How many characters will be in Smash4

[SmashChu]

It's bad translation, which posted by Magic Box.

Real Translation is

Google only give me "It's fun making new skills for new characters." The only exception I found was on NeoGAF which was from another site.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=488554

Sakurai from HAL Laboratory, producer of Kirby and Smash Bros. series had an hour of keynote speech at CEDEC developer conference, he mentioned that in the upcoming Smash Bros title, all characters will have new skills, there are many new characters, and it is fun to work on these features.

So it still implies there will be new characters. Many, in fact.

The problem is people are reading too much into what Sakurai has said. He said similar things in Brawl, and we got upwards of 17 new characters. What he means is that, while people focus the most on characters, that's not all there is and a lot of other elements are important. This is also why we've had a growing single player mode. Basically, there will be a good amount of new characters and other stuff as well.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

Odd stuff, I thought Sakurai had said we'd get less newcomers than before? Unless SSBF and Chrono are true with it being just a bad translation.

 

[FlareHabanero]

Odd stuff, I thought Sakurai had said we'd get less newcomers than before? Unless SSBF and Chrono are true with it being just a bad translation.

No, he said that new characters are not going to be a high priority this time. Supposedly this is mainly to focus on balancing the roster to be competitively rounded.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

It'd be interesting to see 'em making the game now accessible for competitive audience after what Brawl did. Though it'd be now even more suspensing due lesser amount of newcomers to be featured.

 

[MasterMushroom]

Odd stuff, I thought Sakurai had said we'd get less newcomers than before? Unless SSBF and Chrono are true with it being just a bad translation.

I've double checked with the recent interviews he's had along with his twitter updates; I'm going to side with Chrono especially in regards with a bad translation. It's not the first time translators got things wrong with any interview; as matters of this "slight flaw" always turns one meaning into a totally different meaning.

They've just started development on the game and he's stated that the roster shouldn't be to our concern, right now as they're focusing on other key issues such as balancing and fighting mechanics (which still need to be polished despite laying down the groundwork).

ChronoBound's post pretty much mirrored exactly what I had in mind. Also:

My expectations for the size of the roster for Smash 4 are 48-53 total playable characters.

I'm personally seconding this.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

12 characters in minimal? Hmm. I'd be all right with that, though I hope it means no clones this time. Also we could really use polishing more characters to be more luigified/distinguished from others.

 

[Diddy Kong]

If Diddy isn't in Smash 4 I'm not even gonna ****ing buy a Wii U. And I actually have heard it before that people want him gone but it's always bull**** arguements like 'his bananas are too annoying', 'he should be replaced by DK Jr (who's already in the game since day 1)' or 'too many Mario characters'.

Aka, all reasons are bull****.

 

[N3ON]

If Diddy isn't in Smash 4 I'm not even gonna ****ing buy a Wii U. And I actually have heard it before that people want him gone but it's always bull**** arguements like 'his bananas are too annoying', 'he should be replaced by DK Jr (who's already in the game since day 1)' or 'too many Mario characters'.

Aka, all reasons are bull****.

No one who thinks Diddy will be cut is taken seriously. Don't worry, he won't be going anywhere.

As for my roster expectations, for Brawl they were too high, I thought we'd get around ~42 characters, so for SSB4 I'm going to set my sights around ~48, with IMO 46 being the minimum and 50 being the max (excluding transformations).

 

[SmashShadow]

Yeah, Sakurai has said there will definitely be newcomers this time, but to expect a higher amount that what Brawl added is absurd.

There are two things to keep in mind:
1. Sakurai has thrown around the number 50 at least three times in relation to the size of Smash 4's roster.
2. Sakurai has stated that there is a finite amount of characters that are worthy enough to be made playable in Smash Bros.

Its on the second point, that I feel why Sakurai is pursuing a major overhaul for the Smash Bros. series. I felt that after Smash 4 that Sakurai would have to result to basically a reboot of the Smash Bros. series, due to the lack of well-known Nintendo characters left to add. However, I think Sakurai's may have deemed after Brawl that there were too few Nintendo all-stars left to warrant another "bigger and better" sequel which was the case with Melee and Brawl.

My expectations for the size of the roster for Smash 4 are 48-53 total playable characters, though I concede its quite possible for it be lower than that range (I strongly doubt though that there will be more than that though).

Just looking at the pool of newcomers for Smash 4 and comparing it to Melee and Brawl's pools, who is left that compares to the all-stars that Melee and Brawl added? The only one that comes to mind is Ridley. Every other character that seems to be popularly suggested is either a character who has been absent from their franchise for quite a while or have their franchise go into hiatus (K. Rool, Dixie Kong, Samurai Goroh, Black Shadow, Krystal), a cut Melee vetean (Mewtwo, Roy), a new flavor of the month (Zoroark, Genesect, Chrom, Ghirahim), or negligible series that dont have the sales or influence of any series already with playable characters in Smash Bros. (Sin & Punishment, Golden Sun, Starfy, Xenoblade), or auxiliary side characters (Toad, Waluigi, Bowser Jr., Krystal, Waddle Dee).

There are hardly any characters left that were on the level as Bowser, Peach, Zelda, Ganondorf, Marth, Wario, Diddy Kong, King Dedede, Olimar, and possible Meta Knight. I would say outside of Ridley, the closest characters to this would probably be Little Mac, Mii, and maybe Palutena. Takamaru is the obvious pick for a retro revival, specially in light of his Nintendoland mini-game and playable role in Samurai Warriors 3.

Its for this reason, that Sakura probably decided now was the best time to go for a major revamp of the Smash franchise in terms of gameplay.

I agree with this right here for the same reasons. Sakurai already counts the brawl roster as 39 characters meaning he had 13 more than melee's roster size and 18 of which were completely new characters on their own. It's not a stretch to think he'd add at least 9 new characters. 14 characters may seem like a lot to some but when you look at brawls, they added 17. Not too much of a stretch there either.

 

[Johnknight1]

I find it funny we all generally most of us (including us smash 4/5 speculation junkies) agree 46-ish to 53-ish characters is the accurate range, considering how much we disagree on everything else. No really, we disagree on everything else like crazy, but on this, we all agree.

And oddly enough, we keep coming back to the number "fifty." For whatever reason, that is an elusive, powerful, and perhaps even mythical number in terms of roster size. Quite frankly, 50 Nintendo or Nintendo-related "All-Stars" playable in the same action-packed wild, zany game with a party atmosphere but is ultimately a fighting game would be cast off as stupid, if not downright insane 15 years ago. Now, it seems like a very possible reality.

I don't know about you guys, but when I take a step back, all I can say is "wow." Seriously, Smash WiiU and 3DS may very well be the biggest "super group" or "super gathering" of anything (especially in fictional characters in video games) in the history of the universe. The idea of a battle between Luigi, K. Rool, Mewtwo, and Mega Man becoming a reality is something beyond any of our wildest dreams from 15 years ago. Now, it looks like there's a solid chance of it happening.

Now if only it would be one month away from these games' release date so we could hype it up some mores, and so this hype would mean something tangible!

 

[Retroend]

wait does that mean that sakurai already chose the new characters for smash 4? was there even a poll given out like last time for brawl?

 

[Robert of Normandy]

wait does that mean that sakurai already chose the new characters for smash 4? was there even a poll given out like last time for brawl?

No poll yet, but most people think that Sakurai has a firm grasp on who he wants to be in the game.

 

[Retroend]

No poll yet, but most people think that Sakurai has a firm grasp on who he wants to be in the game.

so he's not going to ask fans who they want to see in smash 4? that seems kinda lame.

 

[SupaSairentoZ7℠]

Like some of the previous posters have said. I think 45 seems fine.

 

[N3ON]

so he's not going to ask fans who they want to see in smash 4? that seems kinda lame.

Other than Sonic, Brawl's poll didn't actually effect the characters chosen, and that was by and large a fine roster, so it's not like Sakurai needs fan input to still make decent picks, he is already most likely aware of the popular characters anyway.

And it's also possible he'll include the characters who placed fairly high on the last poll but didn't make it in this one instead, like he did in Brawl with characters on the Melee poll.

 

[Retroend]

i'm guessing there will be some cuts too. personally, i think the ice climbers should be cut. another retro character should take their place. dont know about everyone else but thats just me.

 

[Frostwraith]

i'm guessing there will be some cuts too. personally, i think the ice climbers should be cut. another retro character should take their place. dont know about everyone else but thats just me.

I wouldn't like to have any character cut, especially when they have a unique playstyle.

50 characters still seem plausible to me.

 

[Retroend]

I wouldn't like to have any character cut, especially when they have a unique playstyle.

50 characters still seem plausible to me.

honestly i dont want to have anyone cut but theres a possibility that there could be. also i think that 50 characters sound reasonable. honestly, look at ultimate marvel vs capcom 3.

 

[Muhti]

If Diddy isn't in Smash 4 I'm not even gonna ****ing buy a Wii U. And I actually have heard it before that people want him gone but it's always bull**** arguements like 'his bananas are too annoying', 'he should be replaced by DK Jr (who's already in the game since day 1)' or 'too many Mario characters'.

Aka, all reasons are bull****.

I don't think Diddy will be cut.

Maybe modified most likely, but not cut. Because it would stupid to have only Donkey K even though mainly they're a duo in the Country games.

 

[IntelliHeath1]

Google only give me "It's fun making new skills for new characters." The only exception I found was on NeoGAF which was from another site.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=488554



So it still implies there will be new characters. Many, in fact.

The problem is people are reading too much into what Sakurai has said. He said similar things in Brawl, and we got upwards of 17 new characters. What he means is that, while people focus the most on characters, that's not all there is and a lot of other elements are important. This is also why we've had a growing single player mode. Basically, there will be a good amount of new characters and other stuff as well.

honestly i dont want to have anyone cut but theres a possibility that there could be. also i think that 50 characters sound reasonable. honestly, look at ultimate marvel vs capcom 3.

So, using UMVC3 as example dont make sense. Look at MVC2 and we didn't get 56 for SSBB.

 

[Deleted member]

Other than Sonic, Brawl's poll didn't actually effect the characters chosen, and that was by and large a fine roster, so it's not like Sakurai needs fan input to still make decent picks, he is already most likely aware of the popular characters anyway.

And it's also possible he'll include the characters who placed fairly high on the last poll but didn't make it in this one instead, like he did in Brawl with characters on the Melee poll.

I think Sakurai took a look back at his pre-Brawl poll to look for popular characters. While that's not to say he hasn't used other sources for popularity, I don't think we should dismiss the pre-Brawl poll just yet.

How heavily Sakurai weigh the pre-Brawl poll for his decision for SSB4 can affect what character we get among other things (stages, music, etc.). If the pre-Brawl poll ends up having a big influence on the SSB4's final roster, it could be the edge that certain characters need to get in (Krystal and Geno in particular).

 

[Deleted member]

Except that the "poll" wasn't really a poll. Just a number of times the character was mentioned in e-mails to him during the OLD Japanese DOJO!!.

The only thing we know about any real poll was that Sonic won.
And whatever else we know from characters being supported is by what Chrono knows about Brawl speculation. Apparently, Wolf was far more reqested than Krystal than what the meager e-mail mention list would tell you. Even being as far as one of the MOST requested.

 

[FlareHabanero]

Besides, wasting a spot for Krystal and Geno isn't going to fly regardless of what logic is spewed out.

Krystal is simply loathed by a lot of people, which in a game like Super Smash Bros. means a lot actually.

Geno is far too minor and belongs to Square Enix.

 

[volbound1700]

Geno won't be in it unless Nintendo buys him from Square. Also being in only one game which is rather obscure now hurts.

I say around 50 but I have no clue. I think Pac-Man is going to be the 3rd party. Megaman is the next likeliest. After that, who knows. That may be it. Snake will be returning after all he didn't get added to Playstation AS.

King K. Rool and Ridley are likely adds. I wouldn't mind seeing Prince Fluff make it with the unique yarn move sets. Some retro characters like Little Mac may make it. Isaac could be in as well.

 

[Grimnir]

And whatever else we know from characters being supported is by what Chrono knows about Brawl speculation.

I keep seeing a lot about Chrono and people taking his word as final on everything related to the roster. Where exactly does Chrono get his information from? I've looked through some of his posts and I still don't get why he thinks he has so much authority on these matters.

His Roy related talk seems to come from some fan-made polls of one Nintendo fan community. The other things, I'm not sure. I think this is a very valid question to ask.

 

[DrinkingFood]

TBH I would be happiest with a more condensed roster. Brawl's was atrocious to me, and even melee coulda done without a few characters (See: Dr. Mario; I mean for ****'s sake look what Project:M did to Mario, I haven't heard ONE doc main complain once they got their hands on him, the best of both worlds really makes a good character). As it is, Sakurai has a hard time designing ~39 or even just 25 good characters. In melee and brawl, he's only ever succeeded in designing, idk, like 4-5 truly viable characters and 7-8 "viable-ish" characters (really depends on how you divide it but you get really close numbers for brawl and melee either way) and the rest are generally not really good at all... I think if he trimmed the number of characters much lower and put more effort into the ones that were lacking in previous installments, you'd end up with a much more balanced game (even relatively) and a more pleasing cast to play. I'd prefer something between 20-25, although 30 might be a more refreshing number for those that don't want a more conservative "same old, same old" game but rather something that feels new. Honestly, I think we'd be beyond that if we could just get the old ****ty characters revamped to feel both new and good.
Now of course, I doubt that's a popular belief since lots of people want to see *insert favorite or ideal nintendo character* in the franchise, but truth is, someone's always going to be disappointed until we have well over a hundred characters in the game, and from a design standpoint, that's just not very feasible given the time scale we've been given and the fact that the game is already promised to include other new features, as well as be on twice as many platforms as possible.

 

[Kink-Link5]

[snip]

Naw Food, Sakurai is infallible and everything he makes is diamond encrusted. He has a very painful experience every time he uses the restroom because he literally ****s out diamond encrusted diamonds.

Just ask SmashChu, that guys knows what's up; everyone who could possibly foresee any problems associated with a large roster is just a Brawl hating tourney*** who can't play the game the way it was meant to be played.

 

[Frostwraith]

TBH I would be happiest with a more condensed roster. Brawl's was atrocious to me, and even melee coulda done without a few characters (See: Dr. Mario; I mean for ****'s sake look what Project:M did to Mario, I haven't heard ONE doc main complain once they got their hands on him, the best of both worlds really makes a good character). As it is, Sakurai has a hard time designing ~39 or even just 25 good characters. In melee and brawl, he's only ever succeeded in designing, idk, like 4-5 truly viable characters and 7-8 "viable-ish" characters (really depends on how you divide it but you get really close numbers for brawl and melee either way) and the rest are generally not really good at all... I think if he trimmed the number of characters much lower and put more effort into the ones that were lacking in previous installments, you'd end up with a much more balanced game (even relatively) and a more pleasing cast to play. I'd prefer something between 20-25, although 30 might be a more refreshing number for those that don't want a more conservative "same old, same old" game but rather something that feels new. Honestly, I think we'd be beyond that if we could just get the old ****ty characters revamped to feel both new and good.
Now of course, I doubt that's a popular belief since lots of people want to see *insert favorite or ideal nintendo character* in the franchise, but truth is, someone's always going to be disappointed until we have well over a hundred characters in the game, and from a design standpoint, that's just not very feasible given the time scale we've been given and the fact that the game is already promised to include other new features, as well as be on twice as many platforms as possible.

while you make a compelling argument, you forget that, this time, the character design won't be made exclusively by Sakurai but by an entire team at Namco Bandai (under Sakurai's supervision, of course).

Naw Food, Sakurai is infallible and everything he makes is diamond encrusted. He has a very painful experience every time he uses the restroom because he literally ****s out diamond encrusted diamonds.

Just ask SmashChu, that guys knows what's up; everyone who could possibly foresee any problems associated with a large roster is just a Brawl hating tourney*** who can't play the game the way it was meant to be played.

playing with "tournament rules" and without such rules makes a big difference in the gameplay, indeed. and while I do have some things to say about it, let's not enter into that argument here, ok?

 

[Johnknight1]

The roster doesn't need to implode, especially since the characters from Brawl have already been imported. All those characters need are some balancing, a few move changes here and there, and we're good. Plus, seeing as how the team working on the game actually has made balanced fighting games before (and how the Tekken team is probably at least in some way involved), compared to where we were with Brawl (with an inexperienced team with no fighting game experience), I think a large 50-55 character roster would be better balanced than Brawl's roster.

Also, a bigger roster would mean more great characters for a balanced version of the game, or a game (engine) mod (specifically a Project M-esk mod). Quite frankly, Project M plus Brawl's large roster was quite a beautiful marriage IMO. Just imagining a Project M-esk mod for such a roster, new game mechanics, on an actually new and powerful console (the WiiU) is a pretty awesome thing. There's a lot to work with there!

I keep seeing a lot about Chrono and people taking his word as final on everything related to the roster. Where exactly does Chrono get his information from? I've looked through some of his posts and I still don't get why he thinks he has so much authority on these matters.

His Roy related talk seems to come from some fan-made polls of one Nintendo fan community. The other things, I'm not sure. I think this is a very valid question to ask.

He knows Japanese, he reads Japanese smash sites, and he tries to find unbiased information on the opinions from said sites so we can understand what some of our Japanese smash brethren think of characters who are legitimate candidates for Smash WiiU/3DS, who they think are legitimate candidates, and who they want.

Generally, their opinions are the same, except they think Zoroark is more likely (albeit many of them don't like him; many fear he will replace Lucario), they like Japan-only characters more, they forgot Golden Sun exists (that game was awesome), they aren't all that big on Western characters (Ridley and Dixie Kong, specifically), and that they don't acknowledge the existence of Star Fox outside of the original and Star Fox 64.

But yeah, keep in mind most Japanese smash fan sites block non-Japanese IP addresses.

 

[Deleted member]

According to his findings, they are pretty big on Dixie.
Being one of the more requested characters, in fact.
S Tier: Mewtwo and Roy
A Tier: Mega Man, King K. Rool, Palutena
B Tier: Dixie Kong, Zoroark, Chrom, Waddle Dee, Shulk

 

[Johnknight1]

@ Golden
I think, to clarify, Japan isn't as big on Dixie Kong as Europe/Australia/North America/South America are on Dixie.

With K. Rool, they just can't help themselves. The dude's hilarious yet super serious personality that isn't serious just awesome and addicting!

 

[DrinkingFood]

I could get behind K Rool. Him before Dixie, I think. We've already got to protagonists for that universe, yet no antagonist. If a universe is to have so many contenders, one of them should be an antagonist, which is part of why the Brawl Pokemon roster was so bland to me. I also didn't like the idea of a three in one character, especially with how bad it was executed, and I think they should just do away with the idea and put more effort into 3 additional individual characters that stand on their own. 2 in 1 is already far removed from the rest of the cast, but now it doesn't seem so ridiculous since it's been around for two games AND there's something to top it.

 

[dezeray112]

I predict a 45-50 roster.

 

[Ben Holt]

My roster has 55 not including transformations, and 60 including transformations.

 

[Dark Phazon]

Just think that there re-doing the movees i dunno if all moves though but there re-doing the moves pf all existing characters aswell thats something thats gonna effect time aswell surely and im sure they wanna get the game out ASAP.

But i dont want it to be like brawl..i think there team for Sm4sh is the biggest yet.

Imo i see 45 chars being MAX excluding transformations.

40-45 i say.

 

[Neanderthal]

He knows Japanese, he reads Japanese smash sites, and he tries to find unbiased information on the opinions from said sites so we can understand what some of our Japanese smash brethren think of characters who are legitimate candidates for Smash WiiU/3DS, who they think are legitimate candidates, and who they want.

Generally, their opinions are the same, except they think Zoroark is more likely (albeit many of them don't like him; many fear he will replace Lucario), they like Japan-only characters more, they forgot Golden Sun exists (that game was awesome), they aren't all that big on Western characters (Ridley and Dixie Kong, specifically), and that they don't acknowledge the existence of Star Fox outside of the original and Star Fox 64.

But yeah, keep in mind most Japanese smash fan sites block non-Japanese IP addresses.

I think it's great having someone like him offering his knowledge of the Japanese boards to us here.

However, perception of who is/isn't popular can very easily be wrong without hard data so I'd take what he says with a grain of salt.

If he could or has previously supplied us with a Japanese character poll that would be fantastic!

 

[TaichiYaegashi]

Including the considerable transformations and the amount of newcomers from 64 to Melee to Brawl (being Melee and Brawl's) plus the return of some characters cut from Melee to Brawl, I'm expecting around 50-55 honestly.

Yeah, high hopes.

 

[Deleted member]

Including the considerable transformations and the amount of newcomers from 64 to Melee to Brawl (being Melee and Brawl's) plus the return of some characters cut from Melee to Brawl, I'm expecting around 50-55 honestly.

Yeah, high hopes.

Might be good to keep these hopes to transformations included (which would equal to 46-51 slots). It's certainly a strong possibility that we will get a double digit amount of newcomers like we did in the last three games, but given that no game had added more than fourteen from the previous games, it's a tad unrealistic to upheld expectations to fifty-four to fifty-nine characters (transformations included). Forty-nine to fifty-six (transformation included) is a more realistic estimate.

 

[FalKoopa]

I don't understand why this thread was revived when we also have Neanderthal's poll thread.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Personally I think some characters will be dropped from previous games (My thoughts: Falco, Wolf and either Ness or Lucas) so the total won't be a huge step up but I look forward to seeing the new characters. Personally if there are more than 40 characters I'd be pleasantly surprised.