God I've never seen a more dreary outlook and I must say I disagree entirely on multiple points. Also, I want to proceed this by saying that I don't personally feel that anyone's character means less than another's, but rather that I'm taking in information and logically looking at likelihood of inclusion from that information. If I say you character you loved didn't have much a chance, realize now that it's not because I hate them or anything but that the odds didn't seem very high based on evidence.
1. Sakurai has said many things before and not followed through, one way or another.
2. Refer to 1.
3. Refer to 1 yet again, but even better to mention that either in that interview or another he did mentioned twisting arms and pulling favors I believe, don't quote me on the pulling favors part but he definitely mentioned twisting arms. This could refer to getting older characters back like Snake but it could just as likely refer to more difficult newcomers.
4. This isn't Smash 4, my friends: this is ULTIMATE! That's what I'm trying to get at here, there is no way something this hyped up gets dropped hard. We are getting minimum 3 unique newcomers and I'll bet money that we get more. Sure, maybe we won't get anything crazy like the 12 newcomers split between uniques and echos I originally was supporting, but I've said ever since the box theory we are getting between 3-6. People are sleeping on Sakurai.
5. Characters that have been popular more recently really don't stack up for me, which is why Shovel Knight made it in as AT and I think Shantae will as well if she gets in at all. There are higher priority characters and I think the priority is the long-time requests, though I really wish everyone could get who they want. Skull Kid never seemed likely as LoZ was the only franchise that got a remade BotW Link and a returning character in the form of Young Link as well as redesigns for Zelda and Ganondorf plus a new stage...that's way more than enough attention when you consider comparing that against Metroid or DK who hadn't gotten many reps over the franchise's history and had roughly the fewest number of reps for the longest amount of time.
6. I think you are flat out wrong about B&K being a nightmare, mainly because everyone is stating how easy it is for Sakurai to get Sora, and if it's that simple to get Sora than it should be even simpler to get B&K. Phil wants them in Smash, they represent the N64 golden era, Sakurai loves MineCraft and knows the Brawl and Ballot data so he could easily have already done negotiations, and Nintendo and Microsoft are awful buddy-buddy right now.
7. I never thought we wouldn't get a Pokemon rep, as I'm convinced we are getting Incineroar, but I'm just as convinced that we could get Geno, Issac and BWD alongside Incineroar and Ken plus two more echos.
I don’t think I’m being particularly dreary, even optimistic perhaps, particularly in the face of box theory. I’m saying double the characters that theory says. Four is not an insignificant number of additions to the roster at this point. That would leave us with 7 unique and 6 Echo fighters, which would be quite comparable to Melee newcomer wise actually.
1. This seems to be a big part of your argument, that Sakurai isn’t always bound to his words. This is true in the context of characters and overall game decisions, not in how he has portrayed the hype cycles. Yes, he did mention Brawl as having fewer newcomers, but at some point you have to admit there exists the bounds of development time and resources to a roster of characters this big in a game this packed with content. The not expecting too many newcomers is a way to patrol absurd expectations of just how many newcomers we’ll get. Brawl expectatione were crazy high from what I understand, and Ultimate likely would have been too if gen wasn’t tempering expectations through and through. His definition of not too many may be different than ours, but there isn’t a chance not expecting too many means expect Smash 4 or Brawl numbers of unique additions. Sakurai is straightforward with how he confronts the fan base in the lead up to the game, and I’ve seen the unfortunate realities of not taking him at his words with Smash 4.
3. It could. But managing Konami, Square, Capcom, and Sega in one game is a lot for any developer of an ambitious cross over.
4. Ultimate refers to the returning characters arguably much, much more than new content. Everything has focused on returning content. The stages are incredibly focused on old favorites returning to the point where almost all the olds one are. Everyone is Here is the entire point of the game and the basic hook of this one. Sure he’s added some characters of major fan appeal that helps further this status, but Ultimate’s tag line and premise was met in the E3 2018 Smash section. Ultimate does not refer to, nor need to refer to all fan requests to retain the title as Ultimate. The personal connotation of Ultimate Smash is going to vary so wildly from player to player that you’ll never quite get a chance to be all inclusive. Especially when, again, the focus was and is on the returning veteran roster.
5. I agree on this and that’s how I analyzed characters that we have left. Though to say newer characters don’t entirely stack up isn’t entirely fair either seeing the likes of Isabelle and Inkling here.
6. Sora can have a game on a Nintendo console, Banjo Kazooie probably cannot. Sora is a mess in his own right, but you can at least say the communication channels for him are open as Square is involved. Sure he is owned by Disney, but I’d imagine Square would have some involvement too, or at least could help. Kingdom Hearts still has good connections with Nintendo, Banjo is straight up a first party IP from a competitor. And I think Sora’s chances are generally overstated as well, which doesn’t bode well for Banjo. Phil Spencer can say he’ll allow it, but that’s just good PR. Microsoft and Nintendo have to come to a much more specific agreement to make him happen, and if that breaks down at any place, Banjo is basically done. He’s entirely a fan service moment for Nintendo as he can’t be anything more than pleasing old fans, and I think that may not necessarily be as appealing to Nintendo execs when the question of why bother comes up. I think that makes him much less likely than people seem to think these days.
7. I mean you do you on the hype cycle man. I just think you’re expecting way too much from the base game. They typically reserve unique reveals for either the beginning or end of a Direct, and we’ve basically got the time frame for one left. Until we see evidence of them stacking multiple character reveals, I think that’s a fair assumption to make that such a trend will continue. Again, people are fair to make their hype as they see it. But, I don’t think a ton of characters is all that reasonable when Sakurai himself all but confirmed that such an expectation was unreasonable. Would I love to be completely wrong? Of course! That would make me very happy actually, and I’d gladly eat my words, but I’m trying to be realistic with my expectations this time around.
Edit: didn’t address Steve. He’s at least something Nintendo can promote on their own console as Minecraft is available on Switch and 3DS. But Mojang pretty much acts independently of the rest of Microsoft at this point with how they just release it on everything. I don’t think Steve, if he’s in, remotely comes close to making Banjo a done deal. More likely? Sure. But he’s a lot easier to include on both parties than Banjo. Also, buddy-buddy is a strong statement for companies mostly taking advantage of Sony’s poor decisions for free positive marketing. All they’ve done is allow cross play with one another and across the board unify Minecraft, which again, was something on Mojang’s part. The buddy-buddy narrative is one that gets brought up a lot, but they’ve not actually done much to give any credence to that argument. They’re much more allies of convenience and circumstance than intention.
