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

[MissingGlitch]

Ok. From what I've gathered from the last couple of posts, DLC Fighter #5 is NOT:

- Crash Bandicoot
- Ryu Hayabusa
- DOOM Slayer
- Geno
- Tracer
- Scorpion

Is that right? Am I missing anyone?

Very well. Excluding the aforementioned names, I would gather that the leads on knowing (or more specifically, narrowing down) who Fighter #5 might be would be:

1. They must be from a franchise NOT yet represented in Super Smash Bros. (specifically now in Ultimate). This goes in line with Reggie's words in last year's VGAs (The Game Awards 2018).
2. They must be from a franchise belonging to a Third Party company (i.e. Bandai-Namco, Capcom, Konami, etc.). This follows the trend of the current Fighters Pass.
3. "It's more important that a character is fun to play, not just recognizable"; as expressed by Mr. Sakurai himself during Terry Bogard's Smash Bros. presentation this past Wednesday (Nov. 6). This is one of the key factors by which Sakurai decides whether to add a character into the roster; they must bring something new, refreshing; a unique playstyle to the mix.
4. The franchise the character is from, must have had history with Nintendo before (as in have had games in say, the NES, SNES, N64 eras). Joker's inclusion may have seemed to be the exception, however there was a Persona game released before Ultimate's reveal; Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, which was released in 2014 and starred the main characters from Persona 3, and 4. Earlier this year, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth released, which includes Joker as well.

Considering the four points mentioned, and browsing through lists of games from the NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii, and Wii U systems, here are some names to consider:

Spoiler: List of possible characters for Challenger Pack 5

Name: Master Higgins
Franchise: Adventure Island
Company: Konami (before it belonged to Hudson Soft, which was acquired by Konami)

Name: Bub/Bob
Franchise: Bubble Bobble
Company: Taito
Note: Just learned that Bubble Bobble 4 Friends, the latest entry in the franchise will be releasing exclusively for the Nintendo Switch this upcoming November 19, 2019 in Europe, and early 2020 in America.

Spoiler: trailer

Name: Bill Rizer/Lance Bean
Franchise: Contra
Company: Konami

Name: Taizo Hori
Franchise: Dig Dug
Company: Bandai Namco

Name: Arthur
Franchise: Ghosts 'n Goblins
Company: Capcom

Name: Hiryu
Franchise: Strider
Company: Capcom

Name: Kunoichi/Ninja/Kamaitachi
Franchise: The Ninja Warriors
Company: Taito
Note: Out of the three main characters, the Kunoichi seems more like THE protagonist of the game and would appease fans requesting for female representation in the Pass.

Name: Pitfall Harry
Franchise: Pitfall
Company: Activision

Name: TwinBee
Franchise: TwinBee
Company: Konami

Name: Bonk
Franchise: Bonk
Company: Konami (before it belonged to Hudson Soft, which was acquired by Konami)

Name: Farmer (?)
Franchise: Story of Seasons (formerly known as Harvest Moon)
Company: Marvelous, Inc.

Name: Arle Nadja
Franchise: Puyo Puyo
Company: SEGA

Name: Leon Kennedy/Jill Valentine
Franchise: Resident Evil
Company: Capcom

Name: Yugo
Franchise: Bloody Roar
Company: Konami (before it belonged to Hudson Soft, which was acquired by Konami)

Name: Mag Launcher
Franchise: Evolution
Company: Ubisoft

Name: Frogger
Franchise: Frogger
Company: Konami

Name: Vyse
Franchise: Skies of Arcadia
Company: SEGA

Name: AiAi
Franchise: Super Monkey Ball
Company: SEGA

Name: Lara Croft
Franchise: Tomb Raider
Company: Square Enix (before it belonged to Eidos Interactive, which was acquired by Square Enix)

Name: Viewtiful Joe
Franchise: Viewtiful Joe
Company: Capcom

Name: Cooking Mama
Franchise: Cooking Mama
Company: Cooking Mama Ltd (formerly Office Create)

Name: Klonoa
Franchise: Klonoa
Company: Bandai Namco

Name: Nights
Franchise: Nights
Company: SEGA

Name: Siegfried/Nightmare
Franchise: Soul Calibur
Company: Bandai Namco

Surely Fighter #5 should be one of these characters. If not, then Sakurai really went God IQ for this last spot of the Pass.

I'm sounding like a broken record here but where is Phoenix Wright? I was led to think he was really popular in the smash community but it seems like a lot of people assume he wouldn't be given the chance.

 

[Deleted member]

What happened now?

Get someone give me a recap.

Cause once again I'm lost?

 

[Herocin]

I'm sounding like a broken record here but where is Phoenix Wright? I was led to think he was really popular in the smash community but it seems like a lot of people assume he wouldn't be given the chance.

A lot of characters are missing. Level 5, a Bamco rep which imo seems to be the front runner and others

 

[Herocin]

What happened now?

Get someone give me a recap.

Cause once again I'm lost?

Vergeben piggybacking off of Sabi that's the highlight for me at least as it has been ever since vergeben hasn't been leaking things himself ever since Erdrick

 

[Spatulo]

I'll probably do the other two later since we still have a month to go until the VGAs but I'll clarify the third one.

Spirits- The consensus is literally "who cares?" It's a picture. Hardly a deterrent but even then it's not wise to expect a ton of them.

Assist Trophies- Huge can of worms because Nintendo royally screwed itself over by how they approached them in this game. There's like a dozen ATs now with sizeable fanbases and even picking 2 or 3 would trigger a ****nado that wouldn't give Nintendo peace for years afterwards. Most people agree that Nintendo's not going to touch this with a 20 foot pole, especially in the recent light that fans are going out of their way to make Pokemon's developers lives miserable over virtual flora and fauna. If Nintendo does it, god speed to them.

Mii costumes- If it's already in Ultimate, don't count on it. If it's from Smash 4 but not in Ultimate yet, it's still on the table but I don't think anyone really questioned this too much.

Assist Trophy + Mii Costume: might as well just be called "double dead." I suppose they could be prime candidates for curve balls but it's a hell of a mountain to climb.

As always, these are just summaries of the main opinions I've heard so feel free to openly mock me and set fire to my car if they end up being wrong.

Assists makes sense, a number of them definitely seem to have been picked for the sake of “we didn’t have the time to put ALL the requests in as playable characters so let’s get these guys in in some fashion”. Now if they start upgrading them, like you said they’d never hear the end of it.

 

[The Anigriffin]

No idea what happened in here, but I would like to grace you all with this s**tpost I made recently. You're welcome.

 

[Qeomash]

I think they could do a subset of Assist Trophy promotions, as long as they announced them all together. But that would be four or so characters. But, yeah, I don't expect it.

 

[OffBi]

If only Nintendo approached assists differently...

 

[Fatmanonice]

I think they could do a subset of Assist Trophy promotions, as long as they announced them all together. But that would be four or so characters. But, yeah, I don't expect it.

That's what I personally think. They'd have an assist trophy pass and maybe have a poll to "safely" determine the most popular before committing to it. Even if they knocked out the top 4-5, I still think it would cause an avalanche of butthurt, especially if you threw bosses, stage cameos, and pokeball Pokemon into the mix too.

 

[Vector Victor]

I guess the only solution is to add 45 more playable characters to Ultimate.

 

[Herocin]

I guess the only solution is to add 45 more playable characters to Ultimate.

I was thinking more along the lines of 45000 and they will all be Waluigi As he would have broken out of an assist trophy stole them all as he is like that.
EDIT: and he would have stole the fifth slot of this pack. Imagine the salt if this were to be the case in some alternate reality somewhere

 

[Franco Geno]

That's what I personally think. They'd have an assist trophy pass and maybe have a poll to "safely" determine the most popular before committing to it. Even if they knocked out the top 4-5, I still think it would cause an avalanche of butthurt, especially if you threw bosses, stage cameos, and pokeball Pokemon into the mix too.

That would be great, but still it was very weird how they waited so much until revealing the assist trophys

 

[Fatmanonice]

I guess the only solution is to add 45 more playable characters to Ultimate.

The year is 2030 and the 12th Season of Smash Ultimate DLC has just been announced. Sakurai's been dead for 5 years from sheer exhaustion but his brain is now hooked up to a ton of machines and has a Kirby face drawn on the front of it. Goku was announced in Season 6 and yet the Smash fanbase still isn't satisfied. Waluigi still isn't in Smash. - Black Mirror

 

[nessdeltarune00]

There has been no clear pattern to this DLC. we should not be ruling out characters based on self imposed fan rules. (Only pattern is third party characters, that is it)

 

[Deleted member]

Okay I think I get it.

Spirits-If it's a spirit it dosen't prevent them from getting in but don't expect a ton of them to be actual characters.

Assist Trophies: if it's an assist trophy it probably won't be upgraded it sadly will stay as is. That's all it'll be.

Mii Costumes-If the Mii costume is in don't expect a character of it. But if we don't have one say Geno, Lloyd, or Heihachi for example. They can get in But their not guaranteed.

Also Vergeben deconfirmed Scorpion but dosen't know who fighter #5 is ether so there's that. I guess.

 

[Herocin]

The year is 2030 and the 12th Season of Smash Ultimate has just been announced. Sakurai's been dead for 5 years from sheer exhaustion but his brain is now hooked up to a ton of machines and has a Kirby face draw on the front of it. Goku was announced in Season 6 and yet the Smash fanbase still isn't satisfied. Waluigi still isn't in Smash. - Black Mirror

Nintendo's offices all around the world were burned down after the few that were dissatisfied with Gokus inclusion set fire to them. If anyone even uttered a hint which suggested they were even the slightest bit associated with Nintendo they needed to be organised a safe house and go into hiding. Oh and this happened https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/shigeru-miyamoto-fired-after-downloading-pokemon-yellow-rom/

 

[ivanlerma]

Nintendo's offices all around the world were burned down after the few that were dissatisfied with Gokus inclusion set fire to them. If anyone even uttered a hint which suggested they were even the slightest bit associated with Nintendo they needed to be organised a safe house and go into hiding. Oh and this happened https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/shigeru-miyamoto-fired-after-downloading-pokemon-yellow-rom/

Holly Molly, Macaroni

 

[Deleted member]

I'm not surprised Scorpion isn't Fighter 5 though as I don't think he or anything from Mortal Kombat will ever be in Smash. CERO already got on Sakurai's ass for Mai Shiranui and at least she has a presence in Japan while Mortal Kombat is straight-up banned in Japan so I'm absolutely sure CERO would say no or at least Sakurai would decline on a Mortal Kombat character.

Don't get your hopes up for Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Raiden, Etc. Etc. Mortal Kombat will never be in Smash imo.

 

[Rohanx17]

I was going to vote for 3 so this works out well. While this does look bad the important takeaway here is that assists aren't passed over because they aren't considered worth it but rather they're afraid of how the pr will shake out. As an Isaac fan that's leagues better than that "Isaac was never considered for playable no matter how well he did" memo that we were led to believe about a year ago. While the chances are at rock bottom they were anyway so there really wasn't anywhere to go but up.

That's what I personally think. They'd have an assist trophy pass and maybe have a poll to "safely" determine the most popular before committing to it. Even if they knocked out the top 4-5, I still think it would cause an avalanche of butthurt, especially if you threw bosses, stage cameos, and pokeball Pokemon into the mix too.

I had this idea as well so it's nice to here there are others thinking about it as well. I think we can all agree it would have to be season 3 at the EARLIEST, but not something I would 100.00% rule out if dlc does extend that far. Frankly I can't think about how else they would do it. At least with a poll they couldn't take any criticism from cherry-picking like it seems is the worry though like you said I'm sure that wouldn't stop the crazies. Hopefully they'll figure out that's inevitable anyway and at least we could make a compromise for some rather than none. I think every sane person in these fandoms would be willing to deal if it meant a chance at getting back in.

 

[Sigran101]

This isn't really related to Geno, but as this is like a second general thread and all my friends are here I'll post this here.

I got the earthbound/mother cookbook for my fiancee for our 3 year anniversary yesterday. It takes all the wacky food items from the games and makes real recipes out of them. Today we made Kraken Soup and Pork Chips.

Thr pork chips were great. Thin, crispy strips of fried pork that actually tasted like a kind of chip.

The Kraken soup was made with rice noodles and crab meat and a lot of other tasty seafood.

The peanut cheese bars are in the oven. I'm very excited about them. I reccomend this book to any Earthbound fan with a kitchen.

Also Geno for smash.

 

[Grumbo]

That's what I personally think. They'd have an assist trophy pass and maybe have a poll to "safely" determine the most popular before committing to it. Even if they knocked out the top 4-5, I still think it would cause an avalanche of butthurt, especially if you threw bosses, stage cameos, and pokeball Pokemon into the mix too.

Man that’d be awesome regardless who’d make it. Another ballot in general would be insane

 

[Fatmanonice]

When people think about who #5 is, I think there's a few important notes that people ought to consider:

-The Fighter Pass was finalized around this time last year.

-The Fighter's Pass was originally drafted as being conclusive, meaning 5 and done and Sakurai says "**** all of you, I'm going to Fiji for two months..."

Now, with this in mind, Sakurai more than likely meant for the Fighter Pass to pay its dues to things that not only helped but inspired him as a developer and then kick off a long hiatus for the Smash franchise. That said, who do you think Sakurai would give a nod or a silent "thank you" to? That's my thoughts on the matter.

 

[OptimisticStrifer]

The interesting part about Ultimate is that it's very possible the next Smash game will just be a port of Ultimate, on the next console generation. (With the base roster at the very least)

If they went this way, while continuing to do DLC, that would be amazing

 

[Herocin]

When people think about who #5 is, I think there's a few important notes that people ought to consider:

-The Fighter Pass was finalized around this time last year.

-The Fighter's Pass was originally drafted as being conclusive, meaning 5 and done and Sakurai says "**** all of you, I'm going to Fiji for two months..."

Now, with this in mind, Sakurai more than likely meant for the Fighter Pass to pay its dues to things that not only helped but inspired him as a developer and then kick off a long hiatus for the Smash franchise. That said, who do you think Sakurai would give a nod or a silent "thank you" to? That's my thoughts on the matter.

A nod or a silent thank you to? Every game aside from ultimate we got a character to represent have hardware Mr Yokoi helped make and the only thing left is Virtual Boy. Maybe it's time for a Mr Iwata Tribute character? Maybe not due to retro reps probably not selling well but just an idea maybe even for a future smash game. If there was a game he would like to thank Minecraft is the only other hand I recall him mentioning

 

[Sigran101]

The interesting part about Ultimate is that it's very possible the next Smash game will just be a port of Ultimate, on the next console generation. (With the base roster at the very least)

I really hope they do this. Who would even buy the next game if they cut half the roster? A reboot would be complete ****. But porting Ultimate to the next system and adding a full game worth of content? Holy crap that would be amazing!

 

[7NATOR]

When people think about who #5 is, I think there's a few important notes that people ought to consider:

-The Fighter Pass was finalized around this time last year.

-The Fighter's Pass was originally drafted as being conclusive, meaning 5 and done and Sakurai says "**** all of you, I'm going to Fiji for two months..."

Now, with this in mind, Sakurai more than likely meant for the Fighter Pass to pay its dues to things that not only helped but inspired him as a developer and then kick off a long hiatus for the Smash franchise. That said, who do you think Sakurai would give a nod or a silent "thank you" to? That's my thoughts on the matter.

I Believe the Genre that got Sakurai into Development was the Bullet-Hell Genre, soo....

The interesting part about Ultimate is that it's very possible the next Smash game will just be a port of Ultimate, on the next console generation. (With the base roster at the very least)

If they went this way, while continuing to do DLC, that would be amazing

I was thinking they could do a Deluxe Version of Smash Ultimate that's released on the Switch AND The new console

I would imagine alot of the budget for that would be Securing the 3rd party rights again. Plus maybe a focus on New modes and New Characters instead of overhauling the gameplay

 

[Rie Sonomura]

I really hope they do this. Who would even buy the next game if they cut half the roster? A reboot would be complete ****. But porting Ultimate to the next system and adding a full game worth of content? Holy crap that would be amazing!

With how insanely well Ultimate has sold (it’s now literally THE BEST SELLING FIGHTING GAME OF ALL TIME), they could afford to renew the licenses easily too

even if it’s TECHNICALLY a new game, there won’t be cuts! Cause all the licenses can be afforded!

 

[nessdeltarune00]

I'm not surprised Scorpion isn't Fighter 5 though as I don't think he or anything from Mortal Kombat will ever be in Smash. CERO already got on Sakurai's ass for Mai Shiranui and at least she has a presence in Japan while Mortal Kombat is straight-up banned in Japan so I'm absolutely sure CERO would say no or at least Sakurai would decline on a Mortal Kombat character.

Don't get your hopes up for Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Raiden, Etc. Etc. Mortal Kombat will never be in Smash imo.

“Ridley will never be in Smash!”
“Cloud will never be in Smash!”
“King K Rool will never be Smash!”
“Banjo will never be in Smash!”
“Sans will never be in Smash in any way, shape, or form!”

Lol, this community never learns.

 

[Rohanx17]

This is a good question, but the three easy ones are already out in the open with

P5 inspiring the menu's and his creative flame with it's quality production

Dragon quest because he's a good japanese citizen.

Kof being the biggest inspiration for the design of smash via borrowing many different mechanics and the infamous kof95 anecdote that suposedly inspired smash in the first place.

Now banjo has none of that which would make me think it could be broken again but fatman wouldn't have brought it up if it wasn't relevant to those 2 mystery characters he's championing at the moment. I'd need to look into sakurai's history more to gleam some possible hints. Right now I can only think of it being a bamco rep because they've been putting smash together for him for 6-7 years now. Don't feel too strongly yet about that within the context of that hint so I'm going wait before resting on that.

 

[Spatulo]

When people think about who #5 is, I think there's a few important notes that people ought to consider:

-The Fighter Pass was finalized around this time last year.

-The Fighter's Pass was originally drafted as being conclusive, meaning 5 and done and Sakurai says "**** all of you, I'm going to Fiji for two months..."

Now, with this in mind, Sakurai more than likely meant for the Fighter Pass to pay its dues to things that not only helped but inspired him as a developer and then kick off a long hiatus for the Smash franchise. That said, who do you think Sakurai would give a nod or a silent "thank you" to? That's my thoughts on the matter.

This makes me think something old school or something associated with a specific developer. If it was some sort of tribute to Iwata I’d guess Balloon Fighter, but that doesn’t feel likely. Could be Suda with Travis Touchdown, I’m honestly starting to lean that way. Harada with Tekken, either Heihachi or Jin, but after Terry that doesn’t seem right. I’m not sure, what other developers that aren’t already represented do we know that Sakurai has a personal connection too?

I’d also like to take this time to remind you all that the Bomberman franchise basically invented 4 player couch party multiplayer but I’m not bitter or anything and tbh after Hudson went out of business I’m happy the series got represented at all.

 

[ArchRanger]

I Believe the Genre that got Sakurai into Development was the Bullet-Hell Genre, soo....

Reimu for Smash? Lol

 

[nessdeltarune00]

Now, with this in mind, Sakurai more than likely meant for the Fighter Pass to pay its dues to things that not only helped but inspired him as a developer and then kick off a long hiatus for the Smash franchise. That said, who do you think Sakurai would give a nod or a silent "thank you" to? That's my thoughts on the matter.

I don’t see how Banjo fits this description.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Here's my thoughts:

Joker- Persona, especially 5, is a series that has inspired Sakurai in recent years. I believe he noted that it had the biggest impact on him as developer than any other game he's played in the last decade.

Hero- Dragon Quest is a series that has inspired Sakurai pretty much his entire career. Pretty straight forward.

Banjo- Nothing less than a massive thank you to Smash fans. The biggest never ever in Smash history that's literally owned by a direct competitor of Nintendo. Sakurai quite literally did the impossible for the sake of the fans.

Terry- King of Fighters was basically what got Sakurai interested in fighting games to begin with. In a sense, without SNK, Smash may have never existed.

???- One last company that Sakurai wants to thank before he sprouts 30 foot wings and launches himself into the heavens, to not descend again for a 100 years.

 

[Glitch-EGamer]

A silent nod from Sakurai's past? Well we know he was a fan of Persona, Fatal Fury inspired Smash in its early days, Banjo was more fanservicey, and Hero was mainly because Dragon quest is really big in Japan and probably had a role in Sakurai's development as a creator.

What games did Sakurai hold in high regards during his youth?
I'm going to say it's unlikely Kirby or Kid Icarus would get a new rep due to him already doing so much for the series as a whole.

I'm willing to bet that it's a game he holds in high regards but doesn't frequently mention it.


Edit: Dang, beat me to it, Fatman.

 

[nessdeltarune00]

Wait, if it is based on companies that Sakurai has appreciation for....

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.re...iro_sakurai_the_creator_of_smash_bros_sent_a/

OH NO NO NO NO NO

 

[StrawHatX]

I’m not sure why Nintendo is afraid of angering fanbases if they promote an AT.

I know it wasn’t in the same game, but we’ve already had Little Mac and Dark Samus become playable from AT status. What about fans of characters that still haven’t seen their character promoted after 3 different games?

So I feel like Sakurai doesn’t care about being “fair”, as long as the demand is there or he thinks a character would work being promoted.

 

[ArchRanger]

Here's my thoughts:

Joker- Persona, especially 5, is a series that has inspired Sakurai in recent years. I believe he noted that it had the biggest impact on him as developer than any other game he's played in the last decade.

Hero- Dragon Quest is a series that has inspired Sakurai pretty much his entire career. Pretty straight forward.

Banjo- Nothing less than a massive thank you to Smash fans. The biggest never ever in Smash history that's literally owned by a direct competitor of Nintendo. Sakurai quite literally did the impossible for the sake of the fans.

Terry- King of Fighters was basically what got Sakurai interested in fighting games to begin with. In a sense, without SNK, Smash may have never existed.

???- One last company that Sakurai wants to thank before he sprouts 30 foot wings and launches himself into the heavens, to not descend again for a 100 years.

If we’re talking company then I’d still stick with Bandai as a safe bet since they have contributed so much work to creating SSB4 and SSBU. It would also line up with his comment about them only having Pac-Man while having so many IPs to pull from (Tales Of, Tekken, Digimon, Soul Caliber, Idolm@sters, etc).

 

[GenoToto]

Wait, if it is based on companies that Sakurai has appreciation for....

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.re...iro_sakurai_the_creator_of_smash_bros_sent_a/

OH NO NO NO NO NO

You know, me and my fiance joke a lot about Monokuma popping up in the game as a character, but now that we're talking 'end of the world' choices for No. 5, there's not much more 'End of the World' than a world filled with Despair.

Oh dear.

 

[Datboigeno]

If SSBU speculation at this point is considered toxic then the state of the community if there were polls in place to vote a handful of ATs and costumes into being playable would be a ****ing nuclear war zone.

 

[OptimisticStrifer]

Monokuma or a Dagonrompa rep does have a strong ring to it. I would say Reimu as well, cause Sakurai loves Bullet Hells, but from Fatman's reactions it doesnt sound like she's too likely rn.

What other games does Sakurai gush about, aside from maybe Minecraft?