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Are people giving up on Geno, now? Because Steve was 77, or something?
I mean, personally, I'm not at all happy that he got in.
...But he has nothing at all to do with Geno, though? It's not even a case of 'if one gets in, the other doesn't' because they have absolutely nothing in common. And the '#77 = 7 Stars' thing was really just more of a 'hey, that'd be cute if they did that' sort of thing. The Steve reveal effectively killed my hype for Smash, but it doesn't retroactively make all of the possible evidence for Geno definitively mean nothing.
They put in a character I hate, they could also put in a character I like.
This. I'm not sure why people are losing hope in Geno already when we're not even half of the way their yet. People are forgetting that we still have four slots left. It would be one thing if CP7 was a different Mario character or Square character, but that isn't the case. Steve is not competition for Geno, nor does he effect his chances in the slightest, so I'm not sure why people are so worried. The only pieces of evidence effected by Steve's inclusion was the 7 theory, which was sort of a for fun theory, no one actually took that theory seriously, and the Mario tournament coinciding with a Mario character. Everything else is still in play.
If anything, people should be more excited about Geno's chances, since I feel Steve greatly improved Geno's chances even more. Steve's inclusion shows that companies that had a rep in the first Pass are eligible to get another in the second Pass, the inclusion of Enderman and Zombie as alts and Spirit battles showcases the idea of more Spirit characters being playable, and most important of all, Geno's Sm4sh outfit is STILL nowhere to be found, a whole seven waves later. Call me optimistic, but I'm still very confident that our boi is still coming, whether its CP8 or CP11, I will always believe that Geno is in the game.
Are people giving up on Geno, now? Because Steve was 77, or something?
I mean, personally, I'm not at all happy that he got in.
...But he has nothing at all to do with Geno, though? It's not even a case of 'if one gets in, the other doesn't' because they have absolutely nothing in common. And the '#77 = 7 Stars' thing was really just more of a 'hey, that'd be cute if they did that' sort of thing. The Steve reveal effectively killed my hype for Smash, but it doesn't retroactively make all of the possible evidence for Geno definitively mean nothing.
They put in a character I hate, they could also put in a character I like.
Geno is still more alive than ever, survived another Mii Wave, spirit don’t deconfirm, Sakurai recognition, only Mii with Splash Screen, Perfect moveset and uniqueness like All DLC characters, Songs takedown, mod takedown, missing costume, ultra epic fan demand already fulfilled, a good design to fit the game, Yoko already worked on music here, more leaks and rumors. In conclusion, Geno will be playable 100% in another spot of the FP2. Believe it, this is happening. Geno is probably the best missing Fan Demand character left to appear, along Crash, Sora, Isaac, Lloyd and a few more. But for me the only guaranteed 100% are Geno and Crash. The rest I think Hayabusa and Lloyd are fitting very well. Steve being 77 doesn’t aggravate GENO’S chances . It was just a coincidence with the 7, doesn’t Mean anything official.
I could bet anything proving that Geno is going to be a full fighter. It’s more clear than water.
Haven't heard anything to suggest this. I kind of hard squinted my eyes when Zhuge started talking about Nintendo and Tecmo's relationship within the last hour before Steve was revealed but he's right about how close Nintendo is to them. They've let them develop Metroid, Zelda, and Fire Emblem games as well as let Nintendo flat out publish some of their games in some regions. Despite this, Nintendo having a close relationship doesn't necessarily mean anything when it comes to characters. For example, Brawl had a ton of Capcom and Namco co-created content but neither Megaman or Pac-Man showed up. Ultimate is definitely a different situation though because they've not so subtly implied that Ultimate will probably be the last Smash game for a good while so they're wanting to make sure that Ultimate's additions really count because they know people are going to be playing this game for years.
Speaking to the longevity of Ultimate I would like to say this.
I have no knowledge of Nintendo's plans, however, based on some rumors of there being a 4K switch wouldn't make sense to support Smash through the lifecycle of that system as well? I mean I think it would make sense to have another hypothetical round of three Fighter Passes to sale behind a rerelease of Smash Ultimate with all of the Fighter Pass guys from 1-(to a supposed)3. Leaving stuff like the Mii costumes to be sold separately. Of course, if you own Smash Ultimate already an update will drop to make it 4K ready if you choose to play it on a 4K Switch, and any new DLC will be able to be purchased as normal.
So. If the Waluigi rumor is true, any who shares in his combinations of circumstances could be renegotiated. Cuz I'm starting to think little matters when comes to ATs and Mii Costumes.
Speaking to the longevity of Ultimate I would like to say this.
I have no knowledge of Nintendo's plans, however, based on some rumors of there being a 4K switch wouldn't make sense to support Smash through the lifecycle of that system as well? I mean I think it would make sense to have another hypothetical round of three Fighter Passes to sale behind a rerelease of Smash Ultimate with all of the Fighter Pass guys from 1-(to a supposed)3. Leaving stuff like the Mii costumes to be sold separately. Of course, if you own Smash Ultimate already an update will drop to make it 4K ready if you choose to play it on a 4K Switch, and any new DLC will be able to be purchased as normal.
a Smash Ultimate Deluxe Edition with all the DLC included, I could see that happening for a 4k Switch Release. I don't think they would start releasing more DLC though, I think at that point it just be better to make a New game
Speaking of which, honestly if the Next Switch model is kind of like a New Console with many Upgrades than just 4K, I could see an entire New Smash game made from it. Now whether it's The Smash Reboot, a Regular Smash game, or Perhaps The Ultimate Smash game with 100+ Characters in it with New Modes and features remain to be seen, but heavily re-using Assets from Ultimate.
a Smash Ultimate Deluxe Edition with all the DLC included, I could see that happening for a 4k Switch Release. I don't think they would start releasing more DLC though, I think at that point it just be better to make a New game
Speaking of which, honestly if the Next Switch model is kind of like a New Console with many Upgrades than just 4K, I could see an entire New Smash game made from it. Now whether it's The Smash Reboot, a Regular Smash game, or Perhaps The Ultimate Smash game with 100+ Characters in it with New Modes and features remain to be seen, but heavily re-using Assets from Ultimate.
Then why not just add to Ultimate? If there is a New Switch it's been rumored to be on par with say what the Nintendo 3DS XL was to the 3DS.
Not say like what the Wii U was to the Wii.
Oh boy... people starting to lose hope over Geno's chances?
I don't think I have the power to really change what others think. And after reading through most of Serenade's post, there's a couple things I may disagree with, and a few things like the Mii Costume list I agree with him on. But that doesn't really matter to what I want to say.
It's one of the things I feel like I bring up a little too much, but what got me to post in this thread and further push Geno to being one of my most wanted characters was the King for Another Day Tournament... and Geno's round 1 loss. I spent almost all of last year in the buildup to the tournament pushing for Geno, because the Mario RPGs are some of my favorite games of all time, and I wanted to listen to their amazing soundtracks in a new way with all the potential memes and edits the SiIvaGunner channel is known for. Him getting every song composed by Yoko Shimomura as his buff from the last tournament was really just icing on the cake for me.
Only about a week before the tournament began, his round 1 opponent was revealed... Weird Al. A character with a surge of fans who were all ready to push him to the top. I saw many other Geno fans already given up. They had accepted defeat before the match even begun, and it hurt to see. I tried to push positivity onto everyone, I wasn't about to let a though situation and placement put me down, I was ready to fight to the end!
Results come in. Weird Al at 66.8% with 6587 votes... Geno at 33.2% with 3269 votes.
It hurt, but despite the one sided nature of that fight, I didn't give up. There's still the losers bracket, Geno's going up against Johnny Bravo, surely if I push hard enough, Geno may come out on top! Geno... loses at 46% with 3689 votes, Johnny wins at 54% with 4339 votes.
For the record, I'm absolutely cool with Weird Al and Johnny Bravo, and I think they each had their own great music. But... that didn't change the fact that it stun. To work so hard, trying to get others to see the good music Geno had, waiting almost a year, just to watch my main lose round 1. Again. Only then did I break down in sadness. Only at the very end of the road.
What I'm trying to get across bringing up this story again, is that we shouldn't give up until the road of Smash Ultimate ends. It's like a quote from Ace Attorney, "The only time a lawyer can cry is when it's all over".
Everyone deals with stuff differently. If you think now is a good time to give up on Geno's chances, and be surprised if he does make it, go for it. I can't really change that. If we reach Challenger Pack 9, and Geno is still a no show, that's when I'll be concerned over his chances, as contrary to what I've been hearing more and more, I can't see Geno being near the end of the Pass. But until then, I'm gonna keep going. I'm not the type of person to easily give up, even when the odds seem stacked against me or what I wish to happen.
I won't cry until the very end! And, that's all I wanted to say.
Then why not just add to Ultimate? If there is a New Switch it's been rumored to be on par with say what the Nintendo 3DS XL was to the 3DS.
Not say like what the Wii U was to the Wii.
I think Because More People would be Willing to buy a Brand New Smash game that has New Content like New Modes, Graphic Updates, Upgrades to Gameplay, Along with New Characters, than to Keep buying the DLC. After all Smash Ultimate could start getting Stale, and it would be very Expensive to buy all the DLC. 3 Season Passes would cost more than 60-70 Dollars, with not as much people buying into it as people start buying less DLC the longer a game goes on. It doesn't help that SMash is a $60 Game that rarely goes on Sale because Nintendo, not a Free-to-Play Game like Fortnite and League of Legends
This is the kind of thing that I felt like would be best kept to discord as it is a subject of contention but the more I think and steam and stew, the more it feels like to me that not only is it necessary to get my thoughts out into a single cohesive post for the folks who may misinterpret them, but it's good to bring them to light in this thread so that the general public who may not be a part of our quaint discord community can ingest these ideas as well.
I will warn you, I am not a succinct person, I cannot summarize my thoughts eloquently into a few words. My thoughts on this matter are deep and complex and to attempt to present them in a way that is friendly to the lazy internet reader of 2020 makes them come across garbled and almost 100% of users who view those brief snips of this massive argument interpret them incorrectly. I'm sorry that you have to read all of this nonsense just to get a grasp for what's going through my head, but this is how it is. This post is going to be embarrassingly long, to the point that even now I honestly am already afraid to hit "post reply" simply because someone out there is going to look at this and say "this dude is taking this too seriously" or maybe even accuse me having some form of brain damage. To that, all I have to respond is "typing is fun" and "thinking is fun".
I'm spoilering nearly the whole post just to make sure that this doesn't blow up the page or something.
First, let me just start off by saying that I might exhibit some "opinions" in this post, which depending on my mood as I continue to write or the speed with which I chose to write, may even have some hyperbole mixed in. Some people call this "needless dooming" and they are probably right. Also, I know we've had trouble in the past with observations like this leading to or being part of some kind of thread derailing GameFAQs inspired raid, but please know that I am the very same Serenade who had extremely high hopes for Geno in this gamefirst DLC season second DLC season, and not some deep undercover troll or sleeper agent for those who would see this thread derailed.
I don't believe Geno's making it in anymore. I hope I get to eat my words and be pleasantly surprised at his inclusion, as I have always hoped, but I just don't believe it anymore. I think that a lot of "evidence" we've had to his inclusion has been coincidence at best. I want to thank @Polarthief for writing up his massive List™ for why Geno's in, but I will be using a fair bit of it today to explore the opposite.
So, why am I thinking this now? Some users may say that it's because I, like many others in this community, got psyched up to believe that without a doubt, Geno was Challenger 77, and I just can't deal with the reality that he was not. This is incorrect. Obviously, it would have been outstanding if Geno had been Fighter 77, first and foremost because I could stop worrying that he's not in, and in fact, stop giving a single **** about this whole nonsense. Obviously, we get the benefits of Seven stars, 77 all 7s jackpot etc etc fun memes good times, but really, it was just wishful thinking and I think deep down most people knew it was a situation too good to be true. I've pointed out (in my last few posts, no less) that Nintendo often fails to recognize what would be a good opportunity to any other company, either because their marketing team really is just that stupid, or they're playing such a high dimensional chess game that mortal minds could never comprehend it. To loosely quote myself from Discord not long ago, the part of me that is mad that Geno is not 77 is the same part of me that is mad that he's not 76 or even as far back as something like 22. I have made it clear as crystal that I have expected this character since Melee, a staggering number of years that amounts to the entire lifespan of many users on Smashboards as a whole and a good handful regular to this thread.
Naturally, the next logical conclusion is that it's because not only was 77 not Geno, but it was Steve, who I admit is probably the closest to a "least wanted" fighter I could have told you before his inclusion. I'm not like a lot of people who I guess want to save face or... something(?), I'm not going to change my tune just because Steve's in the game now. I never wanted him, he is still near bedrock in terms of characters I want to see in Smash if Ultimate ever gets a sequel. I hope this clown never returns. That said? I'm charmed by what they did with Steve and I think that, despite how unsightly he is, they managed to make a very cute character out of him. I love how he whips a bed out from nowhere to go to sleep, how his animations are just as *ty as they can possibly be, how he mines ****ing wool on Magicant, Endermanlet - I could probably go on for a while about all the things I like about this cubic abomination. It's not Steve. It's not Steve being 77. * 'em.
However, Steve brought with him quite a bit of baggage, and not all of it is his fault, but one of the major pieces of baggage is all on Steve:
It took 5 years of negotiations to bring Steve to Super Smash Bros.
Now, aside from the obvious frustrations I have with the idea that this somehow brings Vergeben back to relevancy (despite his claims being all over the place, proving that he had no knowledge of Steve at this time and was purely being contrarian because of fan demand for Banjo), this whole five year business puts Steve back in 2015... The beginning of Ultimate's development, maybe even late Smash 4 talk.
Theoretically speaking, this is evidence that we could have been one smooth business deal away from Minecraft Steve being in Smash Bros. before Banjo and ****ing Kazooie, Simon Belmont, Ridley, or King K. Rool. That's a horrifying timeline that even with as mind numbingly awful as this one has turned out to be I would not want to be part of.
All of that said, there's absolutely no proof that any rumor of Steve was based in the fact that he was being negotiated for 5 years. This is something that we learned from the kind of people who would have lost their damn jobs (in the best case scenario) for speaking a word of it before Steve's release, and there's little reason to believe this information fell into the hands of a two bit leaker like Vergeben or even anyone else who claimed to know that Minecraft Steve was coming to Smash, or even Minecraft. I think as far as provable information goes, it has always been a guess based on Minecraft's popularity and how quickly it came to Nintendo consoles despite being a Microsoft property as of 2014. For this reason, I think it's safe to say that Nintendo was able to keep negotiations for a character under wraps for half of a ****ing decade.
Let's take that information and look at some facts:
No popularly covered leaks managed to tell people about Joker, Banjo, Terry, or Byleth. Only Erdrick made it out (via Vergeben) and that too could have easily been a guess. Terry only started to get thrown around after Nintendo themselves leaked it, and Banjo was hinted maybe a day or two in advance. Fighter Pass 2 has been exactly the same, we have seen few leaks and hints get thrown around only a few days before the reveal... Except in Steve's case, we got a hint literally minutes before the reveal. The same as Byleth, if I remember correctly. There's a decent chance it would have been mere minutes for Min Min as well if Nintendo hadn't pissed around for three months "it's an ARMS fighter guys!", I mean hell, these folks had 12 characters to choose from so at some point you can leak whatever you want and call it an educated guess.
So, why then do we think that when these insiders brazenly speak Geno's name in public, they're doing so with any meat behind it? These people's asses would be a plaque in Doug Bowser's office for so shamelessly speaking the name of a Smash DLC fighter months before their official release.
Let's continue down the rabbit hole. The other baggage Steve brought that is not entirely his own is that according to my finest sources, Steve was heard. And ignored. Let that sink in. Does it sound familiar? It does to me, because in this very thread we heard about how Byleth was also heard, to the point that in this thread we were told about a Three Houses stage and Three Houses spirits but, due to some kind of dramatic oversight or absolute refusal to believe such a nightmare could happen, Byleth was ignored. I hope what I'm saying here makes sense - we have at least two instances of characters that had either been floated around among insiders or possibly outright known, but matters of personal bias or something similar made those names never seriously make it out to the public. Do we hear Geno from sources who don't have a dog in the Geno race? Imran sure seems like he kinda likes Geno, Jeff Grubb has the same air about him, supposedly having played Mario RPG recently and having become obsessed with it. This even applies to Jon Gamexplain Nintendolife and Andre Gamexplain, both of whom seem to have at least a passive care for Geno/SMRPG. We unfortunately look at these insiders, these industry people, and we see a sympathetic friend. Someone who, operating from the shadows, has our back and will deliver us the good news that some of us have waited nearly two decades for, but I think the sad reality is that these folks are just fans of a video game and maybe, get this, everything they say or joke about actually isn't a hint or a leak. I'll be the first to tell you that you can't trust them when they say they don't leak, but hanging on their every word is worthless.
I ask this and point this out because there's a very real chance that Geno rumors are circulated and live because people genuinely want it to be Geno. It's foolish of me to say that these guys are dunking on us because we're the Geno fanbase and dunking on us is socially acceptable (although it's true) - I really doubt that these professionals with "jobs" would stoop so low as to just **** with a vocal fanbase of a Mario character getting into Smash (but then again, Andre is... dare I say, "unhinged" enough to compare Grinch leak believers to Trump supporters), but if they know facts about a fan favorite, highly requested Mario character getting into the game, maybe someone who has a two decade long legacy who has been poorly represented in Smash for several iterations, who was in a somewhat popular Brawl mod that just recently got a Cease and Desist order, their fan brain tells them Geno but they miss the Waluigi for the trees.
Counterargument: It has been asserted, not only in this thread but on discord, that this 5 year negotiations cycle is good for Geno, as it validates every rumor that we've heard for the past two years, makes it likely that he was in some kind of extended negotiation dating back to 2018, and I will concede that it can be viewed that way. My primary point against this is that we have no concrete proof that we heard anything about the Minecraft negotiations and it is foolish to believe that we got breadcrumbs for Geno from what are no doubt very well secured talks. A secondary counter to this argument is a more general one: if this is good news for Geno, then it's good news for every other character we've ever heard even the faintest whisper of, and it's good for characters who the public has never heard of. I think there are some people who take this point seriously, as we have for better or for worse, seen Ryu Hayabusa join the pantheon of possibility once again.
I don't consider this "good news". We know for a fact that there are 4 slots left, and I'm sure there's a whole lot of hope getting tossed around out there that they'll do some kind of bonus, individual DLC... But I don't see it happening. Sakurai has posted over and over about how he's worked on Smash exclusively for a decade at this point and honestly, if the man's got some idea festering in his head that Nintendo won't let him realize because they're making him direct Smash constantly, I don't blame him for wanting to be done with it. Nothing in the world is worse than having someone stop you from executing your ideas. I think the chances are high, like, 95% high, that Sakurai is blowing this popsicle stand as soon as Challenger Pack 11 goes gold. We have four characters left until the reboot of Smash Bros under a new director on the Switch 2, and when you have "valid" rumors for characters like Ryu Hayabusa, Crash Bandicoot, Master Chief... Geno's chances don't look so great in comparison. The odds aren't 1 in 4, it's 1 in hundreds, if not thousands of characters, rolled 4 times. That's my message here, is all.
Now then, onto Polar's list, a running tally of everything Geno "has going for him". Some stuff is super easy to write off, lots of fan rules that we knew were bull**** to begin with. I've taken a snipe at several of the things on it already, but I do want to touch on one thing that exists at the forefront of my mind: the Mii Costume List, aka "Mii Costume Guy", a leaker who provided a list of Mii costumes that were assumed to be coming with Hero, but ended up coming with Banjo, minus Sans.
Everyone in this thread knows about it, and some may even realize that this same leaker provided the spirits list for Terry, although it was misworded through alleged translation error that these spirits were also Mii costumes.
What some may not realize is that this leaker did not directly contact any of the sources we know this leak from, but instead this information came from a confidant, and more damningly, possibly came from a confidant of a confidant. The idea of leaks being a "game of telephone" has been brought up before, but in this particular case, it's about as relevant as it can get. I do not trust this Mii list, but when I bring up why, I am often told that this source has no reason to lie. I do not doubt the source of the mii list, I doubt the stops on the railroad from him to us. I have drawn this picture to help literally illustrate my issue: View attachment 289589
As you can see, I think that "Mii Costume Guy" had legitimate information that he passed off to a secondary source. This secondary source, then passed this information off to a handful of people he trusts... But one is a "bad actor", who simply wants to cause chaos. He gets something that he believes will be 100% real, adds things that are not real, and then passes them off to his own secondaries, and now here we are a full year later hinging on the final three costumes from an almost 100% correct list... Why doesn't this smell fishy to anyone else?
I hate to harp on this when our very own Fatmanonice has told me that Mii costume guy has multiple secondaries but I guess it's fair to say I'm not convinced. Maybe I'll never be convinced. Regardless of having multiple secondaries or even tertiaries, I've seen the evidence of one person down the pipes providing this particular list to a few other people and have not seen any evidence of these other proxies providing the same list. Compound this with the fact that I have good reason to believe I know who provided this list, which includes Mallow and Smithy, to the likes of Sabi and Papagenos, and the fact that Sabi (cursed be his name) said that this individual is a known troll, I really need one of these other proxies to come forward and say "yeah the list inclusive of Mallow and Smithy is as real as the day is long". This one individual isn't going to cut it for me because if there's anything I can agree with Sabi on, it's calling him a troll. I know a troll when I see one.
Next up, the GameStop video. This might be the most simplistic thing I have to say about anything on the list: I think the GameStop video was just a genuine poor choice of words. GameStop makes these videos for use in-store all the damn time and if you've spent any amount of time in a GameStop browsing their wears or waiting for a friend to get done with their shopping trip, you've heard them, and they are almost always full of some kind of misinformation or exaggeration, and this would be no exception. Upon being called out on it and finding out that this particular video had orders of magnitude more views on it than the rest of their in-store ads, whatever poor intern is in charge of GameStop's Youtube presence had to deal with this delicate situation, and they did so poorly. I don't blame them for the bad job, there's no way this was something they were trained to deal with, like I doubt social media manager orientation day had a whole section for "what happens if someone thinks we leaked something", and who knows, this person might have genuinely thought they had leaked something. All of the actions they took were textbook "this is above my paygrade but I'll try to do my job anyway", and as usual, we're reading just a bit too much into it.
Then we have my favorite contentious leak of all - Seven Squares. I basically touched on this already when I went on about what it means to only have four slots left, and these guys are constantly written off except for Geno.
First off, I understand where people are coming from. Crono feels pretty unlikely since the "Chrono" franchise seems to have died off a long while ago... But I need to turn our attention back to Cloud for this - Nomura insisted that Cloud was an old character and Sakurai wanted an icon. Sakurai got his icon. If Nintendo wanted to add Chrono Trigger to Smash, I think it's safe to say they would put Crono in regardless of his age or relevancy - this is one of the most popular SNES RPGs out there.
Then there's Sephiroth. There are only two arguments anyone has against him: No double dipping for the same third party franchise (total fan rule), and "muh sword too long", which according to actual Final Fantasy lore, Sephiroth's sword is like... Seven feet long. Cloud's is supposed to be six. Richter's whip is probably ten feet long and Min Min's arms are pushing fifteen, with the dragon laser I'd say she can cover 20 feet of space if not more. Let's also not forget that in canon, the Monado can project an absolutely massive beam and also doesn't hurt humans. Size does not matter in this instance, because if there's anything Ultimate has proven to us, Sakurai and his team are masters at game balance. The fact that we have a 77 character roster + echoes and they're all potentially tournament winners (take your comments about Little Mac somewhere else you heathen) is outstanding. Sephiroth could work with his sword even if it were as long as jokingly portrayed in popular media.
Then, finally, we have the list itself. There's little doubt anymore that it was a real list with real consequences, but it was cooked up in... Probably earlier than 2018. Who knows, it could stretch all the way back to 2015, but since it specifically listed Luminary, 2017 was probably a more likely time for it... So why would it still be relevant? We know for a fact that Square is working on Bravely Default 2 and very likely working on The World Ends With You 2... Do you think that these characters just don't stand a chance because they're not on a three year old list? Foolish. There are Square characters who stand a chance that aren't Geno is what I'm saying here, and it feels like this falls on deaf ears. I don't have to rely on some outlandish dog**** like Lara Croft or 2B, the threats to Geno are already on Nintendo consoles and getting sequels.
"But there aren't any rumors about them." And?
I'm leaving the spoiler here to just say that I'm not posting this because I want to watch everyone around me give up hope. You guys do whatever helps you make it through reality right now, and if that's shutting out evidence to the contrary, you do you... But what I do want to post this for is because the truth exists. Obviously, we can't claim the truth because it's a heavily guarded secret development build of Smash with fighters on the character select screen. The turth is a list of characters that Xander Moebus got and said their names about 5 different times for Nintendo's approval, before dousing that list in alcohol and setting it ablaze on a warm summer's night.
We can, however, get closer to the truth, and find a more true version of the lie we live by taking what we know and applying it to what we don't want to hear. When we look at it from the standpoint of how bad it might be for us, I believe we can trim the fat and find the things that actually do work for us - and who knows, with those few things made ironclad, I might even start believing again.
No popularly covered leaks managed to tell people about Joker, Banjo, Terry, or Byleth. Only Erdrick made it out (via Vergeben) and that too could have easily been a guess. Terry only started to get thrown around after Nintendo themselves leaked it, and Banjo was hinted maybe a day or two in advance.
Banjo was actually leaked a full week prior to his reveal, and even before that there was potential evidence springing up in his favor prior to that, such as the whole Duck Hunt glitch thing and the sudden increase in merchandise leading up to E3, most notable of which being the CableGuy figurine.
Short answer, we really don't. Sure, there are some out there who may think that, laws of averages and all that, but most of us don't take a lot of stock in what these ****ers think, and the fact that you seem to think we do says more about you than it does any of us.
We unfortunately look at these insiders, these industry people, and we see a sympathetic friend. Someone who, operating from the shadows, has our back and will deliver us the good news that some of us have waited nearly two decades for, but I think the sad reality is that these folks are just fans of a video game and maybe, get this, everything they say or joke about actually isn't a hint or a leak. I'll be the first to tell you that you can't trust them when they say they don't leak, but hanging on their every word is worthless.
Putting aside how blazingly homosexual this paragraph is, I'll have you know that, given what I've seen from these chuckle****s in the past, I trust them about as far as I can throw them, which as you could imagine is pretty difficult to do from all the way here in Canada.
I really doubt that these professionals with "jobs" would stoop so low as to just **** with a vocal fanbase of a Mario character getting into Smash (but then again, Andre is... dare I say, "unhinged" enough to compare Grinch leak believers to Trump supporters)
You'd be surprised. These disingenuous ******s spent several years sucking off a brown dude's **** only to turn on him the moment said brown dude shows his support for his friend who happens to be a cop, because it's now a political no-no to defend police for any reason or to have an outlook of the police that's anything but overwhelmingly negative. Politics is a hell of a drug.
Counterargument: It has been asserted, not only in this thread but on discord, that this 5 year negotiations cycle is good for Geno, as it validates every rumor that we've heard for the past two years, makes it likely that he was in some kind of extended negotiation dating back to 2018, and I will concede that it can be viewed that way.
I wouldn't go that far back. Given that we know that talks regarding Banjo began at E3 2018, and most of the more notable evidence didn't really crop up until around July 2019, I think it's more likely that, assuming he is coming, talks for Geno started around E3 2019.
My primary point against this is that we have no concrete proof that we heard anything about the Minecraft negotiations and it is foolish to believe that we got breadcrumbs for Geno from what are no doubt very well secured talks.
But that's the thing, nobody can control what or when stuff gets out, it just sort of happens. Just because we haven't heard anything about Minecraft coming to Smash specifically doesn't mean that we haven't, can't or won't hear anything about any characters, Geno or otherwise.
A secondary counter to this argument is a more general one: if this is good news for Geno, then it's good news for every other character we've ever heard even the faintest whisper of, and it's good for characters who the public has never heard of. I think there are some people who take this point seriously, as we have for better or for worse, seen Ryu Hayabusa join the pantheon of possibility once again.
I don't consider this "good news". We know for a fact that there are 4 slots left, and I'm sure there's a whole lot of hope getting tossed around out there that they'll do some kind of bonus, individual DLC... But I don't see it happening. Sakurai has posted over and over about how he's worked on Smash exclusively for a decade at this point and honestly, if the man's got some idea festering in his head that Nintendo won't let him realize because they're making him direct Smash constantly, I don't blame him for wanting to be done with it. Nothing in the world is worse than having someone stop you from executing your ideas. I think the chances are high, like, 95% high, that Sakurai is blowing this popsicle stand as soon as Challenger Pack 11 goes gold. We have four characters left until the reboot of Smash Bros under a new director on the Switch 2, and when you have "valid" rumors for characters like Ryu Hayabusa, Crash Bandicoot, Master Chief... Geno's chances don't look so great in comparison. The odds aren't 1 in 4, it's 1 in hundreds, if not thousands of characters, rolled 4 times. That's my message here, is all.
So... Geno is just one character out of a potential thousands of possible characters, so he's less likely? I mean technically that's correct, but that can be said about damn near every character so it's kind of a moot point. Also, just because names like Crash, Dante and even Ryu are also common in speculation and have "valid rumors" (read: muh relevancy, muh new game, muh new DLC, etc.) doesn't mean they're more likely to make it in. Case and point:
Of course it's possible that the list could've been added to it, I don't think anyone's going to deny that it's at the very least a possibility, but given how damn near everything else he's shared has been right:
The rest of the names on the list
Terry's Spirit Board (Note: These lists aren't specified to be anything when they're handed down, they're merely given as a list of names and some people had misinterpreted them)
Byleth's alt costumes and stage
I don't exactly fault people for trusting this guy's info.
Add fake names to this list to own the Genobros (because **** those guys in particular)
Send this new list to a couple of people in private
Wait until the legit Mii Costumes are proven right and one of them reveals the list publicly
Wait for over a year or two for everyone to mostly forget about the list and start doubting the remaining names
?????
Watch as your epic troll job reapes little rewards and pisses off probably only a couple of people out of potential hundreds of thousands
One of the biggest objective in trolling people is to make an impact. Ideally, you'd want to get as many people as you possibly can with as little effort as possible. If practically everybody forgets your epic troll op long before it ever pays off, then you've completely failed as a troll. I simply refuse to believe there's anyone out there who is that inept at trolling that they legitimately believed that this would work.
Again, I'm perfectly in agreement that it's possible it was just a slip-up, but I find it harder to believe that someone who's main job it is to run PR for a goddamn YouTube channel is that immensely incompetant at their job that they don't know how to clearly and consicely say "Yeah, we said something inaccurate, sorry for the confusion." without constantly changing, pinning and unpinning said comment several times in a way that makes it look like they're desparately trying to hide something.
Also, they went as far as to cut the Geno comment out of the in-store version of the video. If this was just a small slip-up that meant nothing, you'd think something minor like that would've been left well enough alone. Unless you're willing to tell me they were legitimately afraid normies would get confused about that comment while it shows his Spirit battle, and for some reason, despite editing the in-store version, decided not to take down the original version off their YouTube channel despite that being where this whole ordeal began.
Again, could be nothing, but comes off as incredibly suspect.
First off, I understand where people are coming from. Crono feels pretty unlikely since the "Chrono" franchise seems to have died off a long while ago... But I need to turn our attention back to Cloud for this - Nomura insisted that Cloud was an old character and Sakurai wanted an icon. Sakurai got his icon. If Nintendo wanted to add Chrono Trigger to Smash, I think it's safe to say they would put Crono in regardless of his age or relevancy - this is one of the most popular SNES RPGs out there.
That's a major false equivalency there. While Chrono Trigger is a fondly remembered and beloved RPG, Crono is nowhere near as iconic as Cloud is. Also, there aren't 15 sequels to that game wherein Sakurai would feel the need to insist on his use as opposed to the current effeminate pretty boy. But even if that is the case, that would make Geno just as likely as Crono, if not more so due to how Sakurai would be more willing to give the fans who they consistently demand?
Then there's Sephiroth. There are only two arguments anyone has against him: No double dipping for the same third party franchise (total fan rule), and "muh sword too long", which according to actual Final Fantasy lore, Sephiroth's sword is like... Seven feet long. Cloud's is supposed to be six. Richter's whip is probably ten feet long and Min Min's arms are pushing fifteen, with the dragon laser I'd say she can cover 20 feet of space if not more. Let's also not forget that in canon, the Monado can project an absolutely massive beam and also doesn't hurt humans. Size does not matter in this instance, because if there's anything Ultimate has proven to us, Sakurai and his team are masters at game balance. The fact that we have a 77 character roster + echoes and they're all potentially tournament winners (take your comments about Little Mac somewhere else you heathen) is outstanding. Sephiroth could work with his sword even if it were as long as jokingly portrayed in popular media.
Regarding point 1, I would hesitate to call this a fan rule. While it's fallacious to say that it's impossible for them to get a second character for an already represented third party franchise for Smash, so far it seems to be a somewhat reliable pattern that they'd prefer to add new third party characters rather than continually going back to the same wells, so much so that the only double-dipping we've ever got in this regard were Echo Fighters. Also, from all we've heard from insiders, as well as the amount of content available on offer, Final Fantasy in particular seems to be very difficult to negotiate for. Imran Khan has gone on record stating that EVERYONE IS HERE!! almost didn't happen because of how much of a cluster**** Final Fantasy is to negotiate for. If that's the case, Sephiroth seems even more unlikely.
Regarding point 2, while I'm well aware that Smash tends to play fast and loose with heights and measurements, it would really go against his design to not make Masamune about as long as he is tall. Speaking of, Sephiroth is a goddamn GIANT compared to Cloud, and I'm not just saying this because Cloud's a manlet or anything (though he is). 6-8 feet tall is nothing to sneeze at, and a guy who's at least one head taller than Cloud with a sword that's about as tall as he is is a balancing nightmare. Imagine Cloud but with much more range and power. That's ****ing terrifying to fight against. Also, you really seem to overstate how long Cloud's sword is. While from handle to tip it's about 5-6 feet, the actual blade itself is a lot shorter. Furthermore, Cloud's fighting style is a lot more reserved compared to Sephiroth, who really uses his sword's length to his advantage.
Then, finally, we have the list itself. There's little doubt anymore that it was a real list with real consequences, but it was cooked up in... Probably earlier than 2018. Who knows, it could stretch all the way back to 2015, but since it specifically listed Luminary, 2017 was probably a more likely time for it... So why would it still be relevant? We know for a fact that Square is working on Bravely Default 2 and very likely working on The World Ends With You 2... Do you think that these characters just don't stand a chance because they're not on a three year old list? Foolish. There are Square characters who stand a chance that aren't Geno is what I'm saying here, and it feels like this falls on deaf ears. I don't have to rely on some outlandish dog**** like Lara Croft or 2B, the threats to Geno are already on Nintendo consoles and getting sequels.
Firstly, nobody's saying that whatsoever. Secondly, a character having a new game/sequel/DLC does not mean they're now suddenly more likely to make it into Smash. Refer to the image I've linked above.
I would not lose hope on Geno, nothing has really changed besides the fact he wasn't 77, there are 4 slots left, and one of them is rightfully going to go to the wooden doll.
There's just a general fatigue because of how long the wait has been. We're two weeks away from the second anniversary of the debunking of the Grinch leak and, 'ope, Geno's the only one that hasn't had true closure yet. (Big ****in' surprise...) Everyone's tired and the looming of winter means that more people are going to get sick and depressed even if there wasn't a global pandemic so the wait will get harder for most people when its already been an awful year for most.
This is the kind of thing that I felt like would be best kept to discord as it is a subject of contention but the more I think and steam and stew, the more it feels like to me that not only is it necessary to get my thoughts out into a single cohesive post for the folks who may misinterpret them, but it's good to bring them to light in this thread so that the general public who may not be a part of our quaint discord community can ingest these ideas as well.
I will warn you, I am not a succinct person, I cannot summarize my thoughts eloquently into a few words. My thoughts on this matter are deep and complex and to attempt to present them in a way that is friendly to the lazy internet reader of 2020 makes them come across garbled and almost 100% of users who view those brief snips of this massive argument interpret them incorrectly. I'm sorry that you have to read all of this nonsense just to get a grasp for what's going through my head, but this is how it is. This post is going to be embarrassingly long, to the point that even now I honestly am already afraid to hit "post reply" simply because someone out there is going to look at this and say "this dude is taking this too seriously" or maybe even accuse me having some form of brain damage. To that, all I have to respond is "typing is fun" and "thinking is fun".
I'm spoilering nearly the whole post just to make sure that this doesn't blow up the page or something.
First, let me just start off by saying that I might exhibit some "opinions" in this post, which depending on my mood as I continue to write or the speed with which I chose to write, may even have some hyperbole mixed in. Some people call this "needless dooming" and they are probably right. Also, I know we've had trouble in the past with observations like this leading to or being part of some kind of thread derailing GameFAQs inspired raid, but please know that I am the very same Serenade who had extremely high hopes for Geno in this gamefirst DLC season second DLC season, and not some deep undercover troll or sleeper agent for those who would see this thread derailed.
I don't believe Geno's making it in anymore. I hope I get to eat my words and be pleasantly surprised at his inclusion, as I have always hoped, but I just don't believe it anymore. I think that a lot of "evidence" we've had to his inclusion has been coincidence at best. I want to thank @Polarthief for writing up his massive List™ for why Geno's in, but I will be using a fair bit of it today to explore the opposite.
So, why am I thinking this now? Some users may say that it's because I, like many others in this community, got psyched up to believe that without a doubt, Geno was Challenger 77, and I just can't deal with the reality that he was not. This is incorrect. Obviously, it would have been outstanding if Geno had been Fighter 77, first and foremost because I could stop worrying that he's not in, and in fact, stop giving a single **** about this whole nonsense. Obviously, we get the benefits of Seven stars, 77 all 7s jackpot etc etc fun memes good times, but really, it was just wishful thinking and I think deep down most people knew it was a situation too good to be true. I've pointed out (in my last few posts, no less) that Nintendo often fails to recognize what would be a good opportunity to any other company, either because their marketing team really is just that stupid, or they're playing such a high dimensional chess game that mortal minds could never comprehend it. To loosely quote myself from Discord not long ago, the part of me that is mad that Geno is not 77 is the same part of me that is mad that he's not 76 or even as far back as something like 22. I have made it clear as crystal that I have expected this character since Melee, a staggering number of years that amounts to the entire lifespan of many users on Smashboards as a whole and a good handful regular to this thread.
Naturally, the next logical conclusion is that it's because not only was 77 not Geno, but it was Steve, who I admit is probably the closest to a "least wanted" fighter I could have told you before his inclusion. I'm not like a lot of people who I guess want to save face or... something(?), I'm not going to change my tune just because Steve's in the game now. I never wanted him, he is still near bedrock in terms of characters I want to see in Smash if Ultimate ever gets a sequel. I hope this clown never returns. That said? I'm charmed by what they did with Steve and I think that, despite how unsightly he is, they managed to make a very cute character out of him. I love how he whips a bed out from nowhere to go to sleep, how his animations are just as *ty as they can possibly be, how he mines ****ing wool on Magicant, Endermanlet - I could probably go on for a while about all the things I like about this cubic abomination. It's not Steve. It's not Steve being 77. * 'em.
However, Steve brought with him quite a bit of baggage, and not all of it is his fault, but one of the major pieces of baggage is all on Steve:
It took 5 years of negotiations to bring Steve to Super Smash Bros.
Now, aside from the obvious frustrations I have with the idea that this somehow brings Vergeben back to relevancy (despite his claims being all over the place, proving that he had no knowledge of Steve at this time and was purely being contrarian because of fan demand for Banjo), this whole five year business puts Steve back in 2015... The beginning of Ultimate's development, maybe even late Smash 4 talk.
Theoretically speaking, this is evidence that we could have been one smooth business deal away from Minecraft Steve being in Smash Bros. before Banjo and ****ing Kazooie, Simon Belmont, Ridley, or King K. Rool. That's a horrifying timeline that even with as mind numbingly awful as this one has turned out to be I would not want to be part of.
All of that said, there's absolutely no proof that any rumor of Steve was based in the fact that he was being negotiated for 5 years. This is something that we learned from the kind of people who would have lost their damn jobs (in the best case scenario) for speaking a word of it before Steve's release, and there's little reason to believe this information fell into the hands of a two bit leaker like Vergeben or even anyone else who claimed to know that Minecraft Steve was coming to Smash, or even Minecraft. I think as far as provable information goes, it has always been a guess based on Minecraft's popularity and how quickly it came to Nintendo consoles despite being a Microsoft property as of 2014. For this reason, I think it's safe to say that Nintendo was able to keep negotiations for a character under wraps for half of a ****ing decade.
Let's take that information and look at some facts:
No popularly covered leaks managed to tell people about Joker, Banjo, Terry, or Byleth. Only Erdrick made it out (via Vergeben) and that too could have easily been a guess. Terry only started to get thrown around after Nintendo themselves leaked it, and Banjo was hinted maybe a day or two in advance. Fighter Pass 2 has been exactly the same, we have seen few leaks and hints get thrown around only a few days before the reveal... Except in Steve's case, we got a hint literally minutes before the reveal. The same as Byleth, if I remember correctly. There's a decent chance it would have been mere minutes for Min Min as well if Nintendo hadn't pissed around for three months "it's an ARMS fighter guys!", I mean hell, these folks had 12 characters to choose from so at some point you can leak whatever you want and call it an educated guess.
So, why then do we think that when these insiders brazenly speak Geno's name in public, they're doing so with any meat behind it? These people's asses would be a plaque in Doug Bowser's office for so shamelessly speaking the name of a Smash DLC fighter months before their official release.
Let's continue down the rabbit hole. The other baggage Steve brought that is not entirely his own is that according to my finest sources, Steve was heard. And ignored. Let that sink in. Does it sound familiar? It does to me, because in this very thread we heard about how Byleth was also heard, to the point that in this thread we were told about a Three Houses stage and Three Houses spirits but, due to some kind of dramatic oversight or absolute refusal to believe such a nightmare could happen, Byleth was ignored. I hope what I'm saying here makes sense - we have at least two instances of characters that had either been floated around among insiders or possibly outright known, but matters of personal bias or something similar made those names never seriously make it out to the public. Do we hear Geno from sources who don't have a dog in the Geno race? Imran sure seems like he kinda likes Geno, Jeff Grubb has the same air about him, supposedly having played Mario RPG recently and having become obsessed with it. This even applies to Jon Gamexplain Nintendolife and Andre Gamexplain, both of whom seem to have at least a passive care for Geno/SMRPG. We unfortunately look at these insiders, these industry people, and we see a sympathetic friend. Someone who, operating from the shadows, has our back and will deliver us the good news that some of us have waited nearly two decades for, but I think the sad reality is that these folks are just fans of a video game and maybe, get this, everything they say or joke about actually isn't a hint or a leak. I'll be the first to tell you that you can't trust them when they say they don't leak, but hanging on their every word is worthless.
I ask this and point this out because there's a very real chance that Geno rumors are circulated and live because people genuinely want it to be Geno. It's foolish of me to say that these guys are dunking on us because we're the Geno fanbase and dunking on us is socially acceptable (although it's true) - I really doubt that these professionals with "jobs" would stoop so low as to just **** with a vocal fanbase of a Mario character getting into Smash (but then again, Andre is... dare I say, "unhinged" enough to compare Grinch leak believers to Trump supporters), but if they know facts about a fan favorite, highly requested Mario character getting into the game, maybe someone who has a two decade long legacy who has been poorly represented in Smash for several iterations, who was in a somewhat popular Brawl mod that just recently got a Cease and Desist order, their fan brain tells them Geno but they miss the Waluigi for the trees.
Counterargument: It has been asserted, not only in this thread but on discord, that this 5 year negotiations cycle is good for Geno, as it validates every rumor that we've heard for the past two years, makes it likely that he was in some kind of extended negotiation dating back to 2018, and I will concede that it can be viewed that way. My primary point against this is that we have no concrete proof that we heard anything about the Minecraft negotiations and it is foolish to believe that we got breadcrumbs for Geno from what are no doubt very well secured talks. A secondary counter to this argument is a more general one: if this is good news for Geno, then it's good news for every other character we've ever heard even the faintest whisper of, and it's good for characters who the public has never heard of. I think there are some people who take this point seriously, as we have for better or for worse, seen Ryu Hayabusa join the pantheon of possibility once again.
I don't consider this "good news". We know for a fact that there are 4 slots left, and I'm sure there's a whole lot of hope getting tossed around out there that they'll do some kind of bonus, individual DLC... But I don't see it happening. Sakurai has posted over and over about how he's worked on Smash exclusively for a decade at this point and honestly, if the man's got some idea festering in his head that Nintendo won't let him realize because they're making him direct Smash constantly, I don't blame him for wanting to be done with it. Nothing in the world is worse than having someone stop you from executing your ideas. I think the chances are high, like, 95% high, that Sakurai is blowing this popsicle stand as soon as Challenger Pack 11 goes gold. We have four characters left until the reboot of Smash Bros under a new director on the Switch 2, and when you have "valid" rumors for characters like Ryu Hayabusa, Crash Bandicoot, Master Chief... Geno's chances don't look so great in comparison. The odds aren't 1 in 4, it's 1 in hundreds, if not thousands of characters, rolled 4 times. That's my message here, is all.
Now then, onto Polar's list, a running tally of everything Geno "has going for him". Some stuff is super easy to write off, lots of fan rules that we knew were bull**** to begin with. I've taken a snipe at several of the things on it already, but I do want to touch on one thing that exists at the forefront of my mind: the Mii Costume List, aka "Mii Costume Guy", a leaker who provided a list of Mii costumes that were assumed to be coming with Hero, but ended up coming with Banjo, minus Sans.
Everyone in this thread knows about it, and some may even realize that this same leaker provided the spirits list for Terry, although it was misworded through alleged translation error that these spirits were also Mii costumes.
What some may not realize is that this leaker did not directly contact any of the sources we know this leak from, but instead this information came from a confidant, and more damningly, possibly came from a confidant of a confidant. The idea of leaks being a "game of telephone" has been brought up before, but in this particular case, it's about as relevant as it can get. I do not trust this Mii list, but when I bring up why, I am often told that this source has no reason to lie. I do not doubt the source of the mii list, I doubt the stops on the railroad from him to us. I have drawn this picture to help literally illustrate my issue: View attachment 289589
As you can see, I think that "Mii Costume Guy" had legitimate information that he passed off to a secondary source. This secondary source, then passed this information off to a handful of people he trusts... But one is a "bad actor", who simply wants to cause chaos. He gets something that he believes will be 100% real, adds things that are not real, and then passes them off to his own secondaries, and now here we are a full year later hinging on the final three costumes from an almost 100% correct list... Why doesn't this smell fishy to anyone else?
I hate to harp on this when our very own Fatmanonice has told me that Mii costume guy has multiple secondaries but I guess it's fair to say I'm not convinced. Maybe I'll never be convinced. Regardless of having multiple secondaries or even tertiaries, I've seen the evidence of one person down the pipes providing this particular list to a few other people and have not seen any evidence of these other proxies providing the same list. Compound this with the fact that I have good reason to believe I know who provided this list, which includes Mallow and Smithy, to the likes of Sabi and Papagenos, and the fact that Sabi (cursed be his name) said that this individual is a known troll, I really need one of these other proxies to come forward and say "yeah the list inclusive of Mallow and Smithy is as real as the day is long". This one individual isn't going to cut it for me because if there's anything I can agree with Sabi on, it's calling him a troll. I know a troll when I see one.
Next up, the GameStop video. This might be the most simplistic thing I have to say about anything on the list: I think the GameStop video was just a genuine poor choice of words. GameStop makes these videos for use in-store all the damn time and if you've spent any amount of time in a GameStop browsing their wears or waiting for a friend to get done with their shopping trip, you've heard them, and they are almost always full of some kind of misinformation or exaggeration, and this would be no exception. Upon being called out on it and finding out that this particular video had orders of magnitude more views on it than the rest of their in-store ads, whatever poor intern is in charge of GameStop's Youtube presence had to deal with this delicate situation, and they did so poorly. I don't blame them for the bad job, there's no way this was something they were trained to deal with, like I doubt social media manager orientation day had a whole section for "what happens if someone thinks we leaked something", and who knows, this person might have genuinely thought they had leaked something. All of the actions they took were textbook "this is above my paygrade but I'll try to do my job anyway", and as usual, we're reading just a bit too much into it.
Then we have my favorite contentious leak of all - Seven Squares. I basically touched on this already when I went on about what it means to only have four slots left, and these guys are constantly written off except for Geno.
First off, I understand where people are coming from. Crono feels pretty unlikely since the "Chrono" franchise seems to have died off a long while ago... But I need to turn our attention back to Cloud for this - Nomura insisted that Cloud was an old character and Sakurai wanted an icon. Sakurai got his icon. If Nintendo wanted to add Chrono Trigger to Smash, I think it's safe to say they would put Crono in regardless of his age or relevancy - this is one of the most popular SNES RPGs out there.
Then there's Sephiroth. There are only two arguments anyone has against him: No double dipping for the same third party franchise (total fan rule), and "muh sword too long", which according to actual Final Fantasy lore, Sephiroth's sword is like... Seven feet long. Cloud's is supposed to be six. Richter's whip is probably ten feet long and Min Min's arms are pushing fifteen, with the dragon laser I'd say she can cover 20 feet of space if not more. Let's also not forget that in canon, the Monado can project an absolutely massive beam and also doesn't hurt humans. Size does not matter in this instance, because if there's anything Ultimate has proven to us, Sakurai and his team are masters at game balance. The fact that we have a 77 character roster + echoes and they're all potentially tournament winners (take your comments about Little Mac somewhere else you heathen) is outstanding. Sephiroth could work with his sword even if it were as long as jokingly portrayed in popular media.
Then, finally, we have the list itself. There's little doubt anymore that it was a real list with real consequences, but it was cooked up in... Probably earlier than 2018. Who knows, it could stretch all the way back to 2015, but since it specifically listed Luminary, 2017 was probably a more likely time for it... So why would it still be relevant? We know for a fact that Square is working on Bravely Default 2 and very likely working on The World Ends With You 2... Do you think that these characters just don't stand a chance because they're not on a three year old list? Foolish. There are Square characters who stand a chance that aren't Geno is what I'm saying here, and it feels like this falls on deaf ears. I don't have to rely on some outlandish dog**** like Lara Croft or 2B, the threats to Geno are already on Nintendo consoles and getting sequels.
"But there aren't any rumors about them." And?
I'm leaving the spoiler here to just say that I'm not posting this because I want to watch everyone around me give up hope. You guys do whatever helps you make it through reality right now, and if that's shutting out evidence to the contrary, you do you... But what I do want to post this for is because the truth exists. Obviously, we can't claim the truth because it's a heavily guarded secret development build of Smash with fighters on the character select screen. The turth is a list of characters that Xander Moebus got and said their names about 5 different times for Nintendo's approval, before dousing that list in alcohol and setting it ablaze on a warm summer's night.
We can, however, get closer to the truth, and find a more true version of the lie we live by taking what we know and applying it to what we don't want to hear. When we look at it from the standpoint of how bad it might be for us, I believe we can trim the fat and find the things that actually do work for us - and who knows, with those few things made ironclad, I might even start believing again.
I'm sorry you've lost hope man. I did take the time to read through your thoughts and what frightens me is that I share a lot of them. I've been saying forever that everything pointing to Geno is circumstantial and honestly there is a lot of "seeing what we want to see". I also don't think this fanbase is naive or anything like that either though (I don't think you are either btw). It's just hard to nail down what information is truthfully suspect or valid. I do think this fanbase does a fantastic job trying to assess the validity of things from a more objective view for the most part but the "facts" we have to work with are too unreliable.
Reading your thoughts hasn't made me give up hope. As you basically pointed out Geno's chances are not 1 in 4 but 1 in hundreds or thousands and that means he still has a chance and that's good enough for me personally. Really what all this has boiled down to is: are you one of the chosen few called upon by Nintendo? Does Geno have what it takes to get on Nintendo's radar? The answer is pretty clearly: maybe? But the likelihood isn't really higher than that of them picking other characters even from SE (or Mario) as you pointed out. I choose to have hope that the answer is yes not because I refuse to acknowledge facts or because of bias but just because I can handle being wrong and I would rather have hope and end up being wrong than spend my time being hopeless and being right but I understand feeling/choosing the opposite.
One thing I want to point out too is that we've been referencing Banjo as a good sign for Geno all this time while simultaneously many of us believed that Banjo was basically going to be a stepping stone for another Microsoft character and that turned out to be the case with Steve. Which is big bad news for Geno. Geno missed his chance to be a stepping stone. So the only real fan demand characters in these passes are Banjo who was just a stepping stone and arguably Steve who is from the biggest game ever. Yeah that does not look good for Geno as he cannot hope to compete with that. Counterargument to that is that it would require Nintendo to actually keep to any sort of patterns which we know is not to their taste so it's still really anyone's game. I just wanted to highlight that Banjo isn't necessarily good news for Geno anymore and Banjo was kind of one of our major arguments for Geno.
I am worried that Waluigi will be the big fanpick if there is a Mario-related reveal around the tournament. Not because I don't like or want Waluigi but just because it would probably totally deflate my hope in Geno. Until then, though I'll keep on hoping. Honestly if it is Waluigi I can respect that and he would probably at least get me to buy the pass finally. Chances are it will be someone unrelated to Mario that I don't care about like Monster Hunter.
At any rate I hope you're wrong about Geno not being in not so I can rub it in your face (well maybe a little) but so that we can celebrate together. I know it's a pain to try and transfer thoughts to text sometimes so I appreciate you doing so and hopefully I understood and reflected on your thoughts appropriately.
This year has been rough on everyone, and even the Smash community has had a lot of speedbumps throughout 2020. Many professional players have been rightfully outed for their disgusting acts and that stigma hasn't left and probably never will, there's reason to assume that the pandemic has severely affected Nintendo's pace, and them drip-feeding us news doesn't help matters one bit. And for us Geno supporters specifically, it feels like the finish line has been yanked away from us this year more times than any other year.
But there will be brighter days. And we're going to see them together. We just need to keep picking up the pieces and trucking on.
Wait, wasn't there some talk about how a Insider or two thought Geno in Smash wouldn't happen, but that a SMRPG Remake will happen?
Like if Geno really isn't in, and It really is just a wait for the Costume, it's because they want to use him in an Game before committing to Him in Smash (As DLC no Less). After all, Considering Geno still only made 1 apperance over 2 Decades ago and he is from a Represented Franchise with 9 Characters already, it could be a risk to put him in, Despite his Fan Demand. It could Kinda be like Isaac's Sitution where even if he's not in FP2, the Heavily Rumored comeback of Golden Sun could be a Key in securing a Spot in Smash in the future
Of course that's if Geno isn't Chosen as Playable. I still think it's likely Geno is a DLC character. have to see though
We can’t give up. Our resiliency will take us through! Geno will be in this game! We got Ridley, K. Rool, the Belmonts, Banjo freakin Kazooie! And we got Hero which means more Square content! Add Geno’s stockpile of evidence! Resiliency defines this fan base.
Having only one game that was released 10+ years ago is the situation the Ice Climbers were in, though. The same thing goes for Pit, really, and he's actually a better example - he had like two games from ages ago when he was put in Brawl- but, like many people have pointed out, before, Smash has this ability to resurrect and empower whatever it touches, and as soon as Pit got in, the Kid Icarus brand was revived and brought into the new age, and is now likely much more popular and doing better than it ever did back then (there not being an Uprising follow-up aside).
Smash doesn't or at least shouldn't have to wait for characters to be popular or have new games before putting them in - Smash makes characters popular and gives them new games.
I think Because More People would be Willing to buy a Brand New Smash game that has New Content like New Modes, Graphic Updates, Upgrades to Gameplay, Along with New Characters, than to Keep buying the DLC. After all Smash Ultimate could start getting Stale, and it would be very Expensive to buy all the DLC. 3 Season Passes would cost more than 60-70 Dollars, with not as much people buying into it as people start buying less DLC the longer a game goes on. It doesn't help that SMash is a $60 Game that rarely goes on Sale because Nintendo, not a Free-to-Play Game like Fortnite and League of Legends
People support fighting games, for years, look at Street Fighter 5 or MK11. Every time someone is added it generates new interest in Ultimate and adding Steve broke Twitter, so, yeah there's no chance it'll get stale or that people are going to lose interest anytime soon.
In terms of expenses, I don't think that matters. The fact that Steve alone is in this game now brings a whole new set of eyes to Smash. If people want something they'll pay for it.
Thinking Geno isn't in because he wasn't 77 is like saying Banjo isn't in because he wasn't in base game, or Steve isn't in because he wasn't in Fighter's Pass Volume 1.
It's very silly dismissing everything because he wasn't as soon as many people expected/hoped.
Think about it like this...
-Is he still a Mii? No.
-Has any other Square rep taken his spot? No.
-Is it December 2021 and everyone is reveal and there is no Geno? No.
Things still look bright and I would not bother looking at people who are now having extreme doubts or people who just want to downplay Geno for the **** of it because that'll just make you stressed more then needed.
Having only one game that was released 10+ years ago is the situation the Ice Climbers were in, though. The same thing goes for Pit, really, and he's actually a better example - he had like two games from ages ago when he was put in Brawl- but, like many people have pointed out, before, Smash has this ability to resurrect and empower whatever it touches, and as soon as Pit got in, the Kid Icarus brand was revived and brought into the new age, and is now likely much more popular and doing better than it ever did back then (there not being an Uprising follow-up aside).
Smash doesn't or at least shouldn't have to wait for characters to be popular or have new games before putting them in - Smash makes characters popular and gives them new games.
In this Situation though, Geno is more risky than Putting in Pit and Ice Climbers since
-This is DLC. Pit and Ice Climbers came along with an Entire Game, Games that had Newcomers like Sonic, Snake, Wario, and others, and Newcomers like Bowser, Peach, Zelda, and others. DLC is Separate from an entire Game, and the Character has to sell themselves
-Geno Also is from Already Represented Franchise that has 9 Characters. Granted Mario is big, but even then, Geno is part of the more niche side of the Mario Franchise.
The good thing about Geno though is that he's had a Build up of Fan demand for awhile now. Geno is Kinda (Emphasis on Kinda) Iconic and has a legacy for being wanted For Smash, so he kinda transcended His Game, without the need for Advertisement no less. I also think it's good that we have a Character like Steve in the Pass, since Steve is the character that the Casuals Smash Players (and even some hardcore Players) could flock too, and even get them to buy the entire Pass or so. Steve is the Type of character that appeals to all audiences, so from here on out Characters could appeal to Niches separately, Geno included
But that doesn't mean putting in Geno is still not Risky. And I still think he's likely at the end of the day, But I could see a Scenario that Geno still misses an Inclusion in ultimate, but SMRPG Remake could be the Build up for his Popularity outside of Smash and Relevance, and that gives him some Priority in the future
People support fighting games, for years, look at Street Fighter 5 or MK11. Every time someone is added it generates new interest in Ultimate and adding broke Twitter, so, yeah there's no chance it'll get stale or that people are going to lose interest anytime soon.
In terms of expenses, I don't think that matters. The fact that Steve alone is in this game now brings a whole new set of eyes to Smash. If people want something they'll pay for it.
I do think the Expenses matter. That's why When MK11 Comes out with New DLC, they usually release a "Complete" edition of the game (even if it's not Complete in the Long run) to Incentivize more Purchases, and how SFV Champion edition is only $25-$30. If Smash releases packages like that it would be better, but I don't know
Smash Ultimate could get away with more season Passes. I just think that honestly, Better effort would be spent Making a New game for the Next Console (or Next Switch Model that has Substantial Upgrades). They could do whatever though
Speaking of the Grinch Leak, still think that's gotta be the greatest fake leak of all time. Cacomallow would be pretty good too if that turns out to be fake (I mean getting the physics down would be wild), but the Grinch Leak just being able to have all these coincidences line up perfectly. The internet buzz was wild, too. Still wish we got a confirmation on who made it, cuz using an actual printing company was genius.
Weirdly enough a huge thing about that leak was that it was a Banjo vs. Steve situation and both ended up making it through. Vividly, I remember the anti and pro-Steve fans were out in full force. The fact that that was two years ago and Steve FINALLY made it is crazy. The timeline where everything happened is still really up in the air for the last 4 characters.
Wait, wasn't there some talk about how a Insider or two thought Geno in Smash wouldn't happen, but that a SMRPG Remake will happen?
Like if Geno really isn't in, and It really is just a wait for the Costume, it's because they want to use him in an Game before committing to Him in Smash (As DLC no Less). After all, Considering Geno still only made 1 apperance over 2 Decades ago and he is from a Represented Franchise with 9 Characters already, it could be a risk to put him in, Despite his Fan Demand. It could Kinda be like Isaac's Sitution where even if he's not in FP2, the Heavily Rumored comeback of Golden Sun could be a Key in securing a Spot in Smash in the future
Of course that's if Geno isn't Chosen as Playable. I still think it's likely Geno is a DLC character. have to see though
It was just the Insider's Opinion apprantly. Fatman said that one of his Asscioates or something said he didn't think Geno in Smash would happen, but that the SMRPG Remake or Sequel was a Real thing.
It was just the Insider's Opinion apprantly. Fatman said that one of his Asscioates or something said he didn't think Geno in Smash would happen, but that the SMRPG Remake or Sequel was a Real thing.
Almost everyone else who has heard of the remake/sequel has said he's in.
It's a matter of his opinion and I would not take that at face value because he's going to be wrong.
Him being number 77 was just a funny timing bonus, not his ultimate fate. It would have been a goofy coincidence note on his TV Trope page, that's all.
So I'm not getting pessimistic for him not because he misses 77, but because he missed another spot. Now there's only 4 left, and with Steve's long prep time reveal bringing back speculation of various characters we thought were done, that crowd vying for those 4 spots just grew.
If his costume came back with 8 or later, and it was always planned from day 1 for him to be a costume and nothing more, I'm going to be pissed. Not because that he's deconfirmed (that's disappointment), but how they held back that costume for two ******* years or more. Why? If he's really just a costume, then release him already damn it! At least let me enjoy that while Ultimate's life cycle is still going. To leave his costume fate this delayed is just a **** move to be honest.
Almost everyone else who has heard of the remake/sequel has said he's in.
It's a matter of his opinion and I would not take that at face value because he's going to be wrong.
I Know Rogersbase has Corroborated the Remake, and he Thinks Geno is in Smash.
I don't remember anyone else who corroborated the SMRPG Remake saying anything on the Subject of Geno being in Smash, though that's because the Discussions were like a month ago, so I actually don't remember
It was just the Insider's Opinion apprantly. Fatman said that one of his Asscioates or something said he didn't think Geno in Smash would happen, but that the SMRPG Remake or Sequel was a Real thing.
For those who have seemingly given up hope for Geno getting in,
I wouldn't lose all hope until the end of the Second Pass. We have been campaigning for this character for years now. It would make no sense to give up now while there's still 4 characters left.
In case anyone is giving up on Geno don't need to. The mii costume was confirmed to not be returning again and that is a large piece of evidence in and of itself from a couple weeks ago. We are not getting the next fighter anytime soon unfortunately (November really isn't happening it's just blind faith way too much in fact if that's seen as plausible let alone likely, there and we are probably getting it in January) but Geno has so much stuff going for him. I know it's super cliche but it really does seem like only a couple more months. Banjo was the fan favourite previously and was slapbang in the middle. That same logic can be applied to Geno at either 8 or 9 which are obviously the next 2. It really shouldn't be long but moreso in terms of how many packs we have to wait as we are probably waiting until January for the next character. But if Geno is 8 then January certainly isn't long
This is the kind of thing that I felt like would be best kept to discord as it is a subject of contention but the more I think and steam and stew, the more it feels like to me that not only is it necessary to get my thoughts out into a single cohesive post for the folks who may misinterpret them, but it's good to bring them to light in this thread so that the general public who may not be a part of our quaint discord community can ingest these ideas as well.
I will warn you, I am not a succinct person, I cannot summarize my thoughts eloquently into a few words. My thoughts on this matter are deep and complex and to attempt to present them in a way that is friendly to the lazy internet reader of 2020 makes them come across garbled and almost 100% of users who view those brief snips of this massive argument interpret them incorrectly. I'm sorry that you have to read all of this nonsense just to get a grasp for what's going through my head, but this is how it is. This post is going to be embarrassingly long, to the point that even now I honestly am already afraid to hit "post reply" simply because someone out there is going to look at this and say "this dude is taking this too seriously" or maybe even accuse me having some form of brain damage. To that, all I have to respond is "typing is fun" and "thinking is fun".
I'm spoilering nearly the whole post just to make sure that this doesn't blow up the page or something.
First, let me just start off by saying that I might exhibit some "opinions" in this post, which depending on my mood as I continue to write or the speed with which I chose to write, may even have some hyperbole mixed in. Some people call this "needless dooming" and they are probably right. Also, I know we've had trouble in the past with observations like this leading to or being part of some kind of thread derailing GameFAQs inspired raid, but please know that I am the very same Serenade who had extremely high hopes for Geno in this gamefirst DLC season second DLC season, and not some deep undercover troll or sleeper agent for those who would see this thread derailed.
I don't believe Geno's making it in anymore. I hope I get to eat my words and be pleasantly surprised at his inclusion, as I have always hoped, but I just don't believe it anymore. I think that a lot of "evidence" we've had to his inclusion has been coincidence at best. I want to thank @Polarthief for writing up his massive List™ for why Geno's in, but I will be using a fair bit of it today to explore the opposite.
So, why am I thinking this now? Some users may say that it's because I, like many others in this community, got psyched up to believe that without a doubt, Geno was Challenger 77, and I just can't deal with the reality that he was not. This is incorrect. Obviously, it would have been outstanding if Geno had been Fighter 77, first and foremost because I could stop worrying that he's not in, and in fact, stop giving a single **** about this whole nonsense. Obviously, we get the benefits of Seven stars, 77 all 7s jackpot etc etc fun memes good times, but really, it was just wishful thinking and I think deep down most people knew it was a situation too good to be true. I've pointed out (in my last few posts, no less) that Nintendo often fails to recognize what would be a good opportunity to any other company, either because their marketing team really is just that stupid, or they're playing such a high dimensional chess game that mortal minds could never comprehend it. To loosely quote myself from Discord not long ago, the part of me that is mad that Geno is not 77 is the same part of me that is mad that he's not 76 or even as far back as something like 22. I have made it clear as crystal that I have expected this character since Melee, a staggering number of years that amounts to the entire lifespan of many users on Smashboards as a whole and a good handful regular to this thread.
Naturally, the next logical conclusion is that it's because not only was 77 not Geno, but it was Steve, who I admit is probably the closest to a "least wanted" fighter I could have told you before his inclusion. I'm not like a lot of people who I guess want to save face or... something(?), I'm not going to change my tune just because Steve's in the game now. I never wanted him, he is still near bedrock in terms of characters I want to see in Smash if Ultimate ever gets a sequel. I hope this clown never returns. That said? I'm charmed by what they did with Steve and I think that, despite how unsightly he is, they managed to make a very cute character out of him. I love how he whips a bed out from nowhere to go to sleep, how his animations are just as *ty as they can possibly be, how he mines ****ing wool on Magicant, Endermanlet - I could probably go on for a while about all the things I like about this cubic abomination. It's not Steve. It's not Steve being 77. * 'em.
However, Steve brought with him quite a bit of baggage, and not all of it is his fault, but one of the major pieces of baggage is all on Steve:
It took 5 years of negotiations to bring Steve to Super Smash Bros.
Now, aside from the obvious frustrations I have with the idea that this somehow brings Vergeben back to relevancy (despite his claims being all over the place, proving that he had no knowledge of Steve at this time and was purely being contrarian because of fan demand for Banjo), this whole five year business puts Steve back in 2015... The beginning of Ultimate's development, maybe even late Smash 4 talk.
Theoretically speaking, this is evidence that we could have been one smooth business deal away from Minecraft Steve being in Smash Bros. before Banjo and ****ing Kazooie, Simon Belmont, Ridley, or King K. Rool. That's a horrifying timeline that even with as mind numbingly awful as this one has turned out to be I would not want to be part of.
All of that said, there's absolutely no proof that any rumor of Steve was based in the fact that he was being negotiated for 5 years. This is something that we learned from the kind of people who would have lost their damn jobs (in the best case scenario) for speaking a word of it before Steve's release, and there's little reason to believe this information fell into the hands of a two bit leaker like Vergeben or even anyone else who claimed to know that Minecraft Steve was coming to Smash, or even Minecraft. I think as far as provable information goes, it has always been a guess based on Minecraft's popularity and how quickly it came to Nintendo consoles despite being a Microsoft property as of 2014. For this reason, I think it's safe to say that Nintendo was able to keep negotiations for a character under wraps for half of a ****ing decade.
Let's take that information and look at some facts:
No popularly covered leaks managed to tell people about Joker, Banjo, Terry, or Byleth. Only Erdrick made it out (via Vergeben) and that too could have easily been a guess. Terry only started to get thrown around after Nintendo themselves leaked it, and Banjo was hinted maybe a day or two in advance. Fighter Pass 2 has been exactly the same, we have seen few leaks and hints get thrown around only a few days before the reveal... Except in Steve's case, we got a hint literally minutes before the reveal. The same as Byleth, if I remember correctly. There's a decent chance it would have been mere minutes for Min Min as well if Nintendo hadn't pissed around for three months "it's an ARMS fighter guys!", I mean hell, these folks had 12 characters to choose from so at some point you can leak whatever you want and call it an educated guess.
So, why then do we think that when these insiders brazenly speak Geno's name in public, they're doing so with any meat behind it? These people's asses would be a plaque in Doug Bowser's office for so shamelessly speaking the name of a Smash DLC fighter months before their official release.
Let's continue down the rabbit hole. The other baggage Steve brought that is not entirely his own is that according to my finest sources, Steve was heard. And ignored. Let that sink in. Does it sound familiar? It does to me, because in this very thread we heard about how Byleth was also heard, to the point that in this thread we were told about a Three Houses stage and Three Houses spirits but, due to some kind of dramatic oversight or absolute refusal to believe such a nightmare could happen, Byleth was ignored. I hope what I'm saying here makes sense - we have at least two instances of characters that had either been floated around among insiders or possibly outright known, but matters of personal bias or something similar made those names never seriously make it out to the public. Do we hear Geno from sources who don't have a dog in the Geno race? Imran sure seems like he kinda likes Geno, Jeff Grubb has the same air about him, supposedly having played Mario RPG recently and having become obsessed with it. This even applies to Jon Gamexplain Nintendolife and Andre Gamexplain, both of whom seem to have at least a passive care for Geno/SMRPG. We unfortunately look at these insiders, these industry people, and we see a sympathetic friend. Someone who, operating from the shadows, has our back and will deliver us the good news that some of us have waited nearly two decades for, but I think the sad reality is that these folks are just fans of a video game and maybe, get this, everything they say or joke about actually isn't a hint or a leak. I'll be the first to tell you that you can't trust them when they say they don't leak, but hanging on their every word is worthless.
I ask this and point this out because there's a very real chance that Geno rumors are circulated and live because people genuinely want it to be Geno. It's foolish of me to say that these guys are dunking on us because we're the Geno fanbase and dunking on us is socially acceptable (although it's true) - I really doubt that these professionals with "jobs" would stoop so low as to just **** with a vocal fanbase of a Mario character getting into Smash (but then again, Andre is... dare I say, "unhinged" enough to compare Grinch leak believers to Trump supporters), but if they know facts about a fan favorite, highly requested Mario character getting into the game, maybe someone who has a two decade long legacy who has been poorly represented in Smash for several iterations, who was in a somewhat popular Brawl mod that just recently got a Cease and Desist order, their fan brain tells them Geno but they miss the Waluigi for the trees.
Counterargument: It has been asserted, not only in this thread but on discord, that this 5 year negotiations cycle is good for Geno, as it validates every rumor that we've heard for the past two years, makes it likely that he was in some kind of extended negotiation dating back to 2018, and I will concede that it can be viewed that way. My primary point against this is that we have no concrete proof that we heard anything about the Minecraft negotiations and it is foolish to believe that we got breadcrumbs for Geno from what are no doubt very well secured talks. A secondary counter to this argument is a more general one: if this is good news for Geno, then it's good news for every other character we've ever heard even the faintest whisper of, and it's good for characters who the public has never heard of. I think there are some people who take this point seriously, as we have for better or for worse, seen Ryu Hayabusa join the pantheon of possibility once again.
I don't consider this "good news". We know for a fact that there are 4 slots left, and I'm sure there's a whole lot of hope getting tossed around out there that they'll do some kind of bonus, individual DLC... But I don't see it happening. Sakurai has posted over and over about how he's worked on Smash exclusively for a decade at this point and honestly, if the man's got some idea festering in his head that Nintendo won't let him realize because they're making him direct Smash constantly, I don't blame him for wanting to be done with it. Nothing in the world is worse than having someone stop you from executing your ideas. I think the chances are high, like, 95% high, that Sakurai is blowing this popsicle stand as soon as Challenger Pack 11 goes gold. We have four characters left until the reboot of Smash Bros under a new director on the Switch 2, and when you have "valid" rumors for characters like Ryu Hayabusa, Crash Bandicoot, Master Chief... Geno's chances don't look so great in comparison. The odds aren't 1 in 4, it's 1 in hundreds, if not thousands of characters, rolled 4 times. That's my message here, is all.
Now then, onto Polar's list, a running tally of everything Geno "has going for him". Some stuff is super easy to write off, lots of fan rules that we knew were bull**** to begin with. I've taken a snipe at several of the things on it already, but I do want to touch on one thing that exists at the forefront of my mind: the Mii Costume List, aka "Mii Costume Guy", a leaker who provided a list of Mii costumes that were assumed to be coming with Hero, but ended up coming with Banjo, minus Sans.
Everyone in this thread knows about it, and some may even realize that this same leaker provided the spirits list for Terry, although it was misworded through alleged translation error that these spirits were also Mii costumes.
What some may not realize is that this leaker did not directly contact any of the sources we know this leak from, but instead this information came from a confidant, and more damningly, possibly came from a confidant of a confidant. The idea of leaks being a "game of telephone" has been brought up before, but in this particular case, it's about as relevant as it can get. I do not trust this Mii list, but when I bring up why, I am often told that this source has no reason to lie. I do not doubt the source of the mii list, I doubt the stops on the railroad from him to us. I have drawn this picture to help literally illustrate my issue: View attachment 289589
As you can see, I think that "Mii Costume Guy" had legitimate information that he passed off to a secondary source. This secondary source, then passed this information off to a handful of people he trusts... But one is a "bad actor", who simply wants to cause chaos. He gets something that he believes will be 100% real, adds things that are not real, and then passes them off to his own secondaries, and now here we are a full year later hinging on the final three costumes from an almost 100% correct list... Why doesn't this smell fishy to anyone else?
I hate to harp on this when our very own Fatmanonice has told me that Mii costume guy has multiple secondaries but I guess it's fair to say I'm not convinced. Maybe I'll never be convinced. Regardless of having multiple secondaries or even tertiaries, I've seen the evidence of one person down the pipes providing this particular list to a few other people and have not seen any evidence of these other proxies providing the same list. Compound this with the fact that I have good reason to believe I know who provided this list, which includes Mallow and Smithy, to the likes of Sabi and Papagenos, and the fact that Sabi (cursed be his name) said that this individual is a known troll, I really need one of these other proxies to come forward and say "yeah the list inclusive of Mallow and Smithy is as real as the day is long". This one individual isn't going to cut it for me because if there's anything I can agree with Sabi on, it's calling him a troll. I know a troll when I see one.
Next up, the GameStop video. This might be the most simplistic thing I have to say about anything on the list: I think the GameStop video was just a genuine poor choice of words. GameStop makes these videos for use in-store all the damn time and if you've spent any amount of time in a GameStop browsing their wears or waiting for a friend to get done with their shopping trip, you've heard them, and they are almost always full of some kind of misinformation or exaggeration, and this would be no exception. Upon being called out on it and finding out that this particular video had orders of magnitude more views on it than the rest of their in-store ads, whatever poor intern is in charge of GameStop's Youtube presence had to deal with this delicate situation, and they did so poorly. I don't blame them for the bad job, there's no way this was something they were trained to deal with, like I doubt social media manager orientation day had a whole section for "what happens if someone thinks we leaked something", and who knows, this person might have genuinely thought they had leaked something. All of the actions they took were textbook "this is above my paygrade but I'll try to do my job anyway", and as usual, we're reading just a bit too much into it.
Then we have my favorite contentious leak of all - Seven Squares. I basically touched on this already when I went on about what it means to only have four slots left, and these guys are constantly written off except for Geno.
First off, I understand where people are coming from. Crono feels pretty unlikely since the "Chrono" franchise seems to have died off a long while ago... But I need to turn our attention back to Cloud for this - Nomura insisted that Cloud was an old character and Sakurai wanted an icon. Sakurai got his icon. If Nintendo wanted to add Chrono Trigger to Smash, I think it's safe to say they would put Crono in regardless of his age or relevancy - this is one of the most popular SNES RPGs out there.
Then there's Sephiroth. There are only two arguments anyone has against him: No double dipping for the same third party franchise (total fan rule), and "muh sword too long", which according to actual Final Fantasy lore, Sephiroth's sword is like... Seven feet long. Cloud's is supposed to be six. Richter's whip is probably ten feet long and Min Min's arms are pushing fifteen, with the dragon laser I'd say she can cover 20 feet of space if not more. Let's also not forget that in canon, the Monado can project an absolutely massive beam and also doesn't hurt humans. Size does not matter in this instance, because if there's anything Ultimate has proven to us, Sakurai and his team are masters at game balance. The fact that we have a 77 character roster + echoes and they're all potentially tournament winners (take your comments about Little Mac somewhere else you heathen) is outstanding. Sephiroth could work with his sword even if it were as long as jokingly portrayed in popular media.
Then, finally, we have the list itself. There's little doubt anymore that it was a real list with real consequences, but it was cooked up in... Probably earlier than 2018. Who knows, it could stretch all the way back to 2015, but since it specifically listed Luminary, 2017 was probably a more likely time for it... So why would it still be relevant? We know for a fact that Square is working on Bravely Default 2 and very likely working on The World Ends With You 2... Do you think that these characters just don't stand a chance because they're not on a three year old list? Foolish. There are Square characters who stand a chance that aren't Geno is what I'm saying here, and it feels like this falls on deaf ears. I don't have to rely on some outlandish dog**** like Lara Croft or 2B, the threats to Geno are already on Nintendo consoles and getting sequels.
"But there aren't any rumors about them." And?
I'm leaving the spoiler here to just say that I'm not posting this because I want to watch everyone around me give up hope. You guys do whatever helps you make it through reality right now, and if that's shutting out evidence to the contrary, you do you... But what I do want to post this for is because the truth exists. Obviously, we can't claim the truth because it's a heavily guarded secret development build of Smash with fighters on the character select screen. The turth is a list of characters that Xander Moebus got and said their names about 5 different times for Nintendo's approval, before dousing that list in alcohol and setting it ablaze on a warm summer's night.
We can, however, get closer to the truth, and find a more true version of the lie we live by taking what we know and applying it to what we don't want to hear. When we look at it from the standpoint of how bad it might be for us, I believe we can trim the fat and find the things that actually do work for us - and who knows, with those few things made ironclad, I might even start believing again.
All I really have to say to this is that this is extremely disheartening to hear. While I can't change anyone's mind, I do hope you regain faith again. We are Geno supporters. We have all been through this. At some point, I am pretty sure we have all experienced a time we just gave up on Geno. This happened for me as soon as Incineroar was the last inclusion in the base roster, and even further when a Dragon Quest rep started to float around insider circles. My hope for seeing him was crushed and smashed in to tiny pieces. Which was a huge shame coming from someone who had all his faith beforehand in the base game, and was a hardcore firm believer of the Grinch leak. I didn't think their was anyway Geno WOULDN'T get in, but I was damned when it didn't happen.
Hero was then confirmed for the game, and then fast forward to the Sakurai Presentation, we go over the second Mii Outfit wave, almost 100% certain Geno would be Mii Costume'd again, only for his costume to not be back yet. It was strange to me, but I still had little faith left in our boi until that magical, MAGICAL announcement on September 4, 2019, when they announced that more DLC was coming aside from the first Pass, and then all of a sudden, all of my faith returned and I really started to believe in our boi again. I started to really sense a reality that Geno could actually show up in this installment, and all of my hype went from 0% all the way to a 100% for our boi.
The point of what I'm trying to say here is that I have been their, and everyone has been their. I have been riding this long rollercoaster for getting Geno in Smash before Smash 4, and many others like Fatmanonice
have been supporting him since Melee, almost 20 years ago. At this point, I absolutely refuse to give up hope like I did back in the FP1 days. We could be on Smash 69 and I will still be supporting our boi if, for some reason, he isn't included by then. We just need to keep our heads up high and have all the faith we need. I believe he's coming, I really do. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If Geno isn't in, then it was really a blast to speculate with all of you anyways, and I guarantee no matter who Sakurai includes, they will be a joy to play with, and I'm super excited for the rest of the DLC.
You're very welcome, and I hope some day, Star Road will grant all our wishes very soon.
Yeah, it's an opinion thing. One of those "my friends don't think it's happening so it's not happening" things. You come across this a lot. This is a big reason why most insiders don't believe Waluigi, for example.
In any case, Didn't alot of the insiders not believe Byleth for awhile, and didn't pay attention to Terry when there was talk of him. I think alot of Insider Info these Days is too Intertwined with Speculation these days, So It's hard to find what's Hard Info and what is just assumptions.
I Mean there are only 4 Slots left, Yet there are more than 4 Characters with Inside Info pointing towards them
Hey guys, long time no see over the past three days because I was banned for telling someone to shut up when they essentially said 'Did you see how Nintendo wasn't announcing things? They were askin' to get leaked' and I'm here to share a funny meme and bring some positivity for once because honestly I...
Wait...
WE'RE LOSING HOPE IN GENO AGAIN!?
Jesus CHRISTO, every time with this! Why is it that the most active thread on SmashBoards for the most talked about hardcore fan pick character who even the HATERS of him have just excepted fate and want him announced so they can move on to hating the next character that gets popular can all accept the puppet is in but his own goddamn fanbase flips on him faster and more often than the media flips on what narrative they are trying to push that week?
Why can we NOT be confident about him for more than a week before falling into the pits of despair? I SERIOUSLY want to know why, because in my Bergy brain, it doesn't make sense outside of actual depression: being in a state of mind in which you just flat out assume the worst case scenario no matter about what it is or why or how it makes no sense.
The reason this upsets me is because this is the ONLY place we can be confident about him without getting some sort of flack, and even then asshats jump in here on occasions to browbeat us into pushing their own delusions. I've been debating people on Twitter on and off for months with nothing but facts and informed suggestion and speculation, and let me tell you, THEY DO NOT CARE! It doesn't matter how many times I prove CacoMallow hasn't been disproven, how many times I point out when character negotiations were likely to have been made, nor how many times I point out the behaviors of Nintendo, Square or Sakurai himself they absolutely refuse to believe that anything could be in Geno's favor because THEY DON'T WANT HIM IN.
I keep it up though because not only do I get some sick pleasure out of not giving up when people expect you to (especially when they are in the wrong) but because there is no reason for me to be silent or lack confidence in his chances when everything rolls in his favor. I come here to see all my fellow lads who I very well don't agree with on many things but the one we do agree on is the blue puppet boi is is ****ing fabulous and we want him put into this game so bad that most of us have been on this train for over a decade, hell some of us even over two! And consistently and seemingly for no reason I keep coming in here and not seeing anything but hopelessness when Geno is in the lead and hauling his wooden ass to the finish line as we live and breathe today.
@Serenade01 and to any other Geno fan here who is feeling seriously down about his chances, I want you to know something, and this comes from deep down within me.
IT'S OKAY TO BE DOWN EVERY NOW AND AGAIN, BUT DON'T LET THAT DISTRACT YOU FROM THE FACT THAT OUR PUPPET BOI GETS CLOSER BY THE DAY!
There is no competition, and there never was. Paper Mario got cut out, Sephiroth lost to Cloud (canon btw), 2B isn't as popular as you think and has a high chance to follow in the footsteps of Travis (aw, that's 2Bad), Lara Croft is even less popular (can't Croft her way outta this one), Sora has lost his sanctuary (Let's see how 'Your friends are your power!' will unlock your way outta this one, ya big Nobody! Heartless of me to say, I know), Crono's name has been crossed off (his is a Chronic case of Square pulling the Trigger on his series), Neku is only recently gaining steam (so stop acting like the world will end with him!), and Bravely Default will be mining salt (though they are not at fault, even though they place nowhere close to Second).
Geno has our fan demand, he has Sakurai's desire, and Ultimate is the game that makes it so that your dreams don't stay just dreams. There is no reason to get the rights to SMRPG content for Smash as early as the base game for Geno and Mallow as Spirits, Geno as an icon, and for Plant's Guidance to mention SMRPG enemies and somehow NOT have his costume come back at the earliest convenience if there wasn't something bigger planned. So many playable costumes and ATs got upgraded, and there will be no more ATs. Square's biggest money makers are already in the game and everyone else is so far behind the little wooden legend it's actually pathetic, and precedent shows that Sakurai will work with Square again. No single Smash Tuber, Twitter User, Smash Streamer, ResetEra Elitist, 4chan Sewer-Swimmer, GameFAQs Rager or Nintendo Article Publisher can keep this lad out of their minds and off of their tongues.
YOU REMEMBER WHEN CLOUD WAS NEVER ON NINTENDO!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN BAYONETTA WAS TOO SEXY!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN RIDLEY WAS TOO BIG!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN K. ROOL WAS TOO IRRELEVANT!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN KONAMI WOULD NEVER PLAY BALL FOR SIMON!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN JOKER WAS OWNED BY PLAYSTATION!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN BANJO WAS TOO DEAD AND OWNED BY MICROSOFT!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN STEVE WAS TOO GOOFY, WOULD BE TOO DIFFICULT TO INCORPORATE INTO SMASH, AND THAT MICROSOFT WOULDN'T GET ANOTHER REP OTHER THAN CHIEF!?
SAKURAI. MAKES. THE. IMPOSSIBLE. POSSIBLE.
AND WHAT IS MORE IMPOSSIBLE THAN A CHARACTER WHO HAS BEEN DEAD LONGER THAN K. ROOL, WHO'S FRANCHISE AND RELEVANCE ARE MORE DEAD THAN THAN BANJO'S, WHO'S BEEN ASKED FOR AS LONG AS RIDLEY, AND WHO BY ALL ACCOUNTS SHOULD BE FORGOTTEN BY EVERYONE AND YET SOMEHOW IS ONE OF THE MOST DISCUSSED CHARACTERS IN SPECULATION PURELY BECAUSE PEOPLE WANT HIM THAT BADLY?!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAH BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE SACRED BLUE WOOD CLAN, HE'S A COMIN' AND HE'S COMIN' FAST!
SO DON'T YOU DARE GIVE UP ON HIM NOW!
Because if you give up on him now, after all this time, when we are all that he has been riding on this entire time...if we give up now and by some terrible twist of fate he doesn't show up, he WILL never have a chance if we leave the hill we declared we would die on, and Ultimate is the name of the game and that is not the game you want to miss out on. It will never be better than this. No one wants to be the one who gave up on him just before his arrival, to be the one everyone knows threw in the towel moments before his grand return. Living the rest of your life knowing this one thing you spent so much on you just tossed away in a moment of mental weakness only to have it happen shortly after you had given up? That would take all the spirit out of me, so I refuse to fall, and so should you.
LET IT BE KNOWN THAT IN OUR HOUR OF WEAKNESS, WE DID NOT GIVE UP OR FALL DOWN, BUT THAT WE WERE STEADFAST AND UNBREAKABLE! LET IT BE KNOWN THAT IN OUR DARKEST DAYS, WHEN THE CLOWNS ON SOCIAL MEDIA BERATED US FOR OUR LOVE AND DEDICATION, WE DID NOT LOOSEN OUR GRIP ON OUR GOALS BUT INSTEAD SQUEEZED HARDER! LET IT BE KNOWN THAT GENO FANS, NO MATTER HOW MANY CHARACTERS WERE REVEALED BEFORE, NEVER LOST SIGHT NOR ABANDONED THEIR TRUTHS!
LET IT BE KNOWN THAT WE WEATHERED THE STORM, AND THAT IN THE END WE WERE VICTORIOUS, THAN IN THE END WE WON THE GAME!
AND THAT THE NAME OF THAT GAME WAS MOTHER****ING SUPER SMASH BROTHERS ULTIMATE FOR THE GODDAMN NINTENDO SWITCH, *******!
HOLD.
Y.
FOR.
POWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey guys, long time no see over the past three days because I was banned for telling someone to shut up when they essentially said 'Did you see how Nintendo wasn't announcing things? They were askin' to get leaked' and I'm here to share a funny meme and bring some positivity for once because honestly I...
Wait...
WE'RE LOSING HOPE IN GENO AGAIN!?
Jesus CHRISTO, every time with this! Why is it that the most active thread on SmashBoards for the most talked about hardcore fan pick character who even the HATERS of him have just excepted fate and want him announced so they can move on to hating the next character that gets popular can all accept the puppet is in but his own goddamn fanbase flips on him faster and more often than the media flips on what narrative they are trying to push that week?
Why can we NOT be confident about him for more than a week before falling into the pits of despair? I SERIOUSLY want to know why, because in my Bergy brain, it doesn't make sense outside of actual depression: being in a state of mind in which you just flat out assume the worst case scenario no matter about what it is or why or how it makes no sense.
The reason this upsets me is because this is the ONLY place we can be confident about him without getting some sort of flack, and even then asshats jump in here on occasions to browbeat us into pushing their own delusions. I've been debating people on Twitter on and off for months with nothing but facts and informed suggestion and speculation, and let me tell you, THEY DO NOT CARE! It doesn't matter how many times I prove CacoMallow hasn't been disproven, how many times I point out when character negotiations were likely to have been made, nor how many times I point out the behaviors of Nintendo, Square or Sakurai himself they absolutely refuse to believe that anything could be in Geno's favor because THEY DON'T WANT HIM IN.
I keep it up though because not only do I get some sick pleasure out of not giving up when people expect you to (especially when they are in the wrong) but because there is no reason for me to be silent or lack confidence in his chances when everything rolls in his favor. I come here to see all my fellow lads who I very well don't agree with on many things but the one we do agree on is the blue puppet boi is is ****ing fabulous and we want him put into this game so bad that most of us have been on this train for over a decade, hell some of us even over two! And consistently and seemingly for no reason I keep coming in here and not seeing anything but hopelessness when Geno is in the lead and hauling his wooden ass to the finish line as we live and breathe today.
@Serenade01 and to any other Geno fan here who is feeling seriously down about his chances, I want you to know something, and this comes from deep down within me.
IT'S OKAY TO BE DOWN EVERY NOW AND AGAIN, BUT DON'T LET THAT DISTRACT YOU FROM THE FACT THAT OUR PUPPET BOI GETS CLOSER BY THE DAY!
There is no competition, and there never was. Paper Mario got cut out, Sephiroth lost to Cloud (canon btw), 2B isn't as popular as you think and has a high chance to follow in the footsteps of Travis (aw, that's 2Bad), Lara Croft is even less popular (can't Croft her way outta this one), Sora has lost his sanctuary (Let's see how 'Your friends are your power!' will unlock your way outta this one, ya big Nobody! Heartless of me to say, I know), Crono's name has been crossed off (his is a Chronic case of Square pulling the Trigger on his series), Neku is only recently gaining steam (so stop acting like the world will end with him!), and Bravely Default will be mining salt (though they are not at fault, even though they place nowhere close to Second).
Geno has our fan demand, he has Sakurai's desire, and Ultimate is the game that makes it so that your dreams don't stay just dreams. There is no reason to get the rights to SMRPG content for Smash as early as the base game for Geno and Mallow as Spirits, Geno as an icon, and for Plant's Guidance to mention SMRPG enemies and somehow NOT have his costume come back at the earliest convenience if there wasn't something bigger planned. So many playable costumes and ATs got upgraded, and there will be no more ATs. Square's biggest money makers are already in the game and everyone else is so far behind the little wooden legend it's actually pathetic, and precedent shows that Sakurai will work with Square again. No single Smash Tuber, Twitter User, Smash Streamer, ResetEra Elitist, 4chan Sewer-Swimmer, GameFAQs Rager or Nintendo Article Publisher can keep this lad out of their minds and off of their tongues.
YOU REMEMBER WHEN CLOUD WAS NEVER ON NINTENDO!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN BAYONETTA WAS TOO SEXY!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN RIDLEY WAS TOO BIG!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN K. ROOL WAS TOO IRRELEVANT!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN KONAMI WOULD NEVER PLAY BALL FOR SIMON!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN JOKER WAS OWNED BY PLAYSTATION!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN BANJO WAS TOO DEAD AND OWNED BY MICROSOFT!?
YOU REMEMBER WHEN STEVE WAS TOO GOOFY, WOULD BE TOO DIFFICULT TO INCORPORATE INTO SMASH, AND THAT MICROSOFT WOULDN'T GET ANOTHER REP OTHER THAN CHIEF!?
SAKURAI. MAKES. THE. IMPOSSIBLE. POSSIBLE.
AND WHAT IS MORE IMPOSSIBLE THAN A CHARACTER WHO HAS BEEN DEAD LONGER THAN K. ROOL, WHO'S FRANCHISE AND RELEVANCE ARE MORE DEAD THAN THAN BANJO'S, WHO'S BEEN ASKED FOR AS LONG AS RIDLEY, AND WHO BY ALL ACCOUNTS SHOULD BE FORGOTTEN BY EVERYONE AND YET SOMEHOW IS ONE OF THE MOST DISCUSSED CHARACTERS IN SPECULATION PURELY BECAUSE PEOPLE WANT HIM THAT BADLY?!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAH BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE SACRED BLUE WOOD CLAN, HE'S A COMIN' AND HE'S COMIN' FAST!
SO DON'T YOU DARE GIVE UP ON HIM NOW!
Because if you give up on him now, after all this time, when we are all that he has been riding on this entire time...if we give up now and by some terrible twist of fate he doesn't show up, he WILL never have a chance if we leave the hill we declared we would die on, and Ultimate is the name of the game and that is not the game you want to miss out on. It will never be better than this. No one wants to be the one who gave up on him just before his arrival, to be the one everyone knows threw in the towel moments before his grand return. Living the rest of your life knowing this one thing you spent so much on you just tossed away in a moment of mental weakness only to have it happen shortly after you had given up? That would take all the spirit out of me, so I refuse to fall, and so should you.
LET IT BE KNOWN THAT IN OUR HOUR OF WEAKNESS, WE DID NOT GIVE UP OR FALL DOWN, BUT THAT WE WERE STEADFAST AND UNBREAKABLE! LET IT BE KNOWN THAT IN OUR DARKEST DAYS, WHEN THE CLOWNS ON SOCIAL MEDIA BERATED US FOR OUR LOVE AND DEDICATION, WE DID NOT LOOSEN OUR GRIP ON OUR GOALS BUT INSTEAD SQUEEZED HARDER! LET IT BE KNOWN THAT GENO FANS, NO MATTER HOW MANY CHARACTERS WERE REVEALED BEFORE, NEVER LOST SIGHT NOR ABANDONED THEIR TRUTHS!
LET IT BE KNOWN THAT WE WEATHERED THE STORM, AND THAT IN THE END WE WERE VICTORIOUS, THAN IN THE END WE WON THE GAME!
AND THAT THE NAME OF THAT GAME WAS MOTHER*ING SUPER SMASH BROTHERS ULTIMATE FOR THE GODDAMN NINTENDO SWITCH, ****!
HOLD.
Y.
FOR.
POWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think Geno has a pretty good shot; probably the best chance he has ever had of making it in considering all of the circumstances in his favor. Base game spirits aren't ruling anyone out, his Mii Costume is still nowhere to be seen, we know Square Enix are still on-board with new content thanks to the Trials of Mana and Octopath Traveller spirit events, he's a noted popular request (and as Banjo proved, those are still being taken into account for DLC); all points you've all probably reiterated plenty of times.
No use in giving up on him now when this pass will most-likely be his time to shine.
