The very same leaker who had that information also said Crash would be the last character of the first Fighters Pass.
I'd say this leak should be taken with a grain of salt until Crash gets revealed as a Fighter Pass 2 character, because it's possible whoever got that leak got the timing wrong, which wouldn't be the first time for Ultimate's DLC run.
Actually, he got that from someone other than his usual source who gave him the Mii Costume List, Terry's Spirit Board List, and the Fire Emblem stuff. Also, nobody was able to guess at Byleth getting in anyhow.
It could also just be for a Mii costume that comes bundled with two songs.
Since we've only ever gotten one song with the two "Deluxe" costumes we've gotten, I find it very unlikely they'd do something like that for any Mii Costume, Geno or not. I mean if that were the case, you'd think they would've been able to have gotten more than one song out of Toby "Playing Smash with it's creator and whoopin' his ass" Fox. You think that guy's stingy? Dude literally walked up to Masahiro Smash Bros. and asked for his skeleton son and meme song in Smash.
Or just Nintendo being dumb because them taking out songs from games published by them for no apparent reason is far from new.
Fair enough, but I think it's a bit more complicated than that: SquareEnix is the company who legally owns all of the original characters from SMRPG. While there hasn't been anything definitive about who owns the music, when the composer for SMRPG, Yoko Shimomura, made a Best Of album of her work, she included music from SMRPG. On this album, Nintendo isn't mentioned anywhere in the copyright, but SquareEnix is. What this seems to suggest is that SquareEnix, or even solely Shimomura herself, owns copyright of these music tracks and not Nintendo. Ergo, Nintendo copyright striking those two music tracks rather than SquareEnix seems suspect, especially considering they've done this with Undertale and Banjo-Kazooie music tracks that they don't own.
There's also the convenient detail that only two tracks taken down, and so far every SquareEnix owned character has come with two tracks each, with each Dragon Quest protagonist that makes up Hero counting as a separate character.
Granted, could also be for a playable Geno, but it's not the only possibility.
Since you no doubt bring this up several times for each of his points, and because I don't wish to repeat myself too much, I'll only say this once here: Yes, we're all well aware of the possibility that this could all mean nothing. All potential evidence used in the context of something like this can end up either being real or fake. Hindsight is 20-20 and we won't know if this is real or fake until the time comes, so unless you (or anyone else for that matter) have something more concrete that can more solidly disprove something, trying to argue it's legitimacy by going "Well it could be fake, though!" is entirely fruitless, especially considering it can be easily countered by stating the opposite, yet equally fruitless sentiment.
I'm not even going to read that part because take a moment to think about this.
You think that Nintendo taking down SPRPG songs is a hint, right?
Wouldn't this video, following the same train of logic, also be taken down? Either by Nintendo, Bethesda or even the very stingy Square?
And yet, it's not. That video's been around for half a year, has gotten a lot of traction in that time and has yet to be taken down by any of the not one but THREE companies involved. And somehow, that is also a hint despite contradicting with your logic of the songs that were taken down for copyrights?
I'm just curious on what was your train of thought on that one because the fact that it's been watchable for so long makes it very hard to think it's real.
While I can't speak for Tony here, I usually chalk it up to the relatively minor severity of the post. I think we can both agree that there's a world of difference between a screenshot and two ~7 second videos of minor cosmetics and, oh I dunno... some random **** streaming Pokemon Sword around two weeks prior to it's official release. One can easily be ignored and dismissed as a mod (which people have been able to imperfectly recreate), whereas one is so obviously real that nobody but the most gunshot-in-head-having cadavres would consider it japes.
Furthermore, could you imagine what would happen if this were real and Nintendo struck it down? That would basically be confirming to the entire fanbase that it's real. Streisand Effect, my guy.
If he's one of those who come with a song, we have yet to see one of those come with a character they fit with.
We've also yet to see one that isn't an indie character, by the way.
And that matters a lot because Cuphead was funded by Microsoft, yet his costume did not come along with the Microsoft character.
It really doesn't, since almost every other third party company aside from SquareEnix (and SNK, though they're new alongside) have been shown to be fine with having their costumes shown alongside other things:
- SEGA have had their costumes debuted alongside other companies. (Example: Akira & Jacky with Terry)
- Capcom have had their costumes debuted alongside other companies. (Example: All the Capcom costumes for Ultimate thus far)
- Konami have had their costumes debuted alongside other companies. (Example: Goemon alongside Banjo & Kazooie)
- Bandai-Namco have had their costumes debuted alongside other companies. (Example: Their contributions for Smash 4)
- Ubisoft have had their costumes debuted alongside other companies. (Example: Rabbids and Altair (from the Altair series) with Banjo & Kazooie)
- Microsoft have had their costumes debuted alongside other companies. (Example: Cuphead with Byleth)
- SNK have had their costumes debuted alongside other companies. (Example: All of their costumes alongside the SEGA costumes)
So far, for both Smash 4 and Smash Ultimate, no SquareEnix costumes have come alongside other companies' costumes. Hell, save for Smash Ultimate's base game, none of their content has been released (and sometimes revealed) alongside other companies:
- Cloud was revealed for Smash 4 at the end of a Nintendo Direct, and was the only Smash news in that Direct.
- Smash 4's Wave 5, the wave of costumes that contained both the Chocobo Hat and the Geno Costume, was not only the wave with the fewest costumes at 2, it was the only wave to have costumes entirely from one single company.
- Similarly to the above, Hero's Mii Costume wave not only currently has the fewest costumes of all the waves at 4, but is also the only one with costumes entirely from one single franchise.
Of course, while this doesn't mean SquareEnix costumes
can't come alongside other companies' costumes, I can't help but find it a bit suspect that, in all instances, SquareEnix seems to consistently be the only third party company to ever be given it's own isolated stage when it comes to reveals.
Of course, the opposite also happened, notably with K. Rool, Ridley, Banjo and others, so... I'd say it's a 50/50.
I'd even go further with this: Peach, Bowser, Ganondorf and Mewtwo used to be very highly requested by fans before they made it into Melee. Same with Wario, Diddy Kong, King Dedede and Sonic for Brawl, same with Mega Man, Palutena and Pac-Man for Smash 4. We've had almost all of these characters in Smash for so long that people have forgotten just how much we wanted them back in the day. We're so spoiled by their collective presence that only the likes of Ridley, King K. Rool and Banjo are considered fan requests due to how long it took to get them.
That's just ridiculous and I'm baffled as to why people think we're going to get multiple characters as alts.
Again, can't speak for Blue Incineroar, but I think the main reason everyone thinks we're possibly getting a multiple-characters-in-one deal with the ARMS Fighter is simply because, for the first time in the series' 20+ year history, they've revealed only the franchise from which this new fighter comes from rather than who the fighter was. I don't think I can really express to you just how unprecedented this is for Smash. We've never had a character's series get revealed first in place of the fighter, it's almost always been that they reveal [X Character] who hails from [Y Franchise]. They've either revealed the character outright or, if the character isn't ready yet, they've said nothing.
Because they decided to do something like this, people have begun considering that there must be something more to this. If the character was
only Spring Man or Ribbon Girl or Min-Min or Twintelle, then you'd think they would've just told us who it was as opposed to playing this whole guessing game with us, right? I think it'd be pretty disappointing if they teased who it could be out of the entire roster for ARMS, all for it to only end up being plain old Spring Man on his own.
And for those who are about to say "bUt HeRo GoT iT", I'll just ask you one thing.
How would it feel to have Rock as a Terry alt? Or for Ryu to have had Ken, Akuma and Dan as alts back in Smash 4?
Would you say the alts are properly represented or would you think these characters were added without caring about how well the moveset would suit them? That the moveset they have is not the moveset they deserve to have?
As you described, I don't think it would work. I feel it would be incredibly inaccurate to the characters themselves. Ryu, Ken and Dan don't do Akura's Raging Demon in the games, unless I'm missing something and something like Evil Ryu does that. Speaking of, Akuma's Raging Demon is easily one of his most iconic moves, so not allowing him to use it in Smash would be like not having Mario shoot fireballs or Link use his bow. Having Dan's special moves be exactly the same as Ryu, Ken and Akuma would completely ruin the point of that character. So yeah, I agree that it wouldn't fit any of the characters to have them rolled into one.
That being said, the scenario you provided with the Shotos (Not gonna mention Rock and Terry since I'm not much of an SNK guy) and the scenario people have suggested with the ARMS fighters is not comparable whatsoever. Ribbon Girl's extra jumps and fast fall being on someone like Spring Man is not comparable to Dan being able to use Akuma's Raging Demon, or Akuma
not being able to use Raging Demon. Min-Min's mid-air kicks being done by someone like Ninjara is not comparable to Akuma doing Dan's Roll Taunt. The fact that people unironically argue that they're in any way similar is crazy to me.
Hero works because DQ protags are complete blank slates.
No, Hero works because, as you explain below, all four Heroes have access to the same base moves of the Frizz line, the Zap line, the Woosh line, Gigaslash, and can utilize Command Selection which contains moves that either they or their allies can use in their games. They also all use a sword and shield to fight, and all games contain Slimes which appear in one of their taunts. Functionally, they have enough overlap between the four of them that they wouldn't look out of place sharing a moveset. Akuma not being able to use his signature special move, the one move that is intrinsically tied to the character, would be incredibly conspicuous in it's absense.
And while there are certainly creative liberties with the spell list (doesn't help each Hero has a different spell list... or none at all for Erdrick, iirc), none of the spells are things you cannot do in DQ games because if the main hero doesn't have that spell, there's a party member who can.
Nothing to add here except that Erdrick does actually use magic in DQIII.
"The Hero (Erdrick) is capable of learning a balanced mix of magic from both the Priest and Mage's pools, as well as some that are unique to them, such as Kaclang and Zap."
So Hero's moveset is more about representing Dragon Quest as a whole and spice up the RNG with things like Thwack to make the character more unique. On the other hand, no two ARMS character play identically, have similar personalities or even similar body types (aside from Spring Man and Springtron for that third one), although the last one is something that can admiteddly be played around with without being too weird.
Compared to eachother sure, they're all unique, but bring them to Smash and suddenly a lot of those differences seem incredibly trivial. Ribbon Girl's gimmicks of being able to jump multiple times in the air and fast fall are all unique attributed within the vaccum of ARMS, but not so much in Smash, where every character can jump at least once in mid-air at base and fast falling is universal. Min-Min's mid-air kicks are potentially game-changing in ARMS, but is considerably less special in Smash when every character ever can attack, kicks included, in the air. Ninjara's spoke puff dodges are an irreplicable tool with reagrds to ARMS, but is significantly less scarce in a game where direction air dodges are plentiful, with some like Mewtwo capable of replicating that very feat effortlessly.
When it comes to Smash, their gimmicks in ARMS are relatively small time compared to someone who is two characters in one, or someone who fires lazers and lights themselves on fire, or someone whose central gimmick is copying the special moves of others. All they have left at that point to make them stand out in a cast like that is their core gameplay, their ability to stretch their arms out very far and punch at a distance. That's not to say that those smaller gimmicks aren't worth including, far from it actually. I think it would be a great idea to merge all or most of these abilities into a single moveset. But to act like they're anywhere near as major as something like, and this is the last time I'll bring this up I swear, Dan using Akuma's Raging Demon, is insane.
And if someone is like "BuT aRmS iS jUsT GeNeRiC pUnCh PuNCH", I'm just going to say that Sakurai has picked a character with zero moveset potential and managed to make him one of the most beloved characters in all of Smash; Captain Falcon. So he can absolutely make a moveset about an ARMS fighter that shows a lot of the chosen fighter's personality.
Since you seem to be so fond of asking questions, allow me to ask one of you: Do you honestly believe that, when people suggest merging Spring Man, Ribbon Girl, Ninjara and Min-Min into one unified ARMS fighter, they're suggesting it because they don't care about the characters or don't see value in their gimmicks? Do you think I made
this moveset for the ARMS Fighter because I don't value these characters, their series, and their unique attributes? And if you don't think that about me and my moveset concept, why would you assume that of everyone else?
I honestly can't help but feel a bit insulted when people use "If they're merged into one fighter, they'll lose their character!" to attempt to refute the idea that this kind of merger couldn't work. As if we're so bereft of originality or care that our ideas on how they'd play would be hackneyed and soulless.
This one is just completely and utterly irrelevant to the current day.
Seven Squares was Square Enix's way to give leakbait to people by throwing in a couple of fake names into the mix, covering up the actual one we'd get for the first Fighters Pass. With us getting Erdrick and Luminary, the other five were nothing more than bait. And you're somehow still biting it to this day.
Heck, Seven Squares is from December 2018, which is very likely long before any of the second Pass was ever fully settled on. It does not apply to this Pass.
Sure, but I still think it's rather noteworthy that Geno's name was even on there at all. Like, his name is good enough for SquareEnix to use him as leakbait. (HOO-HAH-HAH!)