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

[Geno Boost]

Let's be real here: if the last character is first party, it is 97% likely going to be a Sword/Shield Pokemon lol

I would say Ayumi is also a strong possibility now that she made it outside of japan she is back on the table and she is in a similar position to every fighter on DLC pack 2 that were planned to be included in smash earlier.

 

[Deleted member]

Let's be real here: if the last character is first party, it is 97% likely going to be a Sword/Shield Pokemon lol

See, I just don't want to say things like that. There's enough evil in the universe as is.

 

[Icewolff92]

So, in terms of likelyhood who do you think is the final character?

I have no idea

 

[Dinoman96]

I would say Ayumi is also a strong possibility now that she made it outside of japan she is back on the table and she is in a similar position to every fighter on DLC pack 2 that were planned to be included in smash earlier.

Eh, the FDC remakes don't even have a proper retail release in the west. I don't think Nintendo views them as that important.

Also Ayumi was never really even "planned" for Melee, just briefly considered.

 

[Firox]

Let's be real here: if the last character is first party, it is 97% likely going to be a Sword/Shield Pokemon lol

This is depressingly accurate.

Smashposting on the clock gang rise up

HOO-RAH!!

 

[Icewolff92]

This is depressingly accurate.

I highly doubt it at this point. A Pokemon maybe (Decidueye connecting with Arceus for example), but the Sword and Shield have more than likely died after Crown Tundra release.

I will go so far as to say that if the rumors of a Fire Emblem remake are true, and if it is a 6+7 combo pack that some claim... Lyn has a much bigger chance to arriving than what an SWSH Pokemon have, even with her being an AT and the amount of Fe characters in consideration... And no, I don´t think she has that big of a chance.

 

[ForsakenM]

Firox Let's be honest with ourselves here.

Is the Smash fandom insatiable or unable to be satisfied?

Or has Smash just not put in enough requests per installment to keep up with the demand?

Remember, Ridley, K. Rool have better wanted additions since the first game came out, not getting in until Ultimate. that's almost two decades before they ever got in. B&K fall under this too, and it actually WAS two decades for them. Now, imagine if they all got in Melee or even Brawl. Where do you think we would be in terms of character demand?

Geno falls into this group as well: he was a character established before the first Smash title and while a bit more niche people still wanted him for the next one, enough of them holding on that when non-SMRPG fans brought him up during Brawl speculation we all kinda flooded in to say 'Allow us to introduce ourselves!'

Krystal falls under what a lot of characters in current speculation do: Not exist prior to the first Smash title, and she actually didn't exist until after Melee. This made her a big request for the Brawl Era. People who want these characters have been asking since between 2001 and 2006/2007, which is now over a decade. Out of all these requests that started here, who have gotten in? Honestly, I think only Little Mac really falls into that, but I don't have the time to do more research to be more accurate.

So, Geno is a pre-Smash request, Krystal and many others are a post-Melee request. Megaman had some Brawl support but he exploded between Brawl and Smash 4 because fans really thought it was the only way for Capcom to give a ****.

Here we are, 2021, and there are still requests that haven't happened since the FIRST GAME RELEASED IN 1999! Now, is this the fan's fault, or Nintendo's fault for not prioritizing these requests so that Sakurai could make them happen? Maybe it's Sakurai's fault, although he always seems to pay attention to fans and trying to do is best in regards to character choices.

Do you understand what I'm saying? When a franchise goes on long enough, it will have evolving requests. The real issue here is that when the owner of a franchise is so slow to grant these requests, they start to pile up high, to the point that even granting a bunch of them at once seems like a drop in the bucket.

Keep in mind, many of the requests are FIRST PARTY CHARACTERS, characters Nintendo can just say yes to and BAM there they are...and yet it took until 2018 to get K. Rool for absolutely no reason other than neglect. Why is Krystal an AT but Byleth is playable? Why was Isaac removed from Smash 4 to only come back as an AT in Ultimate while Min Min gets to be DLC? Fans have wanted more SMRPG since before the N64 existed and Geno in Smash since Smash was announced for the console, so why hasn't he happened yet?

The answer is greed and neglect. Nintendo can choose to put in whoever they want, and the world will clamor for it, because it's Smash. They can force Sakurai to rush the game and then make characters who SHOULD have been base game (and would have been for any other Smash title) DLC instead of big requests, because people will just blindly buy the pass. They can get away with throwing a bone time to time to the fandom that has been around going towards 30 years now because WE BUY IT ALL ANYWAY! I didn't even buy my copy, a friend got it for me. I didn't buy FP1 until I saw all the inclusions and decided that: Persona 5 is dope, DQ has been waiting for 30 years and the Command Menu is silly fun, the bear and bird have finally arrived, RUOKAYBUSTAWOOOF, and Byleth's playstyle is fun to dabble with. I am waiting on FP2 for the final character, and while I support my favorite games getting more content and always try new characters, I have to say I find this pass very lackluster.

I have no attachment to ARMS or Minecraft, Sephy is huge but he was chosen over ma boi just because Cloud lacked content and greedy Square needs money, never touched a Xeno anything in my life, and Tekken is one of my least-played fighting games. If the last character isn't a big deal, I probably won't bother with the pass until I have people around me to play with or we enter a scenario where the content will be gone forever and I have to buy to keep it (like Marvel 2 on PS3), and this is AFTER getting to play the first four characters in the pass at an establishment where people play Smash a lot and thinking they were all mostly fun to play.

If you want your characters to get in, you need to be vocal about it and show your support in times that will make it know to the company, and you need to not hand companies your money hand over fist for everything they do. Some companies (usually smaller ones) listen to social media posts and feedback, but big ones tend to stop caring unless their bottom line gets effected...you know what to do.

To finish this post, this is why I REALLY hope that we either get more DLC after this despite EVERYTHING that has gone down, or that we get something a la UMvC3, because Ultimate is SOOOO big that it's going to cause a Melee/Brawl effect where people just will not stick with the next Smash title at all. People aren't really talking about this, but it's been stated multiple times by Sakurai and anyone else with a brain that what Ultimate is doing is not sustainable moving forward in any other way but MAYBE porting the same game over without adding much or anything new at all, and even that is asking for a lot. If the next Smash game cuts out a bunch of stuff (which, let's be honest, is almost guaranteed), who is going to want to play a game that has just less content in every way than the previous one that very nearly brought back everything from every previous title AND added more?

Thus, in a new Smash title, even if Geno or Waluigi or Isaac or Krystal get into that game...who cares other than us fans of them who have been around since the beginning? And honestly, what a hollow victory would that be! Imagine Geno gets into Smash Fighter's Apex or whatever they call it, but only two-thirds of the roster of Ultimate is there and they cut all the big wishes like Banjo and the hype picks like Joker? Did we win? Yeah, we finally got him. Is everyone still playing Ultimate because THEIR favorite character is in that game? You betcha! You wanted to have Waluigi vs Simon matches with your buddy, but that's too bad because Simon and Richter got cut along with Snake, so now no matter whether you guys sit down to play Ultimate or the newest Smash one of you is feeling the pain of not being able to play that character you wanted for years...knowing that if they had just put it all in Ultimate, you wouldn't be here.

This is why Ultimate needs to keep going somehow and in some way because they've only really hit five big names on the Smash Request List out of ALL the characters brought into this game, and this is frankly the only real chance to have them all in the same game within our youth.

 

[Deleted member]

People aren't really talking about this, but it's been stated multiple times by Sakurai and anyone else with a brain that what Ultimate is doing is not sustainable moving forward in any other way but MAYBE porting the same game over without adding much or anything new at all, and even that is asking for a lot. If the next Smash game cuts out a bunch of stuff (which, let's be honest, is almost guaranteed), who is going to want to play a game that has just less content in every way than the previous one that very nearly brought back everything from every previous title AND added more?

I say this like all the time, and believe me - I get the sentiment.

But! Take this from someone who refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of Melee mostly due to its having aged like cheese (but somewhat due to the big Melee vs Brawl brouhaha): people will go with what they consider to be superior gameplay wise, or culturally. If the roster size meant a damn thing, no one would play Melee anymore, but that game is still going strong after 20 years with both an evolving metagame and an evolving playerbase despite the fact that on roster alone, Brawl beat it back in 2008. Brawl players immediately hopped to Smash 4 and Smash 4 players immediately hopped to Ultimate... But I don't think it has anything to do with the roster. It's all mechanics. If Brawl had launched as PM, I actually doubt anyone would have cared about Smash 4, and again, that's coming from someone who doesn't care for PM. Even the people who don't really care for Melee because they can't overcome the poorly aged controls and mechanics love Melee for the culture that surrounds it - this game has a goddamned pedigree at this point and new community members are entranced by the lore. Smash as a franchise doesn't have a rich history or anything more than a shaky community, all of the good times are carried by Melee. What does any other Smash game have in its history book? Campy, homie stock EVO grand finals? Child abuse?

Let's say another Smash happens for whatever successor console Nintendo dreams up for the Switch, if it's mechanically superior to Ultimate, people will abandon Ultimate just as easily as they did Brawl and Smash 4. Look at how divided this community is over characters who get in and tell me with a straight face that people care about most of the cast. A cut's going to hurt someone but it isn't going to hurt everyone, and in that way, it's the same as adding a new character. I've caused a buzz among this community before about the amount of characters I'd throw out of this game and I guess maybe some people think I'm joking or think that my reasoning is ridiculous but I'm kind of over the whole "wow big roster" idealism that ****in' Marvel vs Capcom 2 put into my brain as a child. For as good as Ultimate is and as much as I love it, I could nitpick for hours over the tiny problems that add up to a big deal, many of which could be solved by keeping a quarter of the roster and refining the game. 99% chance I'd be a victim of a sweeping cut like that too, but provided I still had the spirit to play Smash and I was happy with how the game felt, I'd pick up a new main and get in there.

Nintendo is Nintendo. They make weird decisions, and because of that I can say with confidence that we really might not see another Smash game past this for a solid decade, not as we currently know it at least. I've brought up before the possibility of some kind of platform fighter specifically for Mario akin to Mario Kart, maybe with limited guest appearances from the franchises Nintendo really wants to shill at the moment, but nothing like Smash. In that scenario, Ultimate really is the final legacy of Super Smash Bros as directed by Sakurai and that's just something we'll have to accept. I promise you that Geno isn't getting in as a fighter if he doesn't get in here. We can just put that sad dream behind us (like all the rest of our dreams as Millennials) and move on with our lives.

 

[Shroob]

Can't say I agree. Chief or Sora would be the nail in the coffin for me, I actually don't think I could continue playing Ultimate with either of them on the roster. I don't even hate Halo (anymore), but gaming as a whole took a negative turn thanks to Halo and the dudebro Xbox Live crowd. It sure is gaming history, but that **** is not the kind of history Smash needs to celebrate.

Sounds a bit gatekeeper-y, but you're free to that belief nonetheless. As much as I'd chagrin at the prospect of say, a mobile game rep getting in Smash, it'd still be gaming history all the same to me.

A.D. 2021. People still believe that Imran Khan leaks Smash information through vague twitter posts.

Mankind continues to regress.

He did, once, like, the Min Min thing was clearly a wink wink nudge nudge.


But that was also when Nintendo was a lot more loose with info, before they tightened **** up around Steve's reveal, and even then Steve leaked shortly before the presentation. Imran doesn't have any info, and believing a sex joke involving Master Chief is a hint is laughable.

 

[Staarih]

-snip-

Honestly, I think you're really wayy too invested in all of this, just loosen it up a bit. You're twisting everything to fit into your own narrative which pretty much appears as "disappointment about Geno not making it in" for everyone else reading your posts. I have no idea where these sudden ideas that "Ultimate is a rushed game" or "Nintendo doesn't fulfill requests" comes from when we've had requests filled every game. They just have happened to not be Geno, but have been other big requests. Or that Geno is a pre-Smash/pre-N64 request, like, can that even be a thing? You say "we" or "us" a lot, but mostly it's just you. I appreciate the dedication you have but it's coming out as borderline obsession.

You say that if you want your characters to make it, you need to be vocal about it... yet the Geno fans were the quietest they ever were when it may have mattered the most: the ballot. Not saying that he didn't get any votes, but a big campaign/push around that time would've probably done wonders. Waking up to the situation after the Mii costume, which was after the ballot (and which was a huge acknowledgement on its own) may have been a bit too late. And we still got the Mii costume back in Ultimate, which is better than nothing.

I hope you get some kind of closure and heck, I'd honestly love to see Geno make it in and maybe it'll happen, who knows, but it's not worth fussing over so much.

 

[Deleted member]

Sounds a bit gatekeeper-y, but you're free to that belief nonetheless. As much as I'd chagrin at the prospect of say, a mobile game rep getting in Smash, it'd still be gaming history all the same to me.

I'm the worst gatekeeper in the history of walls, their methods of ingress and the people who keep them because stuff I don't like keeps getting into the things I like.


And yeah, I know that Imran put Min Min out there, but he and his ilk held L after L after L post-Min Min. It's just funny to see people still cling to the every word of these charlatans.

 

[Shroob]

And yeah, I know that Imran put Min Min out there, but he and his ilk held L after L after L post-Min Min. It's just funny to see people still cling to the every word of these charlatans.

I mean, define who we're talking about here, because neither he nor Zhunge nor any of the big names said anything irt Smash after Steve.


Vergeben did, and that blew up in his face, but if there's one thing, it's that leaks have been dead since post Steve.



Even PracticalBrush12, the dude who literally drops the entire contents of Directs online and got sued by Capcom for leaking classified info won't touch Smash.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Uhhhhh... King K. Rool wasn't exactly much of a request during Smash 64. It's not till Brawl it kind of started, but only after Diddy was revealed. Diddy not even having a trophy in Melee is what set people off, as he was the big gun for DKC to get a new character.

Metroid was not exactly considered the big franchise during Smash 64 as it is now. Ridley picked up steam more during Melee and Brawl at best, and definitely during 4. Metroid games started coming out more and more during the GameCube period, which put Ridley in the spotlight and people were starting to get interested in a Metroid Newcomer by then(it didn't help that some weren't a fan of ZSS, since it was just another version of Samus. Dark Samus was notable at that point, and Ridley also was a big talk, emphasis on "big" as well). A thing about Melee is we saw a lot of characters during the Intro that many latched onto or thought could be important(Wolf, Ridley). This is more what gave them some steam in the speculation community.

Banjo-Kazooie, Meowth, Bowser, Mewtwo, these were actually bigger requests after Smash 64. Ganon(dorf) too to some degree. Zelda's fighting stuff was from the spin-off materials(even ones Nintendo doesn't like), so, her requests weren't too big either. Sheik, well... ha! She's a very huge surprise getting in, outside of hindsight. It makes sense cause Zelda never actually fought in canon outside of Sheik, which is why them being together is very logical. Sheik being revealed first may not even be as odd. Maybe Zelda is only there to compliment Sheik to begin with, since their gimmick is "transformation" too. They were basically tied to the hip(at that point. Yay for Smash 4 splitting them apart, letting Zelda shine again~).

 

[Deleted member]

I mean, define who we're talking about here, because neither he nor Zhunge nor any of the big names said anything irt Smash after Steve.


Vergeben did, and that blew up in his face, but if there's one thing, it's that leaks have been dead since post Steve.



Even PracticalBrush12, the dude who literally drops the entire contents of Directs online and got sued by Capcom for leaking classified info won't touch Smash.

Imran, Jeff Grubb, and Jon GameXplain all got btfo by the first Partner Direct.

 

[Shroob]

Imran, Jeff Grubb, and Jon GameXplain all got btfo by the first Partner Direct.

I don't recall, but I've also never considered Jon to be an actual leaker tbh.


Regardless, like I said before, there haven't been any legit leaks since Steve, and people looking into a sex joke is a new kinda desperate.

 

[Deleted member]

I don't recall, but I've also never considered Jon to be an actual leaker tbh.


Regardless, like I said before, there haven't been any legit leaks since Steve, and people looking into a sex joke is a new kinda desperate.

Jon hasn't really ever leaked Smash, but he was always on top of a Direct. People were anticipating "the big one" thanks to those three and some others and we got the absolute worst. They were also "joking" about Geno's inclusion in Smash that day. Horrible look on them and my sour opinion on the lot of them further acidified.

 

[Shroob]

The only leaker I'm willing to trust is PracticalBrush12

And only because they just dump almost the entirety of a Direct's contents on Reddit and aren't coy about it, they just tell it like it is.



Granted, they've also flat out admitted that they cannot get Smash info anymore, probably due to just how strict Nintendo's gotten irt Smash.

 

[Firox]

Firox Let's be honest with ourselves here.

Is the Smash fandom insatiable or unable to be satisfied?

Or has Smash just not put in enough requests per installment to keep up with the demand?

Remember, Ridley, K. Rool have better wanted additions since the first game came out, not getting in until Ultimate. that's almost two decades before they ever got in. B&K fall under this too, and it actually WAS two decades for them. Now, imagine if they all got in Melee or even Brawl. Where do you think we would be in terms of character demand?

Geno falls into this group as well: he was a character established before the first Smash title and while a bit more niche people still wanted him for the next one, enough of them holding on that when non-SMRPG fans brought him up during Brawl speculation we all kinda flooded in to say 'Allow us to introduce ourselves!'

Krystal falls under what a lot of characters in current speculation do: Not exist prior to the first Smash title, and she actually didn't exist until after Melee. This made her a big request for the Brawl Era. People who want these characters have been asking since between 2001 and 2006/2007, which is now over a decade. Out of all these requests that started here, who have gotten in? Honestly, I think only Little Mac really falls into that, but I don't have the time to do more research to be more accurate.

So, Geno is a pre-Smash request, Krystal and many others are a post-Melee request. Megaman had some Brawl support but he exploded between Brawl and Smash 4 because fans really thought it was the only way for Capcom to give a ****.

Here we are, 2021, and there are still requests that haven't happened since the FIRST GAME RELEASED IN 1999! Now, is this the fan's fault, or Nintendo's fault for not prioritizing these requests so that Sakurai could make them happen? Maybe it's Sakurai's fault, although he always seems to pay attention to fans and trying to do is best in regards to character choices.

Do you understand what I'm saying? When a franchise goes on long enough, it will have evolving requests. The real issue here is that when the owner of a franchise is so slow to grant these requests, they start to pile up high, to the point that even granting a bunch of them at once seems like a drop in the bucket.

Keep in mind, many of the requests are FIRST PARTY CHARACTERS, characters Nintendo can just say yes to and BAM there they are...and yet it took until 2018 to get K. Rool for absolutely no reason other than neglect. Why is Krystal an AT but Byleth is playable? Why was Isaac removed from Smash 4 to only come back as an AT in Ultimate while Min Min gets to be DLC? Fans have wanted more SMRPG since before the N64 existed and Geno in Smash since Smash was announced for the console, so why hasn't he happened yet?

The answer is greed and neglect. Nintendo can choose to put in whoever they want, and the world will clamor for it, because it's Smash. They can force Sakurai to rush the game and then make characters who SHOULD have been base game (and would have been for any other Smash title) DLC instead of big requests, because people will just blindly buy the pass. They can get away with throwing a bone time to time to the fandom that has been around going towards 30 years now because WE BUY IT ALL ANYWAY! I didn't even buy my copy, a friend got it for me. I didn't buy FP1 until I saw all the inclusions and decided that: Persona 5 is dope, DQ has been waiting for 30 years and the Command Menu is silly fun, the bear and bird have finally arrived, RUOKAYBUSTAWOOOF, and Byleth's playstyle is fun to dabble with. I am waiting on FP2 for the final character, and while I support my favorite games getting more content and always try new characters, I have to say I find this pass very lackluster.

I have no attachment to ARMS or Minecraft, Sephy is huge but he was chosen over ma boi just because Cloud lacked content and greedy Square needs money, never touched a Xeno anything in my life, and Tekken is one of my least-played fighting games. If the last character isn't a big deal, I probably won't bother with the pass until I have people around me to play with or we enter a scenario where the content will be gone forever and I have to buy to keep it (like Marvel 2 on PS3), and this is AFTER getting to play the first four characters in the pass at an establishment where people play Smash a lot and thinking they were all mostly fun to play.

If you want your characters to get in, you need to be vocal about it and show your support in times that will make it know to the company, and you need to not hand companies your money hand over fist for everything they do. Some companies (usually smaller ones) listen to social media posts and feedback, but big ones tend to stop caring unless their bottom line gets effected...you know what to do.

To finish this post, this is why I REALLY hope that we either get more DLC after this despite EVERYTHING that has gone down, or that we get something a la UMvC3, because Ultimate is SOOOO big that it's going to cause a Melee/Brawl effect where people just will not stick with the next Smash title at all. People aren't really talking about this, but it's been stated multiple times by Sakurai and anyone else with a brain that what Ultimate is doing is not sustainable moving forward in any other way but MAYBE porting the same game over without adding much or anything new at all, and even that is asking for a lot. If the next Smash game cuts out a bunch of stuff (which, let's be honest, is almost guaranteed), who is going to want to play a game that has just less content in every way than the previous one that very nearly brought back everything from every previous title AND added more?

Thus, in a new Smash title, even if Geno or Waluigi or Isaac or Krystal get into that game...who cares other than us fans of them who have been around since the beginning? And honestly, what a hollow victory would that be! Imagine Geno gets into Smash Fighter's Apex or whatever they call it, but only two-thirds of the roster of Ultimate is there and they cut all the big wishes like Banjo and the hype picks like Joker? Did we win? Yeah, we finally got him. Is everyone still playing Ultimate because THEIR favorite character is in that game? You betcha! You wanted to have Waluigi vs Simon matches with your buddy, but that's too bad because Simon and Richter got cut along with Snake, so now no matter whether you guys sit down to play Ultimate or the newest Smash one of you is feeling the pain of not being able to play that character you wanted for years...knowing that if they had just put it all in Ultimate, you wouldn't be here.

This is why Ultimate needs to keep going somehow and in some way because they've only really hit five big names on the Smash Request List out of ALL the characters brought into this game, and this is frankly the only real chance to have them all in the same game within our youth.

You've got some good point in here with regards to the significance of Ultimate and how imperative it is to get Geno sooner than later due to the lack of guarantee that the next game will be anywhere near as huge. I think the most succinct answer to your question, "is the Smash fandom insatiable or unable to be satisfied?", is that it's really both. The bigger a franchise gets, the more demand there is for output, but it doesn't take long for expectations to exceed capability. As we've discussed before, this was sort of the issue with Pokemon. They just kept adding and adding Pokemon until the logistics hit critical mass and they had to start deflating. Smash will soon hit this exact same wall, and when it does, there'll be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, though, to your point, and just like with the pokemon company, there comes the issue as to whether cutbacks are a legitimate hardware/software limitation or if it simply boils down to laziness, apathy, or just a lack of necessity since people will blindly buy content anyway.

In the end, I'd say that devs have their flaws, to be sure, but the fanbase is just too big and too different to appease them all. Or rather, there will always be a sizeable percentage that has something to complain about. Sometimes it's entitlement, but sometimes it's warranted. As a wise internet troll once said:

"Half the internet is fans whining. The other half are people correcting each other's grammar, and the last half is porn."

 

[S1itchey]

Firox Let's be honest with ourselves here.

Is the Smash fandom insatiable or unable to be satisfied?

Or has Smash just not put in enough requests per installment to keep up with the demand?

Remember, Ridley, K. Rool have better wanted additions since the first game came out, not getting in until Ultimate. that's almost two decades before they ever got in. B&K fall under this too, and it actually WAS two decades for them. Now, imagine if they all got in Melee or even Brawl. Where do you think we would be in terms of character demand?

Geno falls into this group as well: he was a character established before the first Smash title and while a bit more niche people still wanted him for the next one, enough of them holding on that when non-SMRPG fans brought him up during Brawl speculation we all kinda flooded in to say 'Allow us to introduce ourselves!'

Krystal falls under what a lot of characters in current speculation do: Not exist prior to the first Smash title, and she actually didn't exist until after Melee. This made her a big request for the Brawl Era. People who want these characters have been asking since between 2001 and 2006/2007, which is now over a decade. Out of all these requests that started here, who have gotten in? Honestly, I think only Little Mac really falls into that, but I don't have the time to do more research to be more accurate.

So, Geno is a pre-Smash request, Krystal and many others are a post-Melee request. Megaman had some Brawl support but he exploded between Brawl and Smash 4 because fans really thought it was the only way for Capcom to give a ****.

Here we are, 2021, and there are still requests that haven't happened since the FIRST GAME RELEASED IN 1999! Now, is this the fan's fault, or Nintendo's fault for not prioritizing these requests so that Sakurai could make them happen? Maybe it's Sakurai's fault, although he always seems to pay attention to fans and trying to do is best in regards to character choices.

Do you understand what I'm saying? When a franchise goes on long enough, it will have evolving requests. The real issue here is that when the owner of a franchise is so slow to grant these requests, they start to pile up high, to the point that even granting a bunch of them at once seems like a drop in the bucket.

Keep in mind, many of the requests are FIRST PARTY CHARACTERS, characters Nintendo can just say yes to and BAM there they are...and yet it took until 2018 to get K. Rool for absolutely no reason other than neglect. Why is Krystal an AT but Byleth is playable? Why was Isaac removed from Smash 4 to only come back as an AT in Ultimate while Min Min gets to be DLC? Fans have wanted more SMRPG since before the N64 existed and Geno in Smash since Smash was announced for the console, so why hasn't he happened yet?

The answer is greed and neglect. Nintendo can choose to put in whoever they want, and the world will clamor for it, because it's Smash. They can force Sakurai to rush the game and then make characters who SHOULD have been base game (and would have been for any other Smash title) DLC instead of big requests, because people will just blindly buy the pass. They can get away with throwing a bone time to time to the fandom that has been around going towards 30 years now because WE BUY IT ALL ANYWAY! I didn't even buy my copy, a friend got it for me. I didn't buy FP1 until I saw all the inclusions and decided that: Persona 5 is dope, DQ has been waiting for 30 years and the Command Menu is silly fun, the bear and bird have finally arrived, RUOKAYBUSTAWOOOF, and Byleth's playstyle is fun to dabble with. I am waiting on FP2 for the final character, and while I support my favorite games getting more content and always try new characters, I have to say I find this pass very lackluster.

I have no attachment to ARMS or Minecraft, Sephy is huge but he was chosen over ma boi just because Cloud lacked content and greedy Square needs money, never touched a Xeno anything in my life, and Tekken is one of my least-played fighting games. If the last character isn't a big deal, I probably won't bother with the pass until I have people around me to play with or we enter a scenario where the content will be gone forever and I have to buy to keep it (like Marvel 2 on PS3), and this is AFTER getting to play the first four characters in the pass at an establishment where people play Smash a lot and thinking they were all mostly fun to play.

If you want your characters to get in, you need to be vocal about it and show your support in times that will make it know to the company, and you need to not hand companies your money hand over fist for everything they do. Some companies (usually smaller ones) listen to social media posts and feedback, but big ones tend to stop caring unless their bottom line gets effected...you know what to do.

To finish this post, this is why I REALLY hope that we either get more DLC after this despite EVERYTHING that has gone down, or that we get something a la UMvC3, because Ultimate is SOOOO big that it's going to cause a Melee/Brawl effect where people just will not stick with the next Smash title at all. People aren't really talking about this, but it's been stated multiple times by Sakurai and anyone else with a brain that what Ultimate is doing is not sustainable moving forward in any other way but MAYBE porting the same game over without adding much or anything new at all, and even that is asking for a lot. If the next Smash game cuts out a bunch of stuff (which, let's be honest, is almost guaranteed), who is going to want to play a game that has just less content in every way than the previous one that very nearly brought back everything from every previous title AND added more?

Thus, in a new Smash title, even if Geno or Waluigi or Isaac or Krystal get into that game...who cares other than us fans of them who have been around since the beginning? And honestly, what a hollow victory would that be! Imagine Geno gets into Smash Fighter's Apex or whatever they call it, but only two-thirds of the roster of Ultimate is there and they cut all the big wishes like Banjo and the hype picks like Joker? Did we win? Yeah, we finally got him. Is everyone still playing Ultimate because THEIR favorite character is in that game? You betcha! You wanted to have Waluigi vs Simon matches with your buddy, but that's too bad because Simon and Richter got cut along with Snake, so now no matter whether you guys sit down to play Ultimate or the newest Smash one of you is feeling the pain of not being able to play that character you wanted for years...knowing that if they had just put it all in Ultimate, you wouldn't be here.

This is why Ultimate needs to keep going somehow and in some way because they've only really hit five big names on the Smash Request List out of ALL the characters brought into this game, and this is frankly the only real chance to have them all in the same game within our youth.

I'm with you on the more dlc thing. As much as I want sakurai to have a break I would be lying if i said I'd be upset at the reveal of more dlc. At this point I'd take just characters and nothing else. Just characters like geno, rayman or eggman. Anything to make the ending of ultimate less of a disappointment.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

Can't say I agree. Chief or Sora would be the nail in the coffin for me, I actually don't think I could continue playing Ultimate with either of them on the roster. I don't even hate Halo (anymore), but gaming as a whole took a negative turn thanks to Halo and the dudebro Xbox Live crowd. It sure is gaming history, but that **** is not the kind of history Smash needs to celebrate.

My solace is that the soothsayers were dead wrong (and I was spot on), and Master Chief Collection is coming nowhere near the Switch as we quickly approach the normal time of year for the fall direct. As long as that rumor doesn't come true, I'm 100% certain Chief will never make it in. I have a rich history of ****posting, but I unironically am holding onto hope for Geno and will all the way up until Sakurai signs off and blasts off into space, so there's where I'm at for CP 11.

I don't really get why you're being so incredibly hostile to Halo. The FPS crowd had developed long before it hit the scene with Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Counterstrike all releasing before it and being varying degrees of popular. And online chat generically aloud a lot of people to be toxic edgelords back in the mid-2000s because online play was in its infancy and didn't have any moderation or oversight. Halo wasn't the first and while it was extremely popular in the 2001-2010 period, it was very quickly eclipsed in many ways by other competitive FPS titles like Source and then eventually COD managed to define the genre with Modern Warfare in 2007 that really changed a lot of things.

I don't think you should be laying the woes of gaming at Halo's feet, especially when I fail to see how gaming took a negative turn in the early 2000s. I mean, only like 20 million people bought the Xbox that generation, so the Xbox Live crowd wasn't huge then and like, that generation was absolutely incredible for all 4 consoles in the PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, and Dreamcast. All have some truly fantastic releases and defining titles. I don't think gaming really starts a true negative downward turn until the popularization of mobile games and monetization schemes that evolved in the late 2000s with the success of smart phones and how big name developers began to find real ways to extract every last penny from consumers.

What about Halo do you find so bad as to cause the negative turn? Like Halo was big then, but I don't see connections with it to other realities other than allowing Xbox to exist, which I think is a pretty objective good thing.

Firox Let's be honest with ourselves here.

Is the Smash fandom insatiable or unable to be satisfied?

Or has Smash just not put in enough requests per installment to keep up with the demand?

Remember, Ridley, K. Rool have better wanted additions since the first game came out, not getting in until Ultimate. that's almost two decades before they ever got in. B&K fall under this too, and it actually WAS two decades for them. Now, imagine if they all got in Melee or even Brawl. Where do you think we would be in terms of character demand?

Geno falls into this group as well: he was a character established before the first Smash title and while a bit more niche people still wanted him for the next one, enough of them holding on that when non-SMRPG fans brought him up during Brawl speculation we all kinda flooded in to say 'Allow us to introduce ourselves!'

Krystal falls under what a lot of characters in current speculation do: Not exist prior to the first Smash title, and she actually didn't exist until after Melee. This made her a big request for the Brawl Era. People who want these characters have been asking since between 2001 and 2006/2007, which is now over a decade. Out of all these requests that started here, who have gotten in? Honestly, I think only Little Mac really falls into that, but I don't have the time to do more research to be more accurate.

So, Geno is a pre-Smash request, Krystal and many others are a post-Melee request. Megaman had some Brawl support but he exploded between Brawl and Smash 4 because fans really thought it was the only way for Capcom to give a ****.

Here we are, 2021, and there are still requests that haven't happened since the FIRST GAME RELEASED IN 1999! Now, is this the fan's fault, or Nintendo's fault for not prioritizing these requests so that Sakurai could make them happen? Maybe it's Sakurai's fault, although he always seems to pay attention to fans and trying to do is best in regards to character choices.

Do you understand what I'm saying? When a franchise goes on long enough, it will have evolving requests. The real issue here is that when the owner of a franchise is so slow to grant these requests, they start to pile up high, to the point that even granting a bunch of them at once seems like a drop in the bucket.

Keep in mind, many of the requests are FIRST PARTY CHARACTERS, characters Nintendo can just say yes to and BAM there they are...and yet it took until 2018 to get K. Rool for absolutely no reason other than neglect. Why is Krystal an AT but Byleth is playable? Why was Isaac removed from Smash 4 to only come back as an AT in Ultimate while Min Min gets to be DLC? Fans have wanted more SMRPG since before the N64 existed and Geno in Smash since Smash was announced for the console, so why hasn't he happened yet?

The answer is greed and neglect. Nintendo can choose to put in whoever they want, and the world will clamor for it, because it's Smash. They can force Sakurai to rush the game and then make characters who SHOULD have been base game (and would have been for any other Smash title) DLC instead of big requests, because people will just blindly buy the pass. They can get away with throwing a bone time to time to the fandom that has been around going towards 30 years now because WE BUY IT ALL ANYWAY! I didn't even buy my copy, a friend got it for me. I didn't buy FP1 until I saw all the inclusions and decided that: Persona 5 is dope, DQ has been waiting for 30 years and the Command Menu is silly fun, the bear and bird have finally arrived, RUOKAYBUSTAWOOOF, and Byleth's playstyle is fun to dabble with. I am waiting on FP2 for the final character, and while I support my favorite games getting more content and always try new characters, I have to say I find this pass very lackluster.

I have no attachment to ARMS or Minecraft, Sephy is huge but he was chosen over ma boi just because Cloud lacked content and greedy Square needs money, never touched a Xeno anything in my life, and Tekken is one of my least-played fighting games. If the last character isn't a big deal, I probably won't bother with the pass until I have people around me to play with or we enter a scenario where the content will be gone forever and I have to buy to keep it (like Marvel 2 on PS3), and this is AFTER getting to play the first four characters in the pass at an establishment where people play Smash a lot and thinking they were all mostly fun to play.

If you want your characters to get in, you need to be vocal about it and show your support in times that will make it know to the company, and you need to not hand companies your money hand over fist for everything they do. Some companies (usually smaller ones) listen to social media posts and feedback, but big ones tend to stop caring unless their bottom line gets effected...you know what to do.

To finish this post, this is why I REALLY hope that we either get more DLC after this despite EVERYTHING that has gone down, or that we get something a la UMvC3, because Ultimate is SOOOO big that it's going to cause a Melee/Brawl effect where people just will not stick with the next Smash title at all. People aren't really talking about this, but it's been stated multiple times by Sakurai and anyone else with a brain that what Ultimate is doing is not sustainable moving forward in any other way but MAYBE porting the same game over without adding much or anything new at all, and even that is asking for a lot. If the next Smash game cuts out a bunch of stuff (which, let's be honest, is almost guaranteed), who is going to want to play a game that has just less content in every way than the previous one that very nearly brought back everything from every previous title AND added more?

Thus, in a new Smash title, even if Geno or Waluigi or Isaac or Krystal get into that game...who cares other than us fans of them who have been around since the beginning? And honestly, what a hollow victory would that be! Imagine Geno gets into Smash Fighter's Apex or whatever they call it, but only two-thirds of the roster of Ultimate is there and they cut all the big wishes like Banjo and the hype picks like Joker? Did we win? Yeah, we finally got him. Is everyone still playing Ultimate because THEIR favorite character is in that game? You betcha! You wanted to have Waluigi vs Simon matches with your buddy, but that's too bad because Simon and Richter got cut along with Snake, so now no matter whether you guys sit down to play Ultimate or the newest Smash one of you is feeling the pain of not being able to play that character you wanted for years...knowing that if they had just put it all in Ultimate, you wouldn't be here.

This is why Ultimate needs to keep going somehow and in some way because they've only really hit five big names on the Smash Request List out of ALL the characters brought into this game, and this is frankly the only real chance to have them all in the same game within our youth.

This is kind of your greatest hits of a bunch of old posts, but I can't agree with your thesis of it just not being enough "requests". Smash is a series that is impacting 25 million people now and constantly bringing in new players, there is not ever going to be an endpoint to requests and you continue to use time as some value measurement towards characters being next or having the claim to it. And honestly, I love Geno and I enjoyed his Smash little success story, but trying to push him as a "Pre-Smash request" is so laughable that I genuinely have no idea how to respond to it. Geno's support started in earnest in the Brawl era and just because 5 people voted on one of like 5 polls that are public record for him in 2000 shouldn't be really considered a starting point.

And still trying to push the Smash Ultimate was rushed narrative helps none of your points when you've like not addressed a bunch of stuff people have brought up previously with regards to that. And I'm tired of hearing Nintendo neglected the fans because they only put in 5 characters from traditional circles or whatever. Again, 25 million players, at least 10 million consistently across the past few games. The numbers are just a ton of people to appeal to while appealing to new people. The numbers will literally, never ever favor just fan requests or a majority fan requests. That's not a compelling argument for Smash as opposed to just supporting characters and hoping for the best instead of expecting that they will focus on fan requests. Smash is not and has never been a "solely fan request driven game". Even in the Melee and Brawl eras this was true when almost any character would have been a "fan request" and we still got the likes of Ice Climbers, Mr. Game & Watch, ROB, and the Fire Emblem characters (and you can pull Nintendo history as a counterpoint if you want, but like, then we get into the whole point I've made previously that Nintendo and Sakurai like to give people things they didn't even realize they wanted and that also is indicative of Smash never being just about the most popular fan requests).

 

[ForsakenM]

Uhhhhh... King K. Rool wasn't exactly much of a request during Smash 64. It's not till Brawl it kind of started, but only after Diddy was revealed. Diddy not even having a trophy in Melee is what set people off, as he was the big gun for DKC to get a new character.

Metroid was not exactly considered the big franchise during Smash 64 as it is now. Ridley picked up steam more during Melee and Brawl at best, and definitely during 4. Metroid games started coming out more and more during the GameCube period, which put Ridley in the spotlight and people were starting to get interested in a Metroid Newcomer by then(it didn't help that some weren't a fan of ZSS, since it was just another version of Samus. Dark Samus was notable at that point, and Ridley also was a big talk, emphasis on "big" as well). A thing about Melee is we saw a lot of characters during the Intro that many latched onto or thought could be important(Wolf, Ridley). This is more what gave them some steam in the speculation community.

Banjo-Kazooie, Meowth, Bowser, Mewtwo, these were actually bigger requests after Smash 64. Ganon(dorf) too to some degree. Zelda's fighting stuff was from the spin-off materials(even ones Nintendo doesn't like), so, her requests weren't too big either. Sheik, well... ha! She's a very huge surprise getting in, outside of hindsight. It makes sense cause Zelda never actually fought in canon outside of Sheik, which is why them being together is very logical. Sheik being revealed first may not even be as odd. Maybe Zelda is only there to compliment Sheik to begin with, since their gimmick is "transformation" too. They were basically tied to the hip(at that point. Yay for Smash 4 splitting them apart, letting Zelda shine again~).

I was mostly referring to how loved those characters were back before we really had a quantifiable way for the internet to show data. There is really no way for you to go back on the internet and really find who was being talked about a lot because...well, people weren't really starting to use the internet and pushing it's potential in 1999. Remember that DSL wasn't a thing just yet and sites like YouTube didn't come about until 2005 with Myspace in 2003 (the best we had was MSN Messenger or the like), which meant random early-made forums at best. In addition, gaming was mostly a children's thing or a young adult thing, so many of us didn't get access for that stuff until Melee after was already a thing. This is why it SEEMS like Brawl Era is where speculation really first happened, because it was happening at a time when the internet was more fleshed out and flourishing, allowing people from all over to speculate who could make it in. In reality, speculation started the minute all the characters were unlocked on your N64 and kids talked about characters they wanted to get in.

However, if you think people didn't want K. Rool or Ridley weren't wanted by Nintendo fans growing up as far back as Smash 64 then you are being just plain silly. These are the ICONIC villains of these franchises that people love and grew up with, and Banjo got insanely popular and then never came back, with most people remembering the N64 titles fondly. Remember that at this point, K. Rool was still DK's main villain and got a game that heavily starred him on that console later in 1999, and this is after getting many DKC titles in which he was the final villain. Super Metroid may not be the biggest franchise Nintendo has but it is one of it's bigger IPs nonetheless and Super Metroid is considered one of the best made games of all time, and people genuinely thought Ridley made the cut in Melee due to the original intro to the of the game featuring him. You can imagine how jebaited they felt.

I think you may have confused what I meant with saying that people were asking for these character before Smash 64 came out when I meant it was all the requests after the game came out and was missing key characters from many franchises. This doesn't change the fact that people have been waiting since 1999 for character requests, only to have SOME of them granted by 2018 and 2019. Some of those requests, like Geno, are still waiting. However, I would say we have mostly moved on to Post-Melee-To-Brawl requests outside of Geno due to the fact that Melee and Brawl granted a lot of the more basic requests like getting more characters from Mario, Zelda, Pokemon and Kirby as well as inclusions like Wario and Pit.

Honestly, I think you're really wayy too invested in all of this, just loosen it up a bit. You're twisting everything to fit into your own narrative which pretty much appears as "disappointment about Geno not making it in" for everyone else reading your posts. I have no idea where these sudden ideas that "Ultimate is a rushed game" or "Nintendo doesn't fulfill requests" comes from when we've had requests filled every game. They just have happened to not be Geno, but have been other big requests. Or that Geno is a pre-Smash/pre-N64 request, like, can that even be a thing? You say "we" or "us" a lot, but mostly it's just you. I appreciate the dedication you have but it's coming out as borderline obsession.

You say that if you want your characters to make it, you need to be vocal about it... yet the Geno fans were the quietest they ever were when it may have mattered the most: the ballot. Not saying that he didn't get any votes, but a big campaign/push around that time would've probably done wonders. Waking up to the situation after the Mii costume, which was after the ballot (and which was a huge acknowledgement on its own) may have been a bit too late. And we still got the Mii costume back in Ultimate, which is better than nothing.

I hope you get some kind of closure and heck, I'd honestly love to see Geno make it in and maybe it'll happen, who knows, but it's not worth fussing over so much.

If you think us being quiet is why we got that Geno costume, you are delusional. Sakurai has been paying attention since the beginning and mentioned that he wanted the character in since Brawl. If the fan demand had died down so low that we weren't noticeable on the polls (which we will never know the true results as Nintendo will never release them as well as all the stupid troll votes and the double voting) there wouldn't have even been a point to negotiate for his costume. Why pay money for the likeness of a character to make content no one will buy? That's right, you don't.

I think everyone sees how active people were for characters like Shovel Knight and K. Rool and think that since Geno fans weren't annoying everyone with propaganda of their character that we just failed to show up at all. And yet, in every mock poll you see that was up during the time of the ballot that was doing their best to reflect said ballot, Geno places high consistently. Sure, it's not the REAL ballot, but it's the closest we will ever get to that AND Geno places high in next to all of them. In reality, what I think happened is that we were just not confident in his chances and not vocal but showed up in pretty decent numbers when it came to the ballot, channeling a good portion of the Brawl Era energy, but ultimately maybe not as high as other big requests like K. Rool and the other veterans. Who knows, we may have made Top 5 for all we know!

More importantly, the Geno train was incredibly strong during Ultimate's short train from March 2018 to Dec 2018, and we kept making it loud and clear what we wanted. The problem here is less about us and more about how Nintendo screwed up Ultimate's launch and made it so new first party franchises couldn't be added to the base roster unlike every previous title. So, you would think they would embrace our wishes for DLC, right? That's what Smash 4 taught us, and yet Nintendo screwed us again because they wanted to focus on fixing their mistakes and making more money while doing so.

I need you to understand completely that between our ballot presence, our big surge after Sakurai's comments in 2016, and the wave we rode all the way until his costume reveal with Sephiroth had been ample evidence during the right time for them to put him in the base game or DLC, and they STILL chose not to. You can believe Square was confused for base game if you like, but that doesn't excuse DLC, and it also doesn't make sense at all because we already got his costume which is proof enough to Square of demand and the company isn't run by absolute buffoons. What this means is that Nintendo and Sakurai prioritized other characters: they prioritized Cloud in Smash 4, Dragon Quest after 30 years, and Sephiroth to patch the gaps in Cloud's content. We've just had problems that they think are more important than what we want, and since we all gave them money ahead of time and lots of it, they have no reason to prioritize us.

Also, please stop assuming how I feel about things. That act alone is more irritable than anything else that people do here, worse than repeating the same cycle of speculation when their though process is proven wrong repeatedly or attacking others characters or their fans, at least for me. You don't know how I feel because you don't know me. My passion for making it understood that Nintendo robbed Smash fans of the full experience is purely out of wanting people to be informed and to stop being tricked by marketing, to look behind the veil as it were, and to do so while there is still time to make a change. If enough people realize this, we can champion this attitude for whatever comes next for Smash and perhaps make sure we finally get a Smash game that gets enough time behind it again. It's just as simple as that: don't accept less, fight for more, something I'm a big pusher of since I'm tired of having low quality games coming from AAA companies that I have to pay full price for.

I also don't care about what people think about me. Most of the people on this forum already think I'm a crazy-ass rabid Geno fan who falls asleep with his janitor plushie every night and never graduated high school (not a real accomplishment in the US anyway, but rest assured I did). They think that all I think about is how things affect Geno and what I want, and while I do look at how things affect his chances, I do that for all the characters in discussion. I constantly talk about other characters, most of them I have no desire for nor attachment to, and I always support new content for games I love even if it's not what I personally asked for. Never forget that I was the first one here to get over Byleth literally same day while most ******* for months and how I took a break from the Geno thread because many of you drove me insane by insisting I hated Min Min or ARMS and that my opinion was invalid when I already mentioned being excited for the character and was just arguing how it was clearly Nintendo shilling and seemed tone-deaf after Byleth. I cannot help that people have an image of me that makes it easier to insult and attack me out of sheer arrogance and ignorance with a dash of being unwilling to change, and I no longer care to try and make them see different, rather let them find out in due time if they ever do.

Lastly, speaking of other characters, this issue with Nintendo not delaying Ultimate doesn't just affect Geno: it affects literally every other character that never gets into this game. If they had just delayed the game, the odds are insanely high that there would be many more chances for all these requests. You wanted Crash? Sorry bud, but since they forced the game to come out in 2018 and chose DLC to fix their mistake with that, no bandicoot this time. You wanted the Wah and thought they would listen to the backlash? Nah man, let's get a character from a new but already dead first party title instead, something we could have done for the base game if we waited just one more year! You wanted 2B to rock the pass? Well your wait is 2B continued because we needed a whole challenger pack just to plug in holes we made regarding a character from the previous game!

This isn't about 'how dare Nintendo pick the character I hate': it's about Nintendo making poor choices as well as greedy ones, of which there are other characters they could have chosen that would still fall into this category of decisions, and once again I don't even hate what we got. I just know we could have gotten even more of what people really wanted, but Nintendo dropped the ball, and I'm making sure others know this so we can make a impact next time around. It's really just that simple.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

There's a huge difference between a small amount of people who back then, when there were barely any polls to go around, wanting some characters, and actual recorded requests. We had polls too, and what do you know, the only recorded ones... didn't have either of these (now) big guns on them.

So like I said, K. Rool's requests didn't actually become noticeable till after Brawl, and Ridley's till after Melee's.

That's also due to the internet not being nearly that big, so there was no way to massively take requests either.

The data, of which you speak of, had no way to really be recorded online to be noticed by Sakurai. So any wants don't have a meaningful impact at all. It's meaningless overall if he can't possibly know it exists. Besides that, most of the world didn't even get polled for the Melee(Smash 2) stuff. That was Japan only. It's no surprise Sakurai didn't know of tons of potential wants. It wasn't data he had nor attempted to receive. He also confirmed he didn't know people wanted Ridley till after Brawl, which further proves my point of how useless it is to say "yeah, this character was wanted after Smash 64 released worldwide". Well, it's a Nintendo crossover game. Everybody is going to want their favorite character in. That doesn't mean it's a meaningful impact enough to matter. That's why a lot of these longtime requests took so long to begin with. Because it was a pretty short time for the request data to be accessible. A lot of obscure characters wouldn't even be known till the ballot, since that's the first actual worldwide poll of sorts ever created. Unfortunately, Sakurai hasn't paid much attention beyond Japanese wants before that. We still had a little bit(Little Mac, his acknowledgment of Ridley, which was moreso due to an interview asking him about it. Without that, he may have never really noticed it till the ballot. And since he wasn't aware as fast as Brawl, he may have not come up with a moveset by that point either). All these things are connected, and simply "wants" don't cut the mustard in getting a character in alone. There's far more context to begin with.

 

[Deleted member]

I don't really get why you're being so incredibly hostile to Halo. The FPS crowd had developed long before it hit the scene with Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Counterstrike all releasing before it and being varying degrees of popular. And online chat generically aloud a lot of people to be toxic edgelords back in the mid-2000s because online play was in its infancy and didn't have any moderation or oversight. Halo wasn't the first and while it was extremely popular in the 2001-2010 period, it was very quickly eclipsed in many ways by other competitive FPS titles like Source and then eventually COD managed to define the genre with Modern Warfare in 2007 that really changed a lot of things.

I don't think you should be laying the woes of gaming at Halo's feet, especially when I fail to see how gaming took a negative turn in the early 2000s. I mean, only like 20 million people bought the Xbox that generation, so the Xbox Live crowd wasn't huge then and like, that generation was absolutely incredible for all 4 consoles in the PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, and Dreamcast. All have some truly fantastic releases and defining titles. I don't think gaming really starts a true negative downward turn until the popularization of mobile games and monetization schemes that evolved in the late 2000s with the success of smart phones and how big name developers began to find real ways to extract every last penny from consumers.

What about Halo do you find so bad as to cause the negative turn? Like Halo was big then, but I don't see connections with it to other realities other than allowing Xbox to exist, which I think is a pretty objective good thing.

Let me start by saying that I know that the FPS genre had already been well established before Halo took it mainstream. The PC gamers of the early and mid 90s had already perfected the genre while Halo kids were quite literally still in diapers. IMO that's already a strike against Halo getting any form of representation in Smash because we're looking at a game that pays homage to the OGs of gaming about 96% of the time (Ness, Joker, Cloud and Bayonetta being the only real exceptions) before adding their progeny, and this Halo/Master Chief mindset would ignore a good decade of history just to put a popular face into Smash... Which is a problem the DLC has already had, so you don't have to point it out.

That aside, 20 million people is more than enough to pollute the waters of gaming. It isn't Halo's fault necessarily - it was an M rated game (that honestly could have and should have been T) that a lax generation of parents bought for their 13 year olds because Blinx wasn't doing it for them. When you say that the only thing Halo did was allow Xbox to exist and at the same time acknowledge the toxic edgelord culture, I'm not sure how you can say it's an objective good thing. It infected just about every aspect of online gaming and the repercussions are felt even today as the children of the children who grew up thinking it was ok to yell obscenities over voice chat carry on their parents' legacy in modern shooters. But you know, here's the funny part - that's not what gets me.

Toxicity on the internet is a given. That's our rose's thorns. To complain about it is complaining about having to breathe - it's just an essential part of the living experience. But Halo kids were vile in real life too. I don't blame Halo for that because I never go down the path of blaming video games for people's behavior, but something about Halo attracted the literal worst - maybe it was just a realistic enough venue to get their killing out so they didn't end up bringing dad's battle rifle to school and teabagging their science teacher. I'm not joking when I say that 100% of the kids I knew who were big into Halo were bullies and general dickheads, and whatever time they weren't spending hypocritically bashing other kids for playing video games, they were spending partying, stealing their older siblings' weed or breaking the law in some other fashion.

Our parents would reassure us that guys like that wouldn't go very far in life but I think we all know that the reality is they're probably all the presidents of a Fortune 500 company now with 60 Lambos cluttering their garage and a McMansion as a reward for their gigachad lifestyle back in high school and their first two years in college. They already lived the dream of being an asshole and getting rewarded for it and I hate the thought that 20 years later their lord and savior Master J. Chief ends up in the swan song of the franchise loved by kids they were throwing into trash cans for enjoying. It's the same dirty feeling as seeing people who were criminally awful to kids for enjoying Pokemon out there in 2016 riding Pokemon Go to the moon like "I've always loved Pokemon, such a big part of my childhood". Makes me sick.

 

[Firox]

Our parents would reassure us that guys like that wouldn't go very far in life but I think we all know that the reality is they're probably all the presidents of a Fortune 500 company now with 60 Lambos cluttering their garage and a McMansion as a reward for their gigachad lifestyle back in high school and their first two years in college. They already lived the dream of being an asshole and getting rewarded for it and I hate the thought that 20 years later their lord and savior Master J. Chief ends up in the swan song of the franchise loved by kids they were throwing into trash cans for enjoying. It's the same dirty feeling as seeing people who were criminally awful to kids for enjoying Pokemon out there in 2016 riding Pokemon Go to the moon like "I've always loved Pokemon, such a big part of my childhood". Makes me sick.

If it's any consolation, the bullies and **** heads you knew in high school typically don't end up super rich fat cats that rule the world (unless they go into politics of course). As one of those quiet loners, I can attest to the fact that we are the ones that end up owning companies, gaining real estate and bagging those nice high-paying jobs because we keep our eyes on the prize and know how to empathize instead of relying on our D-bag factor to get things done. Almost all the dude-bros I knew in high school knocked up somebody and ended up working at Del Taco to pay off their mobile home. Moral of the story? Unless you're stupidly, and I mean legit stupidly, good at a specific game and can make serious bucks playing it, being an online gaming junkie is not the path to wealth and riches, nor is being a rabid jerk. Unfortunately, society ends up dealing with these people eventually and it doesn't end well (or they just live in their mom's basement forever).

Now, that said, I'll admit that there are a lot of shallow gamers that play mainstream FPS's like Halo and Call of Duty, but I think it's a little unfair to take out your frustrations on the games themselves and their player base as a whole. As far as I can tell, Halo was second only to 007:Goldeneye in terms of major impact on the FPS genre. Like it or not, it does have a significant historic relevance to gaming. Sure, there's a good chance it doesn't end up in Smash, and sure, one could argue that there are better picks out there, but I don't think it wise to dismiss the possibility too quickly.

 

[Deleted member]

If it's any consolation, the bullies and dickheads you knew in high school typically don't end up super rich fat cats that rule the world (unless they go into politics of course). As one of those quiet loners, I can attest to the fact that we are the ones that end up owning companies, gaining real estate and bagging those nice high-paying jobs because we keep our eyes on the prize and know how to empathize instead of relying on our D-bag factor to get things done. Almost all the dude-bros I knew in high school knocked up somebody and ended up working at Del Taco to pay off their mobile home. Moral of the story? Unless you're stupidly, and I mean legit stupidly, good at a specific game and can make serious bucks playing it, being an online gaming junkie is not the path to wealth and riches, nor is being a rabid jerk. Unfortunately, society ends up dealing with these people eventually and it doesn't end well (or they just live in their mom's basement forever).

Now, that said, I'll admit that there are a lot of shallow gamers that play mainstream FPS's like Halo and Call of Duty, but I think it's a little unfair to take out your frustrations on the games themselves and their player base as a whole. As far as I can tell, Halo was second only to 007:Goldeneye in terms of major impact on the FPS genre. Like it or not, it does have a significant historic relevance to gaming. Sure, there's a good chance it doesn't end up in Smash, and sure, one could argue that there are better picks out there, but I don't think it wise to dismiss the possibility too quickly.

Spoiler

After I dropped the line about Blinx I felt like it was time to go into maximum hyperbole mode so most of that description of the average Halo player should be taken as a joke.

I hold a grudge, what can I say. Cacomallow or not, I certainly prefer Doom Guy over Chief any day purely based on legacy and Nintendo relevance, all feelings about Halo culture aside.

 

[SSGuy]

If it's any consolation, the bullies and **** heads you knew in high school typically don't end up super rich fat cats that rule the world (unless they go into politics of course). As one of those quiet loners, I can attest to the fact that we are the ones that end up owning companies, gaining real estate and bagging those nice high-paying jobs because we keep our eyes on the prize and know how to empathize instead of relying on our D-bag factor to get things done. Almost all the dude-bros I knew in high school knocked up somebody and ended up working at Del Taco to pay off their mobile home. Moral of the story? Unless you're stupidly, and I mean legit stupidly, good at a specific game and can make serious bucks playing it, being an online gaming junkie is not the path to wealth and riches, nor is being a rabid jerk. Unfortunately, society ends up dealing with these people eventually and it doesn't end well (or they just live in their mom's basement forever).

Now, that said, I'll admit that there are a lot of shallow gamers that play mainstream FPS's like Halo and Call of Duty, but I think it's a little unfair to take out your frustrations on the games themselves and their player base as a whole. As far as I can tell, Halo was second only to 007:Goldeneye in terms of major impact on the FPS genre. Like it or not, it does have a significant historic relevance to gaming. Sure, there's a good chance it doesn't end up in Smash, and sure, one could argue that there are better picks out there, but I don't think it wise to dismiss the possibility too quickly.

Is it weird that I view more of the actual D-Bag/bully kind of gamers to actually come from the JRPG/Minecraft/Blizzard fans etc? Like mainly contributing this to Smash Speculation because even before and afterwards. I never had an issue with anyone who played COD/Halo/DOOM. As a huge fan of Team Fortress 2, I never once had an issue with someone who played any of these games, but as soon as Overwatch came around, it was nothing but trying to gain clout against the TF2 community by making false claims like all the classes are white males or the community is racist etc.

But I think overall, Firox might be right. There is no reason to blame an entire player base as a whole.

Besides, it isn't a matter of really looking back at what people said in 2014, 2019 etc. At this point, it should be a matter of making sure Geno/SMRPG continues to stay in the public eye whether that is supporting fan creations/mods of specific games. (FnF Mario RPG Pack/ Numerous Geno Smash Bros Mods) Praising omages or spiritual successors from newer game creators. (A Hat in Time/Another Crusade) and just overall showing Nintendo and Square Enix what we want.

Nintendo may suck hard right now, but nothing stops us from letting us know what we want out of them.

 

[Firox]

as soon as Overwatch came around, it was nothing but trying to gain clout against the TF2 community

As someone who went hard into Overwatch for at least three years straight, I have to say that that crowd is unfortunately not one I can vouch for...

(Not bashing the whole player base, but holy crap, there is some crazy toxicity up in there.)

 

[WeirdChillFever]

I really only see Ultimate DLC not paying enough attention to fans and thus I only “blame” Nintendo for the new direction that the character choices take. Brawl, Smash 4 and Ultimate had all really great choices and Ultimate base game stands as one of the best newcomer rosters to me imo. They had limited resources for that and they filled it buck-for-buck with top tier requests (and a Pokémon.) Push comes to shove, I feel fans have been catered to in the past. Exceptions come to mind, but the stacking of requests could’ve been worse and I do think exclusively serving up those that come out on top of the stack of requests is going to make for a bland game.

Individual cases are just that, individual cases. K. Rool felt the delay of Diddy Kong, which was because of Melee being a caveman-produced game and the Rare situation at the time and the shaky future of the King in recent DK titles for Smash 4. Ridley has the whole “finding a design suitable for it” thing going on. And honestly those two individual cases explain like a lot of fan outrage when it comes to the roster. Brawl served a great selection, and Smash 4, outside of not adding the Big Two, managed to snag up a lot of requests between Mega Man, Little Mac, Palutena, Pac Man and Shulk and filled the rest with characters popular in their home series. Again, stubborness when it comes to reptiles aside I will never believe that Sakurai only got a grip on the pure Smash-based requests until the ballot arrived.

And then…Ultimate DLC arrived. I presume Nintendo took over and honestly I can see a shift from the previous method of choosing characters, which is that Nintendo doesn’t choose characters. Instead, it chooses IPs. Not even series, or games, but very business-like, Nintendo thinks in IPs, names and sales.

This does overlap with characters. Pyra and Mythra are arguably a more character-based pick since it’s them that are popular, and the pair did rack up votes on the fan polls so it’s a double-dip on multiple facets, but the way it was chosen started from a place of business, not returned to the drawing table once the mechanic of the game was unfeasible, but instead tied the game to a Melee switch mechanic.

Steve was also a decently popular request and he‘s a popular character in his own right so again this method isn’t the direct anti-thesis to good character choice and does keep in mind popularity outside of Smash request value, but the story just shows us that it’s no longer a character-based game. Minecraft were to be in Smash. The concept of the highest selling game in the form of the highest place Nintendo could think of: the character slot.

Etcetera, etcetera. Joker was Persona 5 from the Persona series well, personified, Hero came in guns ablazing for the Dragon Quest series and Terry brought a company under his li’l hat. The ones with actual character portrayed in Smash? Banjo-Kazooie, the character chosen for their character. Not their series, not their company and not their sales, but for the heart of fans. Like I said, it’s not a very noticeable shift: Characters from popular IPs are popular, but it’s a distinction made in the character choice that wasn’t made until Smash Ultimate’s Fighters Passes, and it’s a distinction that does not bode well for fans of a lot of characters.

(This is kind of an extra ramble, but: The notion of pre-Smash requests pre-supposes in my opinion that it’s only the age of Smash requests that matter. Bandana Dee went hard on the ballot, and Shantae fans got an effective rallying captain in the form of the creator (?) himself. I get the point made and I’m not saying that the point made excludes new requests since that is never explicitly said, but it’s a point I wanted to make for myself.)

 

[Deleted member]

I will never believe that Sakurai only got a grip on the pure Smash-based requests until the ballot arrived.

This really is all that damn ballot's fault. You're right, it is very clear that Sakurai knew exactly what the fans wanted, likely with a few wild exceptions that he would have presumed people would never care about (I wouldn't blame him if he thought it was a joke that people wanted giant murderous space dragon).

But now with this nebulous ballot out there, almost anything can be blamed on it. Nintendo could absolutely say every choice came from it and we'd be none the wiser, and likewise, the lack of a character can then be blamed on not enough fan turnout to justify their inclusion. The perfect crime.

I've said that Nintendo makes questionable marketing decisions, but I realize now it's just because I can't think on their level. They have well and truly played the Smash fanbase as a whole like an assortment of fine stringed instruments.

 

[WeirdChillFever]

This really is all that damn ballot's fault. You're right, it is very clear that Sakurai knew exactly what the fans wanted, likely with a few wild exceptions that he would have presumed people would never care about (I wouldn't blame him if he thought it was a joke that people wanted giant murderous space dragon).

But now with this nebulous ballot out there, almost anything can be blamed on it. Nintendo could absolutely say every choice came from it and we'd be none the wiser, and likewise, the lack of a character can then be blamed on not enough fan turnout to justify their inclusion. The perfect crime.

I've said that Nintendo makes questionable marketing decisions, but I realize now it's just because I can't think on their level. They have well and truly played the Smash fanbase as a whole like an assortment of fine stringed instruments.

Okay first of all cringe, second of all red flag. Couldn’t be farther from my point too. I believe Sakurai knew of requests, but he added Ridley and K. Rool and I believe he selected the Echoes based on popularity too. K. Rool grot brought back despite the circumstances before that being that his last appearance in the series was Mario Super Sluggers and the DK franchise moved forward without him. Fans turned that status-quo around, of course backed with a sizeable library of his own.

The noise got turned into numbers, and I believe what before was just a factor turned out to be unignorable. The ballot showed exactly how big the support was for either of them and backed with their position in their home series, got added.

If you want a conspiracy take on the ballot, here‘s mine:

Base game Ultimate was a transition period. Get as many of the loud fanbases satisfied quickly. Those fanbases now unignorable? Get as many of the people clamoring and demanding for certain additions to the roster and get them to pop their bottles and then have them ride along the wave. Not too much fuss going into the DLC. Not too much stragglers that would resist the soaring, flying of third party company appeasement.

Because Smash DLC would be for business. Bottom-up support becomes top-down decree as Nintendo takes over.

And I don’t think Nintendo would’ve been able to push the roster in that more general, IP-based direction with grassroots, heartfelt support like K. Rool’s around.

Ridley and K. Rool were buddies, so even if the Ridley fanbase deflated, they’d double the K. Rool fanbase. Add Banjo, and the grassroots campaigning of Smash 4 and before would be de-rooted. Now, with Smash Ultimate base adding so many beloved characters, the field would be clear for the higher-ups to start using the Smash roster to rake in advertisement points. The people left to complain? They’ve retired from campaigning after a smashing success in base game and the once iron grip of a centralized fanbase as potent as the Reptiles’ was now replaced with decentralized bandwagons very much on-board with the new wave of Smash Bros. that very clearly leaves behind a chunk of first parties. Luckily, by adding the ones with the most widespread appeal and Assisting those with the more niche support, we don’t hear of those anymore.

You want a conspiracy? This is it. To see which big, bottom-up fanbases remained and to give them their wish, so that Smash can be the snazzy advertisement billboard Nintendo dreams it to be.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

It's probably a lot simpler than any of that.

DLC allows for higher budgets for individual characters. Base game does not.

The reason most of the base game newcomers were first party is probably because they're cheaper to make.

Neither good nor bad, just how it is.

 

[Geno Boost]

It's probably a lot simpler than any of that.

DLC allows for higher budgets for individual characters. Base game does not.

The reason most of the base game newcomers were first party is probably because they're cheaper to make.

Neither good nor bad, just how it is.

i would say most of the DLC characters we got so far do seem to take alot of development time to make them more advanced compared to the base newcomers we got so thats another thing to point out
a character like doesnt seem to be something that could be easily developed in short time compared to

 

[WeirdChillFever]

It's probably a lot simpler than any of that.

DLC allows for higher budgets for individual characters. Base game does not.

The reason most of the base game newcomers were first party is probably because they're cheaper to make.

Neither good nor bad, just how it is.

Yes, that’s the more likely reason, among with a plethora of others but in the spirit of “When in Rome“, I decided to do my own takes on the pinpointing of where everything went to dung**** and a conspiracy theory respectively.

 

[ForsakenM]

Hey guys, sorry for that double post. On my end it didn't look like it double posted, but I had that issue where I clicked post and the tab crashed, so I refreshed and apparently it double posted but didn't show it on my end. Weird but eh.

Also, Swamp Sensei Makes the most sense here, but I'm going to add a bit more.

See, first party characters can get away with not bringing as much to the game as third party, in terms of Sakurai's own desire for an introduction. the are also easier to negotiate for because it's basically in-house, which is why it's frustrating to see it take so long for some of these requests as many of them ARE first party.

For an example, Ridley and K. Rool, Isabelle, Incineroar and Piranha Plant brought no new stages with them despite many of these being characters who COULD have brought something new to Smash with a stage, particularly K. Rool and Incineroar. The real reason for this is because the game was rushed, but it's a justifiable decision to make because they are all expanding the roster of previous first party IPs. Notice however that this was unacceptable for Inklings because it was a new franchise and that despite Mario and Zelda often not getting the representation we think they deserve, they are big enough that instead of getting a new stage for the brand new Pokemon from a brand new generation, we got New Donk City and Great Plateau Tower.

This is why, on record for the majority of Smash's history, we've gotten more third party or second party inclusions through DLC than we ever have in base game. I mean, there are many reasons, such as it's original goal being the All-Nintendo Slugger so they favor Nintendo characters, but it really just breaks down to how much easier it is to get them for base game because you can better negotiate money in regards to DLC for thirds party.

However, this just proves things more lacking in terms of the base game: Inkling got priority for a stage for being a new franchise, which means Min Min and Pyra/Mythra making the base game via a delay would have likely gotten the same treatment, meaning all this DLC content could have fleshed the base game out that much more. In addition, K. Rool and Incineroar may have gotten new stages, which STILL feels weird that we don't have a new stage to rep Gen 7 despite having a Gen 7 Mon. This could also mean that Byleth may have not come with a stage at all, as Corrin didn't even as DLC, but even if they did it would have been fleshing out the base game.

Quick refresher that base Ultimate only had New Donk, Great Plateau, Moray Towers and Dracula's Castle for BRAND NEW stages. Four new stages, that is it. A delay would have likely seen three new stages with Monastery, riding on Gramps and Spring Stadium, but there could have possibly been even more.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

BTW, when a situation like that occurs, if you're warned, just explain what happened(you are sent a PM, after all). Obviously if you noticed it, you would've asked them to merge it yourself(report or otherwise). It's no big deal. Browser issues happen all the time. It's not like you were careless or whatever or ignored the double posting rules either~

 

[Adrianette Bromide]

What stage would be the best for Geno to come with? Vista Hill, Forest Maze or Star Hill? I think there's merit to each of them really, Vista Hill being the most iconic location on the box art, Forest Maze being Geno's introductory home and Star Hill being the closest to his literal home.

 

[S1itchey]

What stage would be the best for Geno to come with? Vista Hill, Forest Maze or Star Hill? I think there's merit to each of them really, Vista Hill being the most iconic location on the box art, Forest Maze being Geno's introductory home and Star Hill being the closest to his literal home.

Forest maze. It's a generic choice but it fits him the best. It's easily the most well known part of the game and has the most iconic song from the game. Plus it's where you meet geno. I'd love a moving stage paper mario style that shows off all the locations like Vista Hill, forest maze, nimbus land, booster tower etc.

 

[Geno Boost]

What stage would be the best for Geno to come with? Vista Hill, Forest Maze or Star Hill? I think there's merit to each of them really, Vista Hill being the most iconic location on the box art, Forest Maze being Geno's introductory home and Star Hill being the closest to his literal home.

here is my idea for SMRPG stage which you can check

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

I probably didn't read your earlier post very carefully. That said, yeah, Sakurai can't hide behind that for PP. He wholesale chose that DLC. The rest are on Nintendo. I doubt he could've justified an easy Bonus Character unless they were first party or Nintendo partially owned them(which fit PP...

smashboards.com

 

[Megadoomer]

What stage would be the best for Geno to come with? Vista Hill, Forest Maze or Star Hill? I think there's merit to each of them really, Vista Hill being the most iconic location on the box art, Forest Maze being Geno's introductory home and Star Hill being the closest to his literal home.

I'd like to see Bowser's Castle. The image of Exor stabbed into Bowser's Castle is on the cover and title screen of the game, and how have we gone this long without an actual Bowser's Castle stage? (I'm not sure if the Paper Mario stage counts, since Bowser's Caatle is one of several designs that it switches between)

 

[Adrianette Bromide]

I'd like to see Bowser's Castle. The image of Exor stabbed into Bowser's Castle is on the cover and title screen of the game, and how have we gone this long without an actual Bowser's Castle stage? (I'm not sure if the Paper Mario stage counts, since Bowser's Caatle is one of several designs that it switches between)

Pain that Paper Mario and NSMBU are the closest we have to Bowser's Castle and they're both stage transformations. Stage DLC would be neat IMO, I'd buy a Bowser's Castle stage standalone.