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

[StarBot]

It still hurts bros. This isn't the end for our boy, is it?
View attachment 261076

Still one of few spirit battles that brought a had me grinning despite how hard it was

I still don't understand the blue Mario and the red peach and what was that referenceing

 

[Sigran101]

No, speaking as an elder, Sonic and Megaman have pretty much been the only two third party characters that were unanimously wanted before their addition. Supposedly Brawl's original plan didn't even include Sonic but, due to sheer demand, he was kind of a rush job after E3 2007. Everyone else was barely wanted and/or super controversial. Slightly off topic but this is yet another reason why I think Crash is a lock because Crash is basically the first third party character in 7 years that most people agree with and aren't at each other throats about.

I actually remember a sizeable group that claimed MegaMan would just be a Samus clone in smash 4.

 

[DaxMasterix]

I actually remember a sizeable group that claimed MegaMan would just be a Samus clone in smash 4.

And now there is people saying Geno would be a Megaman Clone

 

[OptimisticStrifer]

So no direct this week then?

 

[CannonStreak]

So no direct this week then?

We still have tomorrow, actually.

 

[HudU]

Sure. My wife is really into Animal Crossing too so she'll likely be playing it more than me once it comes out. Might have to buy her a Switch so we can play at the same time.

Sorry to ask but can I fight you in SSBU sometime?

(This goes for everyone. Im trying to add/get more friends to play with in ultimate, so if you ever want to, you can just add me with my friend code on my profile )

 

[SSGuy]

Still one of few spirit battles that brought a had me grinning despite how hard it was

I still don't understand the blue Mario and the red peach and what was that referenceing

It's a reference to the armor.

Peach with Lazy Shell armor is border line broken.

 

[DaxMasterix]

It's a reference to the armor.

Peach with Lazy Shell armor is border line broken.

Or your life saviour if you're doin' a special run

 

[Houndstooth]

If I had to point out the most hype characters from to me from Smash History (keep in mind that although Melee was the first Smash game I owned, it was already out so the first two games are not included in this list)

1. Sonic the Hedgehog - Amazing add. It was my favorite trailer and addition. I dug up the old Brawl thread the other day to read it. I was even hyped about the Smash 4 trailer too.

I did this just the other day!

Sonic was my most wanted. I remember the Brawl days, checking between the Geno and Sonic thread. 10/10/07, Freshman in college. Decided to not stay up for the Dojo Post. Had a test, took it, and got back to the house. It was my birthday, and I was just sort of chilling. Checked the Dojo, and went nuts. Didn't think Sonic had much of a chance until after Snake. Sure, the delay sucked, but that was such a hype moment. Maybe there were detractors, but I don't remember any of that. Sonic and Mario, in the same game! Craziness...

After that, was all in on Geno. And Chief now, as well. But I've been pulling for Geno since 10/10/07.

 

[Datboigeno]

https://twitter.com/PushDustIn/status/1224953803335553024?s=20


..... Huh.

 

[SSGuy]

https://twitter.com/PushDustIn/status/1224953803335553024?s=20


..... Huh.

I wonder if he could clarify if this was regarding another Fire Emblem character he wanted to use or just a character in general.

 

[Isaac: Venus Adept]

Geno is one of a ton of characters that Sakurai personally wants. That statement doesn't really hurt his chances much

 

[TX-55]

https://twitter.com/PushDustIn/status/1224953803335553024?s=20


..... Huh.

Soooo... there's a possibility that Ninty picked Robbie Rotten, Pinocchio, and Sonic's Ass for Fighters Pass vol.2, right?

 

[SSGuy]

Geno is one of a ton of characters that Sakurai personally wants. That statement doesn't really hurt his chances much

I didn't really see it as him talking about Geno being denied or a shoe in for the next set. My first impression was him wanting a different 3H character (Eldegard comes to mind) but Nintendo want the protagonist/avatar character again.

I am now looking forward to hearing what he has to say about this.

If Nintendo is picking the characters again, I don't think they would actually pick Geno. Or in the case it does seem very unlikely to me that Nintendo would follow thru and pick Geno over someone they find more modern.

 

[TX-55]

I didn't really see it as him talking about Geno being denied or a shoe in for the next set. My first impression was him wanting a different 3H character (Eldegard comes to mind) but Nintendo want the protagonist/avatar character again.

I am now looking forward to hearing what he has to say about this.

If Nintendo is picking the characters again, I don't think they would actually pick Geno. Or in the case it does seem very unlikely to me that Nintendo would follow thru and pick Geno over someone they find more modern.

But they picked Terry and Banjo for Fighters Pass 1.

 

[Polarthief]

https://twitter.com/PushDustIn/status/1224953803335553024?s=20

That actually kinda sucks because I would have preferred anyone in 3H over Byleth (which I assume PD meant Sakurai wanted a different 3H character, not from another game EDIT: See below). I have more attachment to the majority of the Golden Deer house and even members of other houses than I do over the nearly-silent, blank slate, professor.

Edit: He supposedly meant a character in general, according to PD. That's... questionable. Also does kinda confirm that Nintendo wanted to shill 3H a bit. Kinda disappointing because now I'm really curious who Sakurai's pick would have ended up being. Perhaps our possessed doll?

Or in the case it does seem very unlikely to me that Nintendo would follow thru and pick Geno over someone they find more modern.

Banjo says hi. Hero's alts say hi (they could have left it at Eleven), and I don't know enough about FF/KoF, but I'm going to assume Terry also says hi? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong as I'm too lazy to look into it.
If Nintendo picked baseline too, King K. Rool, Simon, Richter, and Dark Samus all say hi. Also Daisy and Piranha Plant raise a few questions.

I don't think this hurts Geno's chances, even if they (Nintendo) do end up picking FP2. Banjo alone proves that Nintendo are willing to pick popular-but-irrelevant characters (and Terry too if I'm right about him). If they picked baseline characters, that's a LOT of irrelevant-but-popular picks.

Also let's not forget, if Nintendo wasn't going to pick him, why didn't they throw the Geno costume from Sm4sh back in? There's no point to delay it past Hero's pack, unless a different SE rep is coming and the Geno costume with it (but man that'd be an insanely garbage thing to do after this long of dodging). Plus, who else would it be? Sora? Another FF rep? Mmmm... Idk...

That said, it would be nice to get confirmation on if Nintendo or Sakurai is picking this time around.

 

[Captain Fun]

That said, it would be nice to get confirmation on if Nintendo or Sakurai is picking this time around.

Nintendo did, according to Sakurai.

First, again, the fighter lineup is basically decided by Nintendo. Naturally since they’re confident in me, they would consult me each time asking, “Do you know whether or not you could develop this character?” If the request is unreasonable, I can potentially refuse them.

 

[XorahnGaia]

That said, it would be nice to get confirmation on if Nintendo or Sakurai is picking this time around.

Sakurai confirmed back in September that Nintendo also choosed the season 2 characters.
https://www.sourcegaming.info/2019/09/11/sakurai-talks-more-about-smash-ultimate-dlc-development/
"First, again, the fighter lineup is basically decided by Nintendo. Naturally since they’re confident in me, they would consult me each time asking, “Do you know whether or not you could develop this character?” If the request is unreasonable, I can potentially refuse them. "
EDIT: Ninja'd

 

[Polarthief]

Nintendo did, according to Sakurai.

Sakurai confirmed back in September that Nintendo also choosed the season 2 characters.

A bit disappointing since Sakurai doesn't shill-pick like Nintendo does (not that he doesn't, just not like Nintendo, likely pressured by Nintendo to do so...). Guarantee that we have at least two if not three shill picks this time around. I do hope that they do clearly see how much people want Geno, but there's just so much (albeit circumstantial) evidence that I don't think we should worry.

(also means that the obligatory Pokemon DLC will be Urshifu. *groooan* Inb4 it's DLC 6 and the Byleth/FE crapstorm starts all over for Pokemon to kick off FP2. I'd be a new level of mad for sure)

 

[Fatmanonice]

https://twitter.com/PushDustIn/status/1224953803335553024?s=20


..... Huh.

Chances are that this is our 6 or 7. Plant and Joker were pretty much the biggest Sakurai picks of the Fighter's Pass so I see one of two scenarios happening:

-6 is a very obvious Sakurai pick.

-6 is a very obvious Nintendo pick and owned by Nintendo and 7 is a very obvious Sakurai pick.

 

[Icewolff92]

https://twitter.com/PushDustIn/status/1224953803335553024?s=20


..... Huh.

What is this? Something that tells what I have been trying to tell people (that Byleth were an obvious marketing ploy)
My guess is that he wanted Rex & Pyra, but they got the short end of the stick with Nintendo forcing him to priority Byleth instead. That would explain why he made such a big deal about them getting an MII Costume at the time.

But since he/they knew about the backlash from Corrin, he asked about potential DLC (for Three Houses), Nintendo said yes, and they agreed that he could be released then. Because quite frankly, if they were to have an advertisement in the base roster that ain¨t Byleth it would have been Edelgard concidering how much they pushed the Black Eagles. pre-release.

If Sakurai were unhappy with how they implemented Byleth, it most likely because he wanted to make Byleth a Pokemon Trainer Styled character so he could include all the three house leaders, but he ran out of time to figure out how to do so.

Banjo says hi. Hero's alts say hi (they could have left it at Eleven), and I don't know enough about FF/KoF, but I'm going to assume Terry also says hi? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong as I'm too lazy to look into it.

Hero was an add for DQ11. Showing off more than just one skin could be there to make people curious about where every other skin comes from and maybe try those ones out.

SNK was one of the first major supporters of the switch. You can add that, on top of Sakurai's love for the franchise. A choice that could easily be as a "strengthen relation ship+throwing a bone combo).

Microsoft has Nintendo have always had a good relationship (heck, we were close to getting Halo on DS at one point) Banjo is a character that is popular in both west and east (yes they are popular in Japan too but clearly not as much as DQ) Microsoft have been wanting to get a better foothold in Japan for years, and both Nintendo and Microsoft knows the demand for Banjo.

https://kotaku.com/xbox-boss-phil-spencer-says-banjo-in-smash-was-an-easy-1835418742

It¨s because of stuff like this that makes me feel that there is no clear "frontrunner" when it comes to who the next Square character could be if any. For me, it boils down to Sora, Sepiroth or Geno

It was Nintendo that approaches Marvel Games (who is owned by Disney for obvious) for the sake of getting their hold on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3
https://www.nintendo-insider.com/ho...black-order-became-nintendo-switch-exclusive/
Nintendo and Disney made a show (I don¨t know if its off-air or not) that was centered around Nintendo Switch
https://www.businessinsider.com/nintendo-disney-switch-show-2018-6?r=US&IR=T

So the Disney aspect for Sora should not be an issue. The biggest issue here is if Shinji Hashimoto de-confirmation for only for the first wave, or in general, since (correct me If I¨m wrong) Sakurai were approached for DLC during E3 last year and that interview was published in May of last year. Yes, we don¨t have any KH games on Switch, but we don¨t have any Persona games on Switch either. But we have Kingdom Hearts game on other consoles (GBA and 3DS) just like we have Persona Qs on DS/3DS

With Sepiroth, it's rather self-explanatory. Fan-favorite character, and are returning to the videogame screen with the remake around the corner. Yes, I know that Square is rather stingy with their IPs, but people said that we were going to get nothing for DQ, yet we got 4 different skins with two songs for each skin from a composer that is known for being extremely hard to work with. The biggest thing that goes against him is that Square far as I know does not have the same game getting more than one in general. But like I said earlier. we got 8 songs from the DQ composer so who knows.

Geno is also rather self-explanatory. Fan-favorite character but in a Banjo styled situation. The only issue is that Square isn¨t Microsoft, so we don¨t know if they see the same benefits of adding him as a character even with the general demand due to no game on the horizon. There is also the fact that Geno is a spirit, and we have yet to know if spirit de-confirms or not. Hopefully, the Mii Costume that is MIA is a sign that we are getting him sooner rather than later.

 

[Polarthief]

https://www.sourcegaming.info/2019/09/11/sakurai-talks-more-about-smash-ultimate-dlc-development/

Nintendo did, according to Sakurai.

Reading this again at 6AM, I actually can't tell if he's talking about FP1 or FP2. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm leaning more on FP1 now.

Remember that the article was posted in September, before we even knew FP2 was going to be a thing. Hell it was posted a WEEK AFTER TERRY'S REVEAL. Yeah this is sounding more and more like FP1 talk.

Hero was an add for DQ11. Showing off more than just one skin could be there to make people curious about where every other skin comes from and maybe try those ones out.

Uh, okay? I was talking about how the characters aren't necessarily "relevant, modern, characters". Hero's alts (not 11) aren't modern and relevant. Terry sure as hell isn't relevant and modern with the amount of people going "who?" towards him. Banjo has definitely been irrelevant since Banjo-Tooie.

SNK was one of the first major supporters of the switch. You can add that, on top of Sakurai's love for the franchise. A choice that could easily be as a "strengthen relation ship+throwing a bone combo).

Sakurai is irrelevant in the discussion considering Nintendo picked the DLC.

It¨s because of stuff like this that makes me feel that there is no clear "frontrunner" when it comes to who the next Square character could be if any. For me, it boils down to Sora, Sepiroth or Geno

Could you imagine all other FF games just being passed over for a second FF7 rep, not to mention yet-another-anime-swordsman? As much as people overpraise FF7 (I truly think it's an overrated game, sorry!) and love Sephiroth, I do think a lot of people (myself included) would be very disappointed in seeing him... Now as an echo to Cloud or post-FP2 DLC, that I wouldn't care about, just please not in this FP.

As for Sora, idk, I just see many more roadblocks for him compared to Geno. That said though, I could see another FF (non-7) rep, or potentially: Bravely Default (esp with the third game coming this year, that's an ad for Nintendo and Square) or Lara Croft (albeit not as popular, she does have a place in gaming history and she's actually somewhat relevant) and... that's it. Sora, Geno, Lara Croft, Bravely rep, or a non-7 second FF rep. Assuming SE is getting a DLC pack, it's down to one of those five, and if Nintendo is truly listening to fans, it's down to Geno or Sora. I don't see nearly as many requests for FF reps outside of Sephiroth and Terra, and even then I don't see them nearly as often as Sora and Geno. That said, I could still see a Bravely rep making it in purely if they (Nintendo and SE) wanted to shill-pick.

 

[I.D.]

Sakurai reiterates, once again, that Nintendo is in charge of the character selection for Ultimate's DLC in the latest Famitsu column. There's no reason to doubt that at this point.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Icewolff92]

Sakurai is irrelevant in the discussion considering Nintendo picked the DLC.

It is still a smart thing to throw him a bone. Especially one that strengthens the relationship with another company (SNK) at the same time. Marketing is not the only thing that companies feel is beneficial to them.

Could you imagine all other FF games just being passed over for a second FF7 rep, not to mention yet-another-anime-swordsman? As much as people overpraise FF7 (I truly think it's an overrated game, sorry!) and love Sephiroth, I do think a lot of people (myself included) would be very disappointed in seeing him... Now as an echo to Cloud or post-FP2 DLC, that I wouldn't care about, just please not in this FP.

This is still Square we are talking about. They don¨t work like any other studio, and I think you underestimate what people would react to Sepiroth. He is a poster boy for iconic villains. But I will admit, I did not think about the potential of Bravely default who is coming to Switch after all.

 

[Polarthief]

Sakurai reiterates, once again, that Nintendo is in charge of the character selection for Ultimate's DLC in the latest Famitsu column. There's no reason to doubt that at this point.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I wasn't doubting Nintendo being in charge of picking (in fact, I'd be surprised if they just let Sakurai pick FP2 after FP1), I was doubting the "proof" that I was given that he "confirmed" they were picking FP2, when said proof sounds like FP1-talk.

This is still Square we are talking about. They don¨t work like any other studio

I'm aware.

and I think you underestimate what people would react to Sepiroth. He is a poster boy for iconic villains.

Of course fans of FF7/Sephiroth would be happy, of which I'm sure there's a lot of them, but many people are tired of swordsmen, especially anime ones. Sephiroth is both of those things. Nintendo would be putting in another divisive character. It would be Byleth all over again.

But I will admit, I did not think about the potential of Bravely default who is coming to Switch after all.

I'd be fine with it if it wouldn't interfere with Geno's chances. BD was a great game. BSecond I didn't finish (should go back to that) but was still enjoyable. I'm sure the third will be too.

Only problem is who would be put in. Probably Anges, but she's so bland and boring (at least in BD; can't talk about BS) that I'd be disappointed in the choice. Edea or Ringabel would be much better choices, but just like the 3H pick, the "primary" character is usually picked, unfortunately.

 

[ActualGarbage]

Sakurai reiterates, once again, that Nintendo is in charge of the character selection for Ultimate's DLC in the latest Famitsu column. There's no reason to doubt that at this point.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

If it bugs Sakurai that there's too many sword fighters and Nintendo keeps asking for them, he needs to take some advice from ol' Captian Lou, "Just Say No!"

 

[Icewolff92]

Of course fans of FF7/Sephiroth would be happy, of which I'm sure there's a lot of them, but many people are tired of swordsmen, especially anime ones. Sephiroth is both of those things. Nintendo would be putting in another divisive character. It would be Byleth all over again.

Yet people made a ****storm of it not being Dante. Had Byleth been from any other series, we would not seen the amount of ****storm that he/she got.

The status that Sepiroth have would overthrow the negative ones easily

 

[Deleted member]

There is no point of adding Sephiroth. He’s not a fan favorite compared to Geno and Sora. Cloud is already there to appeal FF fans. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is unlikely to have plans for the Switch right now. And he’s not even worthy of a pack. They couldn’t even acquire a single piece of artwork in the base game and didn’t add any tracks including from other FF games.

 

[Polarthief]

Yet people made a ****storm of it not being Dante.

Uh, no. Some people did for sure, but most people were simply upset of "yet another FE". Even Sakurai himself thinks there's too many FE/swordsmen.

Had Byleth been from any other series, we would not seen the amount of ****storm that he/she got.

Okay, but the ****storm would have been "who is that person?" especially after getting Terry.

The status that Sepiroth have would overthrow the negative ones easily

We're just gonna have to agree to disagree then.

There is no point of adding Sephiroth. He’s not a fan favorite compared to Geno and Sora. Cloud is already there to appeal FF fans.

Basically how I feel, yeah. If they were pushing another FF rep, I don't see why it would be Sephiroth when you only have oh-so-many fan favorite FFs to pick from, especially ones that DON'T USE SWORDS. That said, the main ones I could see that have an intended set would be Terra (FF6) or Yuna (FF10). Looking at all the other games, you have swords-users (Cecil FF4, Squall FF8, Zidane FF9, Tidus FF10) or ambiguous characters due to job systems (Bartz FF5, Vaan FF12). On top of that, I also don't see FF4/5/8/9/10/12 ever being requested, so it'd basically be Terra only, or Sephiroth if both Nintendo and SE wanted to be super out of touch and continue to doubleup on what's easily in the list of most overrated games, alongside Ocarina of Time (BRING ON THE HATE, PEOPLE!).

And he’s not even worthy of a pack. They didn’t have a single piece of artwork in the base game and didn’t add any tracks including from other FF games.

Imagine adding a character with 2 tracks after Terry just got 50.

Oh wait, imagine adding a character with ZERO TRACKS because Cloud could only get 2 and neither one is even directly tied to his character. You'd be lucky to get One Winged Angel, and even then, I don't think it makes for a great Smash-style fighting music; good luck ever getting an FF song (let alone an FF7 song) officially remixed for this purpose.

 

[Deleted member]

Also, it’s still very suspicious that they didn’t throw away the Geno costume in the first pack when they could of.

 

[Polarthief]

Also, it’s still very suspicious that they didn’t throw away the Geno costume in the first pack when they could of.

Seriously. That's the biggest red flag (in our favor). Why not just add the costume back? An upgraded premium costume would look really silly after this long, and I said it before, but it's a total slap in the face. Sans and Cuphead had no chances of getting in. Geno has forever now and for the costume to be mysteriously hidden for the sake of an upgraded one would just be a massive disappointment, whereas Sans and Cuphead were both seen extremely positively.

 

[Vector Victor]

So what is this implying? That Sakurai wanted a different character, maybe a different series for number 5 and Nintendo told him Byleth instead? Is this why we are getting a bonus sixth character in FP2, who might have been the original character 5?

 

[Dynamic Worlok]

Sakurai reiterates, once again, that Nintendo is in charge of the character selection for Ultimate's DLC in the latest Famitsu column. There's no reason to doubt that at this point.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I never doubted it to begin with. It's also nice to know that you're in agreement with the creator of the game when you say there are too many fire emblem characters.
"But dyna" I hear you say.. "there are more Mario characters than fire emblem"
To that I say: that's fine.. Mario is the Mickey mouse of video games, the title of the game is a pun of his series name, he can have as many characters as he wants (provided they don't come with a baby, doctor or metal prefix (the original dr. Mario notwithstanding))
Even if it's not geno.

 

[Fatmanonice]

https://twitter.com/PushDustIn/status/1224953803335553024?s=20


..... Huh.

This is actually quite a bombshell and the implications are enormous. First I'll go through the stuff that Sakurai outright says and then what's heavily implied.

Sakurai basically said it himself:

-Byleth was a hard corporate pick. I hate the term but, yes, the man himself says Byleth was a "shill pick."

-Nintendo has to approve everyone but they value Sakurai's opinion to an extent.

-Sakurai had someone else in mind for DLC but Nintendo didn't allow it.

-Sakurai worked with the character anyways while Three Houses was in development (technically from 2015 to 2019).

-Sakurai agrees with the fans, there's too many Fire Emblem characters but his hands are tied.

-Sakurai more or less admits he's practically required to cave to one hard Nintendo pick each DLC season if he wants any real chance of working with characters he wants to work with.

Now for the fun part, the hard implications of this interview:

-The character that Nintendo rejected is more than likely in Season 2. Sakurai says this game is a tribute to Iwata. Under those conditions, Nintendo's likely not to refuse.

-Sakurai said they already worked with the character. Sakurai hasn't worked on anything but Smash since 2011. He's worked on Ultimate since 2015. This hard implies that the mystery character was in Smash Ultimate's base, possibly Smash 4 DLC too.

-Under the conditions of the previous point, hard implies that not only will this character be a promotion of some kind but that the "promotions can't happen" argument just got severely crippled.

-With Nintendo outright turning down the character for the first wave of DLC, heavily implies that the character is third party because the base roster had 8 new first party characters and Byleth was the only full first party DLC pack.

-Pretty much confirms our theory that one of the six will be a hard Nintendo pick that exclusively benefits Nintendo. Nintendo picked a shill for Smash 4 DLC and they did it for the Fighter's Pass. Sakurai more or less admits he doesn't have a choice and will have to go with them whether he's super on board with them or not.

-Pretty much confirms my theory the other day, Nintendo considers fan picks but also how it benefits them. Under these conditions, Nintendo approving Altus, Square Enix, Microsoft, and SNK is not at all unusual. Atlus and Square go back to the NES, SNK has been a huge partner since the Wii, and Microsoft is easily the biggest company Nintendo has teamed up with in recent years.

-Corporate Nintendo still makes the final decision. Like my theory and information suggests, this is a giant red flag for indies, most Western developers, and franchises largely associated with Sony. Needless to say, this is kind of a bullet in the head to a potential Sony rep. At the end of the day, Smash is quite literally about Nintendo.

-The Nintendo "shill pick" for Season 2 was likely already decided by E3 last year. If Byleth is any indication, it's likely for a game already announced or even out. Friendly reminder that Nintendo does not own the Pokemon Company.

-Basically repeating my earlier post, heavily implies that Sakurai's rejected character will be one of the first characters of Season 2 if not the first.

Ladies and gentlemen, today is a good day.

 

[Vector Victor]

Yes, there is no double standard of accepting Mario's 9 character but disagreeing with FE's 8. One series is the face of video games and a worldwide icon. The other isn't.

What WILL tick people off is what kind of Mario character is added. Basically, baby/metal/Cat/babaycatmetals. Look at the hatred these types get in Mario Kart. Multiply that sentiment by a billion if one of them gets into Smash.

 

[Spatulo]

This is actually quite a bombshell and the implications are enormous. First I'll go through the stuff that Sakurai outright says and then what's heavily implied.

Sakurai basically said it himself:

-Byleth was a hard corporate pick. I hate the term but, yes, the man himself says Byleth was a "shill pick."

-Nintendo has to approve everyone but they value Sakurai's opinion to an extent.

-Sakurai had someone else in mind for DLC but Nintendo didn't allow it.

-Sakurai worked with the character anyways while Three Houses was in development (technically from 2015 to 2019).

-Sakurai agrees with the fans, there's too many Fire Emblem characters but his hands are tied.

-Sakurai more or less admits he's practically required to cave to one hard Nintendo pick each DLC season if he wants any real chance of working with characters he wants to work with.

Now for the fun part, the hard implications of this interview:

-The character that Nintendo rejected is more than likely in Season 2. Sakurai says this game is a tribute to Iwata. Under those conditions, Nintendo's likely not to refuse.

-Sakurai said they already worked with the character. Sakurai hasn't worked on anything but Smash since 2011. He's worked on Ultimate since 2015. This hard implies that the mystery character was in Smash Ultimate's base, possibly Smash 4 DLC too.

-Under the conditions of the previous point, hard implies that not only will this character be a promotion of some kind but that the "promotions can't happen" argument just got severely crippled.

-With Nintendo outright turning down the character for the first wave of DLC, heavily implies that the character is third party because the base roster had 8 new first party characters and Byleth was the only full first party DLC pack.

-Pretty much confirms our theory that one of the six will be a hard Nintendo pick that exclusively benefits Nintendo. Nintendo picked a shill for Smash 4 DLC and they did it for the Fighter's Pass. Sakurai more or less admits he doesn't have a choice and will have to go with them whether he's super on board with them or not.

-Pretty much confirms my theory the other day, Nintendo considers fan picks but also how it benefits them. Under these conditions, Nintendo approving Altus, Square Enix, Microsoft, and SNK is not at all unusual. Atlus and Square go back to the NES, SNK has been a huge partner since the Wii, and Microsoft is easily the biggest company Nintendo has teamed up with in recent years.

-Corporate Nintendo still makes the final decision. Like my theory and information suggests, this is a giant red flag for indies, most Western developers, and franchises largely associated with Sony. Needless to say, this is kind of a bullet in the head to a potential Sony rep. At the end of the day, Smash is quite literally about Nintendo.

-The Nintendo "shill pick" for Season 2 was likely already decided by E3 last year. If Byleth is any indication, it's likely for a game already announced or even out. Friendly reminder that Nintendo does not own the Pokemon Company.

-Basically repeating my earlier post, heavily implies that Sakurai's rejected character will be one of the first characters of Season 2 if not the first.

Ladies and gentlemen, today is a good day.

There being a character that Sakurai has been working on that Nintendo didn’t approve is fascinating to me. Like, who could it be? Who could Sakurai work on and Nintendo responded with “Nah, not this pass.” A character that presumably Sakurai loves but likely isn’t all that significant to Nintendo’s current marketing and whatnot right?

I mean of COURSE my brain says Geno but is that the most likely?

 

[Vector Victor]

There being a character that Sakurai has been working on that Nintendo didn’t approve is fascinating to me. Like, who could it be? Who could Sakurai work on and Nintendo responded with “Nah, not this pass.” A character that presumably Sakurai loves but likely isn’t all that significant to Nintendo’s current marketing and whatnot right?

I mean of COURSE my brain says Geno but is that the most likely?

If, if, if, IF, this is true, things are getting to get ugly....UGLIER, in the Smash community today.

Basically, 'We had a character that Sakurai was excited about, but then Nintendo said 'no, use a FE rep instead.''

Oh boy.

 

[Fatmanonice]

One thing I forgot and it's definitely the elephant in the room:

-Sakurai says he was working on character but Nintendo turned it down for DLC.

-Doesn't outright name the character despite it being rejected.

-Sakurai has a long history of fully admitting to characters turned down by name.

-A secret Season 2 character, perhaps?

 

[Organization XIII]

Look he can state Nintendo is responsible for the characters all he wishes but when 4/5 characters have been characters he's personally attached to it really calls in to question the accuracy of those claims. Besides he's lied about development before.

 

[Spatulo]

Look he can state Nintendo is responsible for the characters all he wishes but when 4/5 characters have been characters he's personally attached to it really calls in to question the accuracy of those claims. Besides he's lied about development before.

The only standout “Sakurai-connected” character is Terry Bogard. No **** he likes Persona and Dragon Quest, he’s JAPANESE AND PLAYS VIDEO GAMES.