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

[Bobthealligator]

Never said it would be Smash, though that isn't off the table, we were meant to get 4 out of the 6 characters by now, and backloading seems a bit off.

No we weren't. This makes absolutely no sense. Why would they spread the pass over two years and release 4 characters in the first year.

 

[ctt4lfecw]

I can imagine how tough it is to work on 3rd party characters. Especially like Forsaken said, Square is probably such a “backseat” developer always looking over Nintendo’s shoulder to make sure that everything comes out the way they see fit. Especially with all of the new work regulations put in place, it affects the whole world.

Sakurai and his guys probably have a camera on their work stations throughout the day with a feed right into Square. I know this, because at my job, when we film commercials, our clients can’t physically be there, so we have several cameras in various areas with a direct feed to the client so it feels like they’re there. One of our new protocols is to have those cameras, so the clients can see what we’re doing for them at all times. I’m sure it’s got to be something like that for Sakurai’s crew.

 

[YsDisciple]

I've mentioned it a few times but one of my guys told me in the summer that DOOM Eternal on Switch was going to have what he called "very obvious first party content" and the longer it has been missing the more I'm inclined to believe it.

Hmm, "first party content" you say? Hmm...

Rip & Tear ost begins to play in the background

 

[Fatmanonice]

No we weren't. This makes absolutely no sense. Why would they spread the pass over two years and release 4 characters in the first year.

I think he means by even most conservative estimates, 3 characters for Season 2 should have been announced by now.

 

[MattX20]

I think he means by even most conservative estimates, 3 characters for Season 2 should have been announced by now.

3 characters for this year and 3 for the next sounds about right for a balance. It makes things a lot less stressful for the team to figure out how to put in 4 characters for next year before December given longer development times

 

[Paraspikey]

I think he means by even most conservative estimates, 3 characters for Season 2 should have been announced by now.

Mmhmm.
I'm thinking the plan for 2020 was to have Min Min in March, Steve and 78 at E3, and 79 in September.
Even if this wasn't the case, and it was meant to be 1 in March, 1 at E3, and 1 in September, we were still meant to have half of the pass announced by now.

 

[MattX20]

Mmhmm.
I'm thinking the plan for 2020 was to have Min Min in March, Steve and 78 at E3, and 79 in September.
Even if this wasn't the case, and it was meant to be 1 in March, 1 at E3, and 1 in September, we were still meant to have half of the pass announced by now.

Which is why we need to keep our eyes open for the next few days as they could announce the FP8 reveal

 

[Paraspikey]

Which is why we need to keep our eyes open for the next few days as they could announce the FP8 reveal

Absolutely.

 

[Aerospherology]

The Smash website still has the "New" on Steve, we should pay attention for it disappearing.

I've mentioned it a few times but one of my guys told me in the summer that DOOM Eternal on Switch was going to have what he called "very obvious first party content" and the longer it has been missing the more I'm inclined to believe it.

Geno and Isabelle as collectables?

 

[Deleted member]

No we weren't. This makes absolutely no sense. Why would they spread the pass over two years and release 4 characters in the first year.

Something I've mentioned before, but maybe not necessarily in this thread, is that the lengthy release schedule may not be "oof six characters takes so long", rather, "these six characters are ****ing nuts to develop". I specifically started thinking this way after Min Min - you have a character with more physical range than ever seen before in Smash, meaning of course that you cannot rely on a reflector to counter zoning tactics. On paper, this seems like "well make her slow" is the play, but what we got was a very neutral based character that focuses on a very "one-two" style, reminiscent of boxing. This was no doubt harder to balance than the easy path, because she has big range and isn't slow in the form of the Ram Ram, she has extremely beefy hits in the form of powered up Dragon and Megawatt, and when in advantage focuses on mixups and sometimes outright bait to maintain advantage without becoming rushdown.

At the end of the day, she's not very well loved or respected but there's a complexity to her that some people might be sleeping on. Undeniably, she faced a delay that might not have even been COVID-19 related. I don't think that I have to go into any great detail about the complexity of Steve. Sakurai has said enough about how much went into Steve and how much had to be changed peripherally to Steve to get Steve to work. If this kind of character is the norm for Fighter Pass 2, Sakurai and his team, when asked how long it would take, probably erred on the side of caution and essentially requested two years to get everything done, just in case. Much better to overshoot and have wiggle room than to be caught with your pants down because Steve keeps breaking the game, or worse, some heretofore unseen character has more complex programming involved.

Fighter Pass 1, we got in the course of a year because we saw things we already had seen. Meters, fighting game inputs, flare blitz, Fire Emblem. Hero was delayed, because balancing his spellbook was a chore... And this is something people tend to forget. In two characters of Fighters Pass 2, love them or hate them, we've seen mechanics that Smash has never handled before, and I doubt they're done with just "the monk with a high range stat" and "lmao put up a wall". If they didn't have to live through the same bull**** 2020 that the rest of us have had to live through, I wouldn't be surprised by a 4 character year, but at this point, 3 still doesn't surprise me. Could've been the plan past a certain point, to just move to a 3/3 schedule and make everyone think that was the plan all along.

 

[QQS]

So I was having some conversations with a friend and our discussion brought something interesting to light.

So the first part of the conversation was whether or not Steve was #78 and planned for E3 or #79 or later and was flat-out pushed up in line due to circumstances. By the end of our conversation, we concluded that Steve could never have been anything but #79. The information just adds up to it being that way.

• Sakurai stated in January with Byleth that all the characters had been negotiated for already, which means they were negotiated for sometime in 2019, likely in September. This means Steve was already chosen to be a character in 2019.
  
  
• Sakurai has stated himself that they work on three characters at a time. This would mean that Min-Min would have started development in late/Q3 2019 in the Terry/Byleth/Min-Min block. This would mean by the time January hit (since Byleth was done in November, and Min-Min was originally aimed for April) we would already have spent time in the Min-Min/77/78 block. However, Sakurai states that Steve didn't start development until April, which conflicts with the 'three at a time' format they have.
  
  
• As we know, since development for Steve started in April, at a time of difficult programming and regulations, Steve would never have been ready in time for E3.
  
  
• Min-Min getting pushed back due a WOMBOCOMBO of Codroid-19, programming issues with her, sorting out character priority for the rest of the pass, and programming issues with Steve explains the huge delay for both Min-Min and Steve being released.
  
  
• Since Steve was already negotiated for in 2019, it was likely part of the contract to have his reveal and breakdown timed around MineCon. This isn't something you can simply reschedule for in an age of viruses and cancellations: it's much more likely Steve was always meant to be ready for a big MineCon showing, but since Sakurai foresaw how difficult he would be to program and how new regulations would hinder their work efficiency, it was decided Steve would be pushed to #77 to make sure he was ready in time for MineCon.

So now that it's perfectly clear that Steve was bumped up from #79 to #77, that would mean that up until recently we were in the Min-Min/Steve/new 78 block now. So the big question is, who got moved to #78? Well, I know I say this all the time, but I REALLY think it's Geno. Why is that? Well, let's look at the evidence.

• The odds of us getting more Nintendo news in general this November is very high, mostly because Nintendo has made it past precedent to have something. Add in Nintendo saying that October had the last Partner Showcase of the year and yet we have all this time left for more announcements and the Direct Archive keeps updating like crazy point and it feels like Nintendo has at least a couple more things to hit us with before they let the Christmas Madness come through.
  
  
• We had an explosion of rumors about Geno in August of 2019. Rumors of Chief popped up around December of 2019, which we now know was more about Steve when it came to another Microsoft rep but the community at large had written off Steve due to Banjo's inclusion and just assumed it had to be Chief.
  
  
• CacoMallow came out in November of 2019, and we are three days away from it's one-year anniversary. They gotta show us those costumes eventually, and they really can't hold onto them as a secret for too much longer.
  
  
• We got those sudden teases about Geno from Jeff Grubb and more importantly Imran Khan who didn't talk about SMRPG nearly as much as Grubb.
  
  
• Square has been notorious for being picky and kinda like a fussy backseat developer when it comes to their IPs. Square also has a plethora of characters people love and is undoubtedly getting more characters in Ultimate considering Sakurai has shown a pattern to work with companies he has worked with in the past. Thus, it would make sense that if a Square character was being worked on and Codroid-19 hit hard, the new regulations would practically halt any work done on said Square character since they are the kind of company to insist on being there for nearly every step of the way.
  
  
• So, interestingly enough, the Mario Characters Only Tournament for Ultimate (which oddly enough, has been done before) was delayed in addition to a bunch of other Mario content. Since the 35th Anniversary level in SMM2 was originally scheduled for sometime in April, we can likely assume that this tournament was also heavily delayed, which means it very well could have lined up with a fighter from E3.
  
  Despite being delayed once, they announced it in September that it was slated for 'Later In The Year' which we then found out was November/December. Now think about this: if the tournament wasn't tied to a fighter, why didn't they just drop it that month, a week or two later in September, or even October? Why wait so long, yet let us know so far in advance? You may point out that other Mario content was delayed for even later, well into 2021, but then why wasn't the tournament delayed for about as long? Could it be that it matches up with some sort of announcement? It seems likes it's awfully important for some reason...
  
  
• If you are under the impression that this tournament is meant to match up with a fighter, then there is something else to consider: If the MARIO tournament matches up with a fighter announcement, and this year was the 35th MARIO anniversary with tons of MARIO content, it would make sense for that character to be from the MARIO franchise, right? However, a first party just doesn't add up.
  
  See, first off we already have a first party in Min-Min, not that we can't get another but the big names being talked about right now are third party and you still have a pass to sell to hardcore fans. You may say that Waluigi fits the bill, but first off the Wah really isn't geared up to be a full release for a Fighter's Pass character...and secondly, there would be no reason for such a delay for a first party choice. This would all be done in-house, with stressed but easier communication with Nintendo, and most likely a much simpler character to design. There would still be no need to delay the tournament THIS far out for just Waluigi...but third parties are much more difficult to communicate on in these conditions, and there is only one viable third party Mario character, and his own is rather picky...

Yeah, as you can see, much like everything else recently this bodes well for Geno.

This is amazing, omg old 77 vibes but now 78 vibes for GENOOO! He is in 100% as the surprise character of that tournament, the epic surprise of the year and the Banjo-Kazooie of this FP.

 

[ForsakenM]

Fighter Pass 1, we got in the course of a year because we saw things we already had seen. Meters, fighting game inputs, flare blitz, Fire Emblem. Hero was delayed, because balancing his spellbook was a chore... And this is something people tend to forget. In two characters of Fighters Pass 2, love them or hate them, we've seen mechanics that Smash has never handled before, and I doubt they're done with just "the monk with a high range stat" and "lmao put up a wall". If they didn't have to live through the same bull**** 2020 that the rest of us have had to live through, I wouldn't be surprised by a 4 character year, but at this point, 3 still doesn't surprise me. Could've been the plan past a certain point, to just move to a 3/3 schedule and make everyone think that was the plan all along.

Even if that is the case, we are short a reveal for Vol 2. Byleth doesn't count, was poorly received on top of that, and Sakurai has yet to reveal a true Smash fandom pick to sell the pass to the hardcore fandom who's been around for years. He got the Nintendo first party promotional shill pick, and the casual pass seller third party pick, but us old school fanboys and fangirls are still waiting for a reason to drop money on a pass that has yet to cater to us.

Considering that they got more efficient over time and that, as far as I can tell, Japan as a country is starting to move on with their life (though as of October that have 90,000+ cases, so who knows) they should have started working on more characters in the pass again after Steve, well before his reveal. Also, when you consider that they worked on them in three-at-a-time blocks, this would suggest that SOME work was already done on MINIMUM one other character before the Codroid 19 stuff hit hard and business regulations hit harder.

So yes, adding that in with what we know about Nintendo and November, it's fair to speculate that we could get another reveal this month.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Decided to be a big smelly nerd this morning and, sure enough, to quote the youth, tomorrow's Tuesday maintenance is "pretty sus." Went through the maintenance schedule for the entire year and I found some pretty interesting results. I kid you not, the following weeks were the only weeks that had non-Monday maintenance days:

January: the week of Byleth's presentation

February: the week before and the week of the Animal Crossing Direct

March: the week of the Indie Direct and the Direct Mini

August: the week of the Indie Direct,

September: the week of the Mario Direct

As you can see, presentations that end with new software or at least notable software updates are veeeeeery consistent with non Monday maintenance.

 

[Aerospherology]

Decided to be a big smelly nerd this morning and, sure enough, to quote the youth, tomorrow's Tuesday maintenance is "pretty sus." Went through the maintenance schedule for the entire year and I found some pretty interesting results. I kid you not, the following weeks were the only weeks that had non-Monday maintenance days:

January: the week of Byleth's presentation

February: the week before and the week of the Animal Crossing Direct

March: the week of the Indie Direct and the Direct Mini

August: the week of the Indie Direct,

September: the week of the Mario Direct

As you can see, presentations that end with new software or at least notable software updates are veeeeeery consistent with non Monday maintenance.

I don't think 10.0.0 would be that soon.

 

[Paraspikey]

I don't think 10.0.0 would be that soon.

Who says they need to release the character in November? Why can't they release it a week before the Mario tourney in December?
Also, 9.0.0. didn't really bring a lot of patches, one character they "patched" was Sonic.

 

[MattX20]

Decided to be a big smelly nerd this morning and, sure enough, to quote the youth, tomorrow's Tuesday maintenance is "pretty sus." Went through the maintenance schedule for the entire year and I found some pretty interesting results. I kid you not, the following weeks were the only weeks that had non-Monday maintenance days:

January: the week of Byleth's presentation

February: the week before and the week of the Animal Crossing Direct

March: the week of the Indie Direct and the Direct Mini

August: the week of the Indie Direct,

September: the week of the Mario Direct

As you can see, presentations that end with new software or at least notable software updates are veeeeeery consistent with non Monday maintenance.

The only other scheduled maintenance on the site is for the E-Shop for the 16th. It's definitely looking like something big will drop soon

 

[Mr. Peepee]

Alright, guys and gals, place your bets. What could it be? I think it could either be Smash related, an Indie World, or a Switch Pro announcement.

 

[MattX20]

And while it's true that Zelda Clam Chowder releases on the 20th, 4 days ahead of the release seems odd just for that maintenance period.

 

[YsDisciple]

Guys, put Gaz on the phone. We might be in for some Geno time. Things are getting FEISTY!

warning warning - hype levels rising

 

[Peepo T. Skeleton]

Doesn't there need to be a 7-11 ad before a character comes out? Or has one released without an ad and I'm just forgetting?

 

[Deleted member]

Doesn't there need to be a 7-11 ad before a character comes out? Or has one released without an ad and I'm just forgetting?

Terry. Push thought that Terry was much farther away than he was thanks to the absence of a 7-11 ad.

 

[Aerospherology]

Doesn't there need to be a 7-11 ad before a character comes out? Or has one released without an ad and I'm just forgetting?

A few have been released without 7/11 ads.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I don't think 10.0.0 would be that soon.

Like Para said, 10.0.0 wouldn't even have to drop in November. Coincidentally, as I was talking with Para about this morning, this non-Monday maintenances seem to overwhelmingly be attached to major software/hardware updates or shadowdropped games so this doesn't necessarily mean Smash. What it suggests, however, is major game updates or even new games will be available to download within a relatively close timespan. The Indie and Mario Directs all had games that were available literally after the presentation, including things like predownloads. For example, Byleth didn't have anything immediately following their presentation EXCEPT being able to preorder Season 2. I want to say that predownloads for New Horizons were immediately available following the Animal Crossing Direct too.

 

[Peepo T. Skeleton]

Terry. Push thought that Terry was much farther away than he was thanks to the absence of a 7-11 ad.

Oh okay, I remember that now you say it.

 

[Enigma735]

I'm still thinking that this month's announcement could be that 2D Metroid game that has been rumored for some time now, but I think you all are definitely convincing me a tiny bit that we could get a character this month, even though I'm not entirely sold on it.

 

[Aerospherology]

Whatever's going on tomorrow, we'll have at least the announcement of the announcement today.

 

[CannonStreak]

Whatever's going on tomorrow, we'll have at least the announcement of the announcement today.

What announcement, exactly?

 

[Aerospherology]

What announcement, exactly?

We don't know. I meant the announcement of the announcement as the announcement of the presentation that announces whatever's coming tomorrow.

 

[CannonStreak]

We don't know. I meant the announcement of the announcement as the announcement of the presentation that announces whatever's coming tomorrow.

Oh, that. Hopefully, something will come tomorrow...

Or the next day, or the next day, or the next day, or the-is hit in the head by a hammer Sorry.

 

[Tree Gelbman]

Wait, something's going on tomorrow?

Fill a lurking vet in.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Whatever's going on tomorrow, we'll have at least the announcement of the announcement today.

Isn’t it a bit late in the day for announcements OF announcements though? Those are usually from 9-11 AM EST

iirc the ACNH presentation was announced (announcement of an announcement I believe) at 5 PM EST earlier this year but imo that’s an outlier

 

[Peepo T. Skeleton]

I'm still thinking that this month's announcement could be that 2D Metroid game that has been rumored for some time now, but I think you all are definitely convincing me a tiny bit that we could get a character this month, even though I'm not entirely sold on it.

God I hope a 2D Metroid releases soon. The Metroid games have had a history of releasing at the wrong place and the wrong time, but the Switch has the magical ability to get like a gajillion people to try out new series.

Especially after the success of Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight and Ori, I think it's time for Metroid itself to be given a fair shot.

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

Like Para said, 10.0.0 wouldn't even have to drop in November. Coincidentally, as I was talking with Para about this morning, this non-Monday maintenances seem to overwhelmingly be attached to major software/hardware updates or shadowdropped games so this doesn't necessarily mean Smash. What it suggests, however, is major game updates or even new games will be available to download within a relatively close timespan. The Indie and Mario Directs all had games that were available literally after the presentation, including things like predownloads. For example, Byleth didn't have anything immediately following their presentation EXCEPT being able to preorder Season 2. I want to say that predownloads for New Horizons were immediately available following the Animal Crossing Direct too.

predownloads for New Horizons didn't come until a few days later

 

[Fatmanonice]

I don't think something's happening tomorrow. Presentations have overwhelmingly been on Wednesdays and Thursdays so if something's happening this week, those are much safer bets. I know we've had a few Tuesday shadowdrops but have we had an actual Tuesday presentation this year?

 

[GenoDoge]

I don't think something's happening tomorrow. Presentations have overwhelmingly been on Wednesdays and Thursdays so if something's happening this week, those are much safer bets. I know we've had a few Tuesday shadowdrops but have we had an actual Tuesday presentation this year?

Do you think an announcement of an announcement could happen tomorrow?

 

[MrJudd]

We're looking at 3 possible outcomes right now (if it is a General Direct):

• Announcement Tuesday for Wednesday
• Announcement Tuesday for Thursday
• Announcement Wednesday for Thursday

 

[Fatmanonice]

Do you think an announcement of an announcement could happen tomorrow?

Based on all the other presentations I listed, possibly. The Mario presentation was shadowdropped and so was the March Mini but all the others had at least one day's notice.

 

[GenoDoge]

We're looking at 3 possible outcomes right now (if it is a General Direct):

• Announcement Tuesday for Wednesday
• Announcement Tuesday for Thursday
• Announcement Wednesday for Thursday

Starts Talking to Myself

Hype responsibly...
Hype responsibly...
Could this be a Direct, last spoken of in legends from 14 months ago?

 

[skydogc]

Could this be a Direct, last spoken of in legends from 14 months ago?

In response

 

[Fatmanonice]

Smash always has at least one day's notice. The only Smash presentation that has been flat out shadowdropped ever was Joker's in April 2019. Another thing that is food for thought on why we're probably getting something soon is the NSO this year. We got updates in February, May, July, and technically two in September. These NSO updates were announced at least a week in advance, meaning the November NSO update will likely be announced either this week or next.