At E3 2018 during smash ultimate’s announcement, Sakurai revealed the concept of echo fighters. While at first glance it is a very nice idea, I believe it was poorly executed and I wish to talk about there future in the next installment of the series.
Now you probably know the concept of echoes, they are direct clone of a specific fighter but with small differences that give a different gameplay experience. But the idea fails miserably because the vast majority of echoes do not differentiate themselves from there base enough to make a good difference. There is only one echo who as been done in a way that seems to be what echoes should all aspire to be, Ken. He an obvious base from Ryu and shares the overall same playstyle of being a shoto type character based around footsies, but they then distance themselves from each other significantly. Ken’s superior mobility and different command inputs makes im a rushdown character based around a large high damage combo tree, while Ryu’s better projectile make im more adequate for long to midrange spacing that leads into is smaller combo game. They have there own strengths and weaknesses and it makes so playing one or the other isn’t a question as they are not quite comparable enough. The same cannot be said about the others.
Daisy, Richter, Dark Pit and Dark Samus play the exact same from there original template, it’s literally « pick whoever you want » because they have no nuances what so ever. While Chrom and Lucina have a large difference from there base, a consistent blade, and Chrom even as a completely different move, there gameplan is identical to there template to the point that Lucina is simply more practical than Marth because the differences are not significant enough to make Marth appealing to people outside of character loyalists.
So what should be done, what is the most practical thing to do in a situation like this? My answer is quite simple, clean it up. But how are we going to go about doing this? Here is what I believe should be done. First change: Lucina, Dark Pit, Daisy and Richter will all become alternate costumes. While echoes are cheaper and might not warrant such a fate, Sakurai actually said that they take more time than we may think, and he is not wrong. Victory animations, taunt animations, damage multipliers on move, it’s all time that ads up over the course of developing the game, time that they could use to polish a veteran significantly. Another reason I believe this is a good choice is with the arrival of the newest newcomer, the hero from Dragon Quest proves that alternate costumes can simply expand a roster while taking minimal time to develop. Imagine the reception if say, solo, the dragon quest 4 variant of the hero was is own echo fighter, the reception would have been extremely different and would have most likely tipped on the negative side, just like the reception to Lucina and Dark Pit in sm4sh. And while they have different abilities in canon that could warrant there own moveset, the heroes probably have unique abilities as well. If a character as similar abilities to a fighter in the roster, making them a costume can simply enhance the representation of a franchise while not generating as much if not any hate whatsoever. Second change: Dark Samus will be decloned. Unlike the other echoes, her wide selection of subtle animations can cause a massive change that makes the character incompatible to transfer into a palet swap. If a random person that never heard of Metroid was told to examine the two characters and tell what was inside the suit if it isn’t a human, they would probably say Samus is a robot, while Dark Samus is a corpse. In that sense Dark Samus will be decloned to give her more phazon like attribute to make her more similar to her in game appearance. And to differentiate herself from her counterpart, Samus herself will gain a completely new and different moveset to replace her old, generic moveset. This will allow Dark Samus to live as her own entity from Samus within smash as well as keeping metroid solid representation in terms of character selection. Final change: kill the spare. For the record, I like Chrom, I believe he is one of the best designed character in the whole game. Is personality is on point, is moveset is on point to is original appearance in awakening, he is simply perfect. But I do not know what to do with im. He ends up a bit repetitive in terms of fe’s cast, can’t really become a costume of Roy due to changes that would make zero sense (like falchion lighting itself in fire, Chrom using a reverse grip for is sword it simply makes no sense) so if he is not in a situation where the roster benefits from is inclusion, he is highly dependable. Ken would also get the boot but ONLY if Ryu is axed because cutting someone like him would be somewhat pointless.
So this is what I have to say about this subject. If I sounded overly negative it’s simply because Sakurai’s recent decisions make me lose faith in these characters getting improved for the better and It think it is for the better that such changes be made to not needlessly cut a character that can still be playable without taking up anything sort of developement time as small as it can be and for the characters themselves to not get hated for existing.
Now you probably know the concept of echoes, they are direct clone of a specific fighter but with small differences that give a different gameplay experience. But the idea fails miserably because the vast majority of echoes do not differentiate themselves from there base enough to make a good difference. There is only one echo who as been done in a way that seems to be what echoes should all aspire to be, Ken. He an obvious base from Ryu and shares the overall same playstyle of being a shoto type character based around footsies, but they then distance themselves from each other significantly. Ken’s superior mobility and different command inputs makes im a rushdown character based around a large high damage combo tree, while Ryu’s better projectile make im more adequate for long to midrange spacing that leads into is smaller combo game. They have there own strengths and weaknesses and it makes so playing one or the other isn’t a question as they are not quite comparable enough. The same cannot be said about the others.
Daisy, Richter, Dark Pit and Dark Samus play the exact same from there original template, it’s literally « pick whoever you want » because they have no nuances what so ever. While Chrom and Lucina have a large difference from there base, a consistent blade, and Chrom even as a completely different move, there gameplan is identical to there template to the point that Lucina is simply more practical than Marth because the differences are not significant enough to make Marth appealing to people outside of character loyalists.
So what should be done, what is the most practical thing to do in a situation like this? My answer is quite simple, clean it up. But how are we going to go about doing this? Here is what I believe should be done. First change: Lucina, Dark Pit, Daisy and Richter will all become alternate costumes. While echoes are cheaper and might not warrant such a fate, Sakurai actually said that they take more time than we may think, and he is not wrong. Victory animations, taunt animations, damage multipliers on move, it’s all time that ads up over the course of developing the game, time that they could use to polish a veteran significantly. Another reason I believe this is a good choice is with the arrival of the newest newcomer, the hero from Dragon Quest proves that alternate costumes can simply expand a roster while taking minimal time to develop. Imagine the reception if say, solo, the dragon quest 4 variant of the hero was is own echo fighter, the reception would have been extremely different and would have most likely tipped on the negative side, just like the reception to Lucina and Dark Pit in sm4sh. And while they have different abilities in canon that could warrant there own moveset, the heroes probably have unique abilities as well. If a character as similar abilities to a fighter in the roster, making them a costume can simply enhance the representation of a franchise while not generating as much if not any hate whatsoever. Second change: Dark Samus will be decloned. Unlike the other echoes, her wide selection of subtle animations can cause a massive change that makes the character incompatible to transfer into a palet swap. If a random person that never heard of Metroid was told to examine the two characters and tell what was inside the suit if it isn’t a human, they would probably say Samus is a robot, while Dark Samus is a corpse. In that sense Dark Samus will be decloned to give her more phazon like attribute to make her more similar to her in game appearance. And to differentiate herself from her counterpart, Samus herself will gain a completely new and different moveset to replace her old, generic moveset. This will allow Dark Samus to live as her own entity from Samus within smash as well as keeping metroid solid representation in terms of character selection. Final change: kill the spare. For the record, I like Chrom, I believe he is one of the best designed character in the whole game. Is personality is on point, is moveset is on point to is original appearance in awakening, he is simply perfect. But I do not know what to do with im. He ends up a bit repetitive in terms of fe’s cast, can’t really become a costume of Roy due to changes that would make zero sense (like falchion lighting itself in fire, Chrom using a reverse grip for is sword it simply makes no sense) so if he is not in a situation where the roster benefits from is inclusion, he is highly dependable. Ken would also get the boot but ONLY if Ryu is axed because cutting someone like him would be somewhat pointless.
So this is what I have to say about this subject. If I sounded overly negative it’s simply because Sakurai’s recent decisions make me lose faith in these characters getting improved for the better and It think it is for the better that such changes be made to not needlessly cut a character that can still be playable without taking up anything sort of developement time as small as it can be and for the characters themselves to not get hated for existing.