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

[MattX20]

Well, the chance of an Erdrick shadow drop before E3 has dropped significantly. I still stand by my prediction that, if he's in, he'll be a TGS announcement in September. I still don't count out a possible second character announcement at E3 though.

That's if Erdrick is even real and not leakbait at this point. Twice now supposedly he was the first or second DLC character and he keeps getting deconfirmed.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

That's if Erdrick is even real and not leakbait at this point. Twice now supposedly he was the first or second DLC character and he keeps getting deconfirmed.

He was never "deconfirmed". Only thing at best we can say is that he might not be Brave, which was more speculation than a specific leak.

The only leaks of note is that credible leakers say Erdrick will be a DLC character. Verge screwed up by saying he'd be the first one shown off, though(though he said a SE character, not necessarily Erdrick at the time). This doesn't deconfirm the character either.

 

[MattX20]

He was never "deconfirmed". Only thing at best we can say is that he might not be Brave, which was more speculation than a specific leak.

The only leaks of note is that credible leakers say Erdrick will be a DLC character. Verge screwed up by saying he'd be the first one shown off, though(though he said a SE character, not necessarily Erdrick at the time). This doesn't deconfirm the character either.

That's still a pretty lousy track record regarding any credibility for Erdrick as the SE rep though.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

That's if Erdrick is even real and not leakbait at this point. Twice now supposedly he was the first or second DLC character and he keeps getting deconfirmed.

We don't know the actual second DLC fighter though. Still got a couple of days to see that. And just as another note, people who know information about Smash are going to be much, much more likely to know the existence of something in DLC rather than their specific moment of debut. Sometimes that information is known, but more often than not, "leakers" and "insiders" only know the what, not the how or the when. Especially since the when with DLC is basically entirely at Nintendo and Sakurai's discretion.


As a commentary on E3, we only knew that Lucas was the next DLC character at the time of E3 2015. Roy and Ryu had been datamined, but there was nothing directly announced prior to E3 about how many characters would be debuting. I'd also like to remind people that Sakurai specifically stated that he would have split up the dropping of Lucas, Roy, and Ryu, but the 3DS had certain limitations for the number of updates a game could receive and they had to do it all at once. So, I don't know if E3 2015 should necessarily be a great template for how Ultimate is handling things, which is already drastically different given they upfront announced how much DLC they were developing with clear cut deadlines.

Given that, and after Sakurai saying he was on work on the next DLC fighter, I think it's safer to expect just one character at E3. It could be a translation issue, sure. It could also be the fact he's trying to hide a double reveal and just saying one since people know we will have to see the next DLC fighter during the E3 Nintendo Direct. But I think an expectation of more than one has become a little less reasonable than before. I've always been more on the side of one character at E3. And I'm actually starting to get concerned that we won't see that character until later than we're expecting as well. Not to mention, one character more or less leaves us as in the dark as we have been the past few months. I really thought Nintendo and Sakurai would work to better define the content for Smash in the future and always have the next character known. I have been fairly willing to excuse that since the timing between Joker and E3 was so short and E3 was a known entity, but if we walk out of E3 2019 with only one character releasing either Tuesday or within a month or so of the Direct, than I am going to be a little disappointed with them. It's been 7 months since Ultimate came out, I would hope they were more willing to communicate than that by now, but they also have another 8 months to release the remainder of the Fighter's Pass, so I guess they can afford to just run down the clock and end closer to that deadline than most of us probably imagined...

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

That's still a pretty lousy track record regarding any credibility for Erdrick as the SE rep though.

Not saying the track record is good. But that's not what being deconfirmed means. It means we know he isn't going to be playable specifically.

 

[Fatmanonice]

That's if Erdrick is even real and not leakbait at this point. Twice now supposedly he was the first or second DLC character and he keeps getting deconfirmed.

Who knows? If he's real, he still counts as the worst kept secret in Smash history as we're now getting close to the supposed first anniversary of when Verge and Hitagi got their intel on him.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

Mistake in what way though?

Was it a mistake that they somehow put the wrong companies name even though Microsoft would have then owned the IP for years?

Or was it a mistake that this information was shown?

Mistake that Nintendo's name was involved at all in this product and wasn't actually correctly listed according to Exquisite Gaming:

Yes it’s an error - very weird when we look on their site they don’t have many images - but wrong names on pretty much all of them there are a few cable guys we are not even making on there and no idea where the dates came from - no idea who is supplying them info - looks rogue

— EXG (@exgpro) June 8, 2019

 

[xpnc]

The way he's drawing attention to the fake Smash ball makes me think we're going to see more than one. I'm guessing 2 or even all 4

 

[Fatmanonice]

Anyone else getting the day off for Tuesday? My work is, thankfully, pretty lax about asking off and almost always says yes as long as you ask at least two weeks in advance.

 

[xpnc]

Anyone else getting the day off for Tuesday? My work is, thankfully, pretty lax about asking off and almost always says yes as long as you ask at least two weeks in advance.

The deities responsible for labour always see to it that I get laid off just in time for E3 every year

A blessing and a curse

 

[Ovaltine]

The way he's drawing attention to the fake Smash ball makes me think we're going to see more than one. I'm guessing 2 or even all 4

Watch the random fake Smash Ball thing just be Sakurai trolling and it means nothing, lol.

 

[MattX20]

Anyone else getting the day off for Tuesday? My work is, thankfully, pretty lax about asking off and almost always says yes as long as you ask at least two weeks in advance.

I get off work at about 8 a.m or so. I know I will be there for the direct at 11 a.m.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I'm on vacation for a full two weeks~

 

[Ovaltine]

I'm a homebody, so I'm free for every single moment of E3.

PAW PATROL, LET'S DO THIS.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm just a 17 year old baby so I've got all the time in the world

 

[Megadoomer]

Conveniently, I normally don't work on Tuesdays despite working pretty much every other day of the week, so I'll be available for the Nintendo Direct. I might miss some of the Monday press conferences, but I'm not interested in Ubisoft's conference, the PC Gaming Show, or (if it's anything like last year) Square-Enix streaming trailers that had already been released by the time of their conference to remind people of what they have coming out this year.

 

[Vector Victor]

We don't know the actual second DLC fighter though. Still got a couple of days to see that. And just as another note, people who know information about Smash are going to be much, much more likely to know the existence of something in DLC rather than their specific moment of debut. Sometimes that information is known, but more often than not, "leakers" and "insiders" only know the what, not the how or the when. Especially since the when with DLC is basically entirely at Nintendo and Sakurai's discretion.


As a commentary on E3, we only knew that Lucas was the next DLC character at the time of E3 2015. Roy and Ryu had been datamined, but there was nothing directly announced prior to E3 about how many characters would be debuting. I'd also like to remind people that Sakurai specifically stated that he would have split up the dropping of Lucas, Roy, and Ryu, but the 3DS had certain limitations for the number of updates a game could receive and they had to do it all at once. So, I don't know if E3 2015 should necessarily be a great template for how Ultimate is handling things, which is already drastically different given they upfront announced how much DLC they were developing with clear cut deadlines.

Given that, and after Sakurai saying he was on work on the next DLC fighter, I think it's safer to expect just one character at E3. It could be a translation issue, sure. It could also be the fact he's trying to hide a double reveal and just saying one since people know we will have to see the next DLC fighter during the E3 Nintendo Direct. But I think an expectation of more than one has become a little less reasonable than before. I've always been more on the side of one character at E3. And I'm actually starting to get concerned that we won't see that character until later than we're expecting as well. Not to mention, one character more or less leaves us as in the dark as we have been the past few months. I really thought Nintendo and Sakurai would work to better define the content for Smash in the future and always have the next character known. I have been fairly willing to excuse that since the timing between Joker and E3 was so short and E3 was a known entity, but if we walk out of E3 2019 with only one character releasing either Tuesday or within a month or so of the Direct, than I am going to be a little disappointed with them. It's been 7 months since Ultimate came out, I would hope they were more willing to communicate than that by now, but they also have another 8 months to release the remainder of the Fighter's Pass, so I guess they can afford to just run down the clock and end closer to that deadline than most of us probably imagined...

Sadly, it looks like being pessimistic sometimes makes things easier. In the back of my head, I was hoping that we would get additional DLC like Plant (not guaranteed music or stage) to help other characters get in where additional content would make them harder to add (like Dixie most likely would not get a stage and music so she would be written off from the pass; she's not a big enough name to get that content to the developer's mind (all supposedly and speculation, nothing proven)).

There VOULD be hidden stuff and we get more than publically planned. However, for example, Box Theory was 'Nope, that's it.' And it was. Then I check out the Smash site and see 4 placeholder spots under Joker. This gives me Box Theory vibes all over again. So odds are, like box, 'Nope, that's it.' Yes, they can add more, and having more off the bat spoils that the FP isn't the end, but they could have also just left it empty instead of placeholders. So by arranging it like that, it tells me that its 4 more and done.

And another instance of assuming more on the pessimistic side, they said that the FP will be released by feb 2020. That can also mean that character 5 won't be KNOWN until Feb 2020. So there could very well be longer unknown gaps between characters in that case if they show the last teveal literally at the end. It kind if makes things more frustrating. And, of course, Feb 1 reveal and Feb 28 reveal are still Feb 2020.

Smash 4 Dlc wasn't such a wait as we didn't know the amount at all. In fact, many assumed Mewtwo was a DLC one and done with the ballot being more assumed as a next game addition . Lucas was such a shock. And people only expected DLC news at E3 thanks to the Royu datamine. So Ultimate's DLC feels worse because we have a body count whereas 4 was unexpected.

Honestly, they should have staggered the reveals. While Nintendo messed it up by making joker the reveal at the VGAs so the gap was larger than planned, they should have had a Joker showcase in Feb or March and announce an April release. Then on his release date, reveal the next fighter, coming out at e3. Then E3 reveals fighter 3 at a future date, etc. This way we know whose coming and an idea when the next reveal will be. That would be better than being hush hush on this fighter pass while telling consumers to buy it still without knowledge of content 6 months after selling it.


Huh. That was alot of text actually. Also, hello all.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

I just graduated college a couple of weeks ago and am still in the process of job hunting/figuring out my life...

So, I have plenty of time to watch E3 this year. Will probably be the last year for a while I get so freely watch the show actually, so I'm going to enjoy it.

 

[ZelDan]

I have Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays off anyways.

It's nice that Nintendo E3's always land on my super saturdays.

 

[Ze Diglett]

I still think we're likely to see a Joker-style tease at the end of the Direct along with whatever formal reveal we end up getting. Like xpnc said, we've gotten the "and one more thing" treatment with Smash far too many times for me to believe that Nintendo/Sakurai doesn't have something cheeky up their sleeve.

 

[Firox]

So Sakurai posted a comment recently that confirmed that E3 would reveal the next DLC fighter. That's right. "Fighter". As in singular. Man, I hope he's just holding out and we get at least one more teaser for the third DLC. Otherwise, I'm going to have to bash my head against the wall.

 

[Datboigeno]

My job doesn't start until August and I'm just studying for the NCLEX right now so I'm free as a bird for all of E3 as long as I do enough studying around when conferences are.

Well, the chance of an Erdrick shadow drop before E3 has dropped significantly. I still stand by my prediction that, if he's in, he'll be a TGS announcement in September. I still don't count out a possible second character announcement at E3 though.

I'm not going to say Erdrick is out of the running (because he's not) but I just want to point out that every major point and time where people assumed he would be revealed it ended up not happening. There was the Game Awards, then the last Nintendo Driect, then DQ Day in Japan, and now this tournament which people took to be "perfect" times to announce him. I think TGS is also a hypothetically good time to reveal him. But it is odd for this character that has been known for a long ass time and implied to be one of the earlier DLC characters to still not make an appearance and especially not showing up when people hint that he's going to.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

My job doesn't start until August and I'm just studying for the NCLEX right now so I'm free as a bird for all of E3 as long as I do enough studying around when conferences are.



I'm not going to say Erdrick is out of the running (because he's not) but I just want to point out that every major point and time where people assumed he would be revealed it ended up not happening. There was the Game Awards, then the last Nintendo Driect, then DQ Day in Japan, and now this tournament which people took to be "perfect" times to announce him. I think TGS is also a hypothetically good time to reveal him. But it is odd for this character that has been known for a long *** time and implied to be one of the earlier DLC characters to still not make an appearance and especially not showing up when people hint that he's going to.

I don't think anyone that we should be taking seriously has said anything about Erdrick appearing at any of those events except for The Game Awards when it was still more of "the Square Enix character" from Vergeben. There was realistically no chance for character reveals prior to Joker's actual gameplay reveal and anyone believing otherwise was being foolish. People assume the whole damn world revolves around Smash, so any event that even has a tangential link to the series gets hyped up as "the place for the next reveal" by a certain subset of fans and it never comes true. Those just happen to be a lot of the same people who jump on Erdrick and Steve unconditionally and berate others for not believing that they're absolutely locked in newcomers. As far as I know, none of the "leakers" we even give the time of day to has spoken that one of those events would be the moment for Erdrick's reveal. I don't think there's anything resembling a pattern of missed appearances because they were never in serious contention.

Only TGAs and Vergeben claiming the Square Enix rep would show up as the first DLC really was ever in play. And plus, if Sakurai has been working on the first three Fighter's Pass characters since December, they would all fall under the umbrella of "the earliest DLC characters" pretty equally, just their actual releases differed from one another.

The only time we've really had for a character reveal period has been since April 17th when they finally unveiled Joker properly. And with E3 right around the corner, there was no reason to debut a character outside of it at more specific events when Nintendo has only unveiled Joker at a specifically special showing during the TGAs and no other character has had such unique treatment.

 

[xpnc]

I will say this though, it would be very strange to show a character only Japanese people will care about when most of Japan will be asleep (1 AM on a Wednesday)

 

[Ze Diglett]

I will say this though, it would be very strange to show a character only Japanese people will care about when most of Japan will be asleep (1 AM on a Wednesday)

Yeah, E3 is a largely Western event, so revealing a character from a series that the West just does not give a hoot about by and large would be a strange move, to say the least. Then again, this is Nintendo we're talking about, so I can honestly see them doing something like that.

 

[yakko789]

Does anybody know how long Nintendo's E3 presentation is supposed to be? I know it's at 9am PST, but I need to know how many hours it's going to be.

 

[Ayumi Tachibana]

Does anybody know how long Nintendo's E3 presentation is supposed to be? I know it's at 9am PST, but I need to know how many hours it's going to be.

About 40 mins according to niconico.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

So Sakurai posted a comment recently that confirmed that E3 would reveal the next DLC fighter. That's right. "Fighter". As in singular. Man, I hope he's just holding out and we get at least one more teaser for the third DLC. Otherwise, I'm going to have to bash my head against the wall.

There is no singular or plural in the Japanese language.

However, Nintendo did translate, so they might have the context better too.

 

[Firox]

There is no singular or plural in the Japanese language.

However, Nintendo did translate, so they might have the context better too.

Huh. That's interesting. I didn't know that Japanese didn't have plural nouns. I've heard that they have a bunch of crazy specific "counters" though. For example, "three" dogs vs "three" airplanes uses a different word for "three" I think.

By the way, after six months of posting here on smashboards, I've finally gotten around to choosing a profile pic. That's right. I've shed my ambiguous letter and settled on what I figured would be a fitting face to my name...

 

[Datboigeno]

I don't think anyone that we should be taking seriously has said anything about Erdrick appearing at any of those events except for The Game Awards when it was still more of "the Square Enix character" from Vergeben. There was realistically no chance for character reveals prior to Joker's actual gameplay reveal and anyone believing otherwise was being foolish. People assume the whole damn world revolves around Smash, so any event that even has a tangential link to the series gets hyped up as "the place for the next reveal" by a certain subset of fans and it never comes true. Those just happen to be a lot of the same people who jump on Erdrick and Steve unconditionally and berate others for not believing that they're absolutely locked in newcomers. As far as I know, none of the "leakers" we even give the time of day to has spoken that one of those events would be the moment for Erdrick's reveal. I don't think there's anything resembling a pattern of missed appearances because they were never in serious contention.

Only TGAs and Vergeben claiming the Square Enix rep would show up as the first DLC really was ever in play. And plus, if Sakurai has been working on the first three Fighter's Pass characters since December, they would all fall under the umbrella of "the earliest DLC characters" pretty equally, just their actual releases differed from one another.

The only time we've really had for a character reveal period has been since April 17th when they finally unveiled Joker properly. And with E3 right around the corner, there was no reason to debut a character outside of it at more specific events when Nintendo has only unveiled Joker at a specifically special showing during the TGAs and no other character has had such unique treatment.

I'm just pointing out that the mindset that it has to be Erdrick because XYZ thing adds up and X event would be the "perfect" time to reveal a DQ connected character keeps missing the mark. Like, really, how many people assumed he was a lock to be revealed on DQ Day? Or yesterday due to the big announcement tease? A lot of what you're saying is with the benefit of hindsight. I don't care about big "leakers" although if Erdrick isn't revealed anytime soon I would expect to see Vergeben backpedal as hard on him as he has with Minecraft content in Smash. I'm speaking more on the assuredness that people still maintain that the SE rep has to be a DQ rep and has to be Erdrick. It just feels like people keep moving goalposts while still being sure that he's coming. Like the mental gymnastics you're practicing by saying he's still "one of the earliest DLC characters" even if he isn't revealed until August just so Verge is not technically wrong. Like, if he's not "Brave" you would think people would admit it definitely hurts the credibility of Erdrick. But I could still see people moving goalposts again anyway.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

I'm just pointing out that the mindset that it has to be Erdrick because XYZ thing adds up and X event would be the "perfect" time to reveal a DQ connected character keeps missing the mark. Like, really, how many people assumed he was a lock to be revealed on DQ Day? Or yesterday due to the big announcement tease? A lot of what you're saying is with the benefit of hindsight. I don't care about big "leakers" although if Erdrick isn't revealed anytime soon I would expect to see Vergeben backpedal as hard on him as he has with Minecraft content in Smash. I'm speaking more on the assuredness that people still maintain that the SE rep has to be a DQ rep and has to be Erdrick. It just feels like people keep moving goalposts while still being sure that he's coming. Like the mental gymnastics you're practicing by saying he's still "one of the earliest DLC characters" even if he isn't revealed until August just so Verge is not technically wrong. Like, if he's not "Brave" you would think people would admit it definitely hurts the credibility of Erdrick. But I could still see people moving goalposts again anyway.

Well, again, a lot of those people are either being foolish with their expectations and decision making in my mind. I have always maintained that we would not see Character #2 until after we saw a proper display of Joker's gameplay. Similarly, I've been watching Smash reveals for years and they almost never appear outside of Nintendo Direct's or Smash special presentations with a couple of E3 exceptions that Nintendo personally unveiled behind closed doors and then Joker at the TGAs, which is one of the biggest gaming events of each year and Nintendo have traditionally chosen to reveal big news there. Hell, I was convinced we wouldn't actually see a reveal at TGA beforehand if you look back at that period and was extremely surprised to hear that they did end up showing off Joker. I have always maintained that we should not expect character reveals at specific events like DQ Day or Minecon, and have shot those down in threads as quickly as I could. None of that has come from the benefit of hindsight, that's all been my rooted position for ages on SmashBoards.

Similarly, I think for the most part the "Brave" codename and the entire situation with that has never served as a legitimate way to predict or even work with a character. Stats change so I don't think you can so easily determine who it will be. I also think codenames don't even have to align with anything and that it has ended up a Rorschach Test for a lot of the community in which it means whatever people want it to mean and connect however impossibly to different things. "Brave" on its own is absolutely an indeterminable quantity. Much like Jack and Doyle were for Joker and Arsene. I know a large part of the community has rallied behind that for some reason, but I heavily disagree with that interpretation of events. For those people, you are absolutely right that it hurts the "credibility of Erdrick" to those people who have relied upon "Brave" as their proof.

I also don't know if people really decidedly though that an "Erdrick" reveal was happening yesterday. I saw a lot of people who wanted to claim that it made no sense for Erdrick to be revealed at the E3 Nintendo Direct say that he would and then say Banjo Kazooie at E3 or whomever because of their own pushback against him as a character. But the majority of people I've seen have just said E3 and that defines a week long period really. I didn't see a ton of people go "all-in" on the tournament and saw a lot of people doubting a character reveal there to be honest.

Also, I don't think I'm going through mental gymnastics at all when I say that if Erdrick is second of five characters, he's one of the earliest ones. If we believe the notice sent out in Japan, then we know three characters were being worked on simultaneously by Sakurai. Therefore, they represent the batch of the earliest characters since the back half of the Fighter's Pass isn't in development as far as we know and we don't know how the development schedules of those three were handled. I'll again stand by my comment that I think a leaker wouldn't know their exact reveal unless they knew more specific information about the event in which a reveal was happening. If they know a character is already in development, it might seem like a logical conclusion to them to say that character's next when actually the other two that are concurrently being worked on may end up debuting first. Especially considering we only have Joker right now, it seems a little too early to write off the whole "earliest characters" thing. And once again, I'll also stand by the fact that I don't think the "knowledge" (as defined by the leakers and not some sort of heavy confirmation of Erdrick or Dragon Quest across the board) doesn't necessarily imply he will be first, second, third, or even fourth in the Fighter's Pass. It depends on what information the leakers are basing their information off of. If all they know is that Square Enix and Nintendo negotiated for Erdrick as DLC, than that character has the full DLC cycle to show up given there's no further information other than a future baseline existence of the character in Smash. Again, for the sake of the scenario we're assuming that information is right.


To be as clear as possible, I have never considered Dragon Quest or Erdrick a lock. I do agree that more people do mental gymnastics to get to that conclusion than they should. I really don't ever consider characters a lock period. But I do think Dragon Quest is a wonderful series and is deserving of our respect as a serious consider considering its reputation and legacy. Especially because Smash has become a showcase of Japanese gaming as a whole and not just Nintendo, I think its absence is absolutely felt. And I think Erdrick makes a ton of sense as the chosen representative for the series because it doesn't really have a Cloud level protagonist that dominates the field and Dragon Quest 3 has retained a substantial legacy for both the series and in Japan along with receiving an endorsement from Sakurai himself. I disagree with a lot of the flack the series and Erdrick gets from the community, hence my tendency to end up playing defender in certain moments. I also disagree with a lot of the support for them and think it has become problematic in how people have taken to them as the "locks" to try and shoot down others across the board while also using something flimsy like "Brave" as proof. I think there's been a lot of talk of Erdrick from the "leaker" side of things, so I tend to believe where there's smoke, there's fire, which is why I have come to think Erdrick and Banjo Kazooie have real possibilities going into this E3. If they backtrack or completely abandon the character choices, I'm more than willing to levy some complaints at them and knock them down (Again, I think Vergeben's reputation really does rely upon Erdrick at this point, though as far as I know he's never said anything about an E3 reveal specifically, so we don't really get to move on so easily if something Square Enix related in Smash doesn't happen Tuesday). I'm just much less inclined to throw characters and "leakers" out when there's a lot of moving parts and I need really strong information to deconfirm characters and truly consider "leakers" not credible and completely unworthy of my time. For some, that may come very soon, but we'll just have to see.

 

[Datboigeno]

Well, again, a lot of those people are either being foolish with their expectations and decision making in my mind. I have always maintained that we would not see Character #2 until after we saw a proper display of Joker's gameplay. Similarly, I've been watching Smash reveals for years and they almost never appear outside of Nintendo Direct's or Smash special presentations with a couple of E3 exceptions that Nintendo personally unveiled behind closed doors and then Joker at the TGAs, which is one of the biggest gaming events of each year and Nintendo have traditionally chosen to reveal big news there. Hell, I was convinced we wouldn't actually see a reveal at TGA beforehand if you look back at that period and was extremely surprised to hear that they did end up showing off Joker. I have always maintained that we should not expect character reveals at specific events like DQ Day or Minecon, and have shot those down in threads as quickly as I could. None of that has come from the benefit of hindsight, that's all been my rooted position for ages on SmashBoards.

Similarly, I think for the most part the "Brave" codename and the entire situation with that has never served as a legitimate way to predict or even work with a character. Stats change so I don't think you can so easily determine who it will be. I also think codenames don't even have to align with anything and that it has ended up a Rorschach Test for a lot of the community in which it means whatever people want it to mean and connect however impossibly to different things. "Brave" on its own is absolutely an indeterminable quantity. Much like Jack and Doyle were for Joker and Arsene. I know a large part of the community has rallied behind that for some reason, but I heavily disagree with that interpretation of events. For those people, you are absolutely right that it hurts the "credibility of Erdrick" to those people who have relied upon "Brave" as their proof.

I also don't know if people really decidedly though that an "Erdrick" reveal was happening yesterday. I saw a lot of people who wanted to claim that it made no sense for Erdrick to be revealed at the E3 Nintendo Direct say that he would and then say Banjo Kazooie at E3 or whomever because of their own pushback against him as a character. But the majority of people I've seen have just said E3 and that defines a week long period really. I didn't see a ton of people go "all-in" on the tournament and saw a lot of people doubting a character reveal there to be honest.

Also, I don't think I'm going through mental gymnastics at all when I say that if Erdrick is second of five characters, he's one of the earliest ones. If we believe the notice sent out in Japan, then we know three characters were being worked on simultaneously by Sakurai. Therefore, they represent the batch of the earliest characters since the back half of the Fighter's Pass isn't in development as far as we know and we don't know how the development schedules of those three were handled. I'll again stand by my comment that I think a leaker wouldn't know their exact reveal unless they knew more specific information about the event in which a reveal was happening. If they know a character is already in development, it might seem like a logical conclusion to them to say that character's next when actually the other two that are concurrently being worked on may end up debuting first. Especially considering we only have Joker right now, it seems a little too early to write off the whole "earliest characters" thing. And once again, I'll also stand by the fact that I don't think the "knowledge" (as defined by the leakers and not some sort of heavy confirmation of Erdrick or Dragon Quest across the board) doesn't necessarily imply he will be first, second, third, or even fourth in the Fighter's Pass. It depends on what information the leakers are basing their information off of. If all they know is that Square Enix and Nintendo negotiated for Erdrick as DLC, than that character has the full DLC cycle to show up given there's no further information other than a future baseline existence of the character in Smash. Again, for the sake of the scenario we're assuming that information is right.


To be as clear as possible, I have never considered Dragon Quest or Erdrick a lock. I do agree that more people do mental gymnastics to get to that conclusion than they should. I really don't ever consider characters a lock period. But I do think Dragon Quest is a wonderful series and is deserving of our respect as a serious consider considering its reputation and legacy. Especially because Smash has become a showcase of Japanese gaming as a whole and not just Nintendo, I think its absence is absolutely felt. And I think Erdrick makes a ton of sense as the chosen representative for the series because it doesn't really have a Cloud level protagonist that dominates the field and Dragon Quest 3 has retained a substantial legacy for both the series and in Japan along with receiving an endorsement from Sakurai himself. I disagree with a lot of the flack the series and Erdrick gets from the community, hence my tendency to end up playing defender in certain moments. I also disagree with a lot of the support for them and think it has become problematic in how people have taken to them as the "locks" to try and shoot down others across the board while also using something flimsy like "Brave" as proof. I think there's been a lot of talk of Erdrick from the "leaker" side of things, so I tend to believe where there's smoke, there's fire, which is why I have come to think Erdrick and Banjo Kazooie have real possibilities going into this E3. If they backtrack or completely abandon the character choices, I'm more than willing to levy some complaints at them and knock them down (Again, I think Vergeben's reputation really does rely upon Erdrick at this point, though as far as I know he's never said anything about an E3 reveal specifically, so we don't really get to move on so easily if something Square Enix related in Smash doesn't happen Tuesday). I'm just much less inclined to throw characters and "leakers" out when there's a lot of moving parts and I need really strong information to deconfirm characters and truly consider "leakers" not credible and completely unworthy of my time. For some, that may come very soon, but we'll just have to see.

Okay thanks for giving more information as to your thoughts on things. We are more on the same wavelength than I thought even if our specific tastes can be a bit different. I definitely did see people all over the internet and social media assuming that the DQ character would get announced yesterday as it "made sense" to do so before the big DQ announcement from shonen jump/famitsu (I forget which) happening today. And part of that logic was that Erdrick would get announced first and BK announced second in the main Nintendo Direct. I agree that being the 2nd character (if it's not BK) would make Erdrick one of the earlier ones. But the farther away a DQ character announcement gets from Verge's initial leak saying he'd be first the more suspicious it seems to me personally.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Vergeben now being on board with Banjo is miserably ironic since him, Hitagi, and Xenother were all in agreement that he was flat out not happening as late as this February... Basically they were all chips in until other insiders started expressing strong doubts about Steve. Sabi's main source probably already knows what's going to be shown on Tuesday because in the Discord he was wink-wink, nudge-nudging pretty hard awhile back and there was a "step into my office, please" moment back in April that strongly implied he got a bombshell or two. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if both already knew most if not all of Tuesday's presentation.

 

[Qeomash]

Huh. That's interesting. I didn't know that Japanese didn't have plural nouns. I've heard that they have a bunch of crazy specific "counters" though. For example, "three" dogs vs "three" airplanes uses a different word for "three" I think.

They use the same word for three, but the number is immediately followed by the appropriate counter. Three airplanes would be "san ki", dogs would be "san hiki". Though, dogs being something that isn't modern means they probably have some weird rules to how they are counted. Ownership or something probably gets involved.

Counters get oddly specific to shapes, like rivers and train tracks use the "long, thin" counter. Other counters are very specific like pages of a book, or very generic like "small round thing".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word

 

[EricTheGamerman]

Okay thanks for giving more information as to your thoughts on things. We are more on the same wavelength than I thought even if our specific tastes can be a bit different. I definitely did see people all over the internet and social media assuming that the DQ character would get announced yesterday as it "made sense" to do so before the big DQ announcement from shonen jump/famitsu (I forget which) happening today. And part of that logic was that Erdrick would get announced first and BK announced second in the main Nintendo Direct. I agree that being the 2nd character (if it's not BK) would make Erdrick one of the earlier ones. But the farther away a DQ character announcement gets from Verge's initial leak saying he'd be first the more suspicious it seems to me personally.

We're probably not all that different in that regard. We just each have our own lines with certain things and preferences that sometimes leads to our own little disagreements sometimes haha. I'm always glad to give more information or clarify certain comments as well, so never hesitate to ask or challenge me on something.

I wasn't actually aware of the overall DQ character fervor yesterday because I haven't been paying too much attention to places outside of here and have mostly devoted all of my attention to seeing if Banjo Kazooie really happens. That doesn't necessarily surprise me, just because it sounds like the same usual suspects determined to make Smash out of everything that moves and breathes in this world. I guess I could kind of see where they're coming from, but I think they're generally off base in predicting a reveal during those time periods and I do know some Erdrick fans (and anti-fans as well) have come to taking every potential event to mean something for the character.

And I actually do agree that the absence of Dragon Quest at E3 does raise more suspicion to Verge's claims and will make re-evaluate some things for certain. I mean E3 and the second character reveal will naturally make me reconsider lots of things, but we've just been absolutely stagnant since December and have had so little direction to turn to in regards to what the rest of the Fighter's Pass will offer. Joker, for as much as I love him and Persona 5, basically nuked all logic we had to begin with pre-TGAs, so it's been a bit of a rough ride for everyone. I'm hoping Nintendo and Sakurai will do some course correcting in terms of being more direct with their information for the future of Smash, but I'm also bracing for a single character reveal that doesn't even actually drop Tuesday and releases later because it sounds like the most Nintendo move possible. I'm quite afraid that Nintendo is going to basically get into a cycle of announce a character, drop a character, radio silence until next announcement with this DLC lineup. I would much prefer if we knew who was going to be next so there was never any dry periods like there has been since Joker's release in which we have to theoretically be "hype" for an announcement of a character. I don't like waiting for an announcement that just prolongs the process. I was initially more supportive than most of the Fighter's Pass characters being rolled out instead of all up front revealed, but if this is how they're going to handle it, I'm going to be less forgiving to Nintendo.

So, yeah, long tangent aside about the reveals, I think E3 will do a lot of good in directing us into the next phase of speculation. I just hope it's enough to lighten the mood around the message boards and break up some of the monotony of the past few months. I won't count Dragon Quest out until we see a Square Enix rep... but I think if it's a no show this E3, then it will be more or less just resting on the series own merits as the leakers are increasingly called into question about the Erdrick claim. Not a bad thing, but I think a lot of the people who flocked to Erdrick for ****ty reasons will also be gone without their bull**** "Brave." And while I want Dragon Quest in Smash personally, I kind of do hope it's anything but that or Steve for the sake of the community (and Dragon Quest can always come later, we just really need a moment like Banjo Kazooie so people will stop being so damn dour about things lol).

 

[Ovaltine]

Not a bad thing, but I think a lot of the people who flocked to Erdrick for ****ty reasons will also be gone without their bull**** "Brave." And while I want Dragon Quest in Smash personally, I kind of do hope it's anything but that or Steve for the sake of the community (and Dragon Quest can always come later, we just really need a moment like Banjo Kazooie so people will stop being so damn dour about things lol).

Preach. Steve's got good fans out there (even if the majority I've seen have been rather loud and obnoxious) and Erdrick's got a lot of genuine fans, too. The ****tier fans from their respective fan bases (and I used the term 'fans' loosely for those) are giving the chill fans a bad name. It's disgusting.

 

[MattX20]

Preach. Steve's got good fans out there (even if the majority I've seen have been rather loud and obnoxious) and Erdrick's got a lot of genuine fans, too. The ****tier fans from their respective fan bases (and I used the term 'fans' loosely for those) are giving the chill fans a bad name. It's disgusting.

Yeah, the bandwagoners or "fans" are a reason why my opinion on Erdrick has soured greatly. I imagine there are good Erdrick fans out there, but at the same time, I don't want those jackasses to get away with harassment or shooting other people's character wants down.

 

[Ovaltine]

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/234547-super-smash-bros-ultimate/77772436?jumpto=21#21

So Verge leaked some stuff that ended up being correct, as well as some stuff that we do not yet know (Perfect Dark, for instance). Looking better for Erdrick and worse for us.

 

[Datboigeno]

So Verge is definitely backpedaling a bit. He went from he's in 100% to "currently have no reason to believe he isn't". Also the reason he "knows" it's Erdrick is because "info got out to others pinpointing it was Erdrick".

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/234547-super-smash-bros-ultimate/77772436?jumpto=21#21

So Verge leaked some stuff that ended up being correct, as well as some stuff that we do not yet know (Perfect Dark, for instance). Looking better for Erdrick and worse for us.

He can be right about E3 stuff and wrong about Erdrick though. They're very likely not coming from all of the same sources. And also note how horribly he screwed up Nintendo stuff during the Direct.

 

[Ovaltine]

View attachment 226871

So Verge is definitely backpedaling a bit. He went from he's in 100% to "currently have no reason to believe he isn't". Also the reason he "knows" it's Erdrick is because "info got out to others pinpointing it was Erdrick".

So basically, he's piggybacking, lol.

Okay, never mind. Things seem to be just about the same as ever.