Elma for Smash Ultimate: Strength comes from experience. That’s true on any planet.

[chocolatejr9]

And EVO 2019 is tomorrow.

Sounds like we have a mystery on our hands, gang.

Let's split up and search for clues.

 

[KatKit]

Let's split up and search for clues.

I read that in Elma's voice; it's somehow fitting.

 

[ColtonS25]

I read that in Elma's voice; it's somehow fitting.

Elma? More like (V)Elma amirite??

 

[Flyboy]

I'm not expecting a Smash announcement at Evo but man I wish. I'll definitely be tuning in because all the announcement rumors are fascinating. Hoping for some luck and some hope, but try not to get too upset if we don't get anything.

Still...if we get a Smash trailer where Elma saves Shulk....I'm giddy just imagining it!

 

[jahkzheng]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Shulk’s VO is under NDA for something too, and these teases given his pre-Shulk reveal in 4 behavior, are likely something related to Xenoblade

What if... Xenoblade Warriors announcement? And immediately afterwards, IT’S ELMA TIME (for Smash)?!

What if Xenoblade Warriors was Hiroyuki Sawano’s secret project (not that it would impact Elma being in Smash if that’s the case as tracks straight from X would come with her in the pass)?!

HERE WE FRIGGIN GOOOOOO

Xenoblade Warriors is something I've mused and wanted since shortly after HW and XCX came out (played them one after the other). My interest in such an idea only increased with XC2. There's quite a rich cast of Xeno characters especially if you also look back to Saga etc.

If Smash didn't do another thing for Xenoblade in this generation (cross fingers for 'not true').. Xeno Warriors would be a fine consolation prize. The love they put into HW, I just hope they could do as well with the Xeno series.

Admittedly never played FEW, but I'm not as big an FE fan so there was less there for me. I heard it was technically good, but just kinda less fun for some reason... least that was the consensus from people who played it around me.

 

[PSIGuy]

FEW's main problem was... imagine a Xeno Warriors except it's 70% XB2 characters (all the main cast, their Blades, then whatever Rare Blades the director likes), 20% XB1 characters (only Shulk, Fiora and let's say Dunban) and Elma as the sole XBX representative. As a clone of Fiora.

They leaned way too hard on the newest games despite popularity polls showing older characters were also beloved. And despite them claiming they would focus on three games (Awakening, Fates and Mystery of the Emblem), Mystery of the Emblem only got 3 characters.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

idk how much stock y'all put in theories, but Mii Costume Theory (the idea that we HAVE to get both a Namco AND Capcom rep as the last two) took a hit due to the Geno costume not returning. I like to think a Nintendo character's chances have shot up now.

plus, the Geno thread sees the aformentioned costume absence and starling hint as a sliver of hope despite Geno having a spirit. I think I kinda want Geno to be playable now despite me not having much of an attachment to him, just to kill the Spirits Deconfirm theory once and for all, lol

also, I feel like in my classic mode, the last two stages' allies are also stealth VO jokes (Lucina's Heroes onward VO, Alexis Tipton, voices Hope Alanzi, and both Shulk and Fiora's VOs are Cross voice options)

I know it's very unlikely, but what if those last two slots in the Season Pass were Elma and KOS-MOS? That would really make up for no Xenoblade newcomers being in the base game.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Shulk’s VO is under NDA for something too, and these teases given his pre-Shulk reveal in 4 behavior, are likely something related to Xenoblade

What if... Xenoblade Warriors announcement? And immediately afterwards, IT’S ELMA TIME (for Smash)?!

What if Xenoblade Warriors was Hiroyuki Sawano’s secret project (not that it would impact Elma being in Smash if that’s the case as tracks straight from X would come with her in the pass)?!

HERE WE FRIGGIN GOOOOOO

Holy ****! Elma in Smash please daddy Sakurai.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

At this rate, I feel like we're most likely gonna get an announcement of an announcement during EVO at the very least, be it a random Robin/Lucina style trailer drop or a full Direct like with Simon/Richter/Chrom/Dark Samus/King K. Rool, after the tournament.

Or heck who knows it could be a first and reveal a character during the tournament, probably on the last day. It likely won't be a Pass Character until Banjo is released, though. likely a bonus... though that does raise a question of how they'll be numbered...

 

[Jocario Zero]

At this rate, I feel like we're most likely gonna get an announcement of an announcement during EVO at the very least, be it a random Robin/Lucina style trailer drop or a full Direct like with Simon/Richter/Chrom/Dark Samus/King K. Rool, after the tournament.

Or heck who knows it could be a first and reveal a character during the tournament, probably on the last day. It likely won't be a Pass Character until Banjo is released, though. likely a bonus... though that does raise a question of how they'll be numbered...

They did announce the Smash Direct last year. But i don't see them announcing a character who is not a part of the fighter pass as long as fighter #4 and #5 are still unknown. This would just be wrong and wouldn't make much sense if you asked me.

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

They did announce the Smash Direct last year. But i don't see them announcing a character who is not a part of the fighter pass as long as fighter #4 and #5 are still unknown. This would just be wrong and wouldn't make much sense if you asked me.

You hit the nail on the head there. The bonus character theory is nonsense to me for that reason. Not only is it not courteous to do it while a season pass is in progress, but it would also lead to accusations of misleading marketing.

That being said, Nintendo aren't as bound to a pattern in regards to EVO as folks think, seeing as we've only had one instance of them revealing a direct date over there so far. They could do the next best thing and drop a trailer, depending on how much progress there is on character 4.

 

[Calamitas]

Maybe it's not a Figher's Pass character, or another fully-fledged DLC fighter, but rather one or a few Echo Fighters? That wouldn't exactly be a big hype reveal, but it'd be something.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Maybe it's not a Figher's Pass character, or another fully-fledged DLC fighter, but rather one or a few Echo Fighters? That wouldn't exactly be a big hype reveal, but it'd be something.

With a supposed big Persona 5 Royal announcement on the 17th, it could be Kasumi Yoshizawa as a Joker echo (hinted at by the "Jane" with the ponytail in Joker's old string, and when he came out, the model was close to completion but they decided she wouldn't work as an alt). PLUS, she wouldn't interfere with numbering - she'd be 71e!

 

[Deleted member]

With a supposed big Persona 5 Royal announcement on the 17th, it could be Kasumi Yoshizawa as a Joker echo (hinted at by the "Jane" with the ponytail in Joker's old string, and when he came out, the model was close to completion but they decided she wouldn't work as an alt). PLUS, she wouldn't interfere with numbering - she'd be 71e!

Man, Kasumi would be pretty awesome for me.

 

[ColtonS25]

Me: Sakurai, can we have Elma in Smash?

Sakurai: No, we already have Elma in Smash.

Elma in Smash:

 

[Deleted member]

Me: Sakurai, can we have Elma in Smash?

Sakurai: No, we already have Elma in Smash.

Elma in Smash:View attachment 233361

Actually that’s Angelo from DQ8

Lol, Elma got in XD.
Seriously doh, Elma would be an awesome surprise newcomer for Ultimate.

 

[Abade]

Me: Sakurai, can we have Elma in Smash?

Sakurai: No, we already have Elma in Smash.

Elma in Smash:View attachment 233361

Then can we have KOS-MOS in Smash Daddy Sakurai? She looks like this:

 

[RandomAce]

Edelgard sounds a lot like Elma at times in FE Three Houses.

 

[Calamitas]

Edelgard sounds a lot like Elma at times in FE Three Houses.

Not the same voice actor, though. Sothis and Lin, though. . .

FEW's main problem was... imagine a Xeno Warriors except it's 70% XB2 characters (all the main cast, their Blades, then whatever Rare Blades the director likes), 20% XB1 characters (only Shulk, Fiora and let's say Dunban) and Elma as the sole XBX representative. As a clone of Fiora.

They leaned way too hard on the newest games despite popularity polls showing older characters were also beloved. And despite them claiming they would focus on three games (Awakening, Fates and Mystery of the Emblem), Mystery of the Emblem only got 3 characters.

That's not entirely fair, I feel. Hyrule Warriors in its initial release also only really focussed on three games (Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword), and only began expanding in the DLC for its Legends rerelease (outside of Young Link and Tingle, though those two really didn't feel like they were Majora's Mask specific for the most part). And while the various moveset clones in FEW do admittedly suck, it's not like Fire Emblem was ever known for having a large variety of character-specific abilities where every character could conceivably fight differently.
At any rate, I blame Fates for just needing to have all of its eight royal siblings for dragging down the roster quality.

 

[Phoebe3315]

Admittedly never played FEW, but I'm not as big an FE fan so there was less there for me. I heard it was technically good, but just kinda less fun for some reason... least that was the consensus from people who played it around me.

I found FEW more fun than the original release of Hyrule Warriors because of the pair-up mechanic, mounted units, the ability to give units orders and swap between different units. Very good FE specific changes that I felt made the gameplay better overall. Although, I know they added swapping between different characters at least to the new release of Hyrule Warriors.

 

[PSIGuy]

And while the various moveset clones in FEW do admittedly suck, it's not like Fire Emblem was ever known for having a large variety of character-specific abilities where every character could conceivably fight differently.

They don't even utilize clones effectively, though. It'd make sense if they made it so you had two choices for every moveset and spread the games around for more variety, or if they managed to fill all the major weapon/movetype combinations that are FE mainstays. Instead for some god awful reason they have

• Four bow users with the exact same moveset (Takumi, Sakura, Anna and Niles)
• Three lance fliers with the exact same moveset (Cordelia, Caeda and Hinoka)
  • 0 lance cavalry even after DLC, despite being a mainstay of the series
  • All the launch game lance users were fliers, so in addition to a weakness to axes they were also all weak to bows despite the weapon triangle and effectiveness being a key part of the game design
• Sword cavalry, axe cavalry and axe infantry consist of one character each, despite there being very obvious and easy inclusions for each of them as clones
• THIRTEEN different sword users, making up over a third of the 32-man roster. This is in spite of the fact that the explicit reason they didn't want to just include all lords to avoid it just being swords. Instead the game excludes over half the series and still fails to avoid being sword saturated.

There's both glaring omissions and incredibly dubious inclusions. The speculation cycle for the game was a nonstop ****show, just when the devs couldn't make themselves look dumber, they would go and do just that. Every interview dug themselves a deeper hole. And of course, the games that get the shortend of the stick were "anything that isn't Fates or Awakening".

At any rate, I blame Fates for just needing to have all of its eight royal siblings for dragging down the roster quality.

Replace "Fates" with "Xenoblade 2" and "eight royal siblings" with "main cast members and Blades" and you have the fate of XenoWarriors. There is very little reason to look forward to a XenoWarriors game if you're hoping for XCX representation.

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

From the sound of it...

The next time someone complains about too many swordies in Smash, we can just point to FEW and PSIGuy 's post.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Today’s the day... we’re most likely gonna see a Nintendo announcement today if the New sticker missing from Characters means anything...

 

[Lamperouge]

Don't get your hopes up too much.

 

[Flyboy]

Yeah, I think it's really just that Hero is out and his page has been there for a while. A tease for a future direct would be nice, though.

 

[Calamitas]

Today’s the day... we’re most likely gonna see a Nintendo announcement today if the New sticker missing from Characters means anything...

How many hours from now is the Smash portion of it supposed to begin?

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

How many hours from now is the Smash portion of it supposed to begin?

Basically, signs point towards 10 PM EST.

Spoiler

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Nintendo is funding EVO like they did last year, it’s not unreasonable to expect SOMETHING

 

[RetrogamerMax]

Me: Sakurai, can we have Elma in Smash?

Sakurai: No, we already have Elma in Smash.

Elma in Smash:View attachment 233361

Bulma: Son, why are you dressed up like a knight without his armor?

Vegeta: What the hell?!

 

[Rie Sonomura]

It’s time... by the time EVO ends, we’re sure to have an announcement. Every other featured game has had one...

 

[Lamperouge]

Nintendo is funding EVO like they did last year, it’s not unreasonable to expect SOMETHING

It’s time... by the time EVO ends, we’re sure to have an announcement. Every other featured game has had one...

You're setting yourself up for disappointment if you think there has to be an announcement just because everyone else had one. Sure, it'd be really awesome if they showed something off at the end of GFs, but there's no guarantee that Nintendo planned something for EVO.

 

[PSIGuy]

At most Nintendo will announce the announcement of an announcement like last year. At worst, they'll just do nothing because Hero just released a week ago and they haven't covered Banjo-Kazooie at all. They can afford to have radio silence for a bit longer rather than immediately cutting short their own release with more news.

 

[Calamitas]

And big surprise, we got nothing. We'll most likely have to wait until a Direct next month after all. Let's be honest, though, I don't think that an announcement at EVO would be the place to reveal Elma, direct or indirect. A general Direct would be much better suited.

 

[Nonno Umby]

While we didn't get anything new from EVO, I was thinking at Sakurai's presentation for Hero, especially to the line "We initially planned Hero to be silent, but after finding out that DQXI S will have VA we decided to dub the different Heroes as well".
I did a quick research, and wnile the first VA were revealed in January 2019, Square Enix announced that DQXI S would have VA back in September 23th:

https://nintendoeverything.com/dragon-quest-xi-for-switch-is-titled-dragon-quest-xi-s/
"S stands also for Voice Actor in Japanese"

So this might be further proof that the DLC characters have been decided well before the end of development, which might help Elma's case.

 

[Calamitas]

While we didn't get anything new from EVO, I was thinking at Sakurai's presentation for Hero, especially to the line "We initially planned Hero to be silent, but after finding out that DQXI S will have VA we decided to dub the different Heroes as well".
I did a quick research, and wnile the first VA were revealed in January 2019, Square Enix announced that DQXI S would have VA back in September 23th:

https://nintendoeverything.com/dragon-quest-xi-for-switch-is-titled-dragon-quest-xi-s/
"S stands also for Voice Actor in Japanese"

So this might be further proof that the DLC characters have been decided well before the end of development, which might help Elma's case.

I mean, weren't the first bits of data for Hero already in the patch that dropped along with the game? So really, I think that most of the DLC characters were already decided quite a while ago. There probably were just one, maybe two characters that weren't fully settled on back during the time of the final pre-release Direct.

 

[Nonno Umby]

I mean, weren't the first bits of data for Hero already in the patch that dropped along with the game? So really, I think that most of the DLC characters were already decided quite a while ago. There probably were just one, maybe two characters that weren't fully settled on back during the time of the final pre-release Direct.

People belive that the characters were decided shortly after the final Smash Direct in November, since Sakurai commented on it a couple days after about how all characters were already chosen and to not spam his Twitter profile with requests.
But that date is almost two months after the announcment of DQXI S having VA, so this kinda proves that the characters were decided well before that date, and it might go in favour of Elma.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

People belive that the characters were decided shortly after the final Smash Direct in November, since Sakurai commented on it a couple days after about how all characters were already chosen and to not spam his Twitter profile with requests.
But that date is almost two months after the announcment of DQXI S having VA, so this kinda proves that the characters were decided well before that date, and it might go in favour of Elma.

If we’re accounting for the possibility of ALL extra WoL placeholder slots for characters being filled, that statement may encompass all of it, not just the FP but more individual characters and even a potential second pass.

Also, did Caitlin Glass’s NDA tweet come before or after all DLC was finalized?

 

[Pallex]

If we’re accounting for the possibility of ALL extra WoL placeholder slots for characters being filled, that statement may encompass all of it, not just the FP but more individual characters and even a potential second pass.

Also, did Caitlin Glass’s NDA tweet come before or after all DLC was finalized?

Caitlin Glass's audition tweet came two hours before Sakurai's DLC is finalized tweet on November 6, 2018.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Spoiler: Case for Elma in Smash pics reiterate for reference

 

[RandomAce]

Caitlin Glass's audition tweet came two hours before Sakurai's DLC is finalized tweet on November 6, 2018.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Spoiler: Case for Elma in Smash pics reiterate for reference

It’s weird how exact those two hours are if you think about it.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

You guys think Elma will be a Pass character, or individual?

I'm hoping she's in the pass, cause she'll be sure to bring a Xeno X stage, tons of Hiroyuki Sawano bangers, and some Spirits that will be properly labeled as "Xenoblade Chronicles X" in the code.

 

[Jocario Zero]

You guys think Elma will be a Pass character, or individual?

I'm hoping she's in the pass, cause she'll be sure to bring a Xeno X stage, tons of Hiroyuki Sawano bangers, and some Spirits that will be properly labeled as "Xenoblade Chronicles X" in the code.

I don't see her happening as an individual dlc-character. Don't really know why. I just don't see it. (probably because that could mean no Xenoblade X-Stage oder music like you said).

If there 's something of a "Nintendo-only-pass" i could see her as a frontrunner depending on at what point in time something like this was (if at all)decided and if there is something X-related in the future.