Geno's Bizarre Adventure part 2: Stardust Crusaders (Geno Support Thread #2)

[Shroob]

I just feel like I wasted so much effort for geno or whoever to get into smash just for it to not happen because the execs at nintnedo just dont care.

At the end of the day, that's both the blessing and curse of Smash.


It's a blessing because communities thrive, and people come together in support of things they enjoy, while making new friends and branching out their own interests. It's honestly one of the more fun parts of this game, and seeing fanbases grow is honestly great.


But the curse is, at the end of the day, no matter how hard you want something, you're guaranteed nothing, no matter how much support you rile up. meaning there's a higher than 50% chance all that time and effort you spent will end up effectively wasted, and with only soo many DLC spots allotted, it's inevitable. Sometimes, you get lucky, Banjo, Ridley and K.Rool are all long, LONG time fan requests, but honestly, they're the exception, not the rule.



I don't want to say "Be content", because that's a horrible way to view it, people who have put years into supporting their character have every right to feel jaded in regards to Nintendo, but I think there's also something to be said to be a bit less trusting of Nintendo going forward to cater specifically towards their hardcore audience.


In a way, a way I look at it is, Nintendo usually ignores a lot of their more hardcore audience in other games, and honestly, Smash isn't an exception to that rule. Nintendo's a company, they probably couldn't care less about the old guard and want to reel in new audiences, which, I mean, you really can't argue against that's what this DLC has effectively done. We may get a bone thrown our way here and there, but at the end of the day, I really don't think Nintendo 'cares' about the people who have stuck with the speculation scene as far back as Brawl as we'd like them to.


We're already invested in the game, the money's in the hands of the people who aren't, and at the end of the day, as cynical as it is to say, this all really does boil down to money.

 

[S1itchey]

At the end of the day, that's both the blessing and curse of Smash.


It's a blessing because communities thrive, and people come together in support of things they enjoy, while making new friends and branching out their own interests. It's honestly one of the more fun parts of this game, and seeing fanbases grow is honestly great.


But the curse is, at the end of the day, no matter how hard you want something, you're guaranteed nothing, no matter how much support you rile up. meaning there's a higher than 50% chance all that time and effort you spent will end up effectively wasted, and with only soo many DLC spots allotted, it's inevitable. Sometimes, you get lucky, Banjo, Ridley and K.Rool are all long, LONG time fan requests, but honestly, they're the exception, not the rule.



I don't want to say "Be content", because that's a horrible way to view it, people who have put years into supporting their character have every right to feel jaded in regards to Nintendo, but I think there's also something to be said to be a bit less trusting of Nintendo going forward to cater specifically towards their hardcore audience.


In a way, a way I look at it is, Nintendo usually ignores a lot of their more hardcore audience in other games, and honestly, Smash isn't an exception to that rule. Nintendo's a company, they probably couldn't care less about the old guard and want to reel in new audiences, which, I mean, you really can't argue against that's what this DLC has effectively done. We may get a bone thrown our way here and there, but at the end of the day, I really don't think Nintendo 'cares' about the people who have stuck with the speculation scene as far back as Brawl as we'd like them to.


We're already invested in the game, the money's in the hands of the people who aren't, and at the end of the day, as cynical as it is to say, this all really does boil down to money.

Oh I understand that completely and have for a very long time. But it doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to pissed and disappointed at nintendo for it.

 

[Shroob]

Oh I understand that completely and have for a very long time. But it doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to pissed and disappointed at nintendo for it.

No, you're very valid in your criticisms.


I don't blame anyone for disliking the DLC, just like I can completely understand those who do like it, there's no "Your opinion is wrong" here, everyone's got a perfectly reasonable viewpoint.

 

[WeirdAlFan101]

This doesn't really mean anything in specific, but in a Discord server I'm part of, we've been having these Hunger Games simulations with each letter of the alphabet, where we submit characters whose names start with a specific letter.

I submitted our boi, and he won the G simulation just now.

 

[SSGuy]

This doesn't really mean anything in specific, but in a Discord server I'm part of, we've been having these Hunger Games simulations with each letter of the alphabet, where we submit characters whose names start with a specific letter.

I submitted our boi, and he won the G simulation just now.

He'll definitely win but I wish you the best of luck and hope you have a ton of fun with it!

 

[StrangeKitten]

Thank you, to the others in this thread who got what I was saying. I wasn't saying that we haven't gotten fan requests, just that I'm disappointed that Banjo is the only character out of the DLC thus far that truly counts as a fan request. Other characters had some decent backing, but none of the others were really mainstays of what the core fanbase wanted. And it's not like Nintendo couldn't have their cake and eat it too. I'm not saying all the DLC characters need to be longtime requests, but what I am saying is, I'm bummed that only one character out of eleven was. I wouldn't feel so disappointed if just one more character the fanbase wants had gotten in. That would still leave plenty of spots open for other kinds of characters. I just wish things were balanced slightly more towards us. And of course I'm aware there's still a character left, but whether that ends up being a fan request or not is yet to be seen.

 

[Shroob]

Thank you, to the others in this thread who got what I was saying. I wasn't saying that we haven't gotten fan requests, just that I'm disappointed that Banjo is the only character out of the DLC thus far that truly counts as a fan request. Other characters had some decent backing, but none of the others were really mainstays of what the core fanbase wanted. And it's not like Nintendo couldn't have their cake and eat it too. I'm not saying all the DLC characters need to be longtime requests, but what I am saying is, I'm bummed that only one character out of eleven was. I wouldn't feel so disappointed if just one more character the fanbase wants had gotten in. That would still leave plenty of spots open for other kinds of characters. I just wish things were balanced slightly more towards us. And of course I'm aware there's still a character left, but whether that ends up being a fan request or not is yet to be seen.

I don't think anyone would fault you tbh, that's a perfectly reasonable belief to have.


I guess if nothing else, let this be a warning for the future moreso than anything. When Sakurai said that "Nintendo picked the DLC", he meant it, lol.



Personally, I'm fine with it, but I can see how others aren't.

 

[Deleted member]

This is exactly how I feel. Base game did a good job at appealing to both hardcore and new fans. Dlc has done nothing to appeal to people from the melee and brawl days aside from banjo and maybe hero. I'll admit that I'm much younger than most people here but as a kid I liked watching videos on people asking for their requests for smash and that's why I value characters like k. Rool, Ridley, banjo, Simon etc so much more than Steve or joker.
I know people have waited decades to get these characters in. So dlc being so one sided to newer or less fan requested characters is really disappointing. Smash has never really been that big on appealing to all the big fan requests no matter what but ultimate came around and it seemed like it was going to be the game that did that.

Brawl did more for fan requests than any other game. I do not like it mechanically or aesthetically, but it really hit the nail on the head. Melee was a huge leap in roster size and complexity, but it, to loosely give that video a page ago some credit, "patched holes" more than trying to satisfy fan demands. That is to say, it's not so much that Mario fans wanted Peach and Bowser, but Smash needed them. It feels entirely different to say, Dedede and Meta Knight, in which despite both of them showing up in nearly 100% of all Kirby games, they don't feel as important or memorable as someone like Bowser... Probably because Bowser always ends up being the main bad guy outside of Mario RPGs, where nowadays Dedede ends up being the throwaway boss of the first world. Fans wanted Dedede and Meta Knight, and I'm one of them (in Meta Knight's case, at least). Honestly, let's look at the tremendous post Melee fan picks:

Pit (a lot of people wanted him after Ice Climbers got in)
Wario
Dedede
Meta Knight
Olimar
Charizard
Diddy
Sonic the ****ing Hedgehog
Wolf

9 out of 17 new characters were fan favorites. That's over half, and that's purely characters who had been, in some larger than average capacity, specifically requested. I'd actually argue that Ike was a fan favorite as well, hard as it may be to imagine a time when people wanted Fire Emblem characters. Squirtle, too - I'll always argue that Ivysaur is an unfortunate standout in the all star roster that Pokemon Trainer brought. With those arguments out, 11 out of 17 new characters were heavily fan requested characters.

And, once again believe it or not (given the surprisingly positive reaction to clones being rebranded as "echo fighters"), the fact that so many characters got cut was a fan demand as well. No one liked the fact that we had two Marios, two Links, two Marths and two Pikachus running around in Melee, where one was considered objectively worse than the other. My memory of the situation going into Brawl was that a surprising amount of character speculators were also, on some level, competitive players... You see a lot of the opposite now, in which most fan demands are coming from more casual players and competitive guys tend to just roll with the punches, but back in 2005-2006, clones in Smash were frowned upon. Lucas and Wolf still cannot escape the negative association of being a "semi-clone" (ignore that every non-special attack they have is entirely different and their specials function almost entirely different) and Falco somehow managed to escape it... by kicking the reflector, I guess?

The only thing Brawl did wrong was not putting Mewtwo in and effectively starting the tradition of adding the newest generation's poster child over any Pokemon that anyone actually wanted, but even then, it did it with class by putting Pokemon Trainer in, someone that people did want. Again, I honestly actually hate Brawl. I defended it at the time, but looking back, I hate how sluggish the mechanics are, how the art direction caved in to the "grit" appeal of the time, what it did to the Smash community as a whole... But it was a real and true shoutout to the fans of the franchise. Big character picks, huge story with characters interacting in the cutscenes, tons of game modes, online play (eugh...), I mean, it really had it all, and there's like... a million rumors and interviews lost to time suggesting that it was supposed to have even more. Believe them or not at your own peril.

Ridley set that up really well as sakurias comments on him in the past made him seem like an impossibility.

If there's anything I've learned from 20 years in Smash Bros, it's that when Sakurai says "it just can't happen", it's a coded message translating to "see you next game". That counts for mechanics, too. That's probably one of the things that makes Geno such a compelling case since so far, he seems to be exempt from this for reasons not entirely clear.

But then dlc came around and they **** on all of that. Sure we got banjo but that's really it. Geno, lloyd, Dixie kong. Nope screw you, MIN MIN, SEPHIROTH, BYLETH, PYRA AND MYTHRA. YOU WAITED YEARS FOR YOUR CHARACTER TO FINALLY GET THE ONCE IN A LIFETIME CHNCE THAT IS SMASH BROS ULTIMATE. TOO ****ING BAD. you get a mii costume again.

Hey now, Sephiroth is a pipe dream character for a lot of people, and after Cloud got in, those people really woke up. We're talking about the most well known JRPG villain in the gaming sphere; a 7 foot tall genetically modified turbo-chad with a sword that has been portrayed at lengths varying from approximately 7 feet long to well over 15. Talking about his chances as a Smash character always devolved into the fact that his sword was going to reach from one end of FD to the other and he was basically Ridley 2.1: swordsman edition. I've seen actual tears come from the eyes of his fans who were caught completely off guard by his inclusion - That's not popping off for some meme, that's genuine love. Hell, I have no attachment to Final Fantasy 7 - I consider it to be Final Fantasy's Ocarina of Time and I much prefer the generally panned Final Fantasy 8, but I ****ing love Sephiroth. The original portrayal of his character is flawless and as much as I hate that he's become a fanservice hate demon shoehorned into anything that has Cloud, I appreciate his inclusion in Smash because aside from that damned wing, we have Sephiroth, not whatever this uncanny porcelain doll is:


Sephiroth and Kazuya are so far the only characters who I'll come to the defense of in FP2.

I just feel like I wasted so much effort for geno or whoever to get into smash just for it to not happen because the execs at nintnedo just dont care.

I mean... Nah? What effort, boss? Operation Starfall is the most effort put into trying to get a character into Smash or just into another god damned video game I've ever seen. That grassroots movement to try to get senpai to notice this community, the work that went into collecting "wishes" and sending that **** to Nintendo and Square, that's effort. The trip to Japan by a certain member of this community whose mention is not welcome around these parts, during which he hand delivered a packet regarding Geno to the gateman at Nintendo? That's effort. The rest of us ****post on a dying forum or defend ourselves, Geno or others in this community from hostility on Twitter or an infamous image board, and as someone who has ****posted and trolled and been trolled for over a decade, I can say with confidence that it is not effort. I can crank out posts one after the other that look like they have a decent amount of thought put into them when in reality, I just put some thoughts onto paper and post it with minimal curation. In some circumstances, apparently, it becomes a game winning home run.

Don't get me wrong. I have argued myself to banned on behalf of the "effort" of this community because I see tens of thousands of posts made by a couple hundred individuals and I do see passion. Passion that you don't really see for any other character who hasn't found his way into the game already, and I also see a group of people who have spent more than their fair share of time being the rosterfriend "community"'s whipping boy, given how little most of them have ever bothered punching back. I think "passion" is a better word than "effort" for what most of us have put into Geno, and passion cannot be wasted. Whatever happens in Challenger Pack 11 and whatever happens after that, don't feel like you wasted anything.

That goes for anyone else reading this, as well.

I guess if nothing else, let this be a warning for the future moreso than anything. When Sakurai said that "Nintendo picked the DLC", he meant it, lol.

All I'm saying is "Nintendo's picks" mysteriously and almost overwhelmingly line up with games that Sakurai really loves. Tune in next time for 5 more things in nature that science can't explain!

 

[Dinoman96]

Pit (a lot of people wanted him after Ice Climbers got in)
Wario
Dedede
Meta Knight
Olimar
Charizard
Diddy
Sonic the ****ing Hedgehog
Wolf

TBH these characters kinda seem like Inkling where they were getting in whether they were highly requested or not. Obviously tons of people wanted them, but they don't exactly feel like say, , and, characters that actually would of fallen to the wayside had it not been for their fanbases.

 

[Deleted member]

TBH these characters kinda seem like Inkling where they were getting in whether they were highly requested or not. Obviously tons of people wanted them, but they don't exactly feel like say, , and, characters that actually would of fallen to the wayside had it not been for their fanbases.

I feel like someone around here has once said that Brawl was like the stars aligning just perfectly to the point where the fans wanted the characters that Sakurai/Nintendo wanted... That, or it's a thought that I've had so often and with such force that I felt like I read it. Either way, it's a fact. Things just matched up excellently in Brawl.

I don't doubt that Wario, Dedede and Meta Knight would have gotten into Brawl regardless, but I sort of doubt Olimar, Charizard and Diddy. Charizard would definitely eventually come, it comes as close as any can to being a rival for Pikachu, but during Brawl... I dunno. The state of Pikmin right now really says to me that if fans hadn't really wanted Olimar back when Pikmin 1 and 2 came out, we might have seen Alph as a last ditch attempt to help Pikmin 3's sales numbers in Sm4sh. Diddy was also in a weird spot back then, I really think fan support for him was a big factor. He'd probably have made it into Sm4sh as well, but that's after the DKC reboot.

 

[S1itchey]

TBH these characters kinda seem like Inkling where they were getting in whether they were highly requested or not. Obviously tons of people wanted them, but they don't exactly feel like say, , and, characters that actually would of fallen to the wayside had it not been for their fanbases.

Yeah this is kinda what I was getting at. Pretty much all the characters that have been added to the series so far are characters who more then likely would have made it in even if they weren't super big fan favourites in the community even somebody like olimar probably would've gotten in eventually. However somebody like king k.rool is a character who I am 100 percent sure would have never made it in and been completely forgotten about had it not been for the fans. Same goes for banjo.

Brawl did more for fan requests than any other game. I do not like it mechanically or aesthetically, but it really hit the nail on the head. Melee was a huge leap in roster size and complexity, but it, to loosely give that video a page ago some credit, "patched holes" more than trying to satisfy fan demands. That is to say, it's not so much that Mario fans wanted Peach and Bowser, but Smash needed them. It feels entirely different to say, Dedede and Meta Knight, in which despite both of them showing up in nearly 100% of all Kirby games, they don't feel as important or memorable as someone like Bowser... Probably because Bowser always ends up being the main bad guy outside of Mario RPGs, where nowadays Dedede ends up being the throwaway boss of the first world. Fans wanted Dedede and Meta Knight, and I'm one of them (in Meta Knight's case, at least). Honestly, let's look at the tremendous post Melee fan picks:

Pit (a lot of people wanted him after Ice Climbers got in)
Wario
Dedede
Meta Knight
Olimar
Charizard
Diddy
Sonic the ****ing Hedgehog
Wolf

9 out of 17 new characters were fan favorites. That's over half, and that's purely characters who had been, in some larger than average capacity, specifically requested. I'd actually argue that Ike was a fan favorite as well, hard as it may be to imagine a time when people wanted Fire Emblem characters. Squirtle, too - I'll always argue that Ivysaur is an unfortunate standout in the all star roster that Pokemon Trainer brought. With those arguments out, 11 out of 17 new characters were heavily fan requested characters.

And, once again believe it or not (given the surprisingly positive reaction to clones being rebranded as "echo fighters"), the fact that so many characters got cut was a fan demand as well. No one liked the fact that we had two Marios, two Links, two Marths and two Pikachus running around in Melee, where one was considered objectively worse than the other. My memory of the situation going into Brawl was that a surprising amount of character speculators were also, on some level, competitive players... You see a lot of the opposite now, in which most fan demands are coming from more casual players and competitive guys tend to just roll with the punches, but back in 2005-2006, clones in Smash were frowned upon. Lucas and Wolf still cannot escape the negative association of being a "semi-clone" (ignore that every non-special attack they have is entirely different and their specials function almost entirely different) and Falco somehow managed to escape it... by kicking the reflector, I guess?

The only thing Brawl did wrong was not putting Mewtwo in and effectively starting the tradition of adding the newest generation's poster child over any Pokemon that anyone actually wanted, but even then, it did it with class by putting Pokemon Trainer in, someone that people did want. Again, I honestly actually hate Brawl. I defended it at the time, but looking back, I hate how sluggish the mechanics are, how the art direction caved in to the "grit" appeal of the time, what it did to the Smash community as a whole... But it was a real and true shoutout to the fans of the franchise. Big character picks, huge story with characters interacting in the cutscenes, tons of game modes, online play (eugh...), I mean, it really had it all, and there's like... a million rumors and interviews lost to time suggesting that it was supposed to have even more. Believe them or not at your own peril.


If there's anything I've learned from 20 years in Smash Bros, it's that when Sakurai says "it just can't happen", it's a coded message translating to "see you next game". That counts for mechanics, too. That's probably one of the things that makes Geno such a compelling case since so far, he seems to be exempt from this for reasons not entirely clear.


Hey now, Sephiroth is a pipe dream character for a lot of people, and after Cloud got in, those people really woke up. We're talking about the most well known JRPG villain in the gaming sphere; a 7 foot tall genetically modified turbo-chad with a sword that has been portrayed at lengths varying from approximately 7 feet long to well over 15. Talking about his chances as a Smash character always devolved into the fact that his sword was going to reach from one end of FD to the other and he was basically Ridley 2.1: swordsman edition. I've seen actual tears come from the eyes of his fans who were caught completely off guard by his inclusion - That's not popping off for some meme, that's genuine love. Hell, I have no attachment to Final Fantasy 7 - I consider it to be Final Fantasy's Ocarina of Time and I much prefer the generally panned Final Fantasy 8, but I ****ing love Sephiroth. The original portrayal of his character is flawless and as much as I hate that he's become a fanservice hate demon shoehorned into anything that has Cloud, I appreciate his inclusion in Smash because aside from that damned wing, we have Sephiroth, not whatever this uncanny porcelain doll is:
View attachment 326510

Sephiroth and Kazuya are so far the only characters who I'll come to the defense of in FP2.


I mean... Nah? What effort, boss? Operation Starfall is the most effort put into trying to get a character into Smash or just into another god damned video game I've ever seen. That grassroots movement to try to get senpai to notice this community, the work that went into collecting "wishes" and sending that **** to Nintendo and Square, that's effort. The trip to Japan by a certain member of this community whose mention is not welcome around these parts, during which he hand delivered a packet regarding Geno to the gateman at Nintendo? That's effort. The rest of us ****post on a dying forum or defend ourselves, Geno or others in this community from hostility on Twitter or an infamous image board, and as someone who has ****posted and trolled and been trolled for over a decade, I can say with confidence that it is not effort. I can crank out posts one after the other that look like they have a decent amount of thought put into them when in reality, I just put some thoughts onto paper and post it with minimal curation. In some circumstances, apparently, it becomes a game winning home run.

Don't get me wrong. I have argued myself to banned on behalf of the "effort" of this community because I see tens of thousands of posts made by a couple hundred individuals and I do see passion. Passion that you don't really see for any other character who hasn't found his way into the game already, and I also see a group of people who have spent more than their fair share of time being the rosterfriend "community"'s whipping boy, given how little most of them have ever bothered punching back. I think "passion" is a better word than "effort" for what most of us have put into Geno, and passion cannot be wasted. Whatever happens in Challenger Pack 11 and whatever happens after that, don't feel like you wasted anything.

That goes for anyone else reading this, as well.



All I'm saying is "Nintendo's picks" mysteriously and almost overwhelmingly line up with games that Sakurai really loves. Tune in next time for 5 more things in nature that science can't explain!

I understand that sephiroth is a pipe dream character for alot of people and that alot of people are happy to see him. I don't hate sephiroth as a character but more so that it's just disappointing to see him specifically as a dlc character. One because obviously I would have preffered geno, and two because I kinda would have liked it if we could've gotten rep for a different square series or at least a different ff game. Black mage imo would have cool to see. But I understand why he was chosen. It's not like I won't defend some of the dlc either. Steve was a cool addition and he's super fun and unique. Wasn't a big steve supporter but he's easily my 2nd favourite dlc next to banjo. I wish I could like more of the dlc but they're making it really hard with this second pass.

 

[Dinoman96]

Olimar was a pretty obvious choice back in the Brawl era either way because Pikmin was like the only new notable character based IP Nintendo had made since Melee at the time, something Sakurai publicly noted on the Smash DOJO!!.

Also in the case of Charizard, its inclusion wasn't really so much about fan demand as it was circumstances during the development of Pokemon Trainer. As in, Sakurai wanted PT's Pokemon to represent the three starter types as well as the three stages of Pokemon evolution. Squirtle repped the first stage and water types, Ivysaur repped the second stage and grass types, so naturally, Charizard was thrown in to represent the final evolution phase and fire types.

 

[Shroob]

All I'm saying is "Nintendo's picks" mysteriously and almost overwhelmingly line up with games that Sakurai really loves. Tune in next time for 5 more things in nature that science can't explain!

And yet, he himself has gone on record not only outside of his presentations, but also in the Directs himself. Hell, the fact that he's honestly willing to paint Nintendo in a more negative light than most developers honestly tells me all that needs to be said, just watch the Steve or Kazuya presentation and listen to how he talks about how Nintendo approaches him. Like sure, he's joking around a bit, but most developers won't have the gall to say the stuff he does, especially in regards to a company like Nintendo. Nintendo's Japan's 1# gaming company as of right now, most devs would bury their pride to bend over for Nintendo, but Sakurai? He's out here poking fun at the higher-ups telling him to add stuff, and pressuring him to do so.


Like, Sakurai isn't a Nintendo employee, he's hired by them, but at the end of the day, he runs his own company, the fact he's willing to take pot-shots at Nintendo gives me some honest respect for the man. There may be SOME wiggle room in picks sure, like Terry maybe, but I don't doubt him for a second when he says they come to him and ask him to put characters in.


And then of course, there's the recent interview Harada had with him just recently, which, one of the talking points was "People assume just because I like a game that it means anything." Like, why do we keep painting him as a liar? To fit our narrative that the DLC has been all his own selfish picks? Maybe the man is like, I dunno, telling the truth? Sure, he may get like, ONE or two characters(Joker/Terry) he personally wanted, but like, couldn't the same thing be said of the hardcore speculation scene in the end? He gets Joker and Terry, we get Banjo and maybe FP11?



Nintendo chose the DLC, and I believe that to be the case for the most part. He may have gotten some wiggle room for characters like Joker and Terry, but even then, that's entirely speculation on my part and not based on any hard evidence aside from "Sakurai likes those games." Like, if you listen to his Harada interview, it paints a very clear picture of the man. He's not some "Haha I got you!" joker, he's not some guy pulling the strings behind the scenes and getting everything he wants, he's just a dude. A bit of an eccentric dude, but a dude, one who's rather tired of people thinking of him as some 4d chess master at that. We've imprinted this belief on Sakurai that he's some genius master manipulator and teaser, and he's just, not. He's a guy in charge of making the biggest video game crossover game of all time, but still, a guy.


Like, do ya think that maybe the reason a lot of characters we've gotten as DLC which just happen to be characters that Sakurai likes and has gone on record to talk about, are because he also likes playing video games? We've seen his house, dude has a killer setup most of us would die for, and considering he's in charge of the biggest gaming crossover in the world, I kinda think that "loving videogames" is a necessary thing to have in that regard. Like, why is it weird if he 'likes' a series? He's not going to go on record to say he dislikes a series, especially not with his status. It's frankly his job, and he probably likes dozens of series that aren't in Smash, so....?


Or, should we ignore all this, and act like Sakurai chose every DLC character despite throwing soo much shade at Nintendo, on multiple occasions telling us that Nintendo picked it, and admitting that people read too much into things he says and likes? Sure, "maybe" he got 1-2 personal requests in, but even then we can't say for certain if he did or not, that's entirely speculative logic based on the sole principle of "Sakurai likes this series, thus that must mean he chose it!" which is not something I buy, especially when he's soo willing to poke fun at Nintendo higher-ups, something other devs would never think about doing.



Either he's a master 4d chess manipulator who wants to pin all the blame for his selfish picks on Nintendo, or, Nintendo chose the DLC and he's just being honest with us, which sounds more likely?

 

[kiteinthesky]

Honestly, I'm just glad we got any representation at this point, and it's gonna take a lot of work to convince the big guns to put Geno and Mallow in a game again.

I mean, we all were successful with Banjo, it's just going to take a little bit more oomph to satisfy the Genobros.

 

[Deleted member]

Either he's a master 4d chess manipulator who wants to pin all the blame for his selfish picks on Nintendo, or, Nintendo chose the DLC and he's just being honest with us, which sounds more likely?

I don't really remember seeing you around back in the old Geno thread so there's a chance you've missed the several times that I've said that Sakurai essentially acts as himself on television, if you catch my drift. I don't think he's much more than "some guy" for real, but the Sakurai that runs presentations is a bit more hammed up and says and does things that are meant to be comical and lightheartedly jeering.

With that said, he doesn't have to be a master manipulator or "4D chess" master lmao. I've never even implied that. You're acting like any of us know the dude personally outside of brief glimpses into his private life or his opinions presented in more casual interviews. Yeah, he complains all the time that he feels like he can't talk about games he likes, or fans (especially in the west) think that game is destined for Smash. That doesn't mean he hasn't put games he likes into Smash, purely on the fact that he likes them - it means that he wants to be able to enjoy talking about video games, something he's passionate about, without having people bombard his twitter with unsolicited mentions. I don't blame the guy for being frustrated with that because he obviously doesn't have the time of day or the authorization to **** with these people.

I've been of the opinion basically since the phrase "Nintendo chose the DLC" was first mentioned that it was nothing but a front to get people to not bombard his twitter with worthless character requests now that they had announced a DLC season. I'm willing to bet that over 90% of the unwashed masses out there genuinely have no idea how the DLC development process goes and truly believe that blowing up a developer's inbox might help them get Goku into Smash this time for sure now that DLC has been announced. Likewise, these same people probably do not **** up his mentions in the "off season" when there's no mention of Smash in development and no DLC happening.

Are you following? I'm not accusing him of being manipulative or strategic, I'm saying he lied. On the internet. Y'know, one of the easiest things in the world to do. I'm not even saying he's playing the blame game for "selfish picks" (what a choice of words...), he's just legitimately trying to get over a million crying children to stop bugging him, so he picked a boogeyman and ran with it.

You know, back in 2018 when "Nintendo chose the DLC" first entered the speculation sphere, most everyone was afraid that every character was going to be Byleth, Min Min and Pythra tier trash. It's honestly really funny to see people look at based picks like Banjo, Terry, Sephiroth and Kazuya and be willing to say Nintendo did it.

I mean, we all were successful with Banjo, it's just going to take a little bit more oomph to satisfy the Genobros.

Who's "we all"

 

[Firox]

I'm actually planning on making a video response to this sooner rather than later, the idea being that while FP2 is fantastic in terms of filling in the holes, it's done a horrible job at fulfilling the desires of the community, especially older fans.

Amen to that, dude. The only character in the entire FP2 that I found incredibly hype was Sephiroth, and while I think he did a decent job of satisfying fan demand in general, even he was sort of a unilateral move on Nintendo's part. The Geno snub was palpable. For me, the hype levels were as follows:

1) Min Min (3/10): Interesting as a fighter, but mostly a good example of Nintendo shilling their own IP regardless of fan demand (which to my knowledge was fairly minimal compared to a plethora of other characters.)

2) Steve (2/10): Again, super interesting as a fighter, if not a bit wonky of a playstyle, and I can TOTALLY admit that the character had an explosively huge appeal to the younger audience, but he did absolutely jack **** for me.

3) Sephiroth (10/10): Super fun fighter with inarguable popularity. Admittedly the only reveal that I squealed with excitement, jumping up and down in my chair (good times). Sadly, though, he was a perfect example of Nintendo/Squeenix going straight for IP self-fellatio over the legacy fan demand of characters like Geno or Chrono. Granted, I can see the strategic logic in their decision, and Seph is undoubtedly bigger of a character in the gaming community at large, but again, it seems the powers that be opted for recognizability over freshness IMHO.

4) Pythra (8/10): These girls are pretty great fighters (both cool and hot) and a decent representation of the Xenoblade fanbase. It was unfortunate that Rex got the snub, but at least he gets some exposure and the girls bring something fresh to the game. Not the hypest pick in the universe, but I think they did a good job.

5) Kazuya (0/10): I get it, he was for the FGC community at large, but damn, this was the first reveal where I felt absolutely nothing. No hate. No joy. Just nothing. I wasn't familiar with Tekken and the arcade fighter characters are not compatible with me at all. He's basically a total waste of space on my roster. I'm sure there are some people out there that wanted him (statistically somebody wants everything) but I really don't see him as a popular pick by any stretch of the imagination and even as a fighter, I've watched his usage drop through the floor and several stories down.

In summation, if I could turn back time, I'd buy Seph and Pythra (MAYBE Min Min) and that's it. I'm seriously dreading what kind of left-field trash we'll get next. Between the lackluster picks and massive wait times, I've found FP2 to be a huge disappointment for the most part.

 

[Deleted member]

5) Kazuya (0/10): I get it, he was for the FGC community at large, but damn, this was the first reveal where I felt absolutely nothing. No hate. No joy. Just nothing.

I was the exact same way and I figured it was just burnout. As far as my already low expectations are concerned, we hit bedrock and pretty much stayed there. I rank him much higher than 0/10, probably a solid 8, only because I know Tekken is huge and actually means something to gaming, and making a Tekken fighter a reality is something that has no doubt been weighing on Sakurai for half a decade, but it isn't huge to me. I know Kuma, King and Heihachi, and then I know Jin by name. When I finally saw Kazuya on the screen I immediately said "is that Jin from Tekken" and it's a good thing I wasn't around friends or I would have been embarrassed. I guess I have to give them props for finally being able to make me legitimately wonder who the character is all the way up to the splash screen.

I'm honestly really hoping to feel that way about Challenger 11, too. Since I'm about 99% sure it won't be anyone I want, my only request is to feel nothing one last time. I'm also 99% sure I'm going to end up feeling disgust. A peaceful end is too good for someone like me.

 

[Firox]

I was the exact same way and I figured it was just burnout. As far as my already low expectations are concerned, we hit bedrock and pretty much stayed there. I rank him much higher than 0/10, probably a solid 8, only because I know Tekken is huge and actually means something to gaming, and making a Tekken fighter a reality is something that has no doubt been weighing on Sakurai for half a decade, but it isn't huge to me. I know Kuma, King and Heihachi, and then I know Jin by name. When I finally saw Kazuya on the screen I immediately said "is that Jin from Tekken" and it's a good thing I wasn't around friends or I would have been embarrassed. I guess I have to give them props for finally being able to make me legitimately wonder who the character is all the way up to the splash screen.

I'm honestly really hoping to feel that way about Challenger 11, too. Since I'm about 99% sure it won't be anyone I want, my only request is to feel nothing one last time. I'm also 99% sure I'm going to end up feeling disgust. A peaceful end is too good for someone like me.

I totally feel you. lol "Is that Jin from Tekken" was exactly what I said too! Jin was literally the only Tekken character I knew by name. When the splash screen popped up with "Kazuya", I was like, "Wait, WHOOOOO??" Thing is, I totally get the significance of having a legendary fighting game like Tekken in smash. I'm not going to argue that. My only issue is that notoriety completely overruled fan demand in Kazuya's case. He was probably the most evident example of Nintendo basically saying, "This pass is a gift to ourselves and our legacy and if you happen to enjoy the ride, good for you. Most everyone will pay for this no matter what we do anyway." Again, I think Kazuya makes sense from a sheer inclusion point of view, but if any fans were actually pining for him, they were a HUGE minority. He wasn't added because fans wanted him, he was added purely because Nintendo wanted him. Period. To those extremely lucky enough for their desires to align with Nintendo's, you have my congratulations.

 

[Shroob]

Are you following? I'm not accusing him of being manipulative or strategic, I'm saying he lied. On the internet.

You're definitely entitled to that opinion, even if i disagree wholly.

 

[kiteinthesky]

Who's "we all"

The Smash community, silly. There was tons of overlap between Banjo and other fandoms and it's kind of that way with Geno. We just need to do the work to help the percentage of the community who support Geno grow. And the Geno cult as a whole.

I stand by what I said before, we all really need to band together and just reclaim the character and the world as our own, and just make and broadcast our own content, and build a fanbase for him on our own. We'll have a few years between games anyway so we might as well. We've nothing to lose and we can just make the kinds of games and shows we want simply by doing it ourselves.

 

[ForsakenM]

Honestly, I'm just glad we got any representation at this point, and it's gonna take a lot of work to convince the big guns to put Geno and Mallow in a game again.

I mean, we all were successful with Banjo, it's just going to take a little bit more oomph to satisfy the Genobros.

I'll say that once the rodeo is over, not while we are waiting for the final round to commence.

Also, this may sound selfish or greedy, but I know I'm not coming from a place like that with these feelings: I'm not, and never will be, satisfied with a reused asset from a previous game after over 20 years of supporting this character.

There is a huge difference between what happened in Smash 4 and where we are in Ultimate. Think on this for a moment, fellow Geno Bros.

His costume in Smash 4 pissed fans of him off and they wouldn't call it quits then, yet suddenly virtually the same costume shows up here and we throw in the towel? More importantly, Smash 4 showed us that Sakurai, Nintendo and Square ALL know what we want. There was a time before Smash 4 when a lot of us thought that they just didn't care to listen, but then that costume showed up, which is proof of understanding and acknowledgement. So...why do we just get a touched-up reused asset here in Ultimate? We all know none of them have forgotten in such a short period of time, Geno is one of the most requested characters in the core audience and supersedes all other Square reps in this regard, so what is going on?

Of course it could be a number of things, clearly I'm not ignorant of that, but this doesn't change the fact that they went from one game recognizing us and the next one seemingly ignoring us. Add in how FP2 is not dedicated to the core audience thus far and it paints an interesting tale of corporate enforcement, something that if you believe in a certain green trophy's tale you already would know is a thing.

I'm still of the opinion that there is more going on under the hood than we could possibly know, and this is honestly the best time we could have for a revival for SMRPG. The current PoN loves the SNES and the games for it as well as wanting to give more creative freedom to devs, Square is more focused on consumer input and is branching out to try new things as well as old and working with many companies (Nintendo included), the Switch still has a few years left as well as a possible extension due to COVID and the rumored Switch Pro possibly lengthing this even further just screams to me that Nintendo is working with Square on a number of things. Add in how we are slowly getting lots of cool things fans have wanted for a hot minute and it tells me that this is the perfect breeding ground for some TLC to come towards SMRPG.

Amen to that, dude. The only character in the entire FP2 that I found incredibly hype was Sephiroth, and while I think he did a decent job of satisfying fan demand in general, even he was sort of a unilateral move on Nintendo's part. The Geno snub was palpable. For me, the hype levels were as follows:

3) Sephiroth (10/10): Super fun fighter with inarguable popularity. Admittedly the only reveal that I squealed with excitement, jumping up and down in my chair (good times). Sadly, though, he was a perfect example of Nintendo/Squeenix going straight for IP self-fellatio over the legacy fan demand of characters like Geno or Chrono. Granted, I can see the strategic logic in their decision, and Seph is undoubtedly bigger of a character in the gaming community at large, but again, it seems the powers that be opted for recognizability over freshness IMHO.

5) Kazuya (0/10): I get it, he was for the FGC community at large, but damn, this was the first reveal where I felt absolutely nothing. No hate. No joy. Just nothing. I wasn't familiar with Tekken and the arcade fighter characters are not compatible with me at all. He's basically a total waste of space on my roster. I'm sure there are some people out there that wanted him (statistically somebody wants everything) but I really don't see him as a popular pick by any stretch of the imagination and even as a fighter, I've watched his usage drop through the floor and several stories down.

In summation, if I could turn back time, I'd buy Seph and Pythra (MAYBE Min Min) and that's it. I'm seriously dreading what kind of left-field trash we'll get next. Between the lackluster picks and massive wait times, I've found FP2 to be a huge disappointment for the most part.

I'm going to focus on these two here, for two different reasons.

Sephy comes first because, as much as I have obtained a love for the legacy of FF7 in the past couple years, he still gatekept Geno out of Ultimate with his inclusion. I'm not angry about it like MANY were in the Ye' Ol' Geno Thread, I was incredibly hype and at the time I believed his chances were still good anyway, something I still believe but in a much different light. The reason I bring him up is because this was LITERALLY done because Sakurai was unhappy with the content Cloud got in Smash 4 and Square was making big money now off of FF7R and had no reason to say yes to any other character choice despite trying to push Sakurai to choose Noctis or Lightning a few years earlier.

In other words, you guys all remember when I said Cloud could have been enough to represent all of FF? Well, if he came with more songs from both his series and a couple iconic ones from other iconic FF games like FF6 and FFX, he really could have carried it by himself. But since it happened the way it did, we got Sephiroth as some spackling to fix the holes left by Cloud's lackluster inclusion in terms of content. If Cloud was a more complete package, we could have gotten Geno already and maybe had Sephiroth come in later and bring in even more FF love, but here we are. However, this isn't the only reason that Sephy likely gatekept Geno, but I want to stress the next portion is in no way 100% confirmed and is just assumption and speculation based off some facts.

So, as we all know, Ultimate is a rushed game. Many things point to this being an obvious truth. However, it has been suggested by insiders that Hero, Monster Hunter and Byleth were originally attempted for the base game, but they all fell through. If this is true, that means that MonHun would have fell through due to time and MonHun devs not wanting a hunter to represent the series; Hero would have simply been a lack of time, only to then be pushed to FP1, of which Piranha Plant's whole deal leads this to be fairly likely; and Byleth was due to Tres Casas being delayed, only to be reconsidered and chosen again later on after Sakurai had time to play it early. The important one here though is Hero.

So, if we are to believe that Nintendo really cares about spreading the love to different companies per pass, what would having Hero in the base game do for us? Well for starters, that leaves an opening in FP1 for a different Square character. Now, this is the deep speculation part: We know that DLC would have to have been negotiated and discussed VERY early in 2018 for us to get it so early in 2019 since Sakurai has good character and development on the DLC wouldn't have started until the game went gold in Nov 2018, so could that mean that Sephiroth himself got gatekept by Hero? Could Sephiroth have been an original choice for DLC back in 2018, but with the last minute changes with Hero they chose Dragon Quest instead? I think this is very possible, which means that Sakurai being rushed under a president who cares about business instead of the current president who cares about creative freedom, essentially would have screwed over Geno in a number of ways through a chain of events.

I mean, we got Geno and Mallow spirits in the base game with the only other one from Square being Cloud's Fighter spirit, so it almost feels like they might have been okay with him even being in the base game as playable perhaps, but they clearly have priorities on Dragon Quest and FF. Well, if DQ was in base game and FF was in FP1 to fix all the missing content with Cloud, odds are Geno could have been in FP2. As it stands now, I don't see him coming in this pass, so we need to hope and pray that Nintendo changes their minds last minute somehow and that we get more content, because it's not just our blue puppet boi who is missing as the list of old requests is MASSIVE.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for Kazuya, I just want to mention that the lack of overlap between the FGC and the Smash community really disappoints me, and I actually commented on a Reddit comment (something I normally never do) the other day in regards to this. As someone who grew up on both Smash and tons of fighting games and loved them both, I feel like a ****ing unicorn or Bigfoot or some ****. However, this is also why I can say in an unbiased manner that Smash has never been a fighting game in my eyes and never will be, but that it can still be played competitively just like many other games that originally weren't made to be competitive or aren't a fighting game.

To explain, before the days of the N64, I grew up with Street Fighter 2, it's iterations, and Mortal Kombat II on SNES as well as Clayfighters and probably some other fighting games on there (I vaguely remember playing Killer Instinct as I remember Sabrewulf, as well as Primal Rage and hating the brain blowing up). My SNES wasn't just for Kirby Super Star, Super Mario World or Mario All Stars: it also got some action with Looney Tunes B-Ball, Megaman Soccer, and of course the infamous SMRPG. So, way before Smash was even a concept, I had an understanding and a love for fighting games.

So when Smash was announced (yes, I remember seeing the old commercial on TV and LOSING MY MIND AS A KID) I of course had to have it and it was the game everyone wanted to play when at my house, but it never felt like a fighting game because of my previous experience, but it was WAY more fun to play with friends because they didn't have to be good at the game to give me a good time. The PS2 would come out just over a year later, and that game had Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag Tournament as well as MvC2 and MANY 3D Mortal Kombat games, and I played them all, yet friends would rather play Melee once that came available...and it's not like any of us were good at Melee either.

I was in highschool during the hype up of Brawl, using my free time on the computer to check out the Brawl Dojo and see who people were talking about on the forums, and falling for that fake Geno picture someone made. But by the time I got my hands on Brawl I kind of just didn't care about it: it played way too differently and the tripping was annoying and I didn't care about Sonic enough at the time to keep playing. It was also during this weird window of before Brawl to shortly after release that I found out about the competitive scene, and while it was cool to see what people did in Melee, it just never felt as impressive as it did when I say MvC2 infinites being pulled off or the intense neutral from other fighting games, and once I found out that they were essentially exploiting things in the game that weren't supposed to be like that and the Metaknight was JUST the king of the crop in Brawl, I stopped paying attention until Smash 4 came around much later.

In other words, because I wasn't just a Nintendo console/Nintendo game kid, it gave me a separation between Smash and fighting games. Smash was this game to goof off with and have an amazing time playing with friends, and fighting games were something to try to get my friends into so they could maybe get better and challenge me. At the time, nothing from Smash 64 to Brawl won me over as it being seen as competitive, and while that has slightly changed now I still view them as games that were never meant to be that way and thus they aren't fighting games. I still feel this way about Smash now, even with Ultimate, though it's clear that some steps have been made for the competitive scene. I think that's where a lot of my frustration comes from when playing Ultimate with friends who are skilled at it and consistently losing is because the game's foundation isn't meant to be like that, and yet it's slowly evolving to be that way, and now I have to learn how to play this game well despite it having none of the same structure as an actual fighting game and that sucks out the fun of it for me...but that's a different topic altogether.

I just hope that if another fighting game character gets into Smash, like Sol Badguy or Nightmare, that people won't lose their **** and tear it apart when it's the exact thing this community needs to open up and become more accepted in the FGC community.

 

[Firox]

I just hope that if another fighting game character gets into Smash, like Sol Badguy or Nightmare, that people won't lose their **** and tear it apart when it's the exact thing this community needs to open up and become more accepted in the FGC community.

I actually really like Soul Caliber and would be pretty stoked to see any of those characters get in. One nice thing about them is that they wouldn't be as input-intensive as the shotos.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Oh, I get what you mean. Updating the costume somewhat isn't as good as even a Deluxe could be. Or playable. It's honestly nice Geno isn't forgotten about, and got a Spirit, but it's still pretty small in the long run.

I'm still glad we got a Mallow spirit too, and that Geno is even an online icon. It's small, but I'm glad we got more Geno content than before. Is it that good? Nah. I agree it's nowhere near that special. If it was his first appearance in Smash in total, then it'd be pretty awesome all things considered. This? It's bittersweet at best, and that's a stretch.

 

[Vector Victor]

No excuse why none of the music is in Smash, despite being used in his costume trailer. TWICE.

And I would file this under bad decision making, not copyright shenanigans. And as an example of that, the fact that barely any DKC2 music is in despite how famous and praised it is. And while it sounds good, the remix of Strickerbush Symphony barely sounds like the original.

 

[ForsakenM]

I actually really like Soul Caliber and would be pretty stoked to see any of those characters get in. One nice thing about them is that they wouldn't be as input-intensive as the shotos.

Firstly, Shoto is a term coined for Street Fighter specifically, which refers to characters who essentially play JUST like Ryu but with the most minor of changes. Ken, Akuma, Dan, Gouken, and Sean are all examples of shotos because the term 'shoto' means to have a fireball (Hadoken), uppercut (Shoryuken) and spin kicks (Tatsu) in their kit as well as playing very similar and excelling in most of the same areas. Even characters who are close to this, like Sakura, tend to not be considered one when there are enough differences. For more details on this, look up the term 'shoto' at https://glossary.infil.net/ to get said details.

Terry and Kazuya are not shotos, and I burst an imaginary blood vessel every time I see a Smash player call them a shoto...well, I don't get nearly that mad, but it is a little irritating and just proves what I already have said, which is that Smash players don't expand their horizons and often refuse to do so. To quote part of like the only Reddit comment I've ever made:

" Its so glaringly obvious how much they don't care when they use the term 'shoto' to refer to Terry and Kazuya without even understanding the term and having no desire to use Google for ten seconds to educate themselves. "

That isn't to say a character from outside Street Fighter can't be considered a shoto, but it IS a Street Fighter term. If the character plays like Ryu and has essentially the same moveset and gameplan, you can call them a shoto. However, even in Smash where they have been extremely dumbed down from their own games, Terry and Kazuya do not play like shotos: Terry is much more rushdown than a shoto would ever be, and Kazuya doesn't even have a traditional fireball, let alone not having spin kicks that work the same and not being able to use an uppercut the same way either.

Watch a little gameplay of KoF or Tekken and you will understand what I mean. Then, if you have any Smash friends that call them shotos, you can educate them about it and look cool too.

Secondly, and this isn't meant to offend, but it boggles my mind when people say that Ryu or Ken in Smash are 'input intensive'. Like, it's just and a single button, which can be simplified in most games to and a button, to to the better version of his fireball...and you can just do a weaker one with just the B button. I could understand the Shoryuken motion more as I don't always get Shoryu's when I want them either, but even that is simple in comparison. For perspective, I tried out a demo for a fighting game that is still hopefully in development, called Pocket Bravery. This is a 4-button fighter, meaning we got a Light Kick, Heavy Kick, Light Punch, Heavy Punch scenario here. The move I'm trying to do requires me to input and Light Punch, and that is AFTER landing a move that is and Light Kick, so I have to make that WHOLE input during the animation of another move that doesn't last for very many frames...and all the does is it leads me into a grab that gives me THREE MORE options, of which I have to do the input very quickly again or it was all for nothing.

Like, I get it, it's more than a single attack button or a single direction and an attack button, but adding two more directional inputs it's that far of a leap. 180s and 360s are much more of a pain than what is in Smash, one look at the inputs for KoF (which I can't play well due to the inputs btw, not afraid to admit my shortcomings) or Tekken and I feel like Smash players would feint.

 

[Geno Boost]

No excuse why none of the music is in Smash, despite being used in his costume trailer. TWICE.

And I would file this under bad decision making, not copyright shenanigans. And as an example of that, the fact that barely any DKC2 music is in despite how famous and praised it is. And while it sounds good, the remix of Strickerbush Symphony barely sounds like the original.

its strange we dont have any despite yoko shimomura the composer of SMRPG did make some music for smash

 

[Deleted member]

No excuse why none of the music is in Smash, despite being used in his costume trailer. TWICE.

And I would file this under bad decision making, not copyright shenanigans. And as an example of that, the fact that barely any DKC2 music is in despite how famous and praised it is. And while it sounds good, the remix of Strickerbush Symphony barely sounds like the original.

For a game with the most expansive soundtrack of all time, Ultimate is missing tons of music - especially when you consider how many completely unaltered tracks were added in this time around. One second you're listening to the actual best remix of the Mega Man X opening stage yet recorded and next game you're listening to the straight ripped 8 bit dungeon theme from Castlevania 2. Both on Battlefield. I don't mind this at all, and I get that it takes time and money to compose tons of remixes, but franchises like Splatoon and Pokemon have been outright robbed, meanwhile Mario gets 80 ground theme remixes and basically nothing from any RPG titles. No joke, for having the most music in the game, I'm pretty sure the Mario franchise has my least favorite track selection, and even then I like them for nostalgia's sake and not because the songs are excellent.

Ever since the Wii started packing USB ports and an SD card slot (the latter of which it could obviously read data from), I've always wondered why they didn't include a feature to just play your own music. I think the Xbox 360 had something like that. Just goofy Nintendo **** I guess, thinking they know better what the player wants to hear than the player.

 

[Firox]

Firstly, Shoto is a term coined for Street Fighter specifically, which refers to characters who essentially play JUST like Ryu but with the most minor of changes. Ken, Akuma, Dan, Gouken, and Sean are all examples of shotos because the term 'shoto' means to have a fireball (Hadoken), uppercut (Shoryuken) and spin kicks (Tatsu) in their kit as well as playing very similar and excelling in most of the same areas. Even characters who are close to this, like Sakura, tend to not be considered one when there are enough differences. For more details on this, look up the term 'shoto' at https://glossary.infil.net/ to get said details.

Terry and Kazuya are not shotos, and I burst an imaginary blood vessel every time I see a Smash player call them a shoto...well, I don't get nearly that mad, but it is a little irritating and just proves what I already have said, which is that Smash players don't expand their horizons and often refuse to do so. To quote part of like the only Reddit comment I've ever made:

" Its so glaringly obvious how much they don't care when they use the term 'shoto' to refer to Terry and Kazuya without even understanding the term and having no desire to use Google for ten seconds to educate themselves. "

That isn't to say a character from outside Street Fighter can't be considered a shoto, but it IS a Street Fighter term. If the character plays like Ryu and has essentially the same moveset and gameplan, you can call them a shoto. However, even in Smash where they have been extremely dumbed down from their own games, Terry and Kazuya do not play like shotos: Terry is much more rushdown than a shoto would ever be, and Kazuya doesn't even have a traditional fireball, let alone not having spin kicks that work the same and not being able to use an uppercut the same way either.

Watch a little gameplay of KoF or Tekken and you will understand what I mean. Then, if you have any Smash friends that call them shotos, you can educate them about it and look cool too.

Secondly, and this isn't meant to offend, but it boggles my mind when people say that Ryu or Ken in Smash are 'input intensive'. Like, it's just and a single button, which can be simplified in most games to and a button, to to the better version of his fireball...and you can just do a weaker one with just the B button. I could understand the Shoryuken motion more as I don't always get Shoryu's when I want them either, but even that is simple in comparison. For perspective, I tried out a demo for a fighting game that is still hopefully in development, called Pocket Bravery. This is a 4-button fighter, meaning we got a Light Kick, Heavy Kick, Light Punch, Heavy Punch scenario here. The move I'm trying to do requires me to input and Light Punch, and that is AFTER landing a move that is and Light Kick, so I have to make that WHOLE input during the animation of another move that doesn't last for very many frames...and all the does is it leads me into a grab that gives me THREE MORE options, of which I have to do the input very quickly again or it was all for nothing.

Like, I get it, it's more than a single attack button or a single direction and an attack button, but adding two more directional inputs it's that far of a leap. 180s and 360s are much more of a pain than what is in Smash, one look at the inputs for KoF (which I can't play well due to the inputs btw, not afraid to admit my shortcomings) or Tekken and I feel like Smash players would feint.

To be fair, I never actually called Terry or Kazuya "shotos" per se. The FGC has already made it abundantly clear that Kazuya at least is definitely NOT a shoto, though I've heard mixed options on whether Terry would qualify as one. Regardless of the terminology, the four arcade fighters do handle VERY differently than any other character in Smash and I think Kazuya is probably the best example of "intensive inputs" seeing as how he has so many options and a lot of precision inputs to boot. If I can't perform a specific move, on demand, in an instant, then that would be what I consider "intensive input". Sure, it may just be a bunch of quarter swings of the joystick, but when I and many others accidently drop a power geyser when we meant to do a buster wolf? No thanks. I play Smash specifically BECAUSE it doesn't play like any other fighting games. The mobility and simplicity are, in my opinion, its finest qualities. If other people love the arcade fighters and can make them work, good for them, but I'd rather play fighters that are much more straight forward and instinctive. So, getting back to my point, I think Soul Caliber characters would be a lot more palatable to me and probably most others due to their more simplistic control schemes.

 

[Dinoman96]

It should be noted that the only Mii outfits to come with extra music tracks are the ones based on indie characters, like Sans, Cuphead, and Shantae.

My guess is this: Mii outfits, by their nature, have a limited budget. And because Undertale, Cuphead and Shantae are owned by smaller indie studios, licensing their music tracks to come along with those outfits for usage in the game itself costs much less than it would for music from bigger companies such as Konami, Square-Enix or Bethesda. So that's probably why the Geno, Dragonborn, Bomberman, etc costumes go without.

 

[Deleted member]

To be fair, I never actually called Terry or Kazuya "shotos" per se. The FGC has already made it abundantly clear that Kazuya at least is definitely NOT a shoto, though I've heard mixed options on whether Terry would qualify as one.

Because Mega Man has a fireball, spinny move and DP he is a shoto in Smash Bros - fight me.

Regardless of the terminology, the four arcade fighters do handle VERY differently than any other character in Smash and I think Kazuya is probably the best example of "intensive inputs" seeing as how he has so many options and a lot of precision inputs to boot. If I can't perform a specific move, on demand, in an instant, then that would be what I consider "intensive input". Sure, it may just be a bunch of quarter swings of the joystick, but when I and many others accidently drop a power geyser when we meant to do a buster wolf? No thanks. I play Smash specifically BECAUSE it doesn't play like any other fighting games. The mobility and simplicity are, in my opinion, its finest qualities.

When Ryu got added to Smash 4, that was my biggest gripe. Not that he had input versions of his specials - that's neat - but because trying to do normal moves just doesn't ****ing work. Oh, you wanted to bair? Better use your C-stick, chucklehead, or else you're getting Tatsu input. The Light/Heavy function is also very half-baked imo, but I also hate it when any game puts two (or more) wildly different functions on a single button where the only differentiation is frames the button is held. Terry and Kazuya are infinitely more fun to play than Ryu and Ken because their inputs don't get in the way of normal gameplay. Getting Crack Shoot with Terry when I'm trying to do a Burning Knuckle is the worst it gets with him, and every time it happens it's because I'm not being super cognizant of which way I'm facing after getting launched.

I can't even call Kazuya's inputs "intensive" - they're not wildly different from anything that's been put in Smash up to this point, and really the only trouble is actually remembering which ones do what, or even better, which ones even exist. I'll say something super controversial: Smash has honestly perfected fighting game inputs. When I put one in, they come out as intended, and I think a lot of that has to do with how much leniency they programmed in. I think the best example of this is Power Geyser: As advertised, it's , simplified to , and the way I input it every time is and it ****ing works.

Spoiler: on fighting games

I've been seeing the sentiment a lot more since Kazuya came out and I was honestly sick of the meme even when Ryu was put into the game in Smash 4, but I have grown beyond tired of it - people need to stop letting others dunk on Smash players over fighting games. I'm sure there's a lot of Smash players who haven't touched a traditionally accepted fighting game, but there's a ****load of us who have, and that includes younger players. I think every person who attends my local event has played traditional fighters at least once and has a full understanding of how to use input moves. The first fighting game I ever played was Street Fighter 2 in the back of a hotdog shop beside the local arcade. I was trash at it, but I was also 5. I am still trash at it.

For the younger guys who haven't touched a traditional fighter, can you blame them? Arcades have evaporated over the last 20 years, most of them are now combined with bars or clubs, thus very likely locking out people under 18 and no doubt the pandemic went and murdered a sizeable chunk of even those. Despite how the FGC acts, fighting games are not some kind of mainstream phenomenon sweeping the world. They're a niche genre of games that only become rewarding after countless hours of grinding and while that works for some people, those same people then find themselves virtually alone in their local community. Competitive gaming is mainstream now, yes, but not fighters. Rooty tooty point and shooty team based **** is where the money and the attention is. It's where the attention started and it's where it'll continue to be. Society values team sports much more than they value 1v1 competitions of individual skill - this is why sportsball gets more views and thus more coverage than the objectively more interesting billiards or chess tournaments.

There's nothing intense or hard to comprehend about doing moves with inputs and anyone who claims otherwise is most likely just trying to get a rise out of people. In my experience, the only difficulty comes more from the hardware - joysticks (especially in arcades) tend to be worn out in some specific manner and they'll miss the inputs you're giving them for one reason or another. Beyond that, it's actually knowing the inputs. The games in the arcade sure as hell don't tell you - they'll have a little list right there on the machine for most of the characters, sure hope no one's vandalized it, and I sure hope someone hasn't put a Third Strike board into an SF2 Turbo cabinet! I believe this has been entirely mitigated on console releases, which either have an instruction manual or a move list built into the game, but then you get back into the hardware issue - a D-pad is objectively more accurate than console joysticks, but significantly slower if you're not interested in sanding your thumbprints off. Now you have to drop an additional... like hundred bucks(?) on a fight stick.

In my opinion, the hard to comprehend part is when you actually have to think about the sizeable moves list a character has, somehow commit these arcane input combinations to memory and call on them in the heat of the moment. I really can't do it - I've remembered the hadoken and shoryuken inputs and stuff much more complex than that just gets entirely lost on me. This is why I like Big Band, mother ****** is nothing but quarter circles and sonic booms.

To top it off, you better pick a character that works for you, or else all of your time learning those inputs is for ****, because the next character you go to has an entirely different dictionary worth of inputs. It's just not worth it to me. It's so much better to know that every character on the roster has the same set of inputs and the only thing you have to remember to really be able to get into the game is how fast the move comes out and how long you're vulnerable after. And the best part? One neutral interaction loss doesn't put you into an inescapable cutscene, making the 50 hours you spent just learning how to even use the character feel like a complete waste as you get caught up in a string (that the developers intended, no less) that takes you from full health to hanging on by a thread.

Honestly there's just so much wrong with fighting games, all of it born from using low-tech solutions to solve complicated problems, and people defend this archaic **** with their lives yet the same people will argue in favor of removing the concept of lives and game overs from platformers. I could go on an entirely sober drunken rampage about this stuff and I just have to stop myself.

 

[S1itchey]

Oh, I get what you mean. Updating the costume somewhat isn't as good as even a Deluxe could be. Or playable. It's honestly nice Geno isn't forgotten about, and got a Spirit, but it's still pretty small in the long run.

I'm still glad we got a Mallow spirit too, and that Geno is even an online icon. It's small, but I'm glad we got more Geno content than before. Is it that good? Nah. I agree it's nowhere near that special. If it was his first appearance in Smash in total, then it'd be pretty awesome all things considered. This? It's bittersweet at best, and that's a stretch.

I agree. What made me so happy about genos mii costume in smash 4 was that we didn't even know if sakurai knew we wanted geno in smash in the first place or maybe he just didn't care. The costume was huge and let us know that sakurai and square know we want geno in smash and have a for a long time. That's why I'm so mad that all he got in ultimate was the same costume. No upgrades or music just the same exact thing reused from last game. I'm still happy he at least got something but 20 years worth of fan demand for what he got feels a bit lackluster. They know the fans want him as a playable character but they just don't feel like adding him.

 

[WeirdAlFan101]

For real, the one bad thing about a character like Geno having nothing but a massive following keeping him in people's minds nowadays are when higher ups acknowledge their persistence, with stuff like the costume and Spirits and that one Team Geno vs Team Mallow Twitter poll, but then they proceed to not really do anything significant with any of that knowledge.

Like, yeah, for such an old game to get small acknowledgments is an achievement in itself, but when it's never been a full on revival for those characters, it's annoying as hell.

 

[kiteinthesky]

For real, the one bad thing about a character like Geno having nothing but a massive following keeping him in people's minds nowadays are when higher ups acknowledge their persistence, with stuff like the costume and Spirits and that one Team Geno vs Team Mallow Twitter poll, but then they proceed to not really do anything significant with any of that knowledge.

Like, yeah, for such an old game to get small acknowledgments is an achievement in itself, but when it's never been a full on revival for those characters, it's annoying as hell.

So the real question is why it is the higher ups keep doing this. Why do they keep ignoring the fans? Do they think we're not as powerful or numerous as we apparently are? Do they just not like the characters or have their own personal preference? Is there a way members of our generation can get hired and climb the ranks to resolve the problem once and for all?

 

[Deleted member]

Do they think we're not as powerful [...] as we apparently are?

This is the worst power anyone has ever had lmao.

Anyway fellas, I'm thinkin' he's in.

 

[Dan]

5) Kazuya (0/10): I get it, he was for the FGC community at large, but damn, this was the first reveal where I felt absolutely nothing. No hate. No joy. Just nothing. I wasn't familiar with Tekken and the arcade fighter characters are not compatible with me at all. He's basically a total waste of space on my roster. I'm sure there are some people out there that wanted him (statistically somebody wants everything) but I really don't see him as a popular pick by any stretch of the imagination and even as a fighter, I've watched his usage drop through the floor and several stories down.

Agreed. I did enjoy Min-Min though cause call me crazy, but I do like Nintendo characters actually getting in Smash.

 

[CannonStreak]

So, about Geno, if Nintendo were to buy the rights to him, and maybe the other SMRPG stuff, how do you guys think he would be introduced into the main Mario canon? As technically the same guy, or as anything different?

 

[ivanlerma]

So, about Geno, if Nintendo were to buy the rights to him, and maybe the other SMRPG stuff, how do you guys think he would be introduced into the main Mario canon? As technically the same guy, or as anything different?

i say they'd use him and some of the other characters in a good number of spin-off games.

 

[Dan]

So, about Geno, if Nintendo were to buy the rights to him, and maybe the other SMRPG stuff, how do you guys think he would be introduced into the main Mario canon? As technically the same guy, or as anything different?

Better be as the same guy lol.

 

[Icewolff92]

9 out of 17 new characters were fan favorites. That's over half, and that's purely characters who had been, in some larger than average capacity, specifically requested. I'd actually argue that Ike was a fan favorite as well, hard as it may be to imagine a time when people wanted Fire Emblem characters. Squirtle, too - I'll always argue that Ivysaur is an unfortunate standout in the all star roster that Pokemon Trainer brought. With those arguments out, 11 out of 17 new characters were heavily fan requested characters.

There was a much bigger demand for the likes of Lyn, Hector, Erika, or Ephraim than it was for Ike. No offense to Ike, but he was only a part of the game because he was from the latest installment (Path of Radiance). I mean, before Sakurai decided on Roy for Melee, he was thinking of asking for Lief from Thracia 766, which is Fire Emblem 5, an installment that never got a western release. It was Intelligent System's idea of them including Roy, a character whose game hadn´t even come out in Japan when Melee was released. Fire Emblem has been treated like Pokemon... Given at least one character from the latest entry for each game/pack of DLC.

Sure, we got Chrom that was from at the time, an 8-year-old game, but they already had a model for him with Robins final Smash, and he was an easy echo to make. He should have been an Ike echo instead, but that´s a different story.

The Tellius Games (Path of Radiance on NGC/Radiant Dawn on Wii) is some of the worst-selling installments in the franchise. I say some of the worst because Nintendo refuses to give out the sales figures of Shadow of Valentia (remake of the second game for 3DS). The only reason we got Radiant Dawn was that Intelligent System worked on those titles back to back.

 

[GalacticPetey]

The Leif thing is misinformation. We have no proof he was ever considered for Melee.