Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[SPEN18]

On Castlevania, I'm still not convinced that Simon was a "ballot character." Sure, Sakurai may have mentioned that Castlevania had lots of ballot support, but he didn't say how much. Can we definitively say that Castlevania did better than Banjo, Geno AND Rayman (and possibly a few other third parties I'm not thinking of right now)? It's unlikely that Castlevania did better than all of those based not only on fan polls but also everything I've been hearing around here; moreover, it's probably equally unlikely that there was not a single third party above Castlevania that they could get the rights to add. It's like Bayonetta; they mention the ballot when it helps them justify their decisions, but based on what we've seen with the roster I think they're picking and choosing whichever characters they like. And again, knowing that they were able to get Konami on board and that Sakurai & co. seemed to really love Castlevania, it was probably a lot more likely than people thought before Vergeben said it. I'll also add that very few people were bringing up Castlevania as a "ballot choice" before Verge mentioned it and people got all worked up about the possibility.

 

[FancySmash]

Hmm, none of our fan polls ever indicated that the Belmont's had a lot of ballot support... but at the same time I guess a silent major support base is possible.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Hmm, none of our fan polls ever indicated that the Belmont's had a lot of ballot support... but at the same time I guess a silent major support base is possible.

We also shouldn't trust fanpolls alone.

Sakurai is clear on this. He knew the Belmonts would be the most recognizable. But he put in Castlevania stuff because of the ballot. There's no use in using fanpolls when the man spoke up on it being a ballot pick. This is a case where these kind of conspiracy theories are pointless. We know what's going on. No fan poll will be equivalent to what the actual ballot results are.

 

[weallfloatdownhere7]

I wouldn’t say we should ignore the fan polls though. K Rool was always on top of every fan poll and he ended up happening. People online were always clamoring for Ridley and Simon and they ended up happening. Fan polls and such might not be a perfect representation of the actual ballot results but they certainly do give us a bit of an idea

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I wouldn’t say we should ignore the fan polls though. K Rool was always on top of every fan poll and he ended up happening. People online were always clamoring for Ridley and Simon and they ended up happening. Fan polls and such might not be a perfect representation of the actual ballot results but they certainly do give us a bit of an idea

They are not a proper representation of the actual ballot since they are only a small pool of people. You need to find every single one available, and make sure the majority of users who used the ballot voted on these too. That means you need to somehow find the actual people.

They aren't accurate readings by any means. They never meant much and while they are accurate of some fanbases, sure, they aren't remotely accurate to the ballots Plus, when we have a clear part of the results, that Castlevania got tons of votes, there is no use in trying to deny the facts given to us. Yes, that's what it was. The ballot led him to chose the Belmonts. He gave us the facts. It's not some silly lie. It's not even a white lie in the way Bayonetta appeared to be(it wasn't, because it's people fully misunderstood how the ballot worked and thought she was a ballot choice when that wasn't his point). He's being honest. What more is there to say here? Castlevania content is cause of the ballot. There you go.

 

[SPEN18]

We know what's going on. No fan poll will be equivalent to what the actual ballot results are.

But we don't know exactly what went on. We don't have anything concrete like "Castlevania was the most voted-on realizable third party franchise" or "Simon Belmont was in the top 15." It's incredibly vague and hard to trust when they give us something like "yeah Castlevania got a lot of votes." That means almost nothing. And of course fan polls don't necessarily match the actual ballot results. But they have been incredibly reliable based on all of the representation outside of PCs: Isaac was brought back as an AT with a respectable number of GS Spirits and a Costume, Geno was given a Spirit despite being third party, the indie duo of Shovel Knight and Shantae have representation that likely wouldn't be there without the ballot, Krystal was made an AT despite not really having a major appearance since 4 (alongside Star Fox being in a bad spot right now), and even Custom Robo getting a Mii Costume and a handful of Spirits was somewhat indicated by limited fan polling of Japanese voters. Maybe you don't agree with all of those examples as being indicative of the fan polls, but it's still clear that we have at least some idea of what characters did well (plus there's even more examples that I didn't mention). It's hard to say exactly where characters ended up in the ballot, but we have some decent indicators.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

But we don't know exactly what went on. We don't have anything concrete like "Castlevania was the most voted-on realizable third party franchise" or "Simon Belmont was in the top 15." It's incredibly vague and hard to trust when they give us something like "yeah Castlevania got a lot of votes." That means almost nothing. And of course fan polls don't necessarily match the actual ballot results. But they have been incredibly reliable based on all of the representation outside of PCs: Isaac was brought back as an AT with a respectable number of GS Spirits and a Costume, Geno was given a Spirit despite being third party, the indie duo of Shovel Knight and Shantae have representation that likely wouldn't be there without the ballot, Krystal was made an AT despite not really having a major appearance since 4 (alongside Star Fox being in a bad spot right now), and even Custom Robo getting a Mii Costume and a handful of Spirits was somewhat indicated by limited fan polling of Japanese voters. Maybe you don't agree with all of those examples as being indicative of the fan polls, but it's still clear that we have at least some idea of what characters did well (plus there's even more examples that I didn't mention). It's hard to say exactly where characters ended up in the ballot, but we have some decent indicators.

No, he have concrete information here. "[Castlevania] was highly requested in the Smash Ballot, and when it came time to add new content Sakurai says his choices were limited." That's extremely clear. We know exactly what's going on.

The other ballot stuff was unmentioned. We don't know how well others did. We know what this one did. I wouldn't call the fanpolls incredibly reliable either. The issue is that it has too many fanbases and we don't know how the options for those polls worked. Was it "say who your favorite was" or "who you favorite was among this list". The former is somewhat reliable... if it actually has the same rules as the ballot. The latter is completely unreliable and muddies results due to not working the same way.

Yes, a lot of what you said may be ballot-related. May be. Every fan poll has criteria that is used to create it. Typically that also means the criteria can lead to results that don't match up with how the ballot works. Many fanpolls don't care about things like "video game characters only". This makes them iffy. There might be a few good fan polls out there. But most of them are unreliable and don't fit the correct narrative of real information available. If you want a ballot results, you wait to see what was said by Sakurai. Not rely on very mixed fan polls that have too many key differences that change up what makes the results important.

 

[Green_Pikmin*]

Anyone see this?
https://boards.fireden.net/v/thread/443463387/#q443463387

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Anyone see this?
https://boards.fireden.net/v/thread/443463387/#q443463387

Yeah, it's old. Chun-Li wouldn't have "become Ken". That doesn't make sense. This means they know nothing on it, because realistically it'd be that both were considered, and due to having not much development time, Ken got chosen over Chun-Li.

Characters don't become other characters like that. It's never that simple. Especially when Chun-Li and Ken don't play alike at all.

 

[weallfloatdownhere7]

They are not a proper representation of the actual ballot since they are only a small pool of people. You need to find every single one available, and make sure the majority of users who used the ballot voted on these too. That means you need to somehow find the actual people.

They aren't accurate readings by any means. They never meant much and while they are accurate of some fanbases, sure, they aren't remotely accurate to the ballots Plus, when we have a clear part of the results, that Castlevania got tons of votes, there is no use in trying to deny the facts given to us. Yes, that's what it was. The ballot led him to chose the Belmonts. He gave us the facts. It's not some silly lie. It's not even a white lie in the way Bayonetta appeared to be(it wasn't, because it's people fully misunderstood how the ballot worked and thought she was a ballot choice when that wasn't his point). He's being honest. What more is there to say here? Castlevania content is cause of the ballot. There you go.

That mentality is so ridiculous. You’re literally saying all these people who constantly voted in these countless fan polls somehow don’t actually mean anything in the actual Smash ballot? You don’t think these same people who voted on those fan polls didn’t also vote in the Smash ballot? Are they just imaginary people with imaginary votes? Just because there is a general audience with different requests doesn’t somehow render these people useless who also participate in fan polls. I don’t understand this argument

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

That mentality is so ridiculous. You’re literally saying all these people who constantly voted in these countless fan polls somehow don’t actually mean anything in the actual Smash ballot? You don’t think these same people who voted on those fan polls didn’t also vote in the Smash ballot? Are they just imaginary people with imaginary votes? Just because there is a general audience with different requests doesn’t somehow render these people useless who also participate in fan polls. I don’t understand this argument

No, no they don't. Because that's not the actual Smash Ballot. Why would they?

The only results that represent the Smash Ballot is the Smash Ballot itself. Anything else will always lack accurate results. You cannot emulate the Ballot. It's impossible to do so. You can absolutely get some results that have some accuracies, but you'll never get the exact information by using inaccurate polls that don't have the exact same premise/questions, and the exact same people voting. It cannot be done.

You will never get truly accurate results. You need to first look at every fan poll and remove any that don't ask the exact same questions as the Smash Ballot. You can can mostly similar results at best. Exact? Definitely not.

 

[weallfloatdownhere7]

We also shouldn't trust fanpolls alone.

Sakurai is clear on this. He knew the Belmonts would be the most recognizable. But he put in Castlevania stuff because of the ballot. There's no use in using fanpolls when the man spoke up on it being a ballot pick. This is a case where these kind of conspiracy theories are pointless. We know what's going on. No fan poll will be equivalent to what the actual ballot results are.

No, no they don't. Because that's not the actual Smash Ballot. Why would they?

The only results that represent the Smash Ballot is the Smash Ballot itself. Anything else will always lack accurate results. You cannot emulate the Ballot. It's impossible to do so. You can absolutely get some results that have some accuracies, but you'll never get the exact information by using inaccurate polls that don't have the exact same premise/questions, and the exact same people voting. It cannot be done.

You will never get truly accurate results. You need to first look at every fan poll and remove any that don't ask the exact same questions as the Smash Ballot. You can can mostly similar results at best. Exact? Definitely not.

I literally said earlier “fan polls aren’t a perfect representation but they give us a little bit of an idea,” did you just skim right past that? I’m not saying fan polls replicate the actual ballot, I’m saying it’s ignorant to sit here and act like they’re meaningless.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I literally said earlier “fan polls aren’t a perfect representation but they give us a little bit of an idea,” did you just skim right past that? I’m not saying fan polls replicate the actual ballot, I’m saying it’s ignorant to sit here and act like they’re meaningless.

It's not ignorant at all. Honestly, how should I trust them when Sakurai is telling us some of the results instead?

Besides that, calling people ignorant doesn't make your point good. I do not see how they are useful. You aren't really giving any reasons to believe they are useful at all.

Fanpolls are not worldwide. They have an extremely small audience. They're not nearly accurate enough for the results to mean a lot. They rarely get used for Smash as well. The only polls that were directly used were asked by Nintendo themselves(or Sakurai). These are actually better data because we at least know they were used. Unless you cite strict fanpolls Sakurai has used, their results aren't really meaningful as all.

 

[weallfloatdownhere7]

It's not ignorant at all. Honestly, how should I trust them when Sakurai is telling us some of the results instead?

Besides that, calling people ignorant doesn't make your point good. I do not see how they are useful. You aren't really giving any reasons to believe they are useful at all.

Fanpolls are not worldwide. They have an extremely small audience. They're not nearly accurate enough for the results to mean a lot. They rarely get used for Smash as well. The only polls that were directly used were asked by Nintendo themselves(or Sakurai). These are actually better data because we at least know they were used. Unless you cite strict fanpolls Sakurai has used, their results aren't really meaningful as all.

I watched the online polls like a hawk during the Smash Ballot days, from the day it was announced til the day it ended. Were you? Countless fan polls on all different websites and forums by all different kinds of people all over the world. And they were always generally consistent, slight differences here and there. Again, of course it isn’t a perfect representation. But to say that all those countless polls that countless people constantly participated in don’t actually translate to anything is just plain ignorant. Don’t care what you say.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I watched the online polls like a hawk during the Smash Ballot days, from the day it was announced til the day it ended. Were you? Countless fan polls on all different websites and forums by all different kinds of people all over the world. And they were always generally consistent, slight differences here and there. Again, of course it isn’t a perfect representation. But to say that all those countless polls that countless people constantly participated in don’t actually translate to anything is just plain ignorant. Don’t care what you say.

Then you don't have an argument to make either. You aren't presenting actual evidence. You're literally dismissing what people say as is. That just don't make your point good.

Has a single one of your polls you apparently have the evidence for actually been used by Sakurai? If not, then they don't mean much either. You need to remember that people vote for on other forums don't necessarily mean what they vote for in the Ballot. There's too many different variables. It's why they're unreliable in emulating the Smash Ballot results. They can't get very far due to too many variables. How many had hard rules on video game characters only. How many actually removed any results that were skewed? The problem is some didn't vote for a character that was feasible. Did they remove the vote entirely or count it among the ratio? Cause that's a huge difference. We don't know how the Ballot was worked with. It's quite possible they removed any vote entirely that was not a game character and also removed it from the ratio, gathering a different kind of result. When making a fan poll, you have different kinds of results.

Were every single one "you get one vote"? Because people multi-voted on the ballot many times. Sure, some were different family members, but some cheated the system. Can you account for that too among these fanpolls? That's the point. It cannot be done.

Also, if you don't care what anyone says, why are you even trying to make an argument? The point of a debate is to actually look at all other opinions and see the point of view. You're calling someone a name instead of actually trying to rebuke their points. This does not make your point valid in itself. You can't just ignore the flaw in these fanpolls. We don't know how the Ballot Results actually were done. We don't know how often they ignored votes. And so on. There's too many variables for these to be highly reliable in emulating the ballot. The results have meaning, sure, just not in context to the actual ballot.

 

[Ornl]

I noticed a new top of preferences in Japan.
http://www.gamekyo.com/blog_article388678.html

- Dragon Quest stands out on NES.
- Dragon Quest stands out on SNES.
- Shiren the Wanderer stands out on 64.
- Baten Kaitos, Resident Evil and Tales of Symphonia stand out on Cube.
- Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter and The Last Story stand out on Wii.
- Shin Megami Tensei (Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE) and Dragon Quest stand out on Wii U

- Dragon Quest stands out on Gameboy.
- Golden Sun and Ace Attorney stand out on Advance.
- Dragon Quest, Professor Layton, Shin Megami Tensei stand out on DS.
- Persona, Monster Hunter and Project X Zone stand out on 3DS
-> Project X Zone includes KOS-MOS as the main Namco representative.

This is not a question of leak or not : Dragon Quest will be represented in Smash Bros, because the license stands out most on Nintendo for Japaneses, on the 6/10 different consoles.

 

[WaddleMatt]

This is not a question of leak or not : Dragon Quest will be represented in Smash Bros, because the license stands out most on Nintendo for Japaneses, on the 6/10 different consoles.

Ok, thanks Sakurai.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I noticed a new top of preferences in Japan.
http://www.gamekyo.com/blog_article388678.html

- Dragon Quest stands out on NES.
- Dragon Quest stands out on SNES.
- Shiren the Wanderer stands out on 64.
- Baten Kaitos, Resident Evil and Tales of Symphonia stand out on Cube.
- Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter and The Last Story stand out on Wii.
- Shin Megami Tensei (Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE) and Dragon Quest stand out on Wii U

- Dragon Quest stands out on Gameboy.
- Golden Sun and Ace Attorney stand out on Advance.
- Dragon Quest, Professor Layton, Shin Megami Tensei stand out on DS.
- Persona, Monster Hunter and Project X Zone stand out on 3DS
-> Project X Zone includes KOS-MOS as the main Namco representative.

This is not a question of leak or not : Dragon Quest will be represented in Smash Bros, because the license stands out most on Nintendo for Japaneses, on the 6/10 different consoles.

Correction; there's a fair chance Dragon Quest could be chosen.

But it won't be because of some Nintendo thing. It'll be because Dragon Quest is the most influential RPG series in gaming history. Pokemon wouldn't exist without it. Shin Megami Tensei wouldn't exist without it. Final Fantasy wouldn't exist without it. Tales of wouldn't exist without it. Super Mario RPG wouldn't exist without it. I could go on. But the regular rpg games all stem from Dragon Quest which started the idea. They can all be traced back there. This does not necessarily apply for Strategy RPG's, though, which are a different genre and while they clearly borrow a bit from Dragon Quest, they actually have more in common with what DnD became, where it mattered where you were on the map. Though I don't know if Strategy games(like Civilization) or Strategy rpg's(like Shining Force) came out first. So one may have influenced the other.

Do you honestly think he chose to represent FF simply because it started on the NES? No. It's one of the biggest franchises in gaming history(and beyond games too. Not unlike Pokemon and Sonic. Mario... is not known nearly as much for non-gaming, but that too), and that made it great to have a character to represent the series. He chose to represent one game generally, by choosing its respective mascot, Cloud(jury is out if he's the true series mascot or not, though).

The reason why DQ hasn't been in yet is he either had no ideas for a reasonable moveset, it wasn't really something heavily fan-voted for enough for Sakurai to take interest, or couldn't go through the tons of licensing to get even the bare minimum content. Some of the later games not releasing on Nintendo is... pretty irrelevant, really. That doesn't change the huge gaming impact it has on its own. That said, part of the reason why FFVII is the one actually represented is that as great as FF did on its own, what had a huge gaming impact and also had the most popular character in the franchise(plus one of its mascots) was VII itself. It paved ways for RPG's to come. Things like story cutscenes, the Limit Break fully realized, extremely unique equipment system like the materia(as in the concept). FF1 had a different impact, namely the idea of an extremely high amount of monsters at once while using 4 characters, even the same classes. It had its own role to play. This was before DQ started the ability to actually give you a ton of classes and generic options to choose from. Just like Dragon Quest Monsters implemented the idea of breeding monsters in rpg's first. They all have their introduced concepts that impacted gaming later.

 

[FancySmash]

Hmm, both sides are making perplexing cases...

I will admit that both sides have a strong case, but I don't think the point here is that the fan polls are perfect representation, but with what we've been given officially concerning the ballots, these polls are the best we have to work with. Take this chart for example:

Many of these characters are represented in some way. All veterans returned, King K. Rool made it in, Isaac's MIA AT was added back, and Bandana Dee, who was 100% absent from Smash 4, finally has an appearance in the game. This poll only shows 19 characters. It's very possible from these results, Simon is in the top 50 and just not present. Sakurai decided he likes Castlevania, and with Castlevania having a prominent force in the ballot, decided to use that as one of the many reasons to throw them onto the roster. There's nothing saying that Simon outright shows these as erroneous. We also have to remember... there are several Belmonts. Simon, Richter, Trevor, the list goes on. It's very possible that multiple Belmonts were voted for. The fan polls all treated them as different characters, and thus didn't score as high on them, but maybe Sakurai and the team combined them, knowing fans wanted some Castlevania representation, and decided Simon and Richter were the best choices.

This chart even gives us an idea of Daisy, Chrom, and Dark Samus' scores.

I certainly think there are discrepancies between the true ballot results and these fan polls, but as it stands, I think these polls did a decent job at compiling info.

 

[SPEN18]

Has someone found a poll where Castlevania looks like it could've beaten Rayman or Bomberman?

 

[Michael the Spikester]

This is my new prediction.

Banjo-Kazooie
Crash Bandicoot
Erdrick
Joker (Confirmed)
Phoenix Wright
Piranha Plant (Confirmed)

 

[FancySmash]

Has someone found a poll where Castlevania looks like it could've beaten Rayman or Bomberman?

Again, that's really hard to judge. I believe most people would've just voted for their favorite Belmont, or the Belmont there were most familiar with. For example, say 50 People voted for Rayman, putting him in a top ten. Now, say 21 people voted for Simon, 19 voted for Richter, and 10 voted for Trevor. Together, they'd be tied with Rayman, but most fan polls treated them as separate characters Im sure.

 

[Isaac: Venus Adept]

Hmm, both sides are making perplexing cases...

I will admit that both sides have a strong case, but I don't think the point here is that the fan polls are perfect representation, but with what we've been given officially concerning the ballots, these polls are the best we have to work with. Take this chart for example:
View attachment 185000
Many of these characters are represented in some way. All veterans returned, King K. Rool made it in, Isaac's MIA AT was added back, and Bandana Dee, who was 100% absent from Smash 4, finally has an appearance in the game. This poll only shows 19 characters. It's very possible from these results, Simon is in the top 50 and just not present. Sakurai decided he likes Castlevania, and with Castlevania having a prominent force in the ballot, decided to use that as one of the many reasons to throw them onto the roster. There's nothing saying that Simon outright shows these as erroneous. We also have to remember... there are several Belmonts. Simon, Richter, Trevor, the list goes on. It's very possible that multiple Belmonts were voted for. The fan polls all treated them as different characters, and thus didn't score as high on them, but maybe Sakurai and the team combined them, knowing fans wanted some Castlevania representation, and decided Simon and Richter were the best choices.

This chart even gives us an idea of Daisy, Chrom, and Dark Samus' scores.

I certainly think there are discrepancies between the true ballot results and these fan polls, but as it stands, I think these polls did a decent job at compiling info.

My thoughts exactly, a lot of the big fan polls line up with the content we have gotten in this game, I feel it's foolish to completely discredit them. And regarding Castlevania I think it was a combination of Sakubias and the decent popularity it had in the ballot since it did ask us to write the name of the origin franchise.

 

[SPEN18]

in, that's really hard to judge. I believe most people would've just voted for their favorite Belmont, or the Belmont there were most familiar with. For example, say 50 People voted for Rayman, putting him in a top ten. Now, say 21 people voted for Simon, 19 voted for Richter, and 10 voted for Trevor. Together, they'd be tied with Rayman, but most fan polls treated them as separate characters Im sure

On some polls, yeah it would be hard to judge. But other polls show a lot of characters, like 50 or more. So if Rayman beat Simon by a lot and no other Castlevania character got above a certain percentage of the vote, you can extrapolate that Rayman did better. Take Golden Sun as an example. There were probably a handful of voters who picked Felix or Matthew over Isaac, but neither Felix nor Matthew appear anywhere in the top characters if most polls, so those votes probably wouldn't be enough for GS as a whole to overtake K. Rool.

 

[WaddleMatt]

Castlevania could have easily gotten a lot of combined votes we just don't see it on polls that high because lots of people voted for different Belmonts or Alucard or anyone else.

 

[FancySmash]

On some polls, yeah it would be hard to judge. But other polls show a lot of characters, like 50 or more. So if Rayman beat Simon by a lot and no other Castlevania character got above a certain percentage of the vote, you can extrapolate that Rayman did better. Take Golden Sun as an example. There were probably a handful of voters who picked Felix or Matthew over Isaac, but neither Felix nor Matthew appear anywhere in the top characters if most polls, so those votes probably wouldn't be enough for GS as a whole to overtake K. Rool.

That's true, but Castlevania also has many more games than the Golden Sun series has, with far more Belmonts to vote for than just the three I used. Heck, many could've voted for Alucard too. There's far to many that would get easily divided, as most polls don't show more than the...

(sorry, couldn't resist )

 

[GoodGrief741]

This is my new prediction.

Banjo-Kazooie
Crash Bandicoot
Erdrick
Joker (Confirmed)
Phoenix Wright
Piranha Plant (Confirmed)

This would be amazing.

 

[Ornl]

For the release of Smash 4, I supported Shanoa to represent Castlevania. The reason was that I did not understand why Metal Gear was represented but not Castlevania, and to feminize the rooster. Forcibly, it divides the votes.

 

[Flyboy]

I have no doubt that Simon, Richter, Alucard, and Soma Cruz absolutely got votes considering Simon was the original and his name popped up a lot in communities I was in. Richter and Alucard are part of one of the greatest games ever, Symphony of the Night, and Soma Cruz and Shanoa were the most recent series protagonists.

Castlevania has always felt "missing" from Smash for a lot of fans. Maybe those same fans don't necessarily cross over with Smashboards, but I would put money on "Castlevania" having a strong showing.

 

[SPEN18]

Looking at the exit poll that a lot of people have been citing, Simon Belmont barely makes the top 30 and no other Castlevania rep is in the top 60. So anyone other than Simon, according to this poll, would have to be below Crash Bandicoot with less than .11% of the vote. Is it possible that they could beat characters like Rayman or Bomberman if you combined them all? Yeah, but it's pretty unlikely. And even if they did, why not combine all the votes for Zelda characters, or add votes for the Rabbids to Rayman's total? And there's no way they're ahead of Banjo; however, there could have been rights issues with Banjo. I mostly bring up Rayman and Bomberman because I think they could probably get the rights to these two if they wanted; Banjo and Geno may have had obstacles. But either way, there's no requirement to specifically hunt for a third party; if there are Nintendo characters like Isaac, Bandana Dee, and Waluigi who clearly beat out Castlevania then you can't really justify Castlevania with the ballot.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Looking at the exit poll that a lot of people have been citing, Simon Belmont barely makes the top 30 and no other Castlevania rep is in the top 60. So anyone other than Simon, according to this poll, would have to be below Crash Bandicoot with less than .11% of the vote. Is it possible that they could beat characters like Rayman or Bomberman if you combined them all? Yeah, but it's pretty unlikely. And even if they did, why not combine all the votes for Zelda characters, or add votes for the Rabbids to Rayman's total? And there's no way they're ahead of Banjo; however, there could have been rights issues with Banjo. I mostly bring up Rayman and Bomberman because I think they could probably get the rights to these two if they wanted; Banjo and Geno may have had obstacles. But either way, there's no requirement to specifically hunt for a third party; if there are Nintendo characters like Isaac, Bandana Dee, and Waluigi who clearly beat out Castlevania then you can't really justify Castlevania with the ballot.

You're making a fallacy here. Highly requested does not mean "requested more than this guy", it just means they got a ton of votes. Also, people do vote for "characters from this series too". It's absolutely a thing.

We don't know if it's a combination of actual characters and content in general, but you're trying to create a narrative that was never said. The ballot isn't a lie. They were simply highly requested. And Casltevania absolutely got beat out by other stuff. That didn't make the other stuff feasible. The ballot was the main reason as noted. Other smaller reasons could've helped, but he made it clear what was the main incentive. It's not a ballot to win either. It's a suggestion to give. There were enough votes for Castlevania-related stuff to convince Sakurai they were notable. That's why he put it in. That's the actual premise the tweet is pretty much getting at. You're looking for some kind of competition when there isn't any. It's not impossible other big things helped him to come to the decision. It could've been more feasible because he needed to get Konami on board with Snake. But that doesn't make a single thing about what he said of Castlevania being highly requested on the ballot a lie either. There's no good reason he's somehow lying or bending the truth. It's just trying to build a conspiracy theory at this point.

Just remember, the ballot was never a contest to win. It is nothing more than a suggestion box. One he takes into account. And some suggestions will be taken from it, not based upon votes alone, but upon other factors. Having a ton of votes helps, sure. But it's not all that matters overall.

 

[SPEN18]

You're making a fallacy here. Highly requested does not mean "requested more than this guy", it just means they got a ton of votes. Also, people do vote for "characters from this series too". It's absolutely a thing.

We don't know if it's a combination of actual characters and content in general, but you're trying to create a narrative that was never said. The ballot isn't a lie. They were simply highly requested. And Casltevania absolutely got beat out by other stuff. That didn't make the other stuff feasible. The ballot was the main reason as noted. Other smaller reasons could've helped, but he made it clear what was the main incentive. It's not a ballot to win either. It's a suggestion to give. There were enough votes for Castlevania-related stuff to convince Sakurai they were notable. That's why he put it in. That's the actual premise the tweet is pretty much getting at. You're looking for some kind of competition when there isn't any. It's not impossible other big things helped him to come to the decision. It could've been more feasible because he needed to get Konami on board with Snake. But that doesn't make a single thing about what he said of Castlevania being highly requested on the ballot a lie either. There's no good reason he's somehow lying or bending the truth. It's just trying to build a conspiracy theory at this point.

Just remember, the ballot was never a contest to win. It is nothing more than a suggestion box. One he takes into account. And some suggestions will be taken from it, not based upon votes alone, but upon other factors. Having a ton of votes helps, sure. But it's not all that matters overall.

Okay to be clear, I'm not trying to say Sakurai is lying. He is being vague, and a more clear statement about how well Castlevania did would help, but Castlevania probably did do at least decently well.

I also agree that getting more votes doesn't necessarily guarantee a spot. There are other factors like rights to certain IPs and a certain threshold to pass in terms of importance/recognizability. But it's one thing if Castlevania was one of the top few voted-on franchises and a completely different thing if they had to go twenty to thirty spots down to find it. And sure, the ballot never came with a guarantee that the winner(s) would get in. But they essentially asked people what they wanted and many feel that they didn't deliver. And the fact is that they ignored several potential PCs that we're almost certain did extremely well, namely Isaac, Banjo, Geno, Bandana Dee, Waluigi, and more. Maybe some of these wouldn't be feasible for different reasons but it's ridiculous to say that none of them were. IMO they took King K. Rool from the no. 1 spot and other than that they only used the ballot when it conveniently coincided with what they wanted.

 

[GoodGrief741]

Having more votes should guarantee a spot. That’s the point of a ballot.

 

[SPEN18]

Having more votes should guarantee a spot. That’s the point of a ballot.

I mean, personally I'm okay with a few basic rules like the character originating from a video game, and they do have to get the rights to the IP if it's third party. But generally, if you're gonna ask someone what they want and then give them something completely different, you should probably have a very good reason why.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Having more votes should guarantee a spot. That’s the point of a ballot.

Wrong. Do you even know what the actual point of the ballot was? At all? Remove your personal bias here and look at the hard facts of what it actually meant. It's a title of it. What it actually said is that "Do you want your favorite video-game character to join the battle in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U? Well, here's your chance. If you post a video-game character's name, we'll consider turning that character into a Smash fighter! Please limit your vote to one person." It was never presented as a contest. It was presented as a way to gather ideas.

And even Iwata was pretty clear on this; "I imagine that you have some fighters in mind yourself. Can you think of anyone you’d like to see fight against characters like Mario or Link in Super Smash Brothers? Well, after discussing it with Smash Brothers director, Masahiro Sakurai, we’ve decided to open the new Smash Brothers Fighter Ballot on the Smash Brothers microsite after this Nintendo Direct. With this form, you can let us know, directly, which characters you’d like to see become the next new fighter in Super Smash Brothers. Of course, please understand that we won’t be able to accommodate every request, but Mr. Sakurai and the rest of the staff will take each request into consideration when developing additional fighters. We look forward to hearing from you."

It wasn't a ballot to win. It was a ballot to suggest. The bolded part is due to the quote from Source Gaming, but it's a huge misconception that it was somehow about who was most voted. That was never once presented as important. Why people still latch onto it is beyond me when it was never once a thing.

Though this was on the Japanese site only; "The information received from this vote (Henceforth known as Submission Data) will be use for consideration for this software’s fighting characters,etc and for reference for future software." The keyword is consideration here.

Okay to be clear, I'm not trying to say Sakurai is lying. He is being vague, and a more clear statement about how well Castlevania did would help, but Castlevania probably did do at least decently well.

I also agree that getting more votes doesn't necessarily guarantee a spot. There are other factors like rights to certain IPs and a certain threshold to pass in terms of importance/recognizability. But it's one thing if Castlevania was one of the top few voted-on franchises and a completely different thing if they had to go twenty to thirty spots down to find it. And sure, the ballot never came with a guarantee that the winner(s) would get in. But they essentially asked people what they wanted and many feel that they didn't deliver. And the fact is that they ignored several potential PCs that we're almost certain did extremely well, namely Isaac, Banjo, Geno, Bandana Dee, Waluigi, and more. Maybe some of these wouldn't be feasible for different reasons but it's ridiculous to say that none of them were. IMO they took King K. Rool from the no. 1 spot and other than that they only used the ballot when it conveniently coincided with what they wanted.

He's not being vague at all. Castlevania got highly requested. This is part of why it got in at the very least. There was never once any official idea that it was that other characters/franchises were strictly in competition, because it was never that simple. Of course, yeah, technically there is since you can only add so much content. You have to outweigh which is more feasible. It doesn't really matter if Castlevania was voted 50 or 10nth place number-wise. The fact remains that it still had a ton of requests. You don't need more than that to consider it. That's all that was needed. It could've been a bit of bias on his part too(as he is a fan of Castlevania), but it doesn't really change that the Ballot influenced the selection in some way officially. I'm more worried why these conspiracy theories to try and make the narrative sound impossible are popping up. It doesn't make sense. A highly voted series got in. Big deal. Not all were going to be for what is officially nothing more than a Suggestion Box. If anything, all that it meant was that Fighter's Ballot was a poor term to use at best. Which has been an actual argument made before(and it's right. Ballots are a term used for something that's supposed to be won. The Fighter's Ballot actually was not that, but a Suggestion Box for future fighters). If anything, the bigger issue was the English translation didn't note it would be used for future titles.

Also, being the link to the official ballot is no longer there, I had to search for the wording for at least a half-hour straight.

There is no probably. It did very well. It's not about ratio. That assumes there's a competition(when there isn't, and never once was). It's about having a ton of votes. He confirms it straight-out it indeed did. Again, that's pointlessly trying to rationalize it based upon faulty data. The only point that makes some sense is that the votes gathered were a combination of Castlevania content overall(so every character + any vote for just Castlevania content in general due to its huge gaming legacy/popularity). Which doesn't change much, since the way it's actually worded implies just that, every Castlevania vote combined is noted as overall being equal to "highly requested". That's not really vague. It's exactly what it means. He knows people want the content, and thus, looked into it. A ton of the voted stuff also became other content as well(not just for Castlevania, but in general). Obviously votes were not the only thing that matters in making a game.

"Specifically, Sakurai has stated that characters need to be interesting, bringing something new to the game, and work within the game’s current framework. Popularity is one factor in determining characters, but it is not the main factor." Another notable thing Sakurai has said. Popularity isn't the be-end all. Though that must is a given anyway, since clearly just being popular wasn't everything. Otherwise we'd have zero unique characters that weren't obviously requested(Wii Fit Trainer was chosen for that alone). Or Piranha Plant, if you will(though it is possible it got some votes, it wasn't chosen cause of that. It was chosen to be a unique entrant and a fun idea Sakurai had).

 

[Megadoomer]

Having more votes should guarantee a spot. That’s the point of a ballot.

Not necessarily - what if the highest voted character is a non-video game character, or a character that they can't get permission to use (like Banjo-Kazooie, or Snake at the time of Smash 4), or a character who already has a role in the game (such as an assist trophy or stage hazard), or a character who can't work on the console in question? (like the Ice Climbers on the 3DS)

On their own, votes shouldn't be the sole reason why a character gets included. There's a lot of outside factors that could still prevent characters from being included from a legal or technical standpoint, and that's not even getting into the idea of whether or not the developer is inspired by a particular character choice.

 

[SPEN18]

He's not being vague at all. Castlevania got highly requested. This is part of why it got in at the very least. There was never once any official idea that it was that other characters/franchises were strictly in competition, because it was never that simple. Of course, yeah, technically there is since you can only add so much content. You have to outweigh which is more feasible. It doesn't really matter if Castlevania was voted 50 or 10nth place number-wise. The fact remains that it still had a ton of requests. You don't need more than that to consider it. That's all that was needed. It could've been a bit of bias on his part too(as he is a fan of Castlevania), but it doesn't really change that the Ballot influenced the selection in some way officially. I'm more worried why these conspiracy theories to try and make the narrative sound impossible are popping up. It doesn't make sense. A highly voted series got in. Big deal. Not all were going to be for what is officially nothing more than a Suggestion Box. If anything, all that it meant was that Fighter's Ballot was a poor term to use at best. Which has been an actual argument made before(and it's right. Ballots are a term used for something that's supposed to be won. The Fighter's Ballot actually was not that, but a Suggestion Box for future fighters). If anything, the bigger issue was the English translation didn't note it would be used for future titles.

Also, being the link to the official ballot is no longer there, I had to search for the wording for at least a half-hour straight.

There is no probably. It did very well. It's not about ratio. That assumes there's a competition(when there isn't, and never once was). It's about having a ton of votes. He confirms it straight-out it indeed did. Again, that's pointlessly trying to rationalize it based upon faulty data. The only point that makes some sense is that the votes gathered were a combination of Castlevania content overall(so every character + any vote for just Castlevania content in general due to its huge gaming legacy/popularity). Which doesn't change much, since the way it's actually worded implies just that, every Castlevania vote combined is noted as overall being equal to "highly requested". That's not really vague. It's exactly what it means. He knows people want the content, and thus, looked into it. A ton of the voted stuff also became other content as well(not just for Castlevania, but in general). Obviously votes were not the only thing that matters in making a game.

"Specifically, Sakurai has stated that characters need to be interesting, bringing something new to the game, and work within the game’s current framework. Popularity is one factor in determining characters, but it is not the main factor." Another notable thing Sakurai has said. Popularity isn't the be-end all. Though that must is a given anyway, since clearly just being popular wasn't everything. Otherwise we'd have zero unique characters that weren't obviously requested(Wii Fit Trainer was chosen for that alone). Or Piranha Plant, if you will(though it is possible it got some votes, it wasn't chosen cause of that. It was chosen to be a unique entrant and a fun idea Sakurai had).

It absolutely does matter if Castlevania was 10th or 50th. If it was 50th, it's really hard to justify as a "ballot character" when there's a bunch of ballot characters that did better and didn't get in. As you've said, there may be various reasons why those other characters were cast aside, but it's rather ridiculous to say that none of them were feasible, if there were indeed 15-20 characters or more ahead of it. I'll also point out that my argument isn't that the ballot played no role, just that other factors like Sakurai's feelings for Castlevania and Castlevania's status as a classic series were more important to its inclusion, to the point that it was very likely to get in without any votes on the ballot. I'm also not trying to say that every character should be a fan request. But based on what I've seen it seems that they barely used the ballot at all; every newcomer besides K. Rool probably would have gotten in without the ballot ever happening. I guess you could say the Echo choices may have been different without the ballot, but that's not really gonna move the needle much. Isabelle, Incineroar, and Piranha Plant are pretty clearly not ballot requests. King K. Rool is. Inkling would have almost certainly gotten in without the ballot, but it was requested. Ridley, Castlevania, and returning vets muddy the waters a bit, and that's where the debate is mostly focused. But Ridley only had feasibility issues to overcome even before the ballot, and returning vets was more due to a unique situation in which Sakurai had the opportunity to do it and really wanted to do it. So if you're just looking for popular characters, there are a decent number that got in: K. Rool, Ridley, Inkling, and a couple of vets like ICs, Wolf, and Snake. I don't count Simon, but you can maybe throw him in there if you want. I also don't count Isabelle, but she has her popularity in certain circles. But other than K. Rool, each one of these had some happy circumstances that got them in; we don't know if ICs, Wolf, or Snake would've come back without all vets coming back.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the one character who is clearly in primarily because of the ballot is also the one character who happened to be the almost certain winner by almost all measures (K. Rool), and I also don't think it's a coincidence that every other character who you could maybe argue came from the ballot just so happened to neatly coincide with the direction Nintendo and Sakurai were taking without the ballot in consideration. See, King K. Rool is the biggest piece of evidence that number of votes DO matter; he had a ton and we know that he was definitely in the top few spots (almost certainly no. 1, even). Let's face it, Nintendo really wouldn't have much use for K. Rool if he wasn't popular. You could argue that they can use him in Donkey Kong Country again, and I hope that happens, but the prospect of him returning as the big bad in those games wouldn't be something that would motivate them to include him in Smash unless they knew his massive popularity. And I totally get that they may have intended the ballot as a suggestion box of sorts, but I don't see how that changes the fundamental reality of the situation: they asked for fan input. Of course they're gonna say that they'll only consider each request; they have to protect themselves from Shrek winning. But as I said before, if you ask people what they want and then decide to skip over those requests to get to something less popular, there has to be a good reason, and I mean a good one. Not even "Ridley's too big" is really valid here; if Ridley was the number two or three most voted-on character (he probably wasn't but say for example that he was), that wouldn't be an excuse. If the fans clearly asked for something AND you've already asked for their input, you better be ready to either deliver or give a clear explanation as to why not.

 

[Flyboy]

K. Rool absolutely would not have gotten in without the ballot. His popularity was a shock to everyone. And to be frank, I don't think Snake would be back or Pichu or Wolf without the ballot. The veterans returning was a much bigger fan boon than you realize.

 

[HYRULESHERO42]

K. Rool absolutely would not have gotten in without the ballot. His popularity was a shock to everyone. And to be frank, I don't think Snake would be back or Pichu or Wolf without the ballot. The veterans returning was a much bigger fan boon than you realize.

It was an absolute shock to everyone but all of us who have seen K. Rool at the top of all our wishlists for years.

 

[Flyboy]

It was an absolute shock to everyone but all of us who have seen K. Rool at the top of all our wishlists for years.

My biggest wish is Marina Liteyears, dude. And I can wish for her for twenty more years but it doesn't mean she's going to be in the game.