-spirited child in me wishes Dolly had leaked...

 

[SKX31]

The ill-spirited child in me wishes Dolly had leaked...

It's worth noting that "Dolly" might as well be a pun on Terry's full name that only works in Japanese (テリー・ボガード, Teri Bogardo - "Dori" using the Japanese standard of putting last names first, pronounced "Dolly"). So yeah, a lot of potential carnage.

Then again, Dolly's not the only codename I can think of that would've caused carnage had it leaked. Master and Edge in particular come to mind.

Also:

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/q2agtz
He did show it in the demo match, just not individually. FTR, the Dash Attack appears to be a slide kick similar to the Sliding Dash ability in KH1. Appears to be rather similar to 's - both in its animation and knockback angle (then again, given the match was in Stamina I don't wanna put too much stock into this) as well as it having a late hit.

 

[ForsakenM]

This reminds me, acting like Brave made things certain and silenced any speculation is... pretty revisionist. And that's the point of the codenames, and why they make perfect sense when you work backwards from already knowing who the fighter is, but otherwise can seem so vague.

It's so that if they flub and leave mentions of it in the game data... it doesn't completely spoil it beyond dispute. We saw it with Brave, and "well, lock it in, it's Erdrick, obviously" is simply not what happened. Of course, many did come to this conclusion, perhaps most, but it wasn't unanimous! And that's the whole idea.

The ill-spirited child in me wishes Dolly had leaked...

As a fan of the blue star lad, I'm glad it didn't.

I already had to deal with folks in my community having complete meltdowns live like I was watching news in California or something, and that was just before his costume happened.

Last thing I needed was for that codename to get leaked and see them all get hyped only to **** all over a character I'm totally still down with. Seeing that and what followed after may have dropped me from the community, because that would have been back to back with Byleth into Min Min and the stupid Steve hate.

 

[Guynamednelson]

SSE sequel would be amazing with the story and cutscenes but I guess that might be a bit too much and difficult now that we have 89 fighters

Adding ANY new content to an enhanced port will be pretty difficult with 89 fighters, which now includes ones that require having to deal with Disney and everyone you have to go through for DQ content. Smash either has to sacrifice old content or new content, and not everyone wants to play the exact same game forever. Even Melee fans don't, why else would Project M and so exist?

 

[The Rhythm Theif]

At least it deserves that, unlike Gens 3 and 5...

Ash’s Sceptile: “I overheard you talking down on me.”

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

It's worth noting that "Dolly" might as well be a pun on Terry's full name that only works in Japanese (テリー・ボガード, Teri Bogardo - "Dori" using the Japanese standard of putting last names first, pronounced "Dolly"). So yeah, a lot of potential carnage.

Then again, Dolly's not the only codename I can think of that would've caused carnage had it leaked. Master and Edge in particular come to mind.

There was also "Demon" for Kazuya, and you already know people would've thought it was Dante.

 

[TraaP]

With Sora being the fighter ballot's true winner, doesn't that mean that "second chance theory" is actually correct?

 

[Momotsuki]

There was also "Devil" for Kazuya, and you already know people would've thought it was Dante.

Kazuya's codename is Demon, not Devil.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Kazuya's codename is Demon, not Devil.

Almost the same thing tbh

 

[Eldrake]

It's worth noting that "Dolly" might as well be a pun on Terry's full name that only works in Japanese (テリー・ボガード, Teri Bogardo - "Dori" using the Japanese standard of putting last names first, pronounced "Dolly"). So yeah, a lot of potential carnage.

Then again, Dolly's not the only codename I can think of that would've caused carnage had it leaked. Master and Edge in particular come to mind.

Also:

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/q2agtz
He did show it in the demo match, just not individually. FTR, the Dash Attack appears to be a slide kick similar to the Sliding Dash ability in KH1. Appears to be rather similar to 's - both in its animation and knockback angle (then again, given the match was in Stamina I don't wanna put too much stock into this) as well as it having a late hit.

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night after finishing your life's greatest work because you just realized that you forgot to talk about Sora's dash attack. This minor mistake will haunt Sakurai for the rest of his life.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

That's the dude from TWEWY right? Honestly makes sense since he first appeared on a Nintendo system, and the only other Nintendo DS era rep is Lucario.

I’d like more DS era rep. Phoenix Wright counts too

 

[Nekoo]

I just watched the Japanese Sora trailer.
My heart again broke.

In english, they reused KH1voice clip for the "Let's go."

In Japanese, it's a new voice line, saying "Omatase!" or, Sora basically saying "Sorry for the wait!"

Sakurai literally apologies for making us wait for so long for Sora, and the Ballot Winner.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

I see they used the full body Dharkon clone effects for Meta Knight and I think also Toon Link (? Correct me if I’m wrong)

it’s supposed to be a metaphor for the heartless

 

[ProfPeanut]

Now that all the characters are revealed, would you say there was a definitive difference between Sakurai and Nintendo in terms of character choices? I worried about the tone of such choices when we first heard that these were Nintendo-mandated, and I'd like to hear if anyone else feels there's a difference.

 

[WeirdChillFever]

Now that all the characters are you, would you say there was a definitive difference between Sakurai and Nintendo in terms of character choices? I worried about the tone of such choices when we first heard that these were Nintendo-mandated, and I'd like to hear if anyone else feels there's a difference.

I feel Nintendo was overall more geared towards IPs rather than characters. Asking for Minecraft in Smash, ARMS in Smash etc. rather than X and so character. It’s a subtle difference (and not all of the choices fell under that umbrella) but I felt like it was there.

 

[Megadoomer]

Lets review our predictions/whislist we got for FP2:

The Next 6 DLC Characters

Today, Sakurai confirmed that a second Fighter Pass is in development, now with 6 Fighters as opposed to 5. Use this thread to post your predictions about the contents of the second Fighter Pass.

smashboards.com

Mine was:

1) Sora
2) Crash Bandicoot
3) Dante
4) Doomslayer
5) Heihachi (well we got Kazuya but any Tekken rep was ok for me).
6) Ryu Hayabusa

Happy that got 2/6 as playable characters and other 2 as Miis.

My wants were Geno, Doomguy, Elma, Dante, Rayman, and Travis Touchdown. (at least, as of a year or two ago)

...So that didn't exactly work out like I hoped; it was nice to see Travis, Doomguy, and Dante get acknowledged, at least, and it was made clear that Dante was a popular choice even if he didn't make it in. (it's a shame that Geno didn't even get a helmet like Sans or a single music track with him, though)

It would have been nice for Elma and Rayman to get something, though - even having some Xenoblade Chronicles X songs added with Pyra and Mythra would have been nice.

EDIT: as for my actual predictions, they were extremely vague because I had no idea who was going to get in after FP1 gave us Joker and Banjo-Kazooie: "a Capcom character, a Square-Enix character, a Namco-Bandai character, one or two characters from third party companies that don't have a playable character in Smash yet, and one or two Nintendo characters."

Even then, I only got part of it right. (no Capcom characters, and I certainly didn't expect that one of the third party companies that didn't have a character in Smash yet would wind up being Disney)

 

[osby]

Now that all the characters are you, would you say there was a definitive difference between Sakurai and Nintendo in terms of character choices? I worried about the tone of such choices when we first heard that these were Nintendo-mandated, and I'd like to hear if anyone else feels there's a difference.

From what I see, there are two types of DLC characters (bar Piranha Plant):

1. Characters that Nintendo chose and then Sakurai added after necessary negotiations: ,Sora and likely bar his alts
2. Characters that were added after Nintendo gave Sakurai a game/series and he chose a fitting fighter: , likely and maybe

 

[Gengar84]

Now that we have Sora, I wonder what the odds are that we might get some version of Xehanort in the next game like we got Sephiroth for Ultimate. Xemnas and Ansem were actually on my most wanted list over Sora but it made no sense to advocate for either of them before Sora made it in (though I guess I do advocate for Magus over Crono).

 

[WeirdChillFever]

I didn’t really have a most wanted that I needed to get something out of the DLC or that keeps me churning for a next game. My presence on here and speculation in general is just a giant skidmark of my Daisy speculation coming to a halt once she was added. I never had a most wanted again and only in the end really went in on a prediction so it was pretty dang directionless, but I still enjoyed it and I at least don’t regret overstaying the welcome.

 

[CroonerMike]

I’m starting to believe that Imran Khan, who mentioned Nintendo approached Disney of Japan about Sora might of had false information about the meeting not going well.

I wonder if they told people the meeting didn’t go well to try and hide the fact they ended up striking a deal.

Like I understand, Disney can be a tough company to work with…but it seems like Nintendo, Square, and Disney all wanted this to happen. Them not using the Disney properties makes sense since this is smash and I can’t imagine the cost of using multiple Disney IPs would be. But I would also don’t buy the narrative that Disney = evil/terrible to work with cause you probably could argue that with any company if you wanted.

 

[zumaddy]

Lets review our predictions/whislist we got for FP2:

The Next 6 DLC Characters

Today, Sakurai confirmed that a second Fighter Pass is in development, now with 6 Fighters as opposed to 5. Use this thread to post your predictions about the contents of the second Fighter Pass.

smashboards.com

Mine was:

1) Sora
2) Crash Bandicoot
3) Dante
4) Doomslayer
5) Heihachi (well we got Kazuya but any Tekken rep was ok for me).
6) Ryu Hayabusa

Happy that got 2/6 as playable characters and other 2 as Miis.

Hmm back in January mine were:

"4 Third-Party, 2 Nintendo fighter split (CORRECT)
A Third-Party character that will 'wow' people will be revealed first to drum up FP sales (INCORRECT, Steve was 2nd)
There will be one 'Xeno' rep - whether it's an XC2 rep, Elma, KOS-MOS or someone else (CORRECT)
No Pokemon, from SwSH or otherwise" (CORRECT)

Ayyyyy, nice job past me.

 

[3BitSaurus]

Now that all the characters are you, would you say there was a definitive difference between Sakurai and Nintendo in terms of character choices? I worried about the tone of such choices when we first heard that these were Nintendo-mandated, and I'd like to hear if anyone else feels there's a difference.

Like WeirdChillFever said, I feel like Nintendo's selection is more geared towards specific IPs an games rather than characters, though there were some exceptions.

I feel like this kinda works wonders for third parties, but not so much for first parties. The fact that most Nintendo newcomers in 4 and Ultimate had games either in the same console generation or the generation immediately prior, as well as our surprise pick for Ultimate being a Mario character kinda speaks volumes on that.

Basically, the further down we go, the more I feel like third parties will dominate speculation and any first party that isn't too big, is a side character or had a recent title/revival (or in the case of rotating cast series, is from the most recent installment) will be fighting an uphill battle. And I think Nintendo's choices are a big factor in this.

Again, there are some exceptions, but by now I think this trend has become very noticeable in the past two games.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Basically, the further down we go, the more I feel like third parties will dominate speculation and any first party that isn't too big, is a side character or had a recent title/revival (or in the case of rotating cast series, is from the most recent installment) will be fighting an uphill battle. And I think Nintendo's choices are a big factor in this.

I can only hope standards temporarily lower for base game speculation and/or knowing a game that makes cuts won't be able to have the same wide appeal.

 

[GilTheGreat19]

Good MOORRRNING SmashBoards!

Who’s ready for another day of intensive analytical and fun Smash specula-

 

[PeridotGX]

The good thing about waiting for the next Smash: Deltarune will likely be 100% done by then. The Undertale series will be... a series, and therefore even more eligible for Smash.

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

I love being a Kingdom Hearts fan

 

[Gengar84]

Good MOORRRNING SmashBoards!

Who’s ready for another day of intensive analytical and fun Smash specula-
View attachment 333476

I personally don’t see any reason we can’t just shift speculation from Ultimate DLC to hypothetical Smash 6 speculation. It wouldn’t really change much as far as discussion goes.

 

[WeirdChillFever]

I’m just waiting for my new main: Whoever is referencing Donald in Sora’s classic mode.

 

[GilTheGreat19]

I personally don’t see any reason we can’t just shift speculation from Ultimate DLC to hypothetical Smash 6 speculation. It wouldn’t really change much as far as discussion goes.

I mean we could. I’m personally just gonna lay back a bit and enjoy Sora and what not. After he comes out I may even just put down Smash for a bit, either cuz I’ll be too busy trying other games (like Metroid: Dread) or literally too busy with school work and what not.

The Social Thread is also another option of mine; I still wanna talk with my homies here on SmashBoards and it’d be nice to get to know y’all a bit better by talking about non-Smash things more often.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I personally don’t see any reason we can’t just shift speculation from Ultimate DLC to hypothetical Smash 6 speculation. It wouldn’t really change much as far as discussion goes.

Do you just want people arguing whether the next game is a port or a completely new Smash game with cuts?

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Do you just want people arguing whether the next game is a port or a completely new Smash game with cuts?

Anything but that

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

I personally don’t see any reason we can’t just shift speculation from Ultimate DLC to hypothetical Smash 6 speculation. It wouldn’t really change much as far as discussion goes.

Why would you wanna talk about your 4 year college choice when you just entered your first year of community college?

 

[drag0nscythe]

I am assuming Sora's classic mode is going to be themed on traveling to new worlds. (In retrospect. Sakurai did say he wanted to add as mand worlds as possible. neat)

So Sora will probably travel to each world and fight 1 to 3 characters there. So Mario world, Zelda world, pokemon world, Final fantasy world, etc.
Ending with Master hand and crazy hand.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

The emotes are still going through an identity crisis, eh?

 

[DanganZilla5]

I've seen some disappointment in the Doom Slayer costume. Not that it's a surprise, this has happened with a lot of characters (Looking at you Dante). But personally I'm just grateful that he got a very cool costume and that Sakurai acknowledged Doom and its legacy. That gives Doom Slayer a notable boost in chance for next game.