Social King K. Rool's Kremling Kutthroats: This...Is Our Finest Hour!

[FunAtParties]

Just the starting roster. There will be unlockable characters, as well.

Oh neat. In that case K.Rool sounds good then.

 

[Dudery and FAITH forever]

Oh neat. In that case K.Rool sounds good then.

i do recall someone mentioning that in the old days of ssf2 that they were considering k.rool and one of the forum members had some neat original sprites for him but it never saw the light of day......well atleast thats what i have heard.

i just finished unlocking all the unlockable content for ssf2 and it was more than i expected....a bunch of stages

 

[NATGamer]

It has been quite awhile since I was last on Smashboards, so the first thing I want to do is come back to this thread and rejoin the Kutthorats! I remember having a blast on this thread during the days of Smash 4 speculation, and now that Smash for Switch is pretty much inevitable at this point it's time to speculate once more!!! I hope K. Rool is a new character, he was one of my most wanted characters for Smash 4 and was quite disappointed when he wasn't included. But now we have another chance! Third time's the charm (for this game since I'm assuming Smash on Switch is going to be a port of Smash 4).

 

[Deleted member]

Saw the leaks about the Smash port, doubt their real, Do I think we get a Sma4sh port? Of course but I'll wait till E3 to find out for sure.

 

[BowserK.Rool]

Defintley agree we'll get a smash port but I doubt we'll get K. Rool as a playable character. More likely, Inkling, ice climbers, wolf, and another FE swordsman.

Still, one can dream.

 

[NATGamer]

I believe we'll get a handful of additional characters upon release of the port and then we'll get a new character every month or every other month. Nintendo will make soooo much $$$ doing so and that means K. Rool definitely has a shot. As for who I think the handful of characters will be, they'll most likely be: Inklings, Wolf, Ice Climbers, Spring Man/ARMS character and probably some character no one expects like the return of Snake.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Even if it's a port, it could stil have DLC.

 

[Tortilla Noggin]

I believe we'll get a handful of additional characters upon release of the port and then we'll get a new character every month or every other month. Nintendo will make soooo much $$$ doing so and that means K. Rool definitely has a shot. As for who I think the handful of characters will be, they'll most likely be: Inklings, Wolf, Ice Climbers, Spring Man/ARMS character and probably some character no one expects like the return of Snake.

Why do folks think that it's taken them three years since Bandai-Namco's "Smash 6" (bearing in mind that they later clarified that Smash 3DS is seen as "Smash 4", and Smash Wii U is seen as "Smash 5") job-listing to make a port, when Super Mario Odyssey and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle have both been made from the ground up during that same timeframe?

It's been demonstrated a number of times recently that even small indie studios with as few as two employees have been able to get their Switch games up and running within hours or days, so I can't fathom how it's realistic for a first-party team of 200 to only manage a content-free no-frills port of Smash 3DS/Wii U over a span of three years.

 

[RealLuigisWearPink]

.....Who's to say they haven't been developing it for three years? I mean, if it's just a port with all the 3DS stages and a couple added characters, they could've possibly started around Switch Launch and have it out roughly end of this year, no? (I know jack **** about game development time, so i'm probably like way off)

 

[Diddy Kong]

3 years is quite damn long for a port. Then again, the development of Smash 4 took a while too. If it's mostly putting data over, and fixing bugs and adding modes like the 3DS version, it would be complete enough to at least show it's existence. Yet it took an extremely long time for Smash Four's first reveal as well. The longer we have to wait, the better in this case.

 

[Tortilla Noggin]

.....Who's to say they haven't been developing it for three years? I mean, if it's just a port with all the 3DS stages and a couple added characters, they could've possibly started around Switch Launch and have it out roughly end of this year, no? (I know jack **** about game development time, so i'm probably like way off)

They wouldn't have hired people in early 2014 and had them sit on their hands for three years. If they started around this March, they would've hired people around then, not three years beforehand.

As noted above, the job-listing is from April of 2014. It suggested that they had 120 staff at the time and needed 80 more (the linked article provides a translation that shows the posts they needed to fill, but the gist of it is that they were hiring people for work on characters, stages, animation, modes, and so on), and it therefore suggests that work was started at around that time.

We also know that Super Mario Odyssey, though not named as that at the time, was also started at around the same time. That's a whole new game. Likewise Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.

3 years is quite damn long for a port. Then again, the development of Smash 4 took a while too. If it's mostly putting data over, and fixing bugs and adding modes like the 3DS version, it would be complete enough to at least show it's existence. Yet it took an extremely long time for Smash Four's first reveal as well. The longer we have to wait, the better in this case.

Here's the thing that gets me: Smash 3DS/Wii U already produced an easily-portable engine, designed to scale across very different architectures. Something like that doesn't take three years to port over*, and the jobs being offered in April of 2014, plus the wording of the job-listing, would appear to suggest the re-use of the engine, but new content - the same as a great many other companies do when making new games and sequels.

*If it did take three years, we wouldn't have seen Smash Wii U yet, only Smash 3DS.

Nintendo has spoken about engine re-use in order to develop new games more quickly, too.

What's most curious is how re-using the engine (I'm sure it's ideal for a console that needs to seamlessly scale what it's running when docked or undocked) would've basically granted three years to work on new content. Even without re-using the engine, three years is a longer development time than any other Smash game to date, as far as I know.

 

[NATGamer]

Why do folks think that it's taken them three years since Bandai-Namco's "Smash 6" (bearing in mind that they later clarified that Smash 3DS is seen as "Smash 4", and Smash Wii U is seen as "Smash 5") job-listing to make a port, when Super Mario Odyssey and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle have both been made from the ground up during that same timeframe?

It's been demonstrated a number of times recently that even small indie studios with as few as two employees have been able to get their Switch games up and running within hours or days, so I can't fathom how it's realistic for a first-party team of 200 to only manage a content-free no-frills port of Smash 3DS/Wii U over a span of three years.

The only reason why I think it's going to be a port is because Sakurai is the head of the helm when it comes to everything Smash and he said he's super tired and wants to work on other projects. I know Nintendo can make a new Smash without him, but it would be very risky since they haven't done it before. It also hasn't even been three years yet (more like two and a half) and since Mario Kart 8 Deluxe did so damn well on the Switch, Nintendo realizes a lot of people never bought a Wii U and never experienced the console version of Smash 4. So from a business perspective, it makes much more sense for a port to come out rather than a whole new Smash.

 

[BowserK.Rool]

The only reason why I think it's going to be a port is because Sakurai is the head of the helm when it comes to everything Smash and he said he's super tired and wants to work on other projects. I know Nintendo can make a new Smash without him, but it would be very risky since they haven't done it before. It also hasn't even been three years yet (more like two and a half) and since Mario Kart 8 Deluxe did so damn well on the Switch, Nintendo realizes a lot of people never bought a Wii U and never experienced the console version of Smash 4. So from a business perspective, it makes much more sense for a port to come out rather than a whole new Smash.

If the roster is'nt much different then I don't care about picking it up. I can play as ice climbers, snake and wolf in brawl if I want. I don't care about the other 2 likely newcomers.

 

[Tortilla Noggin]

The only reason why I think it's going to be a port is because Sakurai is the head of the helm when it comes to everything Smash and he said he's super tired and wants to work on other projects. I know Nintendo can make a new Smash without him, but it would be very risky since they haven't done it before. It also hasn't even been three years yet (more like two and a half) and since Mario Kart 8 Deluxe did so damn well on the Switch, Nintendo realizes a lot of people never bought a Wii U and never experienced the console version of Smash 4. So from a business perspective, it makes much more sense for a port to come out rather than a whole new Smash.

I don't believe that it makes that much business-sense. Please bear with me while I explain why I believe that, though, and please forgive the repetition of links from my above posts - that's done for clarity, so that everything I'm referring to is in one post.

Regarding Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, whilst they obviously needed a Mario Kart title on the Wii U, I honestly don't believe that Mario Kart 8 was really ever fully meant for the Wii U - the Wii U was already dead in the water by the time it arrived. It was released blatantly unfinished, plagued by bugs and lacking vital polish. Whilst later updates fixed some, but not all, of the issues, they never explained boneheaded and inconvenient decisions that made zero sense for the configuration of the Wii U, such as a vertical split-screen for the multi-player mode - something that makes perfect sense only for the Switch, with its removable controllers attached to the left and right sides of the screen, perfectly aligned with which side of the screen each player gets in a two-player game.

Now, with that out of the way, it has indeed been three years since the "Smash 6" job-listing, as I said: It went live in early April of 2014. That's actually more than three years ago - it's three years and two months. (As a curious aside, some of the timeframes in the "Smash 6" job-listing also appear to align with claims made in the Diddy Kong Racing 2 rumours.) As also noted above, that's the same timeframe in which Super Mario Odyssey was officially stated to have begun development, and in which it's (quite sensibly) claimed that Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has also been made. Additionally, Splatoon 2 - an all-new game that appears to re-use the engine and some assets from its predecessor - has also been made during that time.

The "Smash 6" job-listing stated that they had a staff of 120 at the time, and the translation from the article linked above tells us that it was specifically hiring 80 more people for the following tasks;

The recruitment page notes that the project currently has 120 people working on it, and they expect that number to increase to 200. At the moment, they’re in need of programmers for various roles, who will then be put into different teams to handle characters, stages, 3D programming, motion, game mode, mini-games, menu, UI, and more.

In this case, I'm fairly sure that the mention of "motion" is actually in reference to animation, which makes sense in the context of the fact that they were also hiring 3D-programmers and people to deal with characters.

Now, indeed, the time that this job-listing went live, coupled with when we know that Masahiro Sakurai went on an extended break from all industry work (game-development and writing for magazines), along with the fact that Smash 3DS/Wii U's 1.1.5 and 1.1.6 patches were made when he was on-break, all suggest that he isn't involved with the game (or the later maintenance of the previous ones, after he'd stated they'd been officially wrapped). But that makes sense - Sakurai was only persuaded to return time and again by Satoru Iwata, and Sakurai also holds zero ownership or rights to the Smash series, and actually has no say in what its actual owners, Nintendo, do with it. The team at Bandai-Namco has ample experience with the creation of fighting games, and showed that they can do damn good work with Smash, with Smash 3DS/Wii U, which had very good combat, even though they were somewhat lacking in content - which I believe can partly be blamed on rushing them out to try to help the 3DS to keep climbing out of the hole that it was in at launch, and to try to do something about the Wii U, which inherited the 3DS' launch problems but ultimately never recovered from them.

If you look at it in a certain way, it's also easy to see how Smash 3DS/Wii U might have also partly been a field-test, of sorts, for the easily-portable scalable engine that would surely be of great benefit on the then-future hybrid console that we now know as the Switch. This is something that I've actually been pointing out since I was quite new here on Smashboards, long before the Switch was officially unveiled, because the general direction of the market for many years strongly suggested a hybrid for Nintendo's next machine for a very long time (I was surprised not to see it when the Wii U launched, to be honest).

I don't believe that Smash Switch being a no-frills port of Smash 3DS/Wii U would make too much business-sense because the pair, which run on the same engine and have more-or-less the same everything but stages, are basically the best-selling game in the series, at around 14 million copies sold (9 million for Smash 3DS, 5 million for Smash Wii U). Why repeat a game that a higher number of people bought than Brawl, which was the previous best-selling game in the series?

There's also one other fact that I haven't seen anyone mention yet: From this Autumn, Nintendo's online services are going to require a paid subscription, after having been free-of-charge for the last 12 years.

Nintendo appears to be releasing one major first-party or first-party-published Switch game per month, in order to tackle the game-droughts issue that has plagued several of their past consoles, and was a particular criticism of the Wii U. But there does not yet appear to be a major Nintendo title with online play scheduled for release alongside the new paid online service.

If Smash Switch were to a be a simple no-frills port of Smash 3DS/Wii U, with a pricey paid DLC plan in place for later on*, it won't be able to convince anyone to pay for the new online service, which would make no business-sense. In that case, anyone can see that it would be cheaper to buy a 3DS or a Wii U, and continue playing the old game on those consoles' free-of-charge online service (which Nintendo has said will not be affected by the change to a subscription model for the Switch). (People who felt that waiting for the Switch didn't offer them anything did similar with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - the game boosted used Wii U sales.)

*That's not to say that Smash Switch won't have DLC, because there's little doubt that it will, but providing the minimum amount of content with a no-frills port of the previous game, then offering more paid content, on top of requiring fees for a new paid online service, isn't going to be an easy sell to people. It's not good for business.

Because Smash, as a series, would qualify as "hardcore" enough for this task, I believe that Smash Switch will be the title to launch alongside the new paid online service, and it will have to outdo the content-light Smash 3DS/Wii U in order to act as a showcase in order to sell people on the new paid online service. Smash is, after all, one of Nintendo's key multi-player titles, and it makes good busness sense to use it to help sell a service that is going to have some resistance from some customers due to the previous online service having been free-of-charge for as long as it was.

Here's what I see happening over the next two weeks: We're going to see a lot of hoaxes that play off of the previous rumours that claimed that the Switch is only going to get a no-frills port of Smash 3DS/Wii U (rumours which, let's not forget, came from the same sources that claimed that the ultimately non-existent Splatoon The Enhanced Port Definitely Not A Sequel would be a launch-day pack-in title for the Switch, that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would be released later in the summer and not at launch, that Super Mario Odyssey would be the Switch's big launch-day game even though it turned out to be a Christmas 2017 release, and that multiple individuals had confirmed to them that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe would have new cups/racetracks - which it doesn't). The current hoaxes are already playing off of that. We may see some that take a different angle, but a lot of folks will dismiss these out of belief of the earlier rumours.

After that, I believe that we may end up seeing a very content-heavy new Smash title at E3 (they need to have a show-stealing E3, and if we were only going to see a no-frills port, I feel that we already would've by now - it would look poor at E3), which addresses the complaints that were levelled at Smash 3DS/Wii U, and which will be released later in the year, when the Switch's paid online service launches. It might even have a proper name this time. Perhaps it may come with a code for an additional month's free trial of the new online service in the box, even? I have no doubt that the engine and art-assets from Smash 3DS/Wii U will be the basis for this game, and I'm sure that some stages from the previous game will make it over (I mean, given Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the Mario Kart 8 stage is surely a given, for example) - but that makes it a port no more so than Brawl was a port of Melee for including Melee stages, or Smash 3DS/Wii U was a port of Brawl for including Brawl stages.

Anyway, that's just what I see happening based on what I can see.

My apologies for the long post - I wouldn't normally write something this long, but it was the only way to cover all of the necessary information to explain my point of view.

EDIT: Just a quick edit to add that the only Nintendo fighting game that I expect to see a basic port of is Pokken Tournament, because that game was designed to have a home version that mirrors the arcade version, and is used in that form at official events.

EDIT: My apologies for making an already-lengthy post even longer, but there's something else that bears mentioning: If the game is a no-frills port, then it won't get any Amiibo (as has been pointed out to me in a conversation elsewhere with @Zem-raj). Reason being, it's been officially stated that the Amiibo series named after Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS & Wii U, and which uses that title's logo, is ending;

The final amiibo figures in the Super Smash Bros. series are on the way! Cloud, Corrin and Bayonetta join the fight on July 21st. pic.twitter.com/Nm0FjvUqlu

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) April 12, 2017

This being so, a port would be both unfair on people who want to buy Amiibo of the few new characters that it would supposedly have, and bad business-sense, because Amiibo tend to sell very well, particularly the Smash ones.

Personally, I can easily imagine a new "Super Smash Bros. Clash" (or whatever the new game ends up being called) series, to make a clear division between the old games and the new. But that won't happen if the game is a no-frills port - the Amiibo series tied to Smash 3DS/Wii U will be over with in July.

 

[dangeraaron10]

Very well said, Tortilla Noggin

 

[NATGamer]

I don't believe that it makes that much business-sense. Please bear with me while I explain why I believe that, though, and please forgive the repetition of links from my above posts - that's done for clarity, so that everything I'm referring to is in one post.

Regarding Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, whilst they obviously needed a Mario Kart title on the Wii U, I honestly don't believe that Mario Kart 8 was really ever fully meant for the Wii U - the Wii U was already dead in the water by the time it arrived. It was released blatantly unfinished, plagued by bugs and lacking vital polish. Whilst later updates fixed some, but not all, of the issues, they never explained boneheaded and inconvenient decisions that made zero sense for the configuration of the Wii U, such as a vertical split-screen for the multi-player mode - something that makes perfect sense only for the Switch, with its removable controllers attached to the left and right sides of the screen, perfectly aligned with which side of the screen each player gets in a two-player game.

Now, with that out of the way, it has indeed been three years since the "Smash 6" job-listing, as I said: It went live in early April of 2014. That's actually more than three years ago - it's three years and two months. (As a curious aside, some of the timeframes in the "Smash 6" job-listing also appear to align with claims made in the Diddy Kong Racing 2 rumours.) As also noted above, that's the same timeframe in which Super Mario Odyssey was officially stated to have begun development, and in which it's (quite sensibly) claimed that Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has also been made. Additionally, Splatoon 2 - an all-new game that appears to re-use the engine and some assets from its predecessor - has also been made during that time.

The "Smash 6" job-listing stated that they had a staff of 120 at the time, and the translation from the article linked above tells us that it was specifically hiring 80 more people for the following tasks;



In this case, I'm fairly sure that the mention of "motion" is actually in reference to animation, which makes sense in the context of the fact that they were also hiring 3D-programmers and people to deal with characters.

Now, indeed, the time that this job-listing went live, coupled with when we know that Masahiro Sakurai went on an extended break from all industry work (game-development and writing for magazines), along with the fact that Smash 3DS/Wii U's 1.1.5 and 1.1.6 patches were made when he was on-break, all suggest that he isn't involved with the game (or the later maintenance of the previous ones, after he'd stated they'd been officially wrapped). But that makes sense - Sakurai was only persuaded to return time and again by Satoru Iwata, and Sakurai also holds zero ownership or rights to the Smash series, and actually has no say in what its actual owners, Nintendo, do with it. The team at Bandai-Namco has ample experience with the creation of fighting games, and showed that they can do damn good work with Smash, with Smash 3DS/Wii U, which had very good combat, even though they were somewhat lacking in content - which I believe can partly be blamed on rushing them out to try to help the 3DS to keep climbing out of the hole that it was in at launch, and to try to do something about the Wii U, which inherited the 3DS' launch problems but ultimately never recovered from them.

If you look at it in a certain way, it's also easy to see how Smash 3DS/Wii U might have also partly been a field-test, of sorts, for the easily-portable scalable engine that would surely be of great benefit on the then-future hybrid console that we now know as the Switch. This is something that I've actually been pointing out since I was quite new here on Smashboards, long before the Switch was officially unveiled, because the general direction of the market for many years strongly suggested a hybrid for Nintendo's next machine for a very long time (I was surprised not to see it when the Wii U launched, to be honest).

I don't believe that Smash Switch being a no-frills port of Smash 3DS/Wii U would make too much business-sense because the pair, which run on the same engine and have more-or-less the same everything but stages, are basically the best-selling game in the series, at around 14 million copies sold (9 million for Smash 3DS, 5 million for Smash Wii U). Why repeat a game that a higher number of people bought than Brawl, which was the previous best-selling game in the series?

There's also one other fact that I haven't seen anyone mention yet: From this Autumn, Nintendo's online services are going to require a paid subscription, after having been free-of-charge for the last 12 years.

Nintendo appears to be releasing one major first-party or first-party-published Switch game per month, in order to tackle the game-droughts issue that has plagued several of their past consoles, and was a particular criticism of the Wii U. But there does not yet appear to be a major Nintendo title with online play scheduled for release alongside the new paid online service.

If Smash Switch were to a be a simple no-frills port of Smash 3DS/Wii U, with a pricey paid DLC plan in place for later on*, it won't be able to convince anyone to pay for the new online service, which would make no business-sense. In that case, anyone can see that it would be cheaper to buy a 3DS or a Wii U, and continue playing the old game on those consoles' free-of-charge online service (which Nintendo has said will not be affected by the change to a subscription model for the Switch). (People who felt that waiting for the Switch didn't offer them anything did similar with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - the game boosted used Wii U sales.)

*That's not to say that Smash Switch won't have DLC, because there's little doubt that it will, but providing the minimum amount of content with a no-frills port of the previous game, then offering more paid content, on top of requiring fees for a new paid online service, isn't going to be an easy sell to people. It's not good for business.

Because Smash, as a series, would qualify as "hardcore" enough for this task, I believe that Smash Switch will be the title to launch alongside the new paid online service, and it will have to outdo the content-light Smash 3DS/Wii U in order to act as a showcase in order to sell people on the new paid online service. Smash is, after all, one of Nintendo's key multi-player titles, and it makes good busness sense to use it to help sell a service that is going to have some resistance from some customers due to the previous online service having been free-of-charge for as long as it was.

Here's what I see happening over the next two weeks: We're going to see a lot of hoaxes that play off of the previous rumours that claimed that the Switch is only going to get a no-frills port of Smash 3DS/Wii U (rumours which, let's not forget, came from the same sources that claimed that the ultimately non-existent Splatoon The Enhanced Port Definitely Not A Sequel would be a launch-day pack-in title for the Switch, that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would be released later in the summer and not at launch, that Super Mario Odyssey would be the Switch's big launch-day game even though it turned out to be a Christmas 2017 release, and that multiple individuals had confirmed to them that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe would have new cups/racetracks - which it doesn't). The current hoaxes are already playing off of that. We may see some that take a different angle, but a lot of folks will dismiss these out of belief of the earlier rumours.

After that, I believe that we may end up seeing a very content-heavy new Smash title at E3 (they need to have a show-stealing E3, and if we were only going to see a no-frills port, I feel that we already would've by now - it would look poor at E3), which addresses the complaints that were levelled at Smash 3DS/Wii U, and which will be released later in the year, when the Switch's paid online service launches. It might even have a proper name this time. Perhaps it may come with a code for an additional month's free trial of the new online service in the box, even? I have no doubt that the engine and art-assets from Smash 3DS/Wii U will be the basis for this game, and I'm sure that some stages from the previous game will make it over (I mean, given Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the Mario Kart 8 stage is surely a given, for example) - but that makes it a port no more so than Brawl was a port of Melee for including Melee stages, or Smash 3DS/Wii U was a port of Brawl for including Brawl stages.

Anyway, that's just what I see happening based on what I can see.

My apologies for the long post - I wouldn't normally write something this long, but it was the only way to cover all of the necessary information to explain my point of view.

EDIT: Just a quick edit to add that the only Nintendo fighting game that I expect to see a basic port of is Pokken Tournament, because that game was designed to have a home version that mirrors the arcade version, and is used in that form at official events.

EDIT: My apologies for making an already-lengthy post even longer, but there's something else that bears mentioning: If the game is a no-frills port, then it won't get any Amiibo (as has been pointed out to me in a conversation elsewhere with @Zem-raj). Reason being, it's been officially stated that the Amiibo series named after Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS & Wii U, and which uses that title's logo, is ending;

The final amiibo figures in the Super Smash Bros. series are on the way! Cloud, Corrin and Bayonetta join the fight on July 21st. pic.twitter.com/Nm0FjvUqlu

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) April 12, 2017

This being so, a port would be both unfair on people who want to buy Amiibo of the few new characters that it would supposedly have, and bad business-sense, because Amiibo tend to sell very well, particularly the Smash ones.

Personally, I can easily imagine a new "Super Smash Bros. Clash" (or whatever the new game ends up being called) series, to make a clear division between the old games and the new. But that won't happen if the game is a no-frills port - the Amiibo series tied to Smash 3DS/Wii U will be over with in July.

I definitely see where you're coming from and respect what you have to say, but it feels very weird to me that we would have a new Smash game so soon considering it was roughly 6 years between Melee and Brawl and almost 7 between Brawl and Smash 4. I simply don't think enough time has passed. If I'm proven wrong with the announcement of a new Smash at E3, then I'll be pleasantly surprised. Regardless if Smash for Switch is a port or a whole new game, I want to see K. Rool in it!
EDIT: Wow I'm sorry, I've been in so many threads lately that I forgot this was the K.Rool thread

 

[Tortilla Noggin]

I definitely see where you're coming from and respect what you have to say, but it feels very weird to me that we would have a new Smash game so soon considering it was roughly 6 years between Melee and Brawl and almost 7 between Brawl and Smash 4. I simply don't think enough time has passed.

The circumstances are very different now, both in terms of how game-development has changed (the games you mention had engine-rewrites each time - that's not the norm anymore), and in terms of what has to be done to guarantee the success and growth of the Switch (something that Nintendo has stated they're driving with big multi-player titles, at this time). The way I see it, we could easily be looking at a 64 to Melee case, instead (and I know that's funny, since that very short wait also involved an engine-rewrite ).

There's nothing, anywhere, that states that there has to be that many years in between - it's simply dictated by business requirements at any given time.

EDIT: I should also give a mention to the fact that the game has been mentioned by high-up Nintendo of America staff four times this year already. I'll just paste in the relevant portion of one of my posts from earlier in the thread, here;

1: Nintendo Treehouse's JC mentioned playing the game during work hours, during a Treehouse Live broadcast in January. Since Treehouse is a localisation team, it seems unlikely he'd be playing older titles at work in the way he mentions it.

2: Reggie Fils-Aime mentioned it in an interview with TIME;

And we will look to make sure that in the end, we’ve got this robust, online environment that not only works well for our games, like Splatoon and Mario Kart and Smash Bros., but that also works great for our third party developers.

3: Reggie Fils-Aime mentioned it again in an interview with CNET;

People have taken shots at us for that (Nintendo's online efforts in the past). The reality is, the way that online experiences have progressed, it's an expensive proposition. The amount of servers we need to support Smash Brothers or Mario Kart -- these big multiplayer games -- is not a small investment.

4: And then, Reggie Fils-Aime mentioned it again in an interview on a Facebook livestream;

On Smash Bros. coming to Switch: Our philosophy at Nintendo is to have one great experience of each franchise on each console. So in the future, who knows when, you can anticipate that all of our big franchises will be addressed

As I said back then, Nintendo and its staff are usually very secretive, so this sort of open talk about something that hasn't even officially been announced yet, in the context of and paired with games that have just been released or which are out very soon, is highly unusual and worthy of note.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Yeah the game is coming, no doubt. I just don't want it coming out too soon or rushed. Unless they are gonna do another Smash in the end of the Switch's lifespan, doing a Zelda, appearing on Switch and Nintendo NewCube just like Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild.

Also, I'm sure K.Rool would make a lot of sense as a newcomer. And the later we get Smash, the more confident I am in his chances.

The last 3 newcomers of Smash all had their move sets made by using assets of other characters. Am actually confident that if K.Rool makes it in, he's gonna use some moves of others. And that's not even a bad thing I think.

Just made a Special Moveset in the general speculation thread. Could post it here if anyone's interested.

 

[Tortilla Noggin]

Just made a Special Moveset in the general speculation thread. Could post it here if anyone's interested.

Please share!

 

[Diddy Kong]

Please share!

Take note that this is used as a prospect of getting K.Rool in by using assets of other characters.

Neutral B: Blunderbuss Canonball. Like Bowser Jr.'s, but slower. Could even take inspiration from Diddy's Peanut Popgun (especially the explosion part fits). If they use Diddy's, they could use the arc of the direction Diddy shoots a second a base to make cannonballs bounce.

Side B: Koopa errrr Kremling Klaw. Cause why not? Any sort of command grab would work honestly. If they used Bowser's Flying Slam as base it could still fit extremely well. Honestly, the move fits K.Rool better than Bowser.

Down B: Belly Flop. Crashes down with his belly into his enemies. If used on the ground, King K.Rool would play dead, and would be able to use his get up attack (as if knocked down) when pressing A.

Up B: King Dedede.... or what about a simple Barrel Canon? I also don't imagine that the helicopter pack would be hard to program..

 

[Tortilla Noggin]

Take note that this is used as a prospect of getting K.Rool in by using assets of other characters.

I've got to say, I really like the Barrel Cannon idea - I don't think I've seen that one come up before.

I totally agree about the "Kremling Klaw" fitting K. Rool better than Bowser, too.

 

[P.Kay]

Personally, I think King K. Rool would become DLC if he were to be put into Smash. I'd love to have him in the game as well as some other characters.

However, I don't think the chances of this happening are very high.

I'm sure Smash will get ported, too.

 

[domriver]

King K Rool has my full support. I want this guy in Smash.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

The Kutthrots are back again? Been a long time and I've been in the Smash speculation mood, so I come back to find newcomer support up and running for a potential Switch game. I love it.

Had to make sure King K. Rool was still receiving support after the ballot we were working for didn't pan out (I'd still like to know which character was top in the US and Japan, maybe even our own beloved king himself). I'm surprised that this thread isn't currently bigger than it is. The old Smash 4 thread was perhaps the second biggest thread for speculation back in those days.

Anyways, as usual, I think it's time to see King K. Rool come back in full force for Smash Switch. Whether that game ends up a port of Smash 4, a new game, or some weird hybrid. And until he is a part of the roster he is always going to be my most desired newcomer. Though I admit my opinion has shifted towards the belief that Dixie will likely make it in before him at this point. My support for the Kroc will never die though!

 

[Diddy Kong]

I've got to say, I really like the Barrel Cannon idea - I don't think I've seen that one come up before.

I totally agree about the "Kremling Klaw" fitting K. Rool better than Bowser, too.

Even the Flying Slam suits K.Rool way better than Bowser, and am not too sure if they could still easily programm the Koopa Klaw as an attack for K.Rool because it was only an attack in Melee. And am not sure if they can still access the engine of Melee for move set data.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Koopa Klaw seems a bit out of character for K.Rool.

I mean what fits him better?

Slashing and biting his opponents?

Or hitting the opponent with an extending boxing glove filled with horseshoes?


Bowser's thing is that he'll challenge you with his own strength.

K.Rool tends to rarely use his own physical strength and prefers gadgets and dirty tricks.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Well, he's still a crocodile. Crocodiles like to bite stuff.

It's basically a low budget K.Rool moveset- thought of such a moveset cause of Cloud, Bayonetta and Corrin using assets from other character's movesets. If Cloud and Bayonetta where ballot characters, and K.Rool would also be picked from the ballot, there's a chance he simply won't get a full fleshed out move set.

And I think this is extremely likely if K.Rool returns in Smash before a DKC game.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Well, he's still a crocodile. Crocodiles like to bite stuff.

It's basically a low budget K.Rool moveset- thought of such a moveset cause of Cloud, Bayonetta and Corrin using assets from other character's movesets. If Cloud and Bayonetta where ballot characters, and K.Rool would also be picked from the ballot, there's a chance he simply won't get a full fleshed out move set.

And I think this is extremely likely if K.Rool returns in Smash before a DKC game.

You seem to misunderstand.

Cloud, Bayo, Corrin and Ryu reused assets but their movesets are still wholly unique.

Kind of like how Little Mac and Captain Falcon share some assets but there's still unique from each other. Similarly, Marth and Ike reuse assets.

K.Rool even if he used assets from Bowser would still have a unique moveset.

 

[Diddy Kong]

You seem to misunderstand.

Cloud, Bayo, Corrin and Ryu reused assets but their movesets are still wholly unique.

Kind of like how Little Mac and Captain Falcon share some assets but there's still unique from each other. Similarly, Marth and Ike reuse assets.

K.Rool even if he used assets from Bowser would still have a unique moveset.

It doesn't hurt the slightest to lower our expectations. Smash 4's speculation era thought me that.

I do get your point though. But am just playing it extremely safe here.

 

[Dudery and FAITH forever]

"Heeeeeeey!"

also there appears to be a donkey kong park wing in the super nintendo world theme park with some tree top town shops,i wonder what happened with the jumping minecarts.

 

[LunarDistortion]

Hey, been a while hasn't it?

I'll always be in support of this guy, he's one of the few characters I still want in Smash Bros. and he's got quite the case in his favor.

I would love for that Smash 6 speculation to come true, but if I learned anything from speculating back in 2013-2015, it's that no matter what we think, we don't know anything.

Wolf was the most universally agreed on character to return and was instead one of only 5 characters not to return from Brawl.

We spend about a year making polls to try and guess who will be chosen, only to learn we were polling in a small bubble and Bayonetta was actually winning the whole time.

We spend almost two years speculating who will be chosen for the vanilla game and think we have a pretty good idea of what it'll look like, only for a single picture of Duck Hunt, Dr. Mario, Dark Pit, and Bowser Jr. to show us completely otherwise.

Basically I'm saying to not put too many eggs in one basket because that basket has a pretty big chance of falling and breaking. I'm not saying don't speculate or have fun with neat ideas, just don't get so attached to a crazy idea that when it doesn't happen you're disappointed or angry. I say this from experience. I was a big Ridley optimist at one time.

Despite that however, let's keep moral high for this kool kroc because he does have a chance! They've heard the support so far, let's keep it going and maybe we'll see some interesting additions next game.

 

[Tortilla Noggin]

I would love for that Smash 6 speculation to come true, but if I learned anything from speculating back in 2013-2015, it's that no matter what we think, we don't know anything.

Wolf was the most universally agreed on character to return and was instead one of only 5 characters not to return from Brawl.

We spend about a year making polls to try and guess who will be chosen, only to learn we were polling in a small bubble and Bayonetta was actually winning the whole time.

We spend almost two years speculating who will be chosen for the vanilla game and think we have a pretty good idea of what it'll look like, only for a single picture of Duck Hunt, Dr. Mario, Dark Pit, and Bowser Jr. to show us completely otherwise.

The difference here is that there was no evidence supporting any of the fandom's speculation.

What we have here is some actual evidence and pointers to work with. Now, of course, what became of it, we don't yet know and we have no way of knowing (after all, we can only try to interpret what we see), but to compare it to the speculation period and its fan-made rules doesn't quite seem to work, to my mind.

Basically I'm saying to not put too many eggs in one basket because that basket has a pretty big chance of falling and breaking. I'm not saying don't speculate or have fun with neat ideas, just don't get so attached to a crazy idea that when it doesn't happen you're disappointed or angry. I say this from experience. I was a big Ridley optimist at one time.

Don't worry - not everyone gets upset and angry when speculating about entertainment products.

A decent-enough understanding of business is more than enough to be able to keep hopes separated from grounded expectations, whilst still having fun even if something doesn't work out as one would like it to.

 

[AwesomeAussie27]

"Heeeeeeey!"

also there appears to be a donkey kong park wing in the super nintendo world theme park with some tree top town shops,i wonder what happened with the jumping minecarts.

Something funny just came to mind after seeing this.

How would K. Rool react if he met Dingodile from Crash?

Would he be praising his pyromania? Or the latter would love his kolorful personality?

 

[Welshy91]

I just had to log in to smashboards for potential Smash Switch news. Now I'm back here, supporting a fat crocodile for a game that could come out this year if they do a port or half a decade if they do a true sequel. It was fun speculating back then, but I have learned to expect the unexpected, and to expect to be disappointed. I'm not saying that K. Rool won't happen, I'm just saying that anything could happen (except for Cloud amirite owait). Anyway, I support. Always have. Always will.

 

[Tortilla Noggin]

I just had to log in to smashboards for potential Smash Switch news. Now I'm back here, supporting a fat crocodile

Hey! Another old face returns! Welcome back!

for a game that could come out this year if they do a port or half a decade if they do a true sequel.

In fairness, no Smash game has ever taken even an entire three years to make, never mind five.

If they started when that job-listing would appear to suggest they did, entirely new games have been made from the ground up during that time, and it would've had longer than any other Smash game ever made, to date.

Only time will tell, though, as with everything.

expect the unexpected

Now I have the theme-song from Tiny Toon Adventures stuck in my head...

 

[Bowserlick]

Bowser Jr's special attacks fit Kaptain K. Rool with visual adjustments.

 

[BKupa666]

*imagines K. Rool leaping into the air and shedding his belly armor as it explodes beneath him*

*remembers the time when Kutthroats made special moves for K. Rool cloned after every single character in the roster*

 

[Bowserlick]

Shooting an exploding cannonball down that propels Kaptain into the sky, shooting a cannonball forward, jet-propulsion blunderbuss and a klaptrap.

 

[Pacack]

It's been ages, wow.

I definitely still support the big lug.

 

[Laniv]

Fellow Kutthroats, I bring important news!

The SNES Classic has just been announced, and Donkey Kong Country will be one of the playable titles!