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

Swamp Sensei

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Bruh, if they posted the results there would literally be no debate.
Nah, there would still be a lot.

People will deny reality if they don't like what it says. Just look at politics today. :239:

Accusations that the ballot was rigged or the results were fake would still happen. The results that we did get with Bayonetta are constantly said to be fake regardless. You think a full list would go any better?
 

kiteinthesky

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Honestly I think it would. And I would love to see the "unrealizable" names included too.
Not gonna lie, I would like to see it too. Just because most people deny reality doesn't mean everyone does all the time and there will be people willing to be reasonable about the matter who can and will look at the numbers objectively to help formulate a plan.
 

Megadoomer

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Honestly I think it would. And I would love to see the "unrealizable" names included too.
If they included the unrealizable names, then we'd likely have to go through several pages of material just to find the first video game character, given how many people could have spammed votes for Goku, Iron Man, Spongebob, Shrek, etc.

The way I see it, it's been six years (so they have no reason to reveal that information), the submissions in the ballot informed the line-up for Ultimate (at the very least, that's how we got Ridley, K. Rool, a Castlevania character, Dark Samus, Chrom, and possibly "everyone is here", among others), and releasing the results seems more likely to divide the fandom further rather than making most people happy.

Even if they released the results, people would likely say that they were rigged somehow, especially if Bayonetta actually did wind up getting more votes than anyone aside from characters who they couldn't get the rights to (ex. Snake, Banjo-Kazooie) or permission to make playable (ex. Geno), characters who couldn't work on the 3DS (ex. Ice Climbers, Pokemon Trainer), characters who were already in the game in some form (ex. Ridley, Waluigi), characters whose gimmicks would be too complicated (ex. Steve from Minecraft), or characters from untested franchises (ex. Inkling).

Plus, it seems like it would split the fandom into pieces, with people saying "if only people didn't waste their votes on (character X) and voted for (character Y) instead, we could have gotten (character Y) instead of Bayonetta" or harassing Sakurai on Twitter because he didn't think that a particular character was realizable six-plus years ago.
 
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S1itchey

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If they released the ballot results it'd just be interesting to see how many characters ranked highly and still weren't added. Imagine if waluigi somehow ranked stupidly high in the ballot but was still made an assit trophy. Or if geno really did rank that highly on the ballot over any other square character and they still passed him up. People would be PISSED.
 
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Megadoomer

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If they released the ballot results it'd just be interesting to see how many characters ranked highly and still weren't added. Imagine if waluigi somehow ranked stupidly high in the ballot but was still made an assit trophy. Or if geno really did rank that highly on the ballot over any other square character and they still passed him up. People would be PISSED.
My concern is that they'd take that anger out on the wrong people. Let's say that Geno did rank highly - the decision to not make him playable seems like it would fall on whatever higher-up at Square-Enix was involved in the negotiations (or whatever higher-up at Nintendo was involved with the negotiations - I have no idea how this sort of thing normally goes, or if it varies from company to company), but people would likely direct that anger at Sakurai, any Nintendo social media accounts, any Square-Enix social media accounts, etc. instead of whoever's actually responsible for it.

Likewise, just because a character's popular, it doesn't mean that the developers can come up with a moveset for that character. To use Waluigi as an example, all of the movesets that I've seen for him feel like they're cobbled together from a bunch of unrelated games. Mind you, that hasn't stopped the development team before (Piranha Plant combines the attributes of a bunch of different species of plant enemies to make a moveset), but maybe they can't put something together for Waluigi in a way that feels satisfying, or maybe they don't have an interest in adding Waluigi when Rosalina, Bowser Jr., and Piranha Plant allow them to get more creative or try something different.
 
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S1itchey

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My concern is that they'd take that anger out on the wrong people. Let's say that Geno did rank highly - the decision to not make him playable seems like it would fall on whatever higher-up at Square-Enix was involved in the negotiations (or whatever higher-up at Nintendo was involved with the negotiations - I have no idea how this sort of thing normally goes, or if it varies from company to company), but people would likely direct that anger at Sakurai, any Nintendo social media accounts, any Square-Enix social media accounts, etc. instead of whoever's actually responsible for it.

Likewise, just because a character's popular, it doesn't mean that the developers can come up with a moveset for that character. To use Waluigi as an example, all of the movesets that I've seen for him feel like they're cobbled together from a bunch of unrelated games. Mind you, that hasn't stopped the development team before (Piranha Plant combines the attributes of a bunch of different species of plant enemies to make a moveset), but maybe they can't put something together for Waluigi in a way that feels satisfying, or maybe they don't have an interest in adding Waluigi when Rosalina, Bowser Jr., and Piranha Plant allow them to get more creative or try something different.
True on the first point. I would hate to see sakurai get hate again over something that he has no control over. However on the topic of a potential waluigi moveset, I don't think that would stop the team. They made movesets for characters like Rob and duck hunt. Pretty much all of their moves are made up or improvised and not taken from direct source material. im sure if they could do something for them then they could think something up that would work for waluigi.
 
D

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True on the first point. I would hate to see sakurai get hate again over something that he has no control over.
I mean, it already happens? Almost every day, someone is blaming the dude for something that he likely has either no say over, or very little say over. Sometimes, that's happening in this thread.

I sympathize with the idea that seeing the results of the poll would probably cause a small ****storm to form, but I don't really see how it's different from any other Thursday at this point. Notwithstanding the possibility that characters like Ridley and K. Rool weren't at the top of the list (which I do think is very possible), I just don't see it as a bad thing. As it stands, because we don't know the results of the poll, it feels illegitimate. If we're being optimists, then the results wouldn't cause turmoil because they'd be what we expect to see:

1. Goku
2. Vegeta
3. Ichigo Kurosaki
4. Luffy
5. Goku (goin' ape mode)
6. Freeza
7. Ridley
8. K. Rool
...

Beyond that, your guess as to the placement of [returning characters], characters we got as echoes, Banjo and Isabelle.

Honestly, the only trouble here is that it would lay bare the lie that this had any bearing on Bayonetta, which I don't consider problematic because thanks to datamining and common sense, we already knew she probably wasn't even top 100 on the ballot.
 

Vector Victor

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The second they attached asterisks to Bayonetta's win (IE, most realizable), that forever barred them from ever releasing the ballot's hard numbers since now the results would be forever challenged since that confirms that characters actually beat her in votes (yes, joke picks like SpongeBob, but legit characters like Snake for instance could now be above her in votes).

And the sticking point for people is that Bayonetta won it. If it was someone like Cloud, does anyone really think there would even be 20% of the doubters over him winning the ballot? Hell, he's the kind of character you WOULD expect to win this, and he was vocal in Smash speculation for years.

Bayonetta's doubt in the win would be the same if even someone like Geno won, honestly. Granted, he had a far bigger presence in speculation than Bayonetta, and I can see him getting on the top 15 ballot list, but would he REALLY win out over other characters like Snake, Isabelle or Inklings? Does he have support? Yes. Does he have THAT much support? Ehhhhh.....maybe?

And then you datamine the game and find out that there was Mii Gunner data in a character spot two weeks after the ballot started. If people want to doubt the ballot's authentication, THAT'S a major blow to it.
 
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SSGuy

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Sometimes I feel like speculation as a whole just wasn't worth it. Most of the time it got our hopes up only for some anime bimbos and Minecraft shilling to take it's place.

Speculation use to be fun when it was respectful but newgens these days wouldn't let people actually have opinions. It just became a big clout chase for whoever can be the first to say 'I told you so

Generally speaking, its kind of a good think Ultimate has sucked as a whole because I've moved onto games that offer so much more without actually having the clout chasing to go with it..

I'd probably feel better about it as a whole if the rest of the community would have just allowed others to want/enjoy Geno/Super Mario RPG. I don't think anyone from this group was actively going out of their way to mess with anyone.
 

S1itchey

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Sometimes I feel like speculation as a whole just wasn't worth it. Most of the time it got our hopes up only for some anime bimbos and Minecraft shilling to take it's place.

Speculation use to be fun when it was respectful but newgens these days wouldn't let people actually have opinions. It just became a big clout chase for whoever can be the first to say 'I told you so

Generally speaking, its kind of a good think Ultimate has sucked as a whole because I've moved onto games that offer so much more without actually having the clout chasing to go with it..

I'd probably feel better about it as a whole if the rest of the community would have just allowed others to want/enjoy Geno/Super Mario RPG. I don't think anyone from this group was actively going out of their way to mess with anyone.
This was my biggest reason for leaving speculation and the smash community as a whole. It was legitimately bad for my mental health to constantly have to face the negative bullcrap I'd constantly get and see if somebody dared ask for geno to be In smash or even mention him. Couple that with how much of a disappointment this second pass has been so far and of course I'd eventually just get sick and tired of it. Plus just burnout from playing smash in general. I would go back to smash if they added a character I actually care about or think is fun, but they haven't. It's been much better for me to stay out of smash anything aside from this thread.
 
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D

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Sometimes, I wonder if some kind of cross-dimensional **** really did happen some years ago...

Undeniably, Smash character discussion and speculation seems to be at a high point of scummy, and I think there's several reasons for that, but I wouldn't consider what we see now to be of any higher toxicity than we would have seen literally a decade ago. In fact, I think it's much more tame. There was a time that this kind of discussion was essentially locked to places like /v/ and gameFAQs and here. Smaller conversations were had on smaller forums, of course, but those three places I listed are where you're gonna get most of the meat... And I think due in no small part to the... effort expended here, many would agree that for the past decade and some change, this has been the least caustic place to discuss character prospects for Smash Bros. I'm quite used to the alternatives and the awful, dickish way that discussion goes down there is the baseline for me. Grotesque Steve is the last time that sort of ****posting made it into the general Smash speculation sphere, and we haven't seen anything near as bad since.

I'll humor the fact that unfortunately, we do live in an age where people make money off of this. There's a lot of people with a lot of dogs in the race, and those people breed fanbases that... aren't the best. Likewise, (and I will be casting shade here so avert your eyes, ye easily upset) since we have the appearance of (and every reason to believe that) Furukawa is treating Smash like a honeypot to gather the flies of long-standing non-Nintendo franchises, we're picking up bad apples left right and center, with more joining in hoping that their characters stand a chance too. I've said a lot of stuff since Ultimate came out, some of it based on fact, some of it based on opinion, but I have said very little as baseless yet I still believe with all of my heart than: "Ultimate would have been entirely different if Iwata was alive".

This is the price of popularity. This is the price of making something mainstream. It's only a miracle that Smash has the soul it had once upon a time, maybe more. I think what's being wrongfully interpreted as increased toxicity (in an internet that seems infinitely less toxic than ever) is that we encounter haters from fanbases that are as thick as thieves with one another, and none will speak out of line. Tribalism has taken over Smash speculation, as it has or is attempting to do with many other aspects of life, and in the face of that, I get how it feels like everyone's against us.

I just hope as I always have that the good people behind Operation Starfall will remember that in the face of adversity over (and in the name of) the inclusion, or lackthereof, of a posessed action figure in a children's party game, genuine good has been done for the world on some small scale that I imagine may not have happened otherwise.
 

ultimatekoopa

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Sometimes I feel like speculation as a whole just wasn't worth it. Most of the time it got our hopes up only for some anime bimbos and Minecraft shilling to take it's place.

Speculation use to be fun when it was respectful but newgens these days wouldn't let people actually have opinions. It just became a big clout chase for whoever can be the first to say 'I told you so

Generally speaking, its kind of a good think Ultimate has sucked as a whole because I've moved onto games that offer so much more without actually having the clout chasing to go with it..

I'd probably feel better about it as a whole if the rest of the community would have just allowed others to want/enjoy Geno/Super Mario RPG. I don't think anyone from this group was actively going out of their way to mess with anyone.
You: "Complains about the lack of respect in the community"
Also you: "Opens his post by insulting other characters and their fans"
Practice what you preach.
 

Shroob

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Sometimes I feel like speculation as a whole just wasn't worth it. Most of the time it got our hopes up only for some anime bimbos and Minecraft shilling to take it's place.
That's the double-edged sword of speculation, in that you're not guaranteed anything at the end of the day. No matter how much time, effort, and hope into something, nothing's guaranteed to happen, and to be honest, the deck is usually stacked against you.


As for your other claims, no comment. I'm not here to start a heated debate.
 

SSGuy

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That's the double-edged sword of speculation, in that you're not guaranteed anything at the end of the day. No matter how much time, effort, and hope into something, nothing's guaranteed to happen, and to be honest, the deck is usually stacked against you.


As for your other claims, no comment. I'm not here to start a heated debate.
It wasn't so much I was ever expecting anything. I guess all I asked for was for certain communities to not be so abrasive towards us and what we want it of it. It definitely painted specific characters and gaming communities in a bad light for me when initially they weren't.
 

Shroob

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It wasn't so much I was ever expecting anything. I guess all I asked for was for certain communities to not be so abrasive towards us and what we want it of it. It definitely painted specific characters and gaming communities in a bad light for me when initially they weren't.
I mean, there's definitely a reason to that, and the thing I'll say is frankly, the Geno fandom was not treated this way back in Smash 4 days.


The most I'll say is that the loudest painted a negative light of the community, and despite that being a very, very vocal minority, look at how people dunk on Waluigi fans even though it was literally 2 guys that sent Sakurai death threats, not the entire community itself.



It isn't fair by any stretch of the imagination, and it's frankly not right, but that's the issue with online fandoms. The people who are the loudest, the ones who get the most public eyes on them, they're the ones who basically shape the public's perception of the community, not the 99 innocent other people, and it sucks but... what can you do?
 

Vector Victor

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I mean, there's definitely a reason to that, and the thing I'll say is frankly, the Geno fandom was not treated this way back in Smash 4 days.


The most I'll say is that the loudest painted a negative light of the community, and despite that being a very, very vocal minority, look at how people dunk on Waluigi fans even though it was literally 2 guys that sent Sakurai death threats, not the entire community itself.



It isn't fair by any stretch of the imagination, and it's frankly not right, but that's the issue with online fandoms. The people who are the loudest, the ones who get the most public eyes on them, they're the ones who basically shape the public's perception of the community, not the 99 innocent other people, and it sucks but... what can you do?
It's a self perpetual cycle amongst the detractors which then gets blamed on the fanbase. A fanbase gets annoying or arrogant or repetitive and legitimately annoys the Smash crowd. Been done thousand of times before. Maybe it turns people away from that character. And maybe a group is formed to counter that fanbase. So the detractors complain about a fanbase. Over and over. And over. And over.. They mention how they are sick of seeing that name, seeing that group. They bring the character up time and time again and how they hate them. Soon others join in. The dislike cycles back through them, getting them more annoyed at the fanbase for bring reminded of that character that they themselves are mentioning. Soon it evolves from dislike to downright loathing and hatred. Meanwhile, it may have been weeks since a fan has said anything. But now the negative image of that fanbase has gotten so big that it has become THE image of the fanbase and nothing the fanbase does can change that.

Then, maybe that character doesn't make it. Oh, the detractors act like they won the lottery and it's the best day of their life. Maybe they gloat to the point of obnoxiousness (which ironically turns people against them for the exactbsame reason they sided against a fanbase). The supporters become quieter or move on or stay out of discussion. And yet you still see that character in discussion and getting hated. But why. Who is still talking about a deconfirmed character?

It's the detractors. They can't let it go.

Even after getting mii'ed, there are people still complaining about Geno, his "cult" and their "worshipping." It's odd, since they were hoping he would fail so they wouldn't have to be bother by his existence, and yet they are the ones harping about him.

Basically, the Smash fanbase is very quick to turn on annoying fanbases but rarely, if ever, show the same dislike to obsessive detractors or the worse things they do. And detractors constantly get riled up and upset over loud supporters and let their dislike stew until they hate them, rather than just moving on. Fanbases can get obnoxious; you'd think they would accept that and leave it after all these years, not trying to form a counter fanbase to it.
 

Shroob

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It's a self perpetual cycle amongst the detractors which then gets blamed on the fanbase. A fanbase gets annoying or arrogant or repetitive and legitimately annoys the Smash crowd. Been done thousand of times before. Maybe it turns people away from that character. And maybe a group is formed to counter that fanbase. So the detractors complain about a fanbase. Over and over. And over. And over.. They mention how they are sick of seeing that name, seeing that group. They bring the character up time and time again and how they hate them. Soon others join in. The dislike cycles back through them, getting them more annoyed at the fanbase for bring reminded of that character that they themselves are mentioning. Soon it evolves from dislike to downright loathing and hatred. Meanwhile, it may have been weeks since a fan has said anything. But now the negative image of that fanbase has gotten so big that it has become THE image of the fanbase and nothing the fanbase does can change that.

Then, maybe that character doesn't make it. Oh, the detractors act like they won the lottery and it's the best day of their life. Maybe they gloat to the point of obnoxiousness (which ironically turns people against them for the exactbsame reason they sided against a fanbase). The supporters become quieter or move on or stay out of discussion. And yet you still see that character in discussion and getting hated. But why. Who is still talking about a deconfirmed character?

It's the detractors. They can't let it go.

Even after getting mii'ed, there are people still complaining about Geno, his "cult" and their "worshipping." It's odd, since they were hoping he would fail so they wouldn't have to be bother by his existence, and yet they are the ones harping about him.

Basically, the Smash fanbase is very quick to turn on annoying fanbases but rarely, if ever, show the same dislike to obsessive detractors or the worse things they do. And detractors constantly get riled up and upset over loud supporters and let their dislike stew until they hate them, rather than just moving on. Fanbases can get obnoxious; you'd think they would accept that and leave it after all these years, not trying to form a counter fanbase to it.
At the same time though, there was basically little to no animosity towards the Geno fanbase and the wider Smash audience during Smash 4. I think the question is what changed during those 4 years.
 

Vector Victor

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At the same time though, there was basically little to no animosity towards the Geno fanbase and the wider Smash audience during Smash 4. I think the question is what changed during those 4 years.
Maybe because Ridley was the punching bag during 4. What I posted also works for him at that time.
 

Shroob

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Maybe because Ridley was the punching bag during 4. What I posted also works for him at that time.
Right, but Ridley had the whole "Is he a stage boss? Is he not?" debacle, and you had very decisive opinions whether he was or not.


Likewise, say, K.Rool, who I'd argue was the "Geno fandom" of Smash 4(A large, vocal support base), never really had any bad blood during that time, and even after the costume occurred, outside of 4chan trolls, nothing really bad came of it, and ended up as a fairly respected fandom outside the occasional "Irrelevant" post.


A fandom doesn't become a so-to-speak punching bag without something to trigger it. For Waluigi, it was the reports of people sending Sakurai death threats, as overblown as it was since it was literally 2 guys, the Geno fandom didn't become mildly indifferent to repulsed by the greater Smash community overnight with no point of happening is what I'm saying.


Maybe it was Fatman, maybe it was the Grinch, who can say? From my own point of view, Geno seemed mostly indifferent pre-Grinch, so I feel like it has to be at least one of those 2.


Not saying this is okay in any way, shape, or form of course. I do not like how the greater Smash fandom can dogpile on support bases.
 
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Yoshi-Thomas

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At the same time though, there was basically little to no animosity towards the Geno fanbase and the wider Smash audience during Smash 4. I think the question is what changed during those 4 years.
Ridley, Banjo and K. Rool became playable. Geno was the next historical request in line after these three.
In other websites, Ridley was always the big target. K. Rool became next for a month as the target of mockery, but it didn't feel as intense due to it lasting only a month.
Banjo was put against Steve for a good year (due to Vergeben's leak and the grotesque fanart), and eventually was confirmed.
Only thing that changed is that we got the three biggest fan requests added as playable, so of course Geno who is still considered as a solid request among Smash fans had to be next.
 

Mikegamer0608

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Right, but Ridley had the whole "Is he a stage boss? Is he not?" debacle, and you had very decisive opinions whether he was or not.


Likewise, say, K.Rool, who I'd argue was the "Geno fandom" of Smash 4(A large, vocal support base), never really had any bad blood during that time, and even after the costume occurred, outside of 4chan trolls, nothing really bad came of it, and ended up as a fairly respected fandom outside the occasional "Irrelevant" post.


A fandom doesn't become a so-to-speak punching bag without something to trigger it. For Waluigi, it was the reports of people sending Sakurai death threats, as overblown as it was since it was literally 2 guys, the Geno fandom didn't become mildly indifferent to repulsed by the greater Smash community overnight with no point of happening is what I'm saying.


Maybe it was Fatman, maybe it was the Grinch, who can say? From my own point of view, Geno seemed mostly indifferent pre-Grinch, so I feel like it has to be at least one of those 2.


Not saying this is okay in any way, shape, or form of course. I do not like how the greater Smash fandom can dogpile on support bases.
You could probably add the whole Cacomallow rumor spreading from thread to thread for months on end.
 

Shroob

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Ridley, Banjo and K. Rool became playable. Geno was the next historical request in line after these three.
In other websites, Ridley was always the big target. K. Rool became next for a month as the target of mockery, but it didn't feel as intense due to it lasting only a month.
Banjo was put against Steve for a good year (due to Vergeben's leak and the grotesque fanart), and eventually was confirmed.
Only thing that changed is that we got the three biggest fan requests added as playable, so of course Geno who is still considered as a solid request among Smash fans had to be next.
I really don't remember much mockery in regards to K.Rool and Banjo, but that could just be me. K.Rool's fandom was fairly either highly regarded or just outright left alone until post-E3, and at least from my experience, the absolute worst that it got was the occasional "He's irrelevant" post, and even then, I'd argue more people wanted K.Rool than not.


Same could be said of Banjo. Banjo's a Smash darling, and while there were definitely Banjo vs Steve wars, that was mainly between Banjo and Steve supporters due to a "There can only be one" mentality, not at all helped by the Grinch leak and Ugly Steve posting, and frankly, if anything, Steve was the one treated way more harshly by the Smash community at large because "Minecraft funni block man baby game."


I really don't think this was some trickle down hate deal, because frankly, I don't remember much hate if any during the base game irt Geno. It was only after a certain time that it seemed to sprout up, and I don't know when that exact moment was.


You could probably add the whole Cacomallow rumor spreading from thread to thread for months on end.
Cacomallow probably did do a number, yes. That leak was exhausting, and didn't do this community any favor after it was shown that Mii costumes were in fact modable. I understand wanting a leak to be real, but once evidence was put forward that Mii costumes weren't as impossible as we were lead to believe, people really should have taken a step back and not been soo confident it was 100% true. And like, well, I think it's very safe to say it's fake at this point.
 
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bardbowman

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At the same time though, there was basically little to no animosity towards the Geno fanbase and the wider Smash audience during Smash 4. I think the question is what changed during those 4 years.
As someone who stalked boards like these and GameFAQS back in the Smash 4 days, I’d dispute the idea that there was “little to no animosity” towards Geno and his fans back in those days.

Because the fever-pitched expectations of Geno in Brawl were completely dashed, a huge swath of the Geno fanbase gave up on him ever showing up. After all, SMRPG wasn’t getting any more “““relevant””” (the big determining factor in those days), and if he didn’t get in after all the support and attention he enjoyed in Brawl, then Sakurai probably just didn’t care to make it happen.

But still, it was a pretty big shock for me to see just how subdued the Geno fanbase was in the Smash 4 days. Outside of his support thread (which itself didn’t have crazy amounts of activity), there was basically no one talking about him. However, in the rare instance that someone did say something about Geno, they’d more often than not be met with statements like “Ugh, I thought you all died after Brawl,” and “oh no, there’s another one.” People told me I never stopped shutting up about him in the Brawl days (which is funny, since I wasn’t around back then), and so Geno fans are long overdue to just move on.

So I did move on, for the most part. I still wanted Geno in Smash of course, but I had concluded that his fanbase was largely non-existent at this point in time.

And that didn’t change until his Mii costume dropped. I don’t know about you guys, but when I saw that announcement I was ecstatic. My expectations were so low at that point, that the fact that Geno would get anything was huge to me.

But when I started looking around the Smash community for reactions, several people were saying things like “lololololol Geno fans got DUMPED on! They must be furious lolol”

So yeah, in my experience the Geno crowd in Smash 4, despite its greatly reduced numbers, was often met with jeers and incredulity from people excited to see us unhappy, with several of them citing the oh-so-annoying fans of the Brawl days.
 

Firox

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A fandom doesn't become a so-to-speak punching bag without something to trigger it.
I think you might be underestimating the depths of human depravity and malevolence. True, there may have been one or two obnoxious Geno fans, as with any fanbase, but when it comes to the Internet, I invoke the words of Alfred Pennyworth:

"Some men just want to watch the world burn."

If you'll notice, ANY TIME a character's chances start to look particularly good, the hate starts to flow, especially just before they actually get revealed. There was a time when Geno's chances started to look pretty good, when Hero dropped without the costume and B-K showed up to make us think our voices actually mattered. For those of us that were heavily active at the time, we watched as the tide of hate rose proportionately to our hopes. That's the annoying thing about human nature: We HATE seeing the happiness of others when we aren't happy ourselves. If there's even a chance that someone else could get their most wanted, it's like clockwork that a huge portion of others will start throwing spite. I'd say the only thing that made the Geno fanbase unique was that unlike a lot of other characters, we had a lot of fake leaks and leakers offering false hope which in turn generated skepticism and spite inside and outside the fanbase itself. That's the most tragic thing about the Geno fanbase. We had so much hope ripped out from under us, and then everyone else has the gall to kick us on the ground for ever hoping to begin with.
 

ultimatekoopa

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I really don't think this was some trickle down hate deal, because frankly, I don't remember much hate if any during the base game irt Geno. It was only after a certain time that it seemed to sprout up, and I don't know when that exact moment was.
You can explain all of this with two words: Dragon Quest.
 

Dinoman96

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At the same time though, there was basically little to no animosity towards the Geno fanbase and the wider Smash audience during Smash 4. I think the question is what changed during those 4 years.
The Geno fandom had mostly gone underground post-Brawl. They didn't really come back into the limelight until Sakurai acknowledged the character's popularity in 2016 with the Mii costume.
 
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Dan

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Likewise, just because a character's popular, it doesn't mean that the developers can come up with a moveset for that character. To use Waluigi as an example, all of the movesets that I've seen for him feel like they're cobbled together from a bunch of unrelated games. Mind you, that hasn't stopped the development team before (Piranha Plant combines the attributes of a bunch of different species of plant enemies to make a moveset), but maybe they can't put something together for Waluigi in a way that feels satisfying, or maybe they don't have an interest in adding Waluigi when Rosalina, Bowser Jr., and Piranha Plant allow them to get more creative or try something different.
This is like really dumb. "In a way that feels satisfying"... bruh; you literally pointed out that they made a moveset out of an immobile character. They could literally make a table playable at this point. I'm not even a Waluigi homer but there is literally no difference between him, Rosalina, Bowser Jr. and Plant. Plant is still the weirdest out of all of them. I fail to see the reason you feel the need to discriminate against him when they've proven they can make any video game character playable, so long as they aren't larger than Ridley in size evidently.

Sometimes I feel like speculation as a whole just wasn't worth it. Most of the time it got our hopes up only for some anime bimbos and Minecraft shilling to take it's place.
I don't feel it's ever been worth it. It's sometimes been fun, but if they could just tell us the characters I would rather have it that way. I don't really need to be amused by surprises... the fighters should be ablle to carry themselves under their own merit. Speculation just feels like a waste of time most of the time.
 

SSGuy

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I don't feel it's ever been worth it. It's sometimes been fun, but if they could just tell us the characters I would rather have it that way. I don't really need to be amused by surprises... the fighters should be ablle to carry themselves under their own merit. Speculation just feels like a waste of time most of the time.
I would much rather prefer Nintendo to tell us ahead of time what they were wanting to add in like how Capcom and Namco have been treating treating dlc passes.

But Nintendo has this weird obsession with ridding this whole big hype clout that they don't seem to realize their communities suffer due to their lack of transparency. I'm pretty glad I don't support this company like I use to and have moved onto greener pastures.
 
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Shroob

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realize their communities suffer due to their lack of transparency.
I mean, who suffers, exactly? Ya gotta remember that us folk online that spend a lot of our time speculating about the Smash characters are a fraction of a fraction of Smash's total audience. Like, I know we forget sometimes, but we make up less than 1% of the total sales. To a big, big company, outside of stuff like the ballot, we don't matter. Every one of us could have not bought Ultimate and Ultimate still would have broken 20 million sales easily.


Granted, I too would prefer to get all the DLC up front, but let's not overblow the situation greater than it actually is.


The fact is, the system they have currently works, and they know it works, it's basically free eyes on their Nintendo Directs from Smash fans desperate to catch the next, new character and to get that hype high that they soo desperately crave, while Nintendo gets influencers to watch the Directs with their audiences, which generates reactions, which generates even more publicity for them. It's pretty much a flawless marketing strategy to be blunt.
 
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Swamp Sensei

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I'll try to be blunt, but fair and empathetic.

Geno fans aren't really a pariah on other sites. Sure you'll find antis wherever you go, but the sentiment towards Geno fans is nowhere near as harsh.

Geno fans were also considered standard fair during the Brawl days and were even considered pretty cool in the Smash 4 days.

There was a big tonal shift in the Geno community between Smash 4 and Ultimate and it seemed to stick for quite a while.

I don't know what the exact cause is, but the thread did start to develop bad behavior and that solidified people's perception of the Geno's thread. There was little community policing and issues with leadership.

And yes I know there were people bullying the Geno thread, but the best response to bullies isn't bully back and yeah, snide comments in public forums do count as bullying. If you have to vent, it's the safest to do it in PMs with people you trust. Airing it out in public is how you get bullied more. That's not me trying to blame the victim either. It's trying to tell you how to avoid putting that metaphorical target on your back.

If I had to give advice, I'd say just focus on policing the community and finding a good, socially smart leader who cares for people inside the group and outside of it. It's real easy to make a community an echo chamber, but one should strive to ensure it doesn't happen because on the off chance the predicted outcome doesn't happen, it crushes you. Instead, accept the possibility that it might never happen and find happiness elsewhere. Speculation can be exhausting when you put your heart on the line. Find other aspects of the game or life that you like, or talk to others to find out why they like things you don't. You may even grow to like new things. That's the beauty of crossovers. There's always new stuff to learn about.

One reason the Isaac and K.Rool threads were so successful is because they have very level headed community leadership in N3ON and BKupa. The reason the Ridley thread failed in Smash 4 was because... it didn't really have a community built like that. It did, at some points, but things got out of control and it didn't last. A good way to tell if the leader will last is if people outside the group respect them. It means they have the social tools to keep the community safe, respected and respectful.

I don't want you guys to give up on a character you love, but if the thread wants to improve its reputation, some community restructuring is gonna have to take place. I'm not even gonna hope to suggest who should do that. It's something you guys are gonna have to figure out on your own.

But if the Ridley thread was able to pull itself together, you guys can. :)
 

Adrianette Bromide

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I'll try to be blunt, but fair and empathetic.

Geno fans aren't really a pariah on other sites. Sure you'll find antis wherever you go, but the sentiment towards Geno fans is nowhere near as harsh.

Geno fans were also considered standard fair during the Brawl days and were even considered pretty cool in the Smash 4 days.

There was a big tonal shift in the Geno community between Smash 4 and Ultimate and it seemed to stick for quite a while.

I don't know what the exact cause is, but the thread did start to develop bad behavior and that solidified people's perception of the Geno's thread. There was little community policing and issues with leadership.

And yes I know there were people bullying the Geno thread, but the best response to bullies isn't bully back and yeah, snide comments in public forums do count as bullying. If you have to vent, it's the safest to do it in PMs with people you trust. Airing it out in public is how you get bullied more. That's not me trying to blame the victim either. It's trying to tell you how to avoid putting that metaphorical target on your back.

If I had to give advice, I'd say just focus on policing the community and finding a good, socially smart leader who cares for people inside the group and outside of it. It's real easy to make a community an echo chamber, but one should strive to ensure it doesn't happen because on the off chance the predicted outcome doesn't happen, it crushes you. Instead, accept the possibility that it might never happen and find happiness elsewhere. Speculation can be exhausting when you put your heart on the line. Find other aspects of the game or life that you like, or talk to others to find out why they like things you don't. You may even grow to like new things. That's the beauty of crossovers. There's always new stuff to learn about.

One reason the Isaac and K.Rool threads were so successful is because they have very level headed community leadership in N3ON and BKupa. The reason the Ridley thread failed in Smash 4 was because... it didn't really have a community built like that. It did, at some points, but things got out of control and it didn't last. A good way to tell if the leader will last is if people outside the group respect them. It means they have the social tools to keep the community safe, respected and respectful.

I don't want you guys to give up on a character you love, but if the thread wants to improve its reputation, some community restructuring is gonna have to take place. I'm not even gonna hope to suggest who should do that. It's something you guys are gonna have to figure out on your own.

But if the Ridley thread was able to pull itself together, you guys can. :)
Random question I guess but back in Smash 4, did veterans have support threads? I'm an Ult baby right from its announcement so I wouldn't know.

Edit: Vets that got cut like Snake.
 
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Swamp Sensei

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Random question I guess but back in Smash 4, did veterans have support threads? I'm an Ult baby right from its announcement so I wouldn't know.

Edit: Vets that got cut like Snake.
Yes they did, though they were separated from newcomer discussion.
 

EricTheGamerman

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Ridley, Banjo and K. Rool became playable. Geno was the next historical request in line after these three.
In other websites, Ridley was always the big target. K. Rool became next for a month as the target of mockery, but it didn't feel as intense due to it lasting only a month.
Banjo was put against Steve for a good year (due to Vergeben's leak and the grotesque fanart), and eventually was confirmed.
Only thing that changed is that we got the three biggest fan requests added as playable, so of course Geno who is still considered as a solid request among Smash fans had to be next.
I think claiming stuff like "next historical request" and other stuff is exactly the kind of thing that has resulted in there being a lot of frustration with the Geno community because it's based in a very odd perception that negates other highly requested characters. Like, the three you listed weren't even historical requests to begin with either, and that language gets very casually misused a lot by certain members of the Geno community in an attempt to prop the guy up. But the reality is that the big three people refer to were only very suddenly the big three before the start of Ultimate and didn't have historical requests to stand on as a whole. Ridley got his start in Brawl as a request, absolutely ballooned in Smash 4, and then sort of fell off only to end up in Ultimate at the very start. King K. Rool wasn't really a huge thing in the Brawl days with Diddy Kong at the forefront of Brawl stuff anyway and he only really exploded in a post Donkey Kong Country Returns world in Smash 4 and became a new request. And Banjo & Kazooie literally had almost no vocal support until the Smash 4 Ballot had just started. They were three character that all had very different entry points as frontrunners of certain online popularity polls. And similarly, Geno was really popular in Brawl and then cratered in Smash 4 before being revived by the Mii Costume to then the larger status here. Historical requests aren't a huge thing, but that's how those other three got framed.

But then saying Geno is next also negates fans who have worked hard for their communities and earned them high rankings in the limited community polls. Isaac fans would certainly lay a similar claim and they've generally seen larger increases in populaity steadily without any dead periods until the Assist Trophy. And then you certainly would have fans of like Krystal that would argue they've been around since Brawl too even if her support has heavily waned since then. And so on. It's not a good way to really build ally ship with other communities TBH. And then as I've expressed before, I think we're officially at a point where an entire generation has passed since Brawl's limited speculation and there are fans who feel their voices aren't heard with newer requests and that they are unfairly pushed to the back simply because they haven't supported a character for a decade, and to be honest, that isn't really fair to ascribe a long-term fan over a newer one. There's no hierarchy of deserving, we're just fans supporting different characters at different times and hoping Nintendo takes some notice.

Beyond that, I also think it's worth always acknowledging Geno is a long shot of long shots. I've been a fan for years, but it's frankly absurd he's even in this conversation as a major request that has penetrated the cultural discussions around Smash. There's a lot of committed fans to old RPG characters like him and he's the one with one singular real appearance that has managed to breakthrough despite not having appeared outside outside of a cameo in 25 years. And he's not even technically the cover character of that same game or the primary playable character, he's a dueterotagonist sharing the spotlight with another 4 characters. Some of us may find that really cool and clearly do, but that's also the kind of inherently niche character that will draw skepticism and doubt. Not to mention, if you're say a Dixie Kong supporter right now, it's hard not to be somewhat frustrated by a character like Geno creating a fan zeitgeist while your character has been requested for years in the background and holds a much bigger claim to Nintendo and her parents series as a whole than Geno does to Mario. And just little things like that all add up and create an even worse starting place for discussions on Geno.

And then yeah, I think some of the main people around this thread the first time around didn't do it any favors for a lot of reasons I won't really go into, but absolutely did frustrate a lot of the community outside of here.
 

SSGuy

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I do think the claim of Geno being the next SE character in line has definitely rubbed others the wrong way. Considering both Dragon Quest and Sephiroth both were selected over Geno probably goes to show we shouldn't necessarily take our years of dedicated for granted. But I think that is what makes the reality so much more difficult to bare. I didn't have Geno as my most wanted character so a section of the community can treat it as a joke. I just wish at some point some of the more anti-Geno, fair weather Smash fan crowd would at least understand our point of view while we do to theirs. Maybe then there wouldn't be so much division.

It's just hard accepting how drastically different speculation was. It never was this scornful and clout ridden during Brawl's time. I think that is why I feel the way I do about specific parts of Smash Bros today. But I'm okay with moving on. I just hope detractors can for their own sanity.
 

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It's just hard accepting how drastically different speculation was. It never was this scornful and clout ridden during Brawl's time.
No it was.

It's always been there.

Go check the Brawl leaks. It was arguably even worse.
 

Shroob

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It never was this scornful and clout ridden during Brawl's time.
I mean


As someone who was there, it kinda was. We may look back on it as a sort of "Man, things were soo much better back then", but it wasn't really, and the thing that made it worse was that most of us were like, teenagers, which made the debates much worse.


Brawl gave us such lovely counter-points as to why characters can't get in like, "Megaman and Samus are too similar because they both have arm cannons."



I'd honestly never choose to go back to Brawl times, because frankly put, everyone was a lot dumber back then, because we were all dumb teens, myself included.
 

Vector Victor

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Smash speculation was bad in the Brawl days too. Smash tends to attract those who demand particular discussion flows that only they deem acceptable, and then forming cliques on the forums. And typically, the "leaders" are rude, obnoxious and obsessive, folks who constantly have to get the last word in or act like they personally know everything in Smash development, but its the kind of forum members people like so they get celebrated. They're asses, but apparently the right kind of ass, so its OK.

And the Sakurai complaining was bad too. There's a reason why the "You must recover" Dojo update is easily remembered as the loud Smash fanbase lost their **** over it, as if that update cancelled the game. People literally formed their day around those daily updates, and if it wasn't good enough, it was a failure, and boy were they vocal about that.

This thread just needs to like a character and not be rude or overly defensive. He's a long shot, but admittedly there are hundreds of fanbases who would kill (and also would hype their character's potential chances ALOT) to have Sakurai name drop their favorite. So at least Geno was on his mind. Honestly, nothing will remove the image detractors have about this thread, this character, this fanbase. Even the Star Road charity was accused of trying to buy Geno into Smash. Legitimately trying to do good and people automatically imagined the worst in it. No amount of goodwill will change their minds, and considering how they acted towards the fanbase, obnoxious or not, why WOULD you want to win them over? Fans get more pressure to be on their best behavior because people accepted that detractors won't, so someone has to fulfill the good quota. But it's also good advice to deter backlash from others, as we all see how all you need is one or two annoying supporters for the Smash community to cast them aside.
 
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