Post-Sephiroth Update: You've no doubt seen the Mii costume and my very salty recent update, but there's still some weirdness going on with Geno, so rather than have a salt update, I'll make a real one. I've updated a ton of points below.
Hi there! If you're reading this, chances are I linked it in the hope of educating you on evidence that I've compiled that
may point to Geno getting in Smash Ultimate. The List™ below contains all the leaks/rumors and other circumstantial evidence that still have an unconfirmed status, meaning that it has yet to be disproven, or stuff that has already happened (and is "confirmed").
Before the list though, I'd like to once again emphasize that everything below is either a leak (and therefore unconfirmed), could be coincidental, or is circumstantial evidence. Obviously nothing will 100% point to Geno except him getting an official reveal, but enough people have been trying to debunk this that I wanted it to be super obvious for anyone seeing this that is either new or just coming to debunk stuff, that yes,
all the regulars here are painfully aware that none of this is a guarantee and it could just be a lot of fake leaks/coincidences that just happened to line up how they did. This is just meant to be a list where all that stuff is compiled, so rather than going "ah crap, where was that one thing posted again?" that they could come to this post and see it in a neater format rather than digging for something from months/a year ago.
Anyway, with all that finally said-and-done, here's the list:
- SPIRITS DO NOT DECONFIRM!: Proven by Sakurai himself, the 6th DLC fighter is Min Min, who was originally a spirit that is now promoted to a playable fighter. While most of us knew this wasn't going to be a barrier for the Smash team for a long time now, this confirms it, and no longer can people use "Spirits deconfirm" to argue against Geno.
- Mii Costume List Leak: Someone leaked a bunch of Mii costumes, and there were some SMRPG ones on there like Mallow and Smithy. Geno however is not on that list. If this leak is real, it most certainly points to Geno being playable because why would the only character from the game who actually didhave a Mii costume in the past not get one for Ultimate?
- Many of their entries have been correct: Goemon, Zero, Protoman,Team Rocket Grunt, and claiming Geno's costume is not returning (such as in regards to Hero). "MCG" (Mii Costume Guy) has also gotten a lot of SNK spirit stuff right (thank you
axel_
): Kyo, Haohmaru, Geese, and some "Classic SNK" (which turned out to be Athena, Clark and Ralf, having their original first-game's art as opposed to newer versions, hence the "classic" part).
- Post-Sephiroth: Geno's costume obviously did come back, so I'm unsure on where to put MCG as far as leaks go. While yes, Geno's costume didn't come back with Hero, he was also stating that Mallow and Smithy were on the way while Geno was not, yet the complete opposite happened.
- No returning costumes have ever returned alongside new costumes from their series: Tails & Knuckles with Joker, Zero and Proto Man with Banjo, Jacky and Akira with Terry, and Mega Man X and MegaMan.EXE with Byleth. If Geno's costume was coming back, it'd be unprecedented to come with Mallow and/or Smithy. (Credit:
MisterMike
) That said though, SE is different and can do different things, including breaking this pattern. Still though, if Mallow and Smithy are coming as costumes, it would be greatly in Geno's favor of becoming playable.
- Fatman dropped a lot more of MCG's list, one of which was 2B! That's massive competition for Geno removed, if MCG is correct.
- CacoMallow Leak: Someone leaked videos (and an image) of Ken fighting a Mii wearing a Cacodemon (from Doom) headpiece/"hat" and a second Mii wearing a Mallow hat, hence the name of the leak being "CacoMallow". There are notable things to this leak, including the timer being locked and not ticking down, and modders have tried extensively to recreate the costumes, but they always come up short. Specifically, there's always small clipping issues or lack of polish on the modded hats that aren't as clean as CacoMallow. If this was a fake, it's made by the best modder in the world because no other modder can replicate it as well. Also just to clarify, this leak in no way showed off Doomguy nor Geno. The leak itself is just for the two Mii costumes. It's totally possible both costumes can get in without either associated character being playable, but it very likely points to at least Geno because it would be really weird to add a second SMRPG costume without Geno being playable. Doomguy is up in the air when we have some costumed like Altair and Rabbid.
- Picture comparisons and a post courtesy of
RuffyYoshi
.
- Mii Costume Leaker (above) also had Mallow on their list of costumes, so the two leaks support each other.
- DLC 6 (Min Min)'s Mii wave came with a different Bethesda costume: Vault Boy (Fallout). At this point though, CacoMallow is basically irrelevant for Geno.
- Steve coming to Smash actually proves one good thing regarding CacoMallow: Time has no real relevancy on leaks/rumors. Steve's been in discussion between Microsoft and the Smash team since at least 2015 or even earlier! CacoMallow being "old" doesn't matter and this leak is still very much on the table for Geno.
- Copyright Takedown Songs: Beware the Forest Mushrooms (Forest Maze, the place that everyone associats with Geno) and Battle Against an Armed Boss (Smithy Gang/2nd boss OST) were both copyright taken down, by Nintendo, who doesn't own the rights to either song,around E3 2019, roughly the time FP2 characters would be negotiated for. What's notable about this is that other songs that were taken down by Nintendo ended up getting content in Smash, such as that MEGALOVANIA remix being taken down 9 months before the Sans premium Mii costume was revealed, bringing with it a very similar MEGALOVANIA remix. A Banjo-Kazooie Smash-style remix was also taken down, and we now know why since Banjo & Kazooie are in Smash.
- What's further notable is that exactly 2 songs were taken down, which all other Square Enix characters have gotten in Smash: 2 songs each. Cloud got 2 FF7 songs and each of the DQ Heroes goes 2 songs each from their associated games in the series. This likely points to Geno being added with these 2 songs, more than a premium costume with one of them
- All that said, Yoko Shimomura was the composer for SMRPG and she's much easier to work with than Nobuo Uematsu (the Final Fantasy composer) and Koichi Sugiyama (the Dragon Quest composer), meaning that if Geno is made playable, he could totally come with more than just those 2 songs (just don't expect "Fight Against Culex" as that's a remix of FF4's boss theme, which Uematsu has the rights to). Regardless whether he comes with 2 or more songs, the fact remains that these songs were copyright taken down and we still do not know why.
- Post-Sephiroth: BotFM was used in Geno's Mii Costume reveal, but BAaAB is still missing. Neither song is actually playable in Smash though, regardless if you buy the costume or not.
Geno's Sm4sh Costume Remains AWOL: Unfortunately, we got the costume back, which nearly shatters his chances.- Sakurai's Approval of Geno since Brawl: Sakurai himself said the possessed doll fits in well for Smash. He tried to get him in as far back as Brawl, but for whatever reason, it didn't happen.
- Nintendo is Well Aware of Geno's (and Waluigi's) Fan Demand: I personally missed the "Geno" part back in pre-release, and thought this was just about Waluigi. Credit to
Paraspikey
for correcting that, who also has a whole post about this on page 2548. His post goes into more detail, and you should absolutely check it out, but a quick TL;DR: The person who confirmed that Nintendo's aware of the demand is a manager of product marketing for over 3 years (at Nintendo) and has 12+ years of experience with Nintendo in general. This is absolutely someone who would know if Nintendo was listening or not.
- Smash Bros Legacy C&D:Super Smash Bros. Legacy XP was a popular Super Smash Bros. Brawl mod pack created in the same vein as Project M. It aimed to offer a new casual and competitive Smash experience including existing character reworks, new stages, new songs, and new characters. Some of these new characters included Shadow the Hedgehog, Waluigi, and of course, Geno. On March 13th, 2020 however, the Smash Legacy team stated that they would abruptly cease development on the modpack. Nothing was specifically stated to be because of legal issues, but the sudden timing of the project shutting down, the lack of info provided to team members, and the removal of all the game’s downloads indicated that this decision was not done by choice. Unlike Project M, the Project Legacy team did not state any reasons as to why they shut down the project either, which further reinforces the idea that this project was shut down due to legal action from Nintendo. It's been theorized that Geno and Waluigi being in characters in Legacy XP were the main reasons as to why the project was shutdown, and that Nintendo wanted to potentially implement these characters as future Smash Ultimate DLC fighters. (Thanks to
TooManyToastahs
for this much better bullet point)
- After the takedown of SMB1: Battle Royale, to then getting virtually the same thing back officially from Nintendo on September 3rd, that gives an extra boost to the credibility that Legacy's takedown is related to somethingNintendo is doing, which is insanely likely to be Geno.
- Also of course, AM2R being taken down leading to the remake of Metroid 2 on 3DS, but that just goes without saying.
- 2020's 2nd Half is Heavily Rumored to be Very Mario-Focused (Deconfirmed? 10/1): Despite the Mario focus in early September, the next fighter shown was Steve (and co) from Minecraft, so this doesn't seem to be as big of evidence anymore.
- Seven Squares Leak: I had totally forgotten about this until I was recently reminded by
Verde Coeden Scalesworth
(thank you!), but there was a leak quite awhile ago (even before base launch) that had a list of 7 Square Enix characters that were either "potential candidates", or potentially also leakbait. If this leak is legitimate, that's really good odds for Geno, since he competes with an incredibly unlikely character who isn't even owned by Square-Enix (Sora), another dead character who is not only an anime swordsman, but also as dead as Geno (Crono), and one last character who I doubt because FF7 is already represented in Smash (Sephiroth). Also Slime from DQ, but come on, that's not gonna happen post-Hero. For the record though, here's the entire list:
- Geno (in-game as a costume)
- Sora
- Crono
- Sephiroth (already in-game!)
- Erdrick (already in-game!)
- Luminary (already in-game!)
- Slime (because we got Hero, I highly doubt Slime would also show up)
Polish Amiibo Rerelease Leak: While the leak was real since Mario and Cloud were restocked, this had nothing to do with CP7. Cloud did have something to do with CP8 however, so it's possible CP8 (Sephiroth) was intended for a Q3/4 reveal pre-Coronavirus.- Insiders Keep Mentioning Geno/SMRPG: Whether it's GameXplain predicting him (thanks to
StarLight42
for pinging me at 3:33AM) or Jeff Grubb making weird SMRPG-related tweets and retweets, we've been hearing things from insiders about Geno for quite awhile. Even
Fatmanonice
has been hearing the name, and he knows more than he tells us, since he doesn't like spoiling stuff. 
Jeff Grubb recently admitted his dream fighter is Geno. This doesn't invalidate his weird SMRPG tweets, but does make them take a bit of a hit in regards to leaking Geno. Make of it what you will. (credit to
MrJudd
for bringing this to our attention)
If you don't want to watch the clip, everyone was asked "What would your dream fighter in Smash be?", and after a few answers, Grubb says "Geno!". The person who asked the question (I assume the host?) gave an interested "Mmmm!" response, then Grubb later says "...the one Geno." after realizing he was the only one who said Geno.
Jeff Grubb and Imran Khan had a back and forth on Twitter. NateDrake/NatetheHate talked about SMRPG on Spawnwave's podcast on 7/18 and also refused to talk about Smash. It's just all too convenient to say Geno won't be playable.Jeff Grubb tweeted "Super Mario RPG" on September 3rd, randomly, after the Mario Direct happened.- Sharon, a user on Twitter, talked about a possible SMRPG game that Square is working on, and that her source also said "Geno is coming to Smash". As an added bonus, they're also holding SMRPG on NSO for said announcement.
- Sephazon, a former NoA employee, supports Geno (or rather "
♪!?") getting in Smash.
-
papagenos
got a super confidential phone call, and gave us some tidbits of info (albeit vague, possibly due to NSA or the sensitive nature of the subject matter):
- There's speculation that the information may be a "character from Smash Legacy will be added". This would be one of four character: Geno, Waluigi, Metal Sonic, and Shadow. Shadow and Metal Sonic just seem very... ...why, y'know? Hence why it's potentially between Geno and Wah.
- Here's another handful of Discord posts by PPG.
- Gamestop Leak: On July 14th, a certain video ad from Gamestop mentioned that "people were excited when they announced Geno for Smash". The thing that's weird about this is they played SMRPG footage and showed Geno's spirit at the end. The thing is however is that Geno's spirit was never announced. This could be a simple mistake and they meant the costume in Smash 4, but CloudyCat, a Gamestop manager, said that Pamela Horton (the woman in the video) would have access to information like this, in addition that everyone on Gamestop TV would be working from home so it's entirely possible she didn't catch that slip-up. Did Pamela Horton accidentally leak that Geno is coming to Smash?
- Another Discord post from CloudyCat where he states that she would probably know E3 news in advance.
- Another post from CloudyCat
- Okay there was a WHOLE MESS on this on 7/16 where I just sent everything to PapaGenos. Click the link to see the pictures, but here's the rundown:
- Gamestop made the video private. I still have this tab on my Chrome open.
- Gamestop put the video back up, but removed it from their playlist.
- Then then pinned a comment saying: "To clear up any confusion, Geno is a spirit in Smash, not a playable character (as shown in the footage at 2:07).
- Then then unpinned this comment but edited it with additional information: "We don't have any information regarding new Smash characters that the public doesn't have."
- ^ this absolutely REEKS of damage control. If it wasn't a slip-up, they would have just posted a single comment and been done with it. How they handled taking down the video, putting it back up, pinning a comment, editing the comment; it seems like something I would do (and trust me when I say I'm a mess when I panic, let alone when I don't panic, lol). This is almost them admitting they messed up.
- Yet another comment was posted by Gamestop, in their pinned (now unpinned) comment.
- The ad was edited in store usage and cut out the "Geno was announced for Smash" part entirely.
- Super Mario RPG Remake/Sequel?!: This was the "Placeholder Rumor" I had in the second section for months now and wasn't allowed to post about, but some people have publicly posted about this, so now I can finally add it to the list. Yes, Super Mario RPG is being talked about by some with the possibility of it getting a remake or a sequel (unsure which it is at the moment).
- Sharon on Twitter posted on 9/3 (the Mario 35th Direct day) that SMRPG is getting a sequel (and yes this was also posted above in the "Insiders Mentioning Geno" section too).
- A Twitch clip from Shofu also posted on 9/3 has a discussion between three people (none of which I know nor can identify) about the Mario 35th direct until one of them brings up SMRPG is getting a sequel. While many of us thought they were referring to Sharon since both were posted on the same day, they mentioned that "this person got the date of the last 4 directs correct", but AFAIK, Sharon didn't do that, so are they referring to yet another person who has heard of a SMRPG project? (Credit to
Slender
for finding this one)
- It's also been said that SMRPG on NSO is being delayed for the announcement of this game. If true, that means this game is more likely to be a sequel so you can play the original on NSO to catch up for the sequel.
- Mallow's Mii costume is still being heard: Even after Geno was put in as a costume, for some reason, people are still hearing updated information that Mallow's Mii costume is coming.
Awkwah
(was granted their permission to namedrop them) is one of the people who have heard such information. People have also heard to wait regarding Geno, even though he's already in as a costume, plus the was the whole weirdness with Mii Fighters Wave 8 being at the beginning of the Mr. Sakurai video for Sephiroth, rather than at the end as usual. It would be great if this actually means Nintendo/Sakurai want to break another big fan rule regarding costumes, especially with Geno being the one to do that.
There are also additional things that are noteworthy for Geno's chances:
- Spirit battles can be altered if the player has purchased DLC or not; Cuphead's spirit battle is against Mega Man if you don't own the Cuphead Mii costume, and against a Mii Gunner wearing Cuphead's costume if you do own it (thank you
Glitch-EGamer
for reminding me to put that on here).
- This would mean that if Geno becomes playable, his spirit battle could be modified to add his character in if you own him. If the spirit battle couldn't be modified, that would support the "spirits can't become playable" fanrule.
-
Fatmanonice
being an insider himself has heard a number of things in the insider circles regarding Geno.
-
TerminalMontage
put it best in his (most recent) "Geno for Smash" video; Sakurai is taking bits and pieces of Nintendo (and gaming in general) history for Ultimate and this wasn't really a thing in past titles. Some characters got new designs, some got some updates, such as Mario now having Cappy (a tiny graphical-only update to him to also include Odyssey). Geno represents the first Mario RPG game and a game that people still can't stop talking about 24 years later. Hell there's even a handful of subtle SMRPG references in Ultimate with Viridi mentioning Megasmilax on PPlant's Palutena's Guidance, and PPlant's victory animation where it dances a bit, similar to the Japanese commercial for SMRPG that has Piranha Plants dancing.
Geno chances to be playable are better than they ever have been before. (unfortunately they're pretty slim post-Sephiroth, but he's miraculously not dead yet still) He's got quite the legacy behind him regarding Smash, he's a piece of gaming history as being a (if not
the) major protagonist of the first ever Mario RPG (which later created Paper Mario, it's originally intended sequel, and the Mario & Luigi series), and SMRPG also happened to bring RPGs to the mainstream appeal in the West. His fan demand is quite high, definitely in the top 10 of all characters not yet in Smash for sure. IMO, he's as close to a lock as any character can get, and I will be crushed if he doesn't get in because I'm that sure that, to quote
TerminalMontage
: "
he's gonna be in" (also for anyone who hasn't seen that video and his others, go watch them. TM is a great dude and play a big part of the Geno support community who sometimes posts in here and totally deserves your time!).
PS: If I forgot anything, feel free ping me in a brand new post and I'll be more than happy to add it in.
A Sort-Of-Changelog:
(12/21: Post-Sephiroth updates)
(10/1: Post-Steve updates)
(3/12: Credit to
MisterMike
for cleaning up some bits of the post)
Lagguino
), so this is worth keeping in mind.
