Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[Dukefire]

Usually once a character is announced, it will take two to three months before release. So if one does get revealed in February or March, then a Direct before E3 starts will make another one appear

 

[MisterMike]

"Dimitri - Five Years Later (Fire Emblem)"

From now on that's the official name for Dimitri

Y'know, it's stuff like this that reminds me how ridiculous the whole "Spirits disconfirm" argument is.
>Spirits that share a name with another gets an added bit of text to differentiate them
>Nobody sees anything wrong with that
>Someone suggests that a character with a Spirit can have their Fighter Spirit differentiated in the same way to avoid confusion
>N-NO THAT CAN'T HAPPEN SPIRITS DISCONFIRM THEY'RE NOT TROPHIES THEY'RE A REPRESENTATION OF A CHARACTER YOU CAN'T HAVE MORE THAN TWO SPIRITS FOR A CHARACTER *STRAWMAN* *STRAWMAN* *GOALPOST-SHIFTING NOISES*

 

[Ridrool64]

I think it's gonna be April. It's far away enough from FP5 that I could see it being possible, while the dead air of absolutely nothing isn't ridiculously long (3 months instead of 5 months is pretty significant). We haven't had reason to believe anything major, that's not a fighter, is coming between Byleth and E3. That being said, we probably won't be able to play as them until around E3, and we're definitely getting a character reveal there.

One thing that's a reasonable estimate is that in Super Smash Bros., development of newcomers often have them start out as older newcomers or veterans. While this is obvious for Echoes like Daisy and even semis like Young/Toon Link and Isabelle, what you may not know is that evidence suggests that most Smash Bros. newcomers, even the most unique ones, use other characters as a base. Evidence suggests, for example, that the template for Wolf in Brawl was, indeed, based off of Fox's, even though the two of them are not clones. This article from Source Gaming has evidence stating that Cloud and Bayonetta were (at least in terms of stats) designed using Ike and Zero Suit Samus (ignore the title, it's not about the Ballot), as well as stating this is the case for Captain Falcon and Little Mac. In Ultimate, there is evidence supporting the ideas that Ridley and Piranha Plant used Charizard and Bowser Jr., respectively, for their templates, as leftover data from the latter two is found in their files. It's likely there's still a few characters made from scratch, but I believe that every Ultimate newcomer (except Inklings, who are so unlike everybody else I can't think of a base character) had a base.

With that in mind, who would your top few characters use as a base, or are they so unlike anybody else that they would absolutely be made from scratch? Remember three things about bases.

• They do not mean your character would be an Echo Fighter of the parent character, of the character. In fact, they might be so different as to be unrecognizable. I, for one, would have guessed Piranha Plant to have been made from scratch were it not for evidence to suggest Bowser Jr. was at least partially used as a base.
• It's possible that there can be more than one base character, as the body type of one character matches, but the moves of another would also match up.
• They should be separate "generations": that is, these are Volume 2 characters, they won't use other Volume 2 characters as a base, unless we get Echo Fighters of Volume 2's fighters. I can see them using Volume 1 characters as a base, though, and everybody older than Piranha Plant is definitely fair game.

1. I think Arle would use Zelda as her base. Zelda in Ultimate is no longer her stoic, reserved self, but much more open and cheery, which fits Arle's personality more. In terms of moves, if Arle's mage aspects were to be played up, Zelda would fit perfectly as her magic is not that dissimilar to Arle's, particularly Fireball and Din's Fire.
   1. With Arle I am making an assumption that her proportions are more like 20th's, not Chronicle, or designed like her classic self. If she's closer to Chronicle, then Lucas could be a base character instead, as his moves have elements that match up with Arle's.
2. Crash would ABSOLUTELY use Incineroar as a base. The neutral special of Incineroar's, Darkest Lariat, has it do a spin attack that resembles Crash's heavily. Also, the down smash is a belly flop. Both of these are moves that Crash uses in his games, and would not be very difficult to repurpose into the iconic attacks of his.
3. Paper Mario would likely use Mr. Game and Watch, for extremely obvious reasons. As they are both 2D, it would allow PM to have his abilities and design be properly replicated in their natural look. Plus, Mr. Game & Watch also has Judge, which is a hammer based attack. Honorable mention to Rosalina or Icies if a partner system is in play, as well as Icies or Dedede for more normal hammer based attacks.
4. Frisk is gonna have Ness used as a base for the model, but the moveset would likely have to be made from scratch. Frisk is likely to be a child around the height of Ness, Lucas and Icies.
5. Lloyd is perhaps the hardest one, but I think his model would use Roy as a base, while his moveset is closer to Mii Swordfighter. Roy's proportions fit Lloyd's design very well (maybe Chrom is closer in outfit, but I see Lloyd as using the Material Blades, and the Binding Blade already has the fire half down). Meanwhile, Mii Swordfighter has two moves that resemble Lloyd's: Blurring Blade (NB3) resembles Sword Rain, and Airborne Assault heavily resembles Tempest. Honorable mention to Kirby, whose Final Cutter laser somewhat resembles a Demon Fang.

These are just my guesses, though. If anybody else has a take on the five above, then I'd be interested in seeing theirs.

 

[Aerospherology]

I saw this a few days ago, this template looks real fun because of how specific it is.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

As for me, the choices I'd go for are:

6) Adol Christin (Ys)
7) Paper Mario
8) 2B (NieR: Automata)
9) Reimu Hakurei (Touhou)
10) Dixie Kong (Donkey Kong Country)
11) Master Chief (Halo)

Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney)
Geno (Super Mario)
Goemon (Mystical Ninja) [I don't really have any friends so...]
Chase McCain (LEGO City Undercover)
Eggman (Sonic)
Luke Skywalker (Star Wars) [DON'T JUDGE ME FOR A NON-VIDEO GAME CHARACTER]

 

[Guynamednelson]

In Ultimate, there is evidence supporting the ideas that Ridley and Piranha Plant used Charizard and Bowser Jr., respectively, for their templates, as leftover data from the latter two is found in their files

The Belmonts also have some minor Captain Falcon animations, despite being the opposite of a fast, close-range fighter.

 

[Dukefire]

Honestly, Spirits Deconfirm Characters fan rule doesn't make sense.

For obvious evidence, Smash 4 Lucas and Mewtwo were trophies before returning as a Fighter in DLC.

 

[DarthEnderX]

How is Kunio's spirit not Legendary?! This is an outrage!

 

[osby]

Y'know, it's stuff like this that reminds me how ridiculous the whole "Spirits disconfirm" argument is.
>Spirits that share a name with another gets an added bit of text to differentiate them
>Nobody sees anything wrong with that
>Someone suggests that a character with a Spirit can have their Fighter Spirit differentiated in the same way to avoid confusion
>N-NO THAT CAN'T HAPPEN SPIRITS DISCONFIRM THEY'RE NOT TROPHIES THEY'RE A REPRESENTATION OF A CHARACTER YOU CAN'T HAVE MORE THAN TWO SPIRITS FOR A CHARACTER *STRAWMAN* *STRAWMAN* *GOALPOST-SHIFTING NOISES*

You know, "Spirits can't be playable" and "Spirits won't be playable" are two different arguments and only the first one is unfounded.

If you act like no argument against Spirit promotions has any supporting evidence, that's attacking a strawman.

 

[Schnee117]

I saw this a few days ago, this template looks real fun because of how specific it is.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

As for me, the choices I'd go for are:

6) Adol Christin (Ys)
7) Paper Mario
8) 2B (NieR: Automata)
9) Reimu Hakurei (Touhou)
10) Dixie Kong (Donkey Kong Country)
11) Master Chief (Halo)

6. Nightmare (Soul Calibur)
7. Dante (he's tied with Kiryu and Chief)
8. Miriam (Bloodstained)
9. Kiryu Kazuma
10. Raiden (Metal Gear)
11. Master Chief

 

[Wunderwaft]

We didn't get a general direct in Winter last year or the year before that, but it is possible we get another Smash focused presentation in November

Speaking of Smash presentations, I hope we get a final Smash direct like in Smash 4 that announces the last DLC we'll get. Regardless of who the last fighter might be, a proper send-off to Ultimate's development is something I feel appropriate rather than the final fighter being unceremoniously revealed on a general direct.

 

[Eldrake]

I saw this a few days ago, this template looks real fun because of how specific it is.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

As for me, the choices I'd go for are:

6) Adol Christin (Ys)
7) Paper Mario
8) 2B (NieR: Automata)
9) Reimu Hakurei (Touhou)
10) Dixie Kong (Donkey Kong Country)
11) Master Chief (Halo)

6) Kain (Legacy of Kain)
7) Gordon Freeman (Half-Life)
8) Doomguy (Doom)
9) Jason Frudnick (Blaster Master)
10) Sylux or Kraid (Metroid)
11) Agumon (Digimon)

 

[Hinata]

Y'know, it's stuff like this that reminds me how ridiculous the whole "Spirits disconfirm" argument is.
>Spirits that share a name with another gets an added bit of text to differentiate them
>Nobody sees anything wrong with that
>Someone suggests that a character with a Spirit can have their Fighter Spirit differentiated in the same way to avoid confusion
>N-NO THAT CAN'T HAPPEN SPIRITS DISCONFIRM THEY'RE NOT TROPHIES THEY'RE A REPRESENTATION OF A CHARACTER YOU CAN'T HAVE MORE THAN TWO SPIRITS FOR A CHARACTER *STRAWMAN* *STRAWMAN* *GOALPOST-SHIFTING NOISES*

...
Anyway, Spirits deconfirm characters. Especially the recent Spirit events we've been getting.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

I think it's gonna be April. It's far away enough from FP5 that I could see it being possible, while the dead air of absolutely nothing isn't ridiculously long (3 months instead of 5 months is pretty significant). We haven't had reason to believe anything major, that's not a fighter, is coming between Byleth and E3. That being said, we probably won't be able to play as them until around E3, and we're definitely getting a character reveal there.

One thing that's a reasonable estimate is that in Super Smash Bros., development of newcomers often have them start out as older newcomers or veterans. While this is obvious for Echoes like Daisy and even semis like Young/Toon Link and Isabelle, what you may not know is that evidence suggests that most Smash Bros. newcomers, even the most unique ones, use other characters as a base. Evidence suggests, for example, that the template for Wolf in Brawl was, indeed, based off of Fox's, even though the two of them are not clones. This article from Source Gaming has evidence stating that Cloud and Bayonetta were (at least in terms of stats) designed using Ike and Zero Suit Samus (ignore the title, it's not about the Ballot), as well as stating this is the case for Captain Falcon and Little Mac. In Ultimate, there is evidence supporting the ideas that Ridley and Piranha Plant used Charizard and Bowser Jr., respectively, for their templates, as leftover data from the latter two is found in their files. It's likely there's still a few characters made from scratch, but I believe that every Ultimate newcomer (except Inklings, who are so unlike everybody else I can't think of a base character) had a base.

With that in mind, who would your top few characters use as a base, or are they so unlike anybody else that they would absolutely be made from scratch? Remember three things about bases.

• They do not mean your character would be an Echo Fighter of the parent character, of the character. In fact, they might be so different as to be unrecognizable. I, for one, would have guessed Piranha Plant to have been made from scratch were it not for evidence to suggest Bowser Jr. was at least partially used as a base.
• It's possible that there can be more than one base character, as the body type of one character matches, but the moves of another would also match up.
• They should be separate "generations": that is, these are Volume 2 characters, they won't use other Volume 2 characters as a base, unless we get Echo Fighters of Volume 2's fighters. I can see them using Volume 1 characters as a base, though, and everybody older than Piranha Plant is definitely fair game.

1. I think Arle would use Zelda as her base. Zelda in Ultimate is no longer her stoic, reserved self, but much more open and cheery, which fits Arle's personality more. In terms of moves, if Arle's mage aspects were to be played up, Zelda would fit perfectly as her magic is not that dissimilar to Arle's, particularly Fireball and Din's Fire.
   1. With Arle I am making an assumption that her proportions are more like 20th's, not Chronicle, or designed like her classic self. If she's closer to Chronicle, then Lucas could be a base character instead, as his moves have elements that match up with Arle's.
2. Crash would ABSOLUTELY use Incineroar as a base. The neutral special of Incineroar's, Darkest Lariat, has it do a spin attack that resembles Crash's heavily. Also, the down smash is a belly flop. Both of these are moves that Crash uses in his games, and would not be very difficult to repurpose into the iconic attacks of his.
3. Paper Mario would likely use Mr. Game and Watch, for extremely obvious reasons. As they are both 2D, it would allow PM to have his abilities and design be properly replicated in their natural look. Plus, Mr. Game & Watch also has Judge, which is a hammer based attack. Honorable mention to Rosalina or Icies if a partner system is in play, as well as Icies or Dedede for more normal hammer based attacks.
4. Frisk is gonna have Ness used as a base for the model, but the moveset would likely have to be made from scratch. Frisk is likely to be a child around the height of Ness, Lucas and Icies.
5. Lloyd is perhaps the hardest one, but I think his model would use Roy as a base, while his moveset is closer to Mii Swordfighter. Roy's proportions fit Lloyd's design very well (maybe Chrom is closer in outfit, but I see Lloyd as using the Material Blades, and the Binding Blade already has the fire half down). Meanwhile, Mii Swordfighter has two moves that resemble Lloyd's: Blurring Blade (NB3) resembles Sword Rain, and Airborne Assault heavily resembles Tempest. Honorable mention to Kirby, whose Final Cutter laser somewhat resembles a Demon Fang.

These are just my guesses, though. If anybody else has a take on the five above, then I'd be interested in seeing theirs.

Kiryu would probably use Captain falcon as a base since they have a similar body type. And both use a ton of punches in their moveset.

Sora I can see him using the DQ heroes as a base because of their focus on sword strikes and magic spells. Just ditch the shield and make him more athletic like Joker and boom, you have Sora.

As for professor Layton, that's a bit of a hard one since I don't see his moveset borrowing from just one fighter, maybe Marth? Since some of his attacks would obviously be based on his fencing skills which is similar to Marths fighting style

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

Honestly, Spirits Deconfirm Characters fan rule doesn't make sense.

For obvious evidence, Smash 4 Lucas and Mewtwo were trophies before returning as a Fighter in DLC.

While I see where you’re coming from with this, it’s not the same thing.

Mewtwo and Lucas didn’t also come with music, a stage, and spirit board. It was just the characters. The new DLC has to come with all of those things, and anything else would be an exception which is...an entirely different hypothetical discussion.

Again, it’s not the png that keeps Spirit upgrades from happening, more so the concept of a Challenger Pack up to this point bringing 100% entirely new content.

 

[Garteam]

Crash would ABSOLUTELY use Incineroar as a base. The neutral special of Incineroar's, Darkest Lariat, has it do a spin attack that resembles Crash's heavily. Also, the down smash is a belly flop. Both of these are moves that Crash uses in his games, and would not be very difficult to repurpose into the iconic attacks of his.

I disagree, not only is Incineroar a lot larger than Crash, but his limited movement would be a strange base for Crash, who would presumably have a very movement based moveset. I see Sonic as a better base for Crash.

 

[Curious Villager]

As for professor Layton, that's a bit of a hard one since I don't see his moveset borrowing from just one fighter, maybe Marth? Since some of his attacks would obviously be based on his fencing skills which is similar to Marths fighting style

Body type wise, I guess it depends on what proportions they would go for Layton, his more cartoony large upper body and short legs might work with Luigi or maaaybe Toon Link. If its something more realistically proportionate, then I suppose really any human character would probably do....

 

[Hadokeyblade]

Speaking of Smash presentations, I hope we get a final Smash direct like in Smash 4 that announces the last DLC we'll get. Regardless of who the last fighter might be, a proper send-off to Ultimate's development is something I feel appropriate rather than the final fighter being unceremoniously revealed on a general direct.

And they should remake the everyone is here trailer from E3 with all the new characters included.

 

[RetroBro]

I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree there, as people lost their minds for Joker.

Like, there was nothing but positivity for Joker. The only people who were mad were the people who are obsessed with Sakurai only catering to western IPs and go ballistic whenever they see the dreaded word "anime". However, it was a rare time where the positivity was so loud that the noise coming from the vocal minority got drowned out.

I didn't say that there wasn't positivity. And I certainly didn't say people reacted negatively.

There's a false narrative that Joker broke the internet. He didn't.

The series itself is widely regarded as high quality and I have constantly gotten it recommended to me, particularly the 4th game. It's a series that's collectively sold 10 million games over the course of its 24 year life span (Persona is just passing up 2.5-3 million copies, boosted from the announcement for smash). Which in the grand scheme of things is respectable, but not mindblowing. A majority of people, even gamers, do not know any of the characters from any of the entries.

Final Fantasy 7 on its own sold 11 million copies - If there was a character that lost their minds for, it was Cloud. He is a character that represented bad blood between Square and Nintendo, a huge barrier of entry. Sonic the hedgehog is an iconic character stretching across generations. I don't even want to get into his audience reach, but it's massive. HE blew people's minds - EVERYONE knows who Sonic is. Metal Gear has exceeded 53 million units and its entries are legendary within the gaming sphere, not to mention Solid Snake's character is just like Link in that he appears in every game. Everyone knows who Snake is, HE blew minds. There are a lot of additions to this game that really changed the rules on how characters would be added.

Persona appealed to a niche audience and most people didn't even know who he was - it's a game that was pushing 2 million sales at Joker's reveal. He was by no measure an extremely popular character. Sakurai liked him. Japan likes Persona. He was chosen for Smash. I'm not detracting from his addition. I'm just disagreeing that he's such an immaculate pick that everyone and their mothers were mind-blown. Again, most people didn't even know who he was.

I even watched his reveal at the game awards and the response was positive but lukewarm and you could certainly hear plenty of people and even silence at one point. It took FOREVER for people to even realize what game it was. Unless if we're talking about the videos where people show up to the Nintendo store in New York and watch - but they get hype about everything (cept Byleth I guess lol).

 

[Cosmic77]

While I see where you’re coming from with this, it’s not the same thing.

Mewtwo and Lucas didn’t also come with music, a stage, and spirit board. It was just the characters. The new DLC has to come with all of those things, and anything else would be an exception which is...an entirely different hypothetical discussion.

Again, it’s not the png that keeps Spirit upgrades from happening, more so the concept of a Challenger Pack up to this point bringing 100% entirely new content.

To be fair, not all characters would struggle with that.

Aside from Spirits, AC and SwSh have no other content in Ultimate, so adding a stage and some music wouldn't be as difficult as it would've been with Mewtwo and Lucas, two characters who already had a majority of their relevant content in Smash 4 before they were added.

 

[Hinata]

To be fair, not all characters would struggle with that.

Aside from Spirits, AC and SwSh have no other content in Ultimate, so adding a stage and some music wouldn't be as difficult as it would've been with Mewtwo and Lucas, two characters who already had a majority of their relevant content in Smash 4 before they were added.

It's more the idea of "if the characters who got Spirit events were going to be DLC, why wouldn't their Spirits be saved for their release?"

Having a special Astral Chain Spirit event and then an Astral Chain DLC Spirit board would be weird. Same for other series that have gotten this treatment, like Resident Evil and SwSh.

 

[Garteam]

While I see where you’re coming from with this, it’s not the same thing.

Mewtwo and Lucas didn’t also come with music, a stage, and spirit board. It was just the characters. The new DLC has to come with all of those things, and anything else would be an exception which is...an entirely different hypothetical discussion.

Again, it’s not the png that keeps Spirit upgrades from happening, more so the concept of a Challenger Pack up to this point bringing 100% entirely new content.

This feels like a different argument unrelated to Spirits. Being a spirit is totally unrelated to how much supplementary content a character could bring. Are there some spirits who struggle to bring additional content because their series is already very well represented? Yes, but there's a lot of spirits who don't have this issue. For example, Ayumi Tachibana is a spirit but it would not be difficult to give her a full pack, there's no Famicom Detective Club stage, music, and she's the only spirit from that series.

 

[RileyXY1]

...
Anyway, Spirits deconfirm characters. Especially the recent Spirit events we've been getting.

Base roster Spirits, no. DLC Spirits, yes, in my opinion.

 

[Gyrom8]

I guess with Spirits it comes down to a matter of why they were added in the first place

As their purpose seems to be a way of emulating that character's inclusion in the game, so they can fight in some regard, then yeah that seems like it might suggest they never had any intention of making them playable in the first place, but then it's also worth considering that there's a finite number of characters they could add to the base game, so it's feasible that Sakurai could have added them in as a sort of 'well at least we're giving them something' - so perhaps he could go back to them for the 2nd wave of DLC?

I don't think there will be many spirit upgrades if there are any, maybe like one or two max, and I think any character that's been Spirited Away as part of a recent spirit event is done for, but we maaaaaaaybe getting possibly an upgrade if Sakurai feels that would be adding towards the whole 'new worlds' dealio

 

[Will]

we already knew this from the press kit

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Why does Dimitri have the fire emblem in parentheses, who else on the spirit board is dimitri - five years later

 

[Cosmic77]

It's more the idea of "if the characters who got Spirit events were going to be DLC, why wouldn't their Spirits be saved for their release?"

Having a special Astral Chain Spirit event and then an Astral Chain DLC Spirit board would be weird. Same for other series that have gotten this treatment, like Resident Evil and SwSh.

Just depends on what the purpose of the Spirits are and when that hypothetical character would've been released.

The SwSh Spirits were said to have been a celebration for the launch of the games, and if we weren't getting a SwSh character until almost a year later, I could see them adding four Spirits just so they could promote the games to some degree.

Obviously Astral Chain wasn't promotional like SwSh, so that one's harder to defend. Still, I guess one could argue that they were added right before Byleth was revealed so people wouldn't suspect them. Not the best argument, but it's a possibility.

 

[Gyrom8]

Why does Dimitri have the fire emblem in parentheses, who else on the spirit board is dimitri - five years later

They might be doing it cos there's that Dinosaur guy from the Zelda Oracles games who's also called Dimitri,

Not sure where Dimitri (The Legend of Zelda) - Five Years Later is on the spirit board, but I imagine he still has both his eyes

 

[BernkastelWitch]

I didn't say that there wasn't positivity. And I certainly didn't say people reacted negatively.

There's a false narrative that Joker broke the internet. He didn't.

The series itself is widely regarded as high quality and I have constantly gotten it recommended to me, particularly the 4th game. It's a series that's collectively sold 10 million games over the course of its 24 year life span (Persona is just passing up 2.5-3 million copies, boosted from the announcement for smash). Which in the grand scheme of things is respectable, but not mindblowing. A majority of people, even gamers, do not know any of the characters from any of the entries.

Final Fantasy 7 on its own sold 11 million copies - If there was a character that lost their minds for, it was Cloud. He is a character that represented bad blood between Square and Nintendo, a huge barrier of entry. Sonic the hedgehog is an iconic character stretching across generations. I don't even want to get into his audience reach, but it's massive. HE blew people's minds - EVERYONE knows who Sonic is. Metal Gear has exceeded 53 million units and its entries are legendary within the gaming sphere, not to mention Solid Snake's character is just like Link in that he appears in every game. Everyone knows who Snake is, HE blew minds. There are a lot of additions to this game that really changed the rules on how characters would be added.

Persona appealed to a niche audience and most people didn't even know who he was - it's a game that was pushing 2 million sales at Joker's reveal. He was by no measure an extremely popular character. Sakurai liked him. Japan likes Persona. He was chosen for Smash. I'm not detracting from his addition. I'm just disagreeing that he's such an immaculate pick that everyone and their mothers were mind-blown. Again, most people didn't even know who he was.

I even watched his reveal at the game awards and the response was positive but lukewarm and you could certainly hear plenty of people and even silence at one point. It took FOREVER for people to even realize what game it was. Unless if we're talking about the videos where people show up to the Nintendo store in New York and watch - but they get hype about everything (cept Byleth I guess lol).

I wanna say he didn't literally break the Internet in the sense that he destroyed it like someone like Cloud did when he was shown in SSB4 but in the sense of showing that Even more "Niche" games have a chance to be in Smash and showed that a lot more characters have a chance to be included this time around beyond merely "Big" or "Well known" names. I know people thought Joker was initially impossible before he was announced.

So while he didn't make people act all Cloud levels of crazy, he did set a precedent of what to possibly expect and opened more possibilities for discussion.

 

[Guynamednelson]

For example, Ayumi Tachibana is a spirit but it would not be difficult to give her a full pack, there's no Famicom Detective Club stage, music, and she's the only spirit from that series.

Likewise, there still is no Golden Sun stage, SSBU lacks plenty of songs from it, and the spirits are all of main protagonists/party members.

 

[RileyXY1]

While I see where you’re coming from with this, it’s not the same thing.

Mewtwo and Lucas didn’t also come with music, a stage, and spirit board. It was just the characters. The new DLC has to come with all of those things, and anything else would be an exception which is...an entirely different hypothetical discussion.

Again, it’s not the png that keeps Spirit upgrades from happening, more so the concept of a Challenger Pack up to this point bringing 100% entirely new content.

That's another fan rule that can be broken.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

To be fair, not all characters would struggle with that.

Aside from Spirits, AC and SwSh have no other content in Ultimate, so adding a stage and some music wouldn't be as difficult as it would've been with Mewtwo and Lucas, two characters who already had a majority of their relevant content in Smash 4 before they were added.

Sure, but Astral Chain just got their main protagonist added, and even so, if those games were getting a playable character, why would those spirits not be added alongside them?

I could understand if Fire Emblem didn’t skip a Three Houses spirit event, but it obviously was saved for a fighter. I can’t agree with the idea that the AC and Pokémon were purposely avoided to play mind games when that’s never happened before.

 

[RetroBro]

I wanna say he didn't literally break the Internet in the sense that he destroyed it like someone like Cloud did when he was shown in SSB4 but in the sense of showing that Even more "Niche" games have a chance to be in Smash and showed that a lot more characters have a chance to be included this time around beyond merely "Big" or "Well known" names. I know people thought Joker was initially impossible before he was announced.

So while he didn't make people act all Cloud levels of crazy, he did set a precedent of what to possibly expect and opened more possibilities for discussion.

Fair enough. I just keep seeing exaggerated spins of his impact. Just wanted to call it out haha

 

[TheCJBrine]

I'm not gonna bother with the Spirits argument again because I feel like any points I make for why a spirit character can be added don't get discussed by anyone else, even when I try and base my argument off of other stuff Sakurai has done or said.

I'm just gonna say SMRPG only has Geno and Mallow in Smash and nothing else from the game, and Geno (or Mallow) could easily come with plenty of content. Other basegame spirits and even ATs are in the same position; as for post-release spirits, however, I think they're dead.

The Lucas and Mewtwo trophies also prove Sakurai can keep an open mind, and Byleth proves he won't necessarily avoid revisiting a franchise. If a spirit character isn't in the DLC, it's not because they're a spirit.

 

[Lamperouge]

Spirits disconfirm until we have evidence that they don't.

 

[osby]

Just depends on what the purpose of the Spirits are and when that hypothetical character would've been released.

The SwSh Spirits were said to have been a celebration for the launch of the games, and if we weren't getting a SwSh character until almost a year later, I could see them adding four Spirits just so they could promote the games to some degree.

Obviously Astral Chain wasn't promotional like SwSh, so that one's harder to defend. Still, I guess one could argue that they were added right before Byleth was revealed so people wouldn't suspect them. Not the best argument, but it's a possibility.

Did Sakurai/Nintendo ever add anything just because people wouldn't suspect?

Sure, there's a first for everything but I don't see Spirits being clever mindgames to lead us off-track on this one. I think we're straight-up not getting any DLC Spirits as playable characters.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Did Sakurai/Nintendo ever add anything just because people wouldn't suspect?

Sure, there's a first for everything but I don't see Spirits being clever mindgames to lead us off-track on this one. I think we're straight-up not getting any DLC Spirits as playable characters.

What about base game Spirits?

 

[Gyrom8]

The thing with the spirits arguments is they ultimately seem pointless either way; people are pretty dead-set in their positions and aren't gonna wanna shift

I have some biases as some of my most wanted are spirits, but I think there are bigger arguments against them than their current status as spirits, so it's not like I'm mega hopeful for them anyway

 

[RetroBro]

Spirits disconfirm until we have evidence that they don't.

Hard disagree. Spirits don't disconfirm anything until Sakurai explicitly states this. We've been wrong too many times to assume anything.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Hard disagree. Spirits don't disconfirm anything until Sakurai explicitly states this. We've been wrong too many times to assume anything.

To this day the only character Sakurai himself explicitly stated wouldn’t be in is Mai Shiranui

 

[osby]

That's another fan rule that can be broken.

It can but saying something can happen is a non-argument.

Using "fan rule!" as an empty retord to every argument based on previous trends gets old fast.

 

[Gyrom8]

To this day the only character Sakurai himself explicitly stated wouldn’t be in is Mai Shiranui

And Goku, Spongebob and Iron Man, according to Sakurai

I'm not sure who keeps on voting for Iron Man, as they're rarely brought up in the same way Goku, Shrek and Spongebob are, but more power to them I guess