Geno (♥♪!?): Return of the Starsend Savior

[ShotoStar 2]

To my knowledge, we've never had music come with a Mii costume because said music would have to be tied to a stage. There's no precedent for this, so I would have to say that we're most likely looking at scenarios 1 and 3. While it could easily be nothing, both the timing and Nintendo's involvement are beyond suspicious. Also, Beware of the Forest Mushrooms in particular is suspicious since many people consider that song the closest thing to a Geno theme song. I mean, of all SMRPG songs for Nintendo to mysteriously hit, why that one? I wouldn't instantly assume a Geno confirmation, but this is something we should definitely keep our eyes on. To be honest, this is the best tangible evidence yet to suggest that Geno could actually be coming.

Okay so basically:

Spoiler

I'm still trying to temper my expectations cause this could easily give me false hope and it ends up being nothing but with all these coincidences with this and a list of both coincidences and evidence it's hard not to have a little bit of hope. I don't really want my hope to end up being false so I'm trying my best to not expect anything beyond the bare minimum and Geno's Mii Costume. It's hell of a coincidence that Beware the Forests mushrooms gets hit as you said but that could easily be just that, A coincidence. I don't know man. I don't know.

I hope this means something but at this point I don't know.

 

[Vector Victor]

DLCorrin came with a song too.

If Geno is a bonus fighter, they could easily give him 2 songs as well, especially since the composer is already on the Ultimate team.

 

[AugustusB]

Ooh, I had forgotten that! I was envisioning the trailer using Armed Boss to emphasize the addition of a Mallow costume. Kinda like, “Hey, there’s a Mallow costume too! Hooray right guys?”

I thought so, but that would be such a kick to the d***.
Sakurai: Here is the Geno costume back! (BTFM plays) but wait...he's not alone!
(Mallow costume with BaaAF playing)

That would be sooo awful!

EDIT: Vector Victor your right! Tempering my expectations, but I forgot Corrin got that as well...dang.

 

[Firox]

Okay so basically:

Spoiler

View attachment 231012

I'm still trying to temper my expectations cause this could easily give me false hope and it ends up being nothing but with all these coincidences with this and a list of both coincidences and evidence it's hard not to have a little bit of hope. I don't really want my hope to end up being false so I'm trying my best to not expect anything beyond the bare minimum and Geno's Mii Costume. It's hell of a coincidence that Beware the Forests mushrooms gets hit as you said but that could easily be just that, A coincidence. I don't know man. I don't know.

I hope this means something but at this point I don't know.

I mean, I don't know how much hope is considered too much (would we be measuring in standard units of "Katara"s?) but aren't we all here because we have at least SOME hope that our boi will get in someday? Imagine how the Banjo-Kazooie fans must have felt up until just a month ago. Or the K Rool fans? Or the Ridley fans? Or the mother freaking Cloud fans?! (He was considered so improbable that I doubt many people even bothered to vote for him)

Bottom line is, I know all too well the pain of allowing yourself to get over-hyped, but at the same time, we shouldn't be afraid to accept the possibility. This could be something...or it might not. That's why I think we should continue to scour the internet for clues. Continue to find evidence to cement our theories. Keep your expectations realistic, but also remember that as long as we continue to fight for Geno, someday....SOMEDAY...will be OUR day. It may not be this month, or year, or even this iteration of the game, but if we've learned anything from these last few months, it's that anything is possible. That's a FACT. Never forget that.

 

[MattX20]

There's also the fact people tend to forget: there is a single blank spot on the stage selection when all 5 Fighter Pass characters are released. A bonus standalone fighter outside the pass could come with one too.

 

[Ovaltine]

Hate to be a debbie downer, but I highly doubt this means anything at all. I'm willing to bet that Nintendo claimed them because of them being from a Mario game. It's all very automated, and Youtube has its fair share of bull when it comes to its algorithm. While Square and Yoko Shimomura have their hands on the game and its music, Youtube labeling it as a claim from Nintendo, due to it being a Mario title, isn't so farfetched.

Granted, something like that did happen with a Smash fan remix of Gruntilda's Lair, but I think it was just a coincidence due to 'Smash' in the title and the game having been leaked at the time.

There's also the fact people tend to forget: there is a single blank spot on the stage selection when all 5 Fighter Pass characters are released. A bonus standalone fighter outside the pass could come with one too.

It's already been explained multiple times over (this thread included) that the spot is saved for custom stage options.

 

[AugustusB]

I mean, I don't know how much hope is considered too much (would we be measuring in standard units of "Katara"s?) but aren't we all here because we have at least SOME hope that our boi will get in someday? Imagine how the Banjo-Kazooie fans must have felt up until just a month ago. Or the K Rool fans? Or the Ridley fans? Or the mother freaking Cloud fans?! (He was considered so improbable that I doubt many people even bothered to vote for him)

Bottom line is, I know all too well the pain of allowing yourself to get over-hyped, but at the same time, we shouldn't be afraid to accept the possibility. This could be something...or it might not. That's why I think we should continue to scour the internet for clues. Continue to find evidence to cement our theories. Keep your expectations realistic, but also remember that as long as we continue to fight for Geno, someday....SOMEDAY...will be OUR day. It may not be this month, or year, or even this iteration of the game, but if we've learned anything from these last few months, it's that anything is possible. That's a FACT. Never forget that.

As a Banjo and Kazooie fan, the last month before their reveal was stressful. This I can attest to. I was very much on the optimistic side of the spectrum, but others, even with all the evidence for them, were very very on the fence. Then...they came home and what a joyous day that was for us.

And now, we have a 'possible' hint to our Star Boi in a long while. I will choose to be optimistic not only for myself, but for all of you as well! Some how, some way...Geno is coming. (Maybe as a costume...but eh!?)

 

[MattX20]

Hate to be a debbie downer, but I highly doubt this means anything at all. I'm willing to bet that Nintendo claimed them because of them being from a Mario game. It's all very automated, and Youtube has its fair share of bull when it comes to its algorithm. While Square and Yoko Shimomura have their hands on the game and its music, Youtube labeling it as a claim from Nintendo, due to it being a Mario title, isn't so farfetched.

Granted, something like that did happen with a Smash fan remix of Gruntilda's Lair, but I think it was just a coincidence due to 'Smash' in the title and the game having been leaked at the time.


It's already been explained multiple times over (this thread included) that the spot is saved for custom stage options.

No, it hasn't. The custom stages has their own tab. Did you forget that?

 

[Ovaltine]

No, it hasn't. The custom stages has their own tab. Did you forget that?

It was something or another like that. Something of some kind took up that slot related to custom stages. Can someone verify that for me? I know it was stated in the thread many times before.

Also, to clarify after a bit of a complaint, I'm not trying to shut down discussion of this discovery or saying that anyone is wrong for finding it suspicious. It is an interesting point to look at. I just personally don't think it means much and have logic to back it up. I repeat, I'm not trying to douse anyone's hopes and bring the thread down. I am giving my opinion of the matter as others have, and that is perfectly allowed. Feel free to hope as much or as little as you want, going at your own discretion.

 

[StormC]

No, it hasn't. The custom stages has their own tab. Did you forget that?

The square is used when you are toggling off whether or not to allow custom stages in random.

 

[Ovaltine]

The square is used when you are toggling off whether or not to allow custom stages in random.

Aha, THAT'S what it was! I was starting to worry that I was going crazy or something, haha. Thanks, my dude.

 

[Deleted member]

Would this theme fit the current mood after the discoverment?

 

[Ovaltine]

Would this theme fit the current mood after the discoverment?

Yes.

Alternatively, the X-Files theme is quite apt.

 

[TheCJBrine]

I believe Nintendo has been claiming stuff from BrawlBRSTMs, doubling down on copyright and ignoring the other channels that do the same thing as them, so I dunno. BRSTMs have made a statement on how they’re taking down their Nintendo extensions due to the claims (though some of their older Nintendo extensions are still up; I guess they got tired of making new channels and hiding from copyright law enforcement).

However, it is still odd that only two tracks from their SMRPG playlist were claimed, but it could be nothing. It might be an error in Nintendo’s or Youtube’s automated systems.

 

[MissingGlitch]

No stop. Don't give me hope.

 

[Ze Diglett]

To everyone saying this could just be a mistake, why would just those two songs be taken down? If Brawl's entire SMRPG playlist got blocked, then I'd agree that it's probably just automation doing its job (rather poorly), but the fact that only two specific tracks out of the entire OST got hit is what makes this situation feel so off to me.

 

[Ovaltine]

To everyone saying this could just be a mistake, why would just those two songs be taken down? If Brawl's entire SMRPG playlist got blocked, then I'd agree that it's probably just automation doing its job (rather poorly), but the fact that only two specific tracks out of the entire OST got hit is what makes this situation feel so off to me.

It is weird, yeah, but Youtube is a hot mess rofl. I wouldn't really rule anything out either way on this, even if I lean one way more than another.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

See, Nintendo using copyright claims against Youtubers is just sort of Monday morning for the company. They have an extremely strained relationship with Youtube and content creators in general and always have, so it's completely within reason that some random stuff could get hit out of nowhere. Maybe there's an algorithm that specifically found the parameters for those two songs and Nintendo knocked them down. Hell, maybe Youtube ****ed up for all we know.

Like, I don't see how a random two videos is supposed to mean anything when there are still uploads of the song from 8 years ago playable. If we were seeing a massive Youtube wide purge of Beware the Forest's Mushrooms, there might be an actual case to make for it meaning something... But an isolated incident of two Super Mario RPG songs receiving copyright claims from Nintendo? I think you have to jump through a bit too many conclusions to make a point out of that. It's worth monitoring to see if other Super Mario RPG videos go down, because like I said, that might be something, but for now I don't really get the attention aspect for this. As Ovaltine said, Youtube is massive mess right now and Nintendo especially doesn't get along with them at the best of times. It would also be really ****ing strange to make copyright infringement claims against exactly one playlist and leave the rest be...

And yeah, once again, there's no last stage slot, it already has a function in game, so it doesn't mean anything. They can always rework the UI to add additional stages, but as of right now there isn't a place for a new one.

 

[Firox]

Let's put things into perspective here, people. This whole Nintendo-Music-Ban thing may be just a random coincidence, but it IS real. Nintendo, NOT SE, banned a pair of songs, one of which being rather specific to Geno and the SMRPG community. And this happened within the last few months during the Smash Ultimate DLC cycle. No matter how this adds up or how you want to slice it, this is more actual evidence in favor of a DLC speculation character than any other I can think of at the moment. We talk of Resident evil characters, Doom slayer, and many others, but to my knowledge, none of them are supported by anything but corporate hearsay and our attempts to find a pattern in the first three DLC. That said, let's just calmly wait and see what other clues we can find that may definitively support or disprove this coincidence. I have a feeling that the Hero reveal will tell us what we want to know, and we shouldn't have to wait long...

 

[ShotoStar 2]

Also I don't think anyone brought this up yet but this isn't the only time Super Mario RPG music and Nintendo has been connected together in this past year. I forget the exact post but remember when someone came in here claiming to hear Super Mario RPG music in the Nintendo NYC store let alone it being Beware the forests mushrooms(?) Maybe it has something to do with that?

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

It is weird. Mind you, if somebody reports the specific videos, and says "Nintendo" owns it, YouTube has a habit of doing no real research and blocking/removing a video under one's name. I however don't remember exactly how they block a video. Weirdest ones are English dubs being blocked because it's "not from your country", while I'm in the US. That makes no sense how it works. Copyright/pirating, sure. I get that. That's a legit thing in itself, and parody is not a get-out-of-jail-free card from it either. But a lot of these are weird. I have a feeling it's either a weird case like here where somebody reported it or Nintendo actually has those songs licensed for use in Ultimate. Though to be fair, having the songs put onto a Mario stage is cool, even if Geno is only a costume. More SMRPG stuff is awesome alone for patches/DLC~

 

[N3ON]

I think it would be more telling if it wasn't still exceedingly easy to find the music pieces in question on different channels. SilvaGunner, for example, has both up. When Nintendo were purging the leaked music pre-release, it was hitting everyone. This seems more like some automated shenanigans to me.

 

[Ovaltine]

It is weird. Mind you, if somebody reports the specific videos, and says "Nintendo" owns it, YouTube has a habit of doing no real research and blocking/removing a video under one's name. I however don't remember exactly how they block a video. Weirdest ones are English dubs being blocked because it's "not from your country", while I'm in the US. That makes no sense how it works. Copyright/pirating, sure. I get that. That's a legit thing in itself, and parody is not a get-out-of-jail-free card from it either. But a lot of these are weird. I have a feeling it's either a weird case like here where somebody reported it or Nintendo actually has those songs licensed for use in Ultimate. Though to be fair, having the songs put onto a Mario stage is cool, even if Geno is only a costume. More SMRPG stuff is awesome alone for patches/DLC~

If they can't make Geno playable, then going all out with compensation otherwise (music, costumes, etc.) would at least be a hell of a nice upgrade from Sm4sh.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

Let's put things into perspective here, people. This whole Nintendo-Music-Ban thing may be just a random coincidence, but it IS real. Nintendo, NOT SE, banned a pair of songs, one of which being rather specific to Geno and the SMRPG community. And this happened within the last few months during the Smash Ultimate DLC cycle. No matter how this adds up or how you want to slice it, this is more actual evidence in favor of a DLC speculation character than any other I can think of at the moment. We talk of Resident evil characters, Doom slayer, and many others, but to my knowledge, none of them are supported by anything but corporate hearsay and our attempts to find a pattern in the first three DLC. That said, let's just calmly wait and see what other clues we can find that may definitively support or disprove this coincidence. I have a feeling that the Hero reveal will tell us what we want to know, and we shouldn't have to wait long...

This isn't evidence for or against Geno though. It relates to Super Mario RPG as far as the music is concerned and you just can't make any conclusions beyond that it being exactly what it is. It's a big leap to claiming that two videos of Super Mario RPG (again, seemingly at random and only affecting exactly two uploads) means much of anything at all. Let alone Geno in Smash of all things. This "evidence" literally doesn't impact the idea of Geno in Smash in the least bit. It's like far too many things in other media, not everything is explicitly Smash related or even helps a character's chances.

If a greater pattern of Nintendo copyrighting Super Mario RPG music emerges, then and only then, will I acknowledge that this situation is even Super Mario RPG related for Nintendo's future, and then there still has to be something convincing to link this "Super Mario RPG" relation to specifically Geno in Smash.

 

[ForsakenM]

So, I'm going to address two things here that I really don't understand people's views on, and I'm more than open to response to explain the other side. This is one of the big posts I mentioned earlier.

EDIT: Fun Fact ~ This part was written before the reveal of the Switch Lite. Freaky how I had this ready the day before the announcement, I must be onto something here...

Spoiler: 1. How in the heck do people think more DLC for Smash isn't likely?

Listen, I get it: Nintendo doesn't always do the obvious like other companies, but they already have done it for Smash with the Fighter's Pass. For the life of me, I can't think of a time Nintendo was involved in a season pass. Maybe there was one for BotW, but as far as I know it has all been individual DLC that was individually priced. This is something that a Western company would do for a game that doesn't even fit the bill for such a thing just because they are greedy, yet here is Nintendo pulling the same tactic?

We may have our few issues with Nintendo, but it's a fact that they often deliver more fun and uniqueness and things we like more often than most other AAA companies. So them doing a Season Pass for a game is pretty crazy, right? And so far, the pass has been pretty much just characters everyone has wanted in one way or another without it feeling like fans had no say in the matter. When you consider people like myself exists that 'have to have all of everything' on top of fans going crazy over these amazing picks, both the FP and the single packs are going to sell extremely well.

When you factor that in with the VERY unfortunate truth that Sakurai is a slave to his own works and his stance on quality, then you know that if Nintendo says DLC Sakurai will say 'Sigh...how many this time, boss?' Remember, Sakurai doesn't think DLC is a practical practice and he really disliked not letting us know what we were getting while also asking us to buy it, but it still happened anyway. Nintendo has essentially had Sakurai by the creativity balls since Brawl and Sakurai is too attached to be able to just let it go, so I really don't see how anyone can think we will get no more DLC. I mean, if the next console was coming out soon like Wii U to Switch was, then I could understand, but the Switch it still very much in it's early life cycle. I mean, we don't even have a alternate version of the Switch yet!

Spoiler: 2. Why are people wishing for Indie Reps in Smash?

This one will likely get a lot of flak, but I need you guys to understand my position.

First off, out of all the characters you choose to support for Smash, you pick someone who isn't a character tied to a AAA dev or company. I get that Smash is a celebration of gaming history and that indie games are a big deal, but most indie games don't reach the levels that a very few number have. It's becoming more of a thing nowadays with unique games being made by indie devs that are really good and AAA companies and devs pushing out garbage, but they still fail to compare to what most AAA companies make in terms of being very popular for long periods of time. Most of them are really big for a couple months and peter out and become legends of YouTube 15 minutes of fame past.

There are exceptions, of course, but these aren't the rule: most indie games STAY at indie levels of popularity. Then you have the exceptions like FNAF, Undertale, Cave Story and AHIT that explode and still have people talking about how much they love them. The idea of indies, though, is that they are very different from big AAA content: you are more likely to get something unique or made in a certain style, but it will usually be filled with nuance and not have as long of a life cycle. This is why I don't understand the idea of wanting an indie rep in Smash: an indie rep as a playable fighter would take away from the aspect of being indie, taking a bit of that essence away. Sure, it would be huge for an indie character to be playable, but is it worth the cost of losing that special feel that indies have? This is often why when an indie game gets popular you will have a growing group of people who will be against the game because 'the normies got to it': the spirit of an indie game is that it stays relatively contained in it's own sphere and doesn't 'go big'.

Wouldn't it be better to have an indie Smash-alike or an indie fighting game that has these characters, like Rivals of Aether, BrawlOut, Brawlhalla, Indie Pogo, Blade Stranger and etc? Wouldn't it be better to have that indie spirit live on via indie means? I don't know, this is just something that always bugged me.

The other part is, who the hell do you pick? Everyone has their favorite, but much like Cloud represents all of Final Fantasy and The Hero is a singular character that has many faces, you could only pick one indie rep to represent all indies in the best scenario...and frankly that wouldn't fly at all. Having Quote would piss off Undertale fans, and having Frisk or Sans would piss off FNAF fans, and somehow getting in Freddy would piss off Celeste fans...and any of them getting in when Shovel Knight is an AT would piss off Shovel Knight fans. Even so, there is no way we can have multiple indie reps, and here is the last problem: the wanted post for Smash.

There are too many character that have been on the Most Wanted List for much MUCH longer. Imagine how you would feel if Celeste got in before Geno! Imagine how B&K fans would feel if Freddy got in before that dynamic duo? Frankly, I would be absolutely furious: not only did you pick an indie character that has existed far less than the character I want, forget being requested for far less time, you also just made the decision to divide the indie fanbases' reception to your game AND distanced yourself from your core Smash fanbase. To me, it would feel close to the likes of a cash grab, like how other forms of media cater to those outside their audience to get more of an audience at the expense of their core audience.

To me, it would just seem better to stay away from indies all together. Let them do their thing, and Smash does theirs! By the time this wild ride is over, there will be plenty of characters left on the list to choose from for the next game, I'm sure.

Also, about this music thing, there are this guy with a Spanish channel name. 31 Horas Music, I believe. They had a bunch of fan-made themes. They even had a Geno one, a cool remix of BOTFM. That got taken down, but the Banjo one never did...

EDIT: This is the original remix made by MaxOKE.

However, the one that 31 Horas Music had with the Smashified Geno picture got taken down.

Add this in with all the small little nods to Geno and SMRPG we've had over the past couple years and this seems very interesting...

 

[Ze Diglett]

It would also be really ****ing strange to make copyright infringement claims against exactly one playlist and leave the rest be...

Nintendo's also been targeting BrawlBRSTMs on and off for ages now. Them sniping his playlists specifically isn't exactly anything new. What's weird here is that A.) this is music they do not own and B.) they only blocked two tracks specifically. I still maintain that if it were just some automated ****-up, we'd see a lot more widespread results.

 

[xpnc]

I really hope that Geno is among the last few third party characters. There are now more 3rd parties than there were 1st parties in Smash 64, and I'd like to return to a focus on Nintendo characters. I think once it starts adding indie fighters the game has completely lost the plot

 

[AugustusB]

As odd as this all seems, it might be best to wait and see til the Hero's video draws near. Perhaps in the next day or two, more videos may be taken down.

We cannot, at least, look at this as somewhat strange that only two tracks were taken down. Could just be an algorithm slip, could be Nintendo slowly taken videos, could be a troll claiming copyright (/s), who knows.

 

[Firox]

This isn't evidence for or against Geno though. It relates to Super Mario RPG as far as the music is concerned and you just can't make any conclusions beyond that it being exactly what it is. It's a big leap to claiming that two videos of Super Mario RPG (again, seemingly at random and only affecting exactly two uploads) means much of anything at all. Let alone Geno in Smash of all things. This "evidence" literally doesn't impact the idea of Geno in Smash in the least bit. It's like far too many things in other media, not everything is explicitly Smash related or even helps a character's chances.

I'd have to disagree with you there. Firstly, even if the two videos getting scratched was a total fluke, the combination of circumstances would definitely hint positively in favor of Geno. As I already said, Nintendo was involved rather than SE, it conveniently happened only a few months ago, and at least one of the songs is particularly relevant to Geno. Is it vague? Sure. Does it directly link Geno to Smash? Of course not. Which leads me to my second point:

No one is saying that this proves ANYTHING definitive, but rather that it is SOMETHING. An anomaly? Most likely. However, the combination of factors gives room for suspicion, and frankly it's the one and only potential lead we've even had since the FP was announced. If it was in fact intentional by Nintendo, albeit ineffective, then what other reason could they have had to target those specific songs? The timing would be more than convenient with the schedule of Smash DLC. If you want to be skeptical, be my guest, but the situation is still worth monitoring to see if it actually does turn out to be hard proof.

If a greater pattern of Nintendo copyrighting Super Mario RPG music emerges, then and only then, will I acknowledge that this situation is even Super Mario RPG related for Nintendo's future, and then there still has to be something convincing to link this "Super Mario RPG" relation to specifically Geno in Smash.

Funny, it's like there's an echo in here or something. That's exactly what I said. We need to watch and wait to see if anything else happens to make this coincidence something more than a coincidence. Of that, we can agree.

 

[MissingGlitch]

They use those two songs in the Geno mii costume reveal *cries*

 

[BZocky]

Someone sent a message in a server I'm in regarding some very odd copyrighted videos on YouTube; maybe you guys could help me figure it out.

Right now, there are two SMRPG music tracks on BrawlBRSTMs3 X's SMRPG playlist that have been blocked by copyright by not Square, but Nintendo.

Beware of the Forest's Mushrooms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abDCsQrDLTE
Fight Against an Armed Boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQl7wDCKXSM

I went to the Wayback Machine in an effort to see when these videos were taken down, and from what I can see BotFM was up at the earliest since May 15th of this year. Armed Boss was also up and running until May 15th at the earliest. That means that these songs, and only these songs were recently taken down by Nintendo. It's definitely an odd case, as the rest of the playlist is still up.

Geno and Phoenix Wright confirmed for double reveal

 

[valkiriforce]

Does it count if he got permission from a higher authority?

 

[Shado-will]

I'd say that those two songs are arguably the most recognizable / iconic songs from SMRPG. I don't think this was just a mistake or screw up on either of Nintendo and YouTube's parts. It very well might be, but for those specific two to be the only ones (so far), it can't be just a coincidence. If these songs are coming to Smash, I don't think they're coming with The Hero, because SMRPG music on the DQ stage makes no sense whatsoever, unless they end up adding the tracks to Mario stages as a suprise.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

So, I'm going to address two things here that I really don't understand people's views on, and I'm more than open to response to explain the other side. This is one of the big posts I mentioned earlier.

EDIT: Fun Fact ~ This part was written before the reveal of the Switch Lite. Freaky how I had this ready the day before the announcement, I must be onto something here...

Spoiler: 1. How in the heck do people think more DLC for Smash isn't likely?

Listen, I get it: Nintendo doesn't always do the obvious like other companies, but they already have done it for Smash with the Fighter's Pass. For the life of me, I can't think of a time Nintendo was involved in a season pass. Maybe there was one for BotW, but as far as I know it has all been individual DLC that was individually priced. This is something that a Western company would do for a game that doesn't even fit the bill for such a thing just because they are greedy, yet here is Nintendo pulling the same tactic?

We may have our few issues with Nintendo, but it's a fact that they often deliver more fun and uniqueness and things we like more often than most other AAA companies. So them doing a Season Pass for a game is pretty crazy, right? And so far, the pass has been pretty much just characters everyone has wanted in one way or another without it feeling like fans had no say in the matter. When you consider people like myself exists that 'have to have all of everything' on top of fans going crazy over these amazing picks, both the FP and the single packs are going to sell extremely well.

When you factor that in with the VERY unfortunate truth that Sakurai is a slave to his own works and his stance on quality, then you know that if Nintendo says DLC Sakurai will say 'Sigh...how many this time, boss?' Remember, Sakurai doesn't think DLC is a practical practice and he really disliked not letting us know what we were getting while also asking us to buy it, but it still happened anyway. Nintendo has essentially had Sakurai by the creativity balls since Brawl and Sakurai is too attached to be able to just let it go, so I really don't see how anyone can think we will get no more DLC. I mean, if the next console was coming out soon like Wii U to Switch was, then I could understand, but the Switch it still very much in it's early life cycle. I mean, we don't even have a alternate version of the Switch yet!

Spoiler: 2. Why are people wishing for Indie Reps in Smash?

This one will likely get a lot of flak, but I need you guys to understand my position.

First off, out of all the characters you choose to support for Smash, you pick someone who isn't a character tied to a AAA dev or company. I get that Smash is a celebration of gaming history and that indie games are a big deal, but most indie games don't reach the levels that a very few number have. It's becoming more of a thing nowadays with unique games being made by indie devs that are really good and AAA companies and devs pushing out garbage, but they still fail to compare to what most AAA companies make in terms of being very popular for long periods of time. Most of them are really big for a couple months and peter out and become legends of YouTube 15 minutes of fame past.

There are exceptions, of course, but these aren't the rule: most indie games STAY at indie levels of popularity. Then you have the exceptions like FNAF, Undertale, Cave Story and AHIT that explode and still have people talking about how much they love them. The idea of indies, though, is that they are very different from big AAA content: you are more likely to get something unique or made in a certain style, but it will usually be filled with nuance and not have as long of a life cycle. This is why I don't understand the idea of wanting an indie rep in Smash: an indie rep as a playable fighter would take away from the aspect of being indie, taking a bit of that essence away. Sure, it would be huge for an indie character to be playable, but is it worth the cost of losing that special feel that indies have? This is often why when an indie game gets popular you will have a growing group of people who will be against the game because 'the normies got to it': the spirit of an indie game is that it stays relatively contained in it's own sphere and doesn't 'go big'.

Wouldn't it be better to have an indie Smash-alike or an indie fighting game that has these characters, like Rivals of Aether, BrawlOut, Brawlhalla, Indie Pogo, Blade Stranger and etc? Wouldn't it be better to have that indie spirit live on via indie means? I don't know, this is just something that always bugged me.

The other part is, who the hell do you pick? Everyone has their favorite, but much like Cloud represents all of Final Fantasy and The Hero is a singular character that has many faces, you could only pick one indie rep to represent all indies in the best scenario...and frankly that wouldn't fly at all. Having Quote would piss off Undertale fans, and having Frisk or Sans would piss off FNAF fans, and somehow getting in Freddy would piss off Celeste fans...and any of them getting in when Shovel Knight is an AT would piss off Shovel Knight fans. Even so, there is no way we can have multiple indie reps, and here is the last problem: the wanted post for Smash.

There are too many character that have been on the Most Wanted List for much MUCH longer. Imagine how you would feel if Celeste got in before Geno! Imagine how B&K fans would feel if Freddy got in before that dynamic duo? Frankly, I would be absolutely furious: not only did you pick an indie character that has existed far less than the character I want, forget being requested for far less time, you also just made the decision to divide the indie fanbases' reception to your game AND distanced yourself from your core Smash fanbase. To me, it would feel close to the likes of a cash grab, like how other forms of media cater to those outside their audience to get more of an audience at the expense of their core audience.

To me, it would just seem better to stay away from indies all together. Let them do their thing, and Smash does theirs! By the time this wild ride is over, there will be plenty of characters left on the list to choose from for the next game, I'm sure.

Also, about this music thing, there are this guy with a Spanish channel name. 31 Horas Music, I believe. They had a bunch of fan-made themes. They even had a Geno one, a cool remix of BOTFM. That got taken down, but the Banjo one never did...

EDIT: This is the original remix made by MaxOKE.

However, the one that 31 Horas Music had with the Smashified Geno picture got taken down.

Add this in with all the small little nods to Geno and SMRPG we've had over the past couple years and this seems very interesting...

Been a while since I've had the chance to respond to one of your big posts, so I'll give a little bit of my input:

Spoiler: Ultimate Future DLC Response

You seem to have constructed this weird narrative of Sakurai as some sort of absolute slave to Nintendo's every beck and call, and I can't really agree with it. I guess I get your point of the whole Brawl issue somewhat, but there's not a ton to corroborate the idea that Sakurai is somehow miserably tied to this series without any passion left for the franchise beyond occasional spurts of creativity. He's spoken very positively about the experience with developing Smash Ultimate overall and doesn't really seem too forced into stuff this time around. Like I'm sure Nintendo asked and pushed for DLC, but I also think you're seriously undervaluing autonomy as one of the biggest and most influential developers to work with Nintendo and in gaming as a whole. Especially when he can literally walk away from Ultimate right now and the legacy of the series is already more than secure.

And Nintendo has quite a consistent track record of only supporting DLC for a limited period of time. None of their games have really received more than roughly a year of support, with Splatoon 2 being the sole exception and it has gone 8 months I believe without a content update. They've released stuff like Season Passes for Fire Emblem Echoes, Pokken Tournament DX, Breath of the Wild, and Mario Kart 8. They may not have been called "season passes," but they served the exact same practical purpose. The trend has almost exclusively been about a year of post launch content support at best, and I don't really expect Smash to be different. As I've said before, Nintendo will make money off of Ultimate, the Fighter's Pass, and Mii costumes for years to come regardless if Sakurai develops more content or not. The more content Sakurai develops, the longer they prolong paying for those development costs and keeping the team going. It takes 6 months to develop a single character, so you're not talking about terribly cheap investments since at a minimum you have to pay the probably quite good salaries to the DLC development team for 6 months, not to mention things like licensing for all the content. I think Smash DLC adds up pretty quick, so I think Nintendo might very likely analyze the situation and see the return on future Smash DLC to be insufficient compared to development costs and stick with the existing money-making of Ultimate and the rest of its content.

Spoiler: Indie Response

See, I feel like you're also undervaluing the modern success of Indie games. They're only becoming more and more popular these days and more mainstream with every passing year. Games like Shovel Knight and Rocket League are indies that have broken through into significant mainstream success beyond a number of AAA titles. Like, I really used to agree with you on this point surrounding Indies... but the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how much I was devaluing Indie games compared to mainstream games, and there just as successful these days as other titles. If Bayonetta and Joker can get into Smash as relatively new characters with niche sales figures, I don't see why an equally competent and even sometimes more successful Indie couldn't get in. There's nothing really separating that line beyond an arbitrary distinction of what's quality and what's not for Smash.

All Indies would love to be a part of Smash. Smash is just a guest appearance for them. They don't lose any of their Indie status if they appear as playable in a game like Smash because the parent company will still retain the rights for the game and continue to develop future entries as they want. Smash is just a massive advertisement for them and an acknowledgement of outstanding recognition in the gaming community. And I think a number of Indies potentially deserve such accolade. Hell, people have Indies beat AAA games with some consistency on Game of the Year quite often when you move away from the mainstream gaming media (and even competes in some places like the TGAs alongside the bigger AAA games). I'm sure no one cares about "losing the Indie feel" when it mostly just stands to benefit everybody involved.

And eventually, an Indie has to breakthough in Smash with their current upward trajectory and increasing relevance in the gaming landscape. Sure, some people will be disappointed it wasn't their personal pick, but that's true of literally all picks in Smash and an Indie in Smash is a massive win to all Indies and makes them eligible for inclusion in future titles. Getting Indies into Smash as playable characters would be a huge deal, and truly one of the biggest Indie success stories you could wish for as a developer. Why deny that possibility just because not everyone will get what they want? That's never going to happen anyway.

I'm going to be blunt here and say something I know the Geno fan base doesn't like to hear... but how long you've been supporting something doesn't really matter all that much. There's no genuine seniority advantage provided to older requests over newer ones, and if someone like Shantae ends up with more support than Geno, that's what Sakurai is going to be looking at. We're all just fans of character and trying our best to support them, but we don't deserve our character anymore than anyone else. Nor does how long a character has existed for mean anything compared to newer ones. It's all about popularity at the end of the day and how much support certain characters receive. And hell, how would we feel about Celeste getting in before Geno? How many people are going to be pissed that Geno got in before Toad, Waluigi, or Dixie Kong. Again, this happens with literally every character choice in Smash and always will, so why single indies out on this issue?

After reassessing my thoughts on Indies, I realized how harsh and unfair I was being in much the same way I think you're portraying the situation. "Split the Indie fanbase" seems to imply that all fans of Indie games are somehow united in their front and not just individual fans of certain characters supporting them and just isn't really any more fair to them than someone claiming that Cloud or Hero "split the Square Enix fan base." A character eventually has to cross that line if you want that "type" of content in the game. And it sure as hell won't be "shilling" when the only advantage of including an Indie character in Smash is likely to the Indie company in question, and especially not when so many people genuinely support certain Indies in huge numbers.

I'd have to disagree with you there. Firstly, even if the two videos getting scratched was a total fluke, the combination of circumstances would definitely hint positively in favor of Geno. As I already said, Nintendo was involved rather than SE, it conveniently happened only a few months ago, and at least one of the songs is particularly relevant to Geno. Is it vague? Sure. Does it directly link Geno to Smash? Of course not. Which leads me to my second point:

No one is saying that this proves ANYTHING definitive, but rather that it is SOMETHING. An anomaly? Most likely. However, the combination of factors gives room for suspicion, and frankly it's the one and only potential lead we've even had since the FP was announced. If it was in fact intentional by Nintendo, albeit ineffective, then what other reason could they have had to target those specific songs? The timing would be more than convenient with the schedule of Smash DLC. If you want to be skeptical, be my guest, but the situation is still worth monitoring to see if it actually does turn out to be hard proof.

Funny, it's like there's an echo in here or something. That's exactly what I said. We need to watch and wait to see if anything else happens to make this coincidence something more than a coincidence. Of that, we can agree.

What combination of circumstances are you referring to? All that I see in this current situation is that two Super Mario RPG music tracks got copyright claimed on Youtube by Nintendo. That's as far as I see anything going on right now and I don't see anything to connect this isolated incident to. What does a date of videos being up until May 15th at least have to do with anything? As far as we know, there's nothing remotely special about that period related to Smash and all Fighter's Pass DLC has been chosen since at latest November of last year. The curious part seems to be that Nintendo copyright claimed it... but again, Youtube copyright claiming is a notoriously awful and broken system that get hit all kinds of copyright strikes for seemingly no reason and leave repeat offenders without so much as an infraction. Not to mention, I'm not even sure we know the full extent of who owns the copyright to the music for Super Mario RPG between Square Enix and Nintendo? Super Mario RPG as a whole is kind of notoriously unknown in regards to how content was divided between the companies, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear Nintendo actually gets some jurisidiction over Square Enix on the basis of so much direct Mario influence and sound effect usage.

I'm just clearly not seeing what you're seeing here, so if you can inform me in some way that's backed up by stuff, I'm more than open to reconsidering my view on this.

 

[xpnc]

May 15th was only mentioned because that's the last record of it being up on the wayback machine and it shows that it was taken down recently as opposed to forever ago

 

[Slender]

Been a while since I've had the chance to respond to one of your big posts, so I'll give a little bit of my input:

Spoiler: Ultimate Future DLC Response

You seem to have constructed this weird narrative of Sakurai as some sort of absolute slave to Nintendo's every beck and call, and I can't really agree with it. I guess I get your point of the whole Brawl issue somewhat, but there's not a ton to corroborate the idea that Sakurai is somehow miserably tied to this series without any passion left for the franchise beyond occasional spurts of creativity. He's spoken very positively about the experience with developing Smash Ultimate overall and doesn't really seem too forced into stuff this time around. Like I'm sure Nintendo asked and pushed for DLC, but I also think you're seriously undervaluing autonomy as one of the biggest and most influential developers to work with Nintendo and in gaming as a whole. Especially when he can literally walk away from Ultimate right now and the legacy of the series is already more than secure.

And Nintendo has quite a consistent track record of only supporting DLC for a limited period of time. None of their games have really received more than roughly a year of support, with Splatoon 2 being the sole exception and it has gone 8 months I believe without a content update. They've released stuff like Season Passes for Fire Emblem Echoes, Pokken Tournament DX, Breath of the Wild, and Mario Kart 8. They may not have been called "season passes," but they served the exact same practical purpose. The trend has almost exclusively been about a year of post launch content support at best, and I don't really expect Smash to be different. As I've said before, Nintendo will make money off of Ultimate, the Fighter's Pass, and Mii costumes for years to come regardless if Sakurai develops more content or not. The more content Sakurai develops, the longer they prolong paying for those development costs and keeping the team going. It takes 6 months to develop a single character, so you're not talking about terribly cheap investments since at a minimum you have to pay the probably quite good salaries to the DLC development team for 6 months, not to mention things like licensing for all the content. I think Smash DLC adds up pretty quick, so I think Nintendo might very likely analyze the situation and see the return on future Smash DLC to be insufficient compared to development costs and stick with the existing money-making of Ultimate and the rest of its content.

Spoiler: Indie Response

See, I feel like you're also undervaluing the modern success of Indie games. They're only becoming more and more popular these days and more mainstream with every passing year. Games like Shovel Knight and Rocket League are indies that have broken through into significant mainstream success beyond a number of AAA titles. Like, I really used to agree with you on this point surrounding Indies... but the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how much I was devaluing Indie games compared to mainstream games, and there just as successful these days as other titles. If Bayonetta and Joker can get into Smash as relatively new characters with niche sales figures, I don't see why an equally competent and even sometimes more successful Indie couldn't get in. There's nothing really separating that line beyond an arbitrary distinction of what's quality and what's not for Smash.

All Indies would love to be a part of Smash. Smash is just a guest appearance for them. They don't lose any of their Indie status if they appear as playable in a game like Smash because the parent company will still retain the rights for the game and continue to develop future entries as they want. Smash is just a massive advertisement for them and an acknowledgement of outstanding recognition in the gaming community. And I think a number of Indies potentially deserve such accolade. Hell, people have Indies beat AAA games with some consistency on Game of the Year quite often when you move away from the mainstream gaming media (and even competes in some places like the TGAs alongside the bigger AAA games). I'm sure no one cares about "losing the Indie feel" when it mostly just stands to benefit everybody involved.

And eventually, an Indie has to breakthough in Smash with their current upward trajectory and increasing relevance in the gaming landscape. Sure, some people will be disappointed it wasn't their personal pick, but that's true of literally all picks in Smash and an Indie in Smash is a massive win to all Indies and makes them eligible for inclusion in future titles. Getting Indies into Smash as playable characters would be a huge deal, and truly one of the biggest Indie success stories you could wish for as a developer. Why deny that possibility just because not everyone will get what they want? That's never going to happen anyway.

I'm going to be blunt here and say something I know the Geno fan base doesn't like to hear... but how long you've been supporting something doesn't really matter all that much. There's no genuine seniority advantage provided to older requests over newer ones, and if someone like Shantae ends up with more support than Geno, that's what Sakurai is going to be looking at. We're all just fans of character and trying our best to support them, but we don't deserve our character anymore than anyone else. Nor does how long a character has existed for mean anything compared to newer ones. It's all about popularity at the end of the day and how much support certain characters receive. And hell, how would we feel about Celeste getting in before Geno? How many people are going to be pissed that Geno got in before Toad, Waluigi, or Dixie Kong. Again, this happens with literally every character choice in Smash and always will, so why single indies out on this issue?

After reassessing my thoughts on Indies, I realized how harsh and unfair I was being in much the same way I think you're portraying the situation. "Split the Indie fanbase" seems to imply that all fans of Indie games are somehow united in their front and not just individual fans of certain characters supporting them and just isn't really any more fair to them than someone claiming that Cloud or Hero "split the Square Enix fan base." A character eventually has to cross that line if you want that "type" of content in the game. And it sure as hell won't be "shilling" when the only advantage of including an Indie character in Smash is likely to the Indie company in question, and especially not when so many people genuinely support certain Indies in huge numbers.

What combination of circumstances are you referring to? All that I see in this current situation is that two Super Mario RPG music tracks got copyright claimed on Youtube by Nintendo. That's as far as I see anything going on right now and I don't see anything to connect this isolated incident to. What does a date of videos being up until May 15th at least have to do with anything? As far as we know, there's nothing remotely special about that period related to Smash and all Fighter's Pass DLC has been chosen since at latest November of last year. The curious part seems to be that Nintendo copyright claimed it... but again, Youtube copyright claiming is a notoriously awful and broken system that get hit all kinds of copyright strikes for seemingly no reason and leave repeat offenders without so much as an infraction. Not to mention, I'm not even sure we know the full extent of who owns the copyright to the music for Super Mario RPG between Square Enix and Nintendo? Super Mario RPG as a whole is kind of notoriously unknown in regards to how content was divided between the companies, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear Nintendo actually gets some jurisidiction over Square Enix on the basis of so much direct Mario influence and sound effect usage.

I'm just clearly not seeing what you're seeing here, so if you can inform me in some way that's backed up by stuff, I'm more than open to reconsidering my view on this.

May 15th was only mentioned because that's the last record of it being up on the wayback machine and it shows that it was taken down recently as opposed to forever ago

I would like to use these quotes to let you guys know that the date is actually after May 15th; Ze Diglett had replied saying that they had listened to Fight Against an Armed Boss as late as last week, which means this was a very, very recent takedown. May 15 is the latest documented case for it via Wayback, but Ze Diglett and others have mentioned listening to these tracks on this profile on later dates than that.

On top of that, I forgot to mention that I had used this profile to download every track on this playlist, coincidentally 1 day after Wayback shows them up. I can safely tell you all that these tracks were taken down within the last week.

Spoiler: Image

 

[Firox]

What combination of circumstances are you referring to? All that I see in this current situation is that two Super Mario RPG music tracks got copyright claimed on Youtube by Nintendo. That's as far as I see anything going on right now and I don't see anything to connect this isolated incident to.

I've stated the circumstances twice already, but here are the main points:

1) Nintendo struck down the videos under copyright infringement despite the songs belonging to Square-Enix. (suspicious)

2) The videos were struck down some time in May which not only falls within the Smash DLC schedule of Dec 2018 to Feb 2020, but considering when Joker was released and the other characters (Hero and B-K) were likely deep in development, this would be a realistic time period for Nintendo to begin legal preparations for Geno's addition if that's what they are intending to do. (Not super telling or specific, but again, suspicious)

EDIT: As stated above by Slender, the takedown date was actually more recent, which is even MORE suspicious.

3) One of the two songs in question happens to be the closest thing we have to Geno's theme song. Of all the songs to be struck down, why that one? Not only is that suspicious, but combined with the previously stated circumstances, we have only two dots to connect them to. Geno...and Smash. Geno, due to the song in question, and Smash from Nintendo's timely involvement. If any of these three circumstances were to not fall in this exact way, then I would have instantly rejected the idea myself. If SE were to strike down "Hard working Moles are Good Moles" sometime in May of last year, I wouldn't have bat an eye, but it was "Beware the Forest's Mushrooms" by Nintendo just a couple months ago.

Granted, this still doesn't prove anything concrete, but again, it's SOMETHING. And that's more than anything we've seen in the past year. It could still be nothing, but we need to watch this closely in case it turns out to be a crucial clue as to Geno's inclusion.

 

[ZelDan]

Umm, didn't brawlBRSTMs3 a little while ago say that he would start going through and deleting all Nintendo related stuff off his channel, due to Nintendo?

We sure this isn't related to this?

 

[Fatmanonice]

Something I've considered is how Nintendo of America renewed the Banjo Kazooie trademark last October, providing an example of when Nintendo has been involved in the copyright of a third party IP. After the Fall of the Grinch, everyone just sort of forgot this despite it being incredibly suspicious. Yeah, hindsight is 20-20 but it really did wind up being an "Oh?!" moment in the end.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

I've stated the circumstances twice already, but here are the main points:

1) Nintendo struck down the videos under copyright infringement despite the songs belonging to Square-Enix. (suspicious)

2) The videos were struck down some time in May which not only falls within the Smash DLC schedule of Dec 2018 to Feb 2020, but considering when Joker was released and the other characters (Hero and B-K) were likely deep in development, this would be a realistic time period for Nintendo to begin legal preparations for Geno's addition if that's what they are intending to do. (Not super telling or specific, but again, suspicious)

EDIT: As stated above by Slender, the takedown date was actually more recent, which is even MORE suspicious.

3) One of the two songs in question happens to be the closest thing we have to Geno's theme song. Of all the songs to be struck down, why that one? Not only is that suspicious, but combined with the previously stated circumstances, we have only two dots to connect them to. Geno...and Smash. Geno, due to the song in question, and Smash from Nintendo's timely involvement. If any of these three circumstances were to not fall in this exact way, then I would have instantly rejected the idea myself. If SE were to strike down "Hard working Moles are Good Moles" sometime in May of last year, I wouldn't have bat an eye, but it was "Beware the Forest's Mushrooms" by Nintendo just a couple months ago.

Granted, this still doesn't prove anything concrete, but again, it's SOMETHING. And that's more than anything we've seen in the past year. It could still be nothing, but we need to watch this closely in case it turns out to be a crucial clue as to Geno's inclusion.

1. If you could provide a source for the fact that Square Enix has control over the music rights to Super Mario RPG, I’d be more convinced. We know Geno is Square Enix, but I’ve never seen anything regarding who owns the rights to the music period.

2. I don’t get why you’re arguing time at all. DLC Fighters were chosen by November of last year, so this would have zero bearing on the Fighter’s Pass. So I guess you’re arguing a Geno bonus DLC or more fighters? Even then, I don’t think there’s anything suspicious in the least bit about the past few months to indicate new negotiations or future DLC beyond the pass... Like there’s no real reason to take note of it happening now or more recently because there’s nothing Smash related news to even attempt to link things. I mean, you’re right, it’s possible that rights to Geno are being secured now... but that’s basically true of every single moment right now and just doesn’t seem to mean anything. Maybe I’m not getting what you’re going for here, but I see nothing remotely important about the time frame going on here.

3. I mean yeah? Beware is associated with Geno... But I don’t really see the dots to connect in the first place and there’s just nothing here right now to work with. Why that one? Well, YouTube bull****... the wrong intern was submitting copyright claims... etc. again, I don’t even know why this is worth our time when it’s an isolated incident of two videos being removed, and not even of the same song.

You’re saying this is something, I’m saying it’s nothing. I guess I should just say we’ll agree to disagree at this point because I still don’t see anything to work with. Relying on a YouTube copyright claim is just way too flimsy for me to draw any speculation out of.