Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[Al-kīmiyā']

Third parties are also why the DLC has been selling phenomenally and we're getting a second season.

Prove it.

Bandana Dee crushed the ballot

Source?

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Translating Sora, a character from an action RPG similar to Xenoblade and Kid Icarus Uprising, to Smash would be a lot easier than Heihachi, a character from a 3D fighting game with controls unlike any other game (including those in Smash).

Furthermore, if people say adapting Heihachi wouldn't be as hard as some make it out to be, then why would Sora be any different?

Don't get me wrong, there are arguments against him, but this ain't it.

Reason I presume is given the whole Disney thing.

Sakurai likes to keep the characters true to their nature and what Tekken's gameplay is to Heihachi, Disney characters are to Sora since he's not Sora without the characters notably Donald and Goofy being involved.

 

[Nekoo]

Reason I presume is given the whole Disney thing.

Sakurai likes to keep the characters true to their nature and what Tekken's gameplay is to Heihachi, Disney characters are to Sora since he's not Sora without the characters notably Donald and Goofy being involved.

You spend almost more time without Donald and Goofy than with them when it comes to important story moments or fights, and three games out of seven without them.

Sora's fighting mechanism and style are absolutely not linked to Donald and Goofy

 

[Hadokeyblade]

Oh no, it looked so real! /s

Honestly, it was fake the second a song called "Homicide" was shown in the songs included. E Rating game btw.

It is at this moment when I realize how weird it is for Joker to be in an E rated game when every games he's been in has been T or M.

Reason I presume is given the whole Disney thing.

Sakurai likes to keep the characters true to their nature and what Tekken's gameplay is to Heihachi, Disney characters are to Sora since he's not Sora without the characters notably Donald and Goofy being involved.

Counter argument:

Sora is available as a drop in the Final fantasy gatcha game where aside from the kingdom key the game avoids having any Disney references at all and he works just fine in that game.

His bio reads like this:

"A boy from a distant realm composed of small worlds who wields a keyblade. Upbeat and energetic, there is no one who cares more about friendship than Sora. His journey to travel from world to world in order to save each of them begins when his own home is swallowed by an impending darkness. He firmly believes that his friends are his power."

 

[Goombaic]

Source?

We're never getting the actual results (stop reading if you only wanted a factual answer) but think of the countless number of unofficial ballots over the years where Bandana Dee is a top 10 character. There should be enough samples to let us know that Bandana Dee is a heavily requested character.

 

[chocolatejr9]

So Delzethin recently made a video talking about FP1, and I noticed he brought up some interesting points about speculation at the moment, so I wanted to share.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

In that case guess Sora ain't out of the running then. I misinterpreted what Sakurai meant trying to keep characters true to their nature.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

I personally think some characters being "heavily requested" are somewhat skewed toward what is commonly talked about in Smash communities.

Don't have anything to really base that on, but I'd surmise most of the Top 10 of the Smash ballot were characters that casuals voted for in droves, or characters that had a BUTT TON of support behind them. Considering "Everyone is Here!" happened to take place right after the ballot, and it took place while DLC was in development (and we didn't really know when it would apply), I would guess picks in the Top 10 might have looked something like a mix of the following characters:

Snake, K. Rool, Ridley, Ice Climbers, Goku, Bayonetta, Pokemon Trainer, Wolf, Banjo-Kazooie, Sora, Young Link, Pichu, Ryu, Cloud, Castlevania, etc...

These are all picks that would likely make sense considering the disappearance of popular picks from Brawl, Top picks that didn't make it into Wii U but were hotly debated upon, and then characters we could kinda figure wouldn't be in Smash anyway, like Goku.

The Fire Emblem devs didn't realize Lyn was incredibly popular. Nintendo didn't realize how popular King K.Rool was for Smash until the ballot. Up until the ballot, everybody was convinced King K. Rool was a lock for Wii U/3DS. I think we heavily overestimate characters that that don't receive MASSIVE support from those days. Geno? Eh, not as big as he used to be, and not universally supported within the community. Bandanna Dee? I don't really know that I've seen the same type of support over time, and I'm not sure how marketable he is for DLC when he's a side character compared to 9 picks that have all been protagonists of their respective games or series. It would simply be a massive shift from what we've consistently gotten.
--
Another thing I figured I would mention, thinking about the Zelda talk yesterday. We really can't say much regarding a potential "shill" pick for BOTW considering we don't have much of an idea for who will show up. We already have Link, the Champions are gone, and Zelda is the same Zelda from BOTW 1. Sakurai himself said that they opted to pick a different Zelda because she was, "more interested in exploring than fighting" in BOTW.

That could change if Zelda does something beyond exploring in BOTW 2, but even then that doesn't mean we'd get a pick. Just figured I'd throw that out there.

 

[Hinata]

Welp Junko leak is kill. Suspected as much:

The "leakers" that made this terrible leak have finally come out about making, but I ain't saying who made it. They don't deserve this grab for attention. If you see anyone that is talking about it, tell them it's been confirmed fake.
@MonokumaSmash pic.twitter.com/iNTMmrJeSF

— Griefing_G0lem (@griefinggolem) March 6, 2020

"Suspected as much", says the one who posted it to begin with and said "SO MUCH FOR NINTENDO LOCKDOWN".

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Welp Junko leak is kill. Suspected as much:

It seemed fake to begin with anyways.

Figures. The eyes really gave it away.

 

[Krankees]

I've been thinking. Maybe one of the reasons we didn't get a Capcom rep for the first pass is because Ken was already decided for base game around the same time the first pass had already been decided.

 

[Hinata]

I've been thinking. Maybe one of the reasons we didn't get a Capcom rep for the first pass is because Ken was already decided for base game around the same time the first pass had already been decided.

The reason we didn't get a Capcom rep in the first pass is because the second pass will be Nintendo vs. Capcom.

You heard it here first.

 

[Knight Dude]

Agreed. Persona 5 and Bayonetta might be bigger than any given game that Terry is in, but they aren't bigger the the Fatal Fury and King of Fighters franchises as a whole.

This. If I'd had to pick a Mario mook to make playable, it absolutely would have been a Hammer Bro(with moves taken from all the various Bros. variants).

I'd have picked Shy Guy myself. They got a ton of fun variants to mess around with. But I wouldn't expect another mook, though who knows for sure.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

The reason we didn't get a Capcom rep in the first pass is because the second pass will be Nintendo vs. Capcom.

You heard it here first.

Morrigan
Batsu
Strider

And three no name Nintendo characters. Noice

 

[Knight Dude]

The reason we didn't get a Capcom rep in the first pass is because the second pass will be Nintendo vs. Capcom.

You heard it here first.

If it also gets us more from Mega Man and Street Fighter, we move. And of course our boy Dante.

 

[DanganZilla5]

There was a Junko leak? That's interesting. Too bad it's fake. I really want Monokuma in Smash.

 

[Cosmic77]

I've been thinking. Maybe one of the reasons we didn't get a Capcom rep for the first pass is because Ken was already decided for base game around the same time the first pass had already been decided.

I don't think Ken held anyone back since SF was already in Smash. The negotiations for him shouldn't have been too complicated.

Only two of the five DLC characters were from third-parties that were already in Smash (Sega and SE), so I think it's more likely that there weren't any plans for a Capcom character and that fans focused too much on third-party companies already present in the game.

 

[Dinoman96]

I wonder if the "no third party can have more than three characters" theory will continue to hold up

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

I wonder if the "no third party can have more than three characters" theory will continue to hold up

That doesn't sound like much of a theory as much as it does a literal *shudders*, fan rule.

There's nothing out there suggesting a 3rd party company cannot or would not get a 4th character. That seems almost like a gatekeeping concept that has no bearing on business dealings.

I cannot imagine Nintendo saying, "Hey, Dante would be cool...Oh wait, no! We can't add him because we have Mega Man, Ryu, and Ken!" It seems to sound similar to the "balance" argument that folks brought up, where it's now essentially impossible for all 3rd parties to be balanced in any capacity. I don't think it'll hold up, but that's because it wasn't based on much in the first place.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

I wonder if the "no third party can have more than three characters" theory will continue to hold up

Is that a thing?

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

That doesn't sound like much of a theory as much as it does a literal *shudders*, fan rule.

There's nothing out there suggesting a 3rd party company cannot or would not get a 4th character. That seems almost like a gatekeeping concept that has no bearing on business dealings.

I cannot imagine Nintendo saying, "Hey, Dante would be cool...Oh wait, no! We can't add him because we have Mega Man, Ryu, and Ken!" It seems to sound similar to the "balance" argument that folks brought up, where it's now essentially impossible for all 3rd parties to be balanced in any capacity. I don't think it'll hold up, but that's because it wasn't based on much in the first place.

The user means three from the same franchise, not company.

Since MegaMan/Ryu/Ken already proves the theory wrong.

I do admit it's worded a bit poorly, though.

Even then, I agree with you. Seems very arbitrary to me.

Also, Sega proves that wrong too, since they're not even Echoes in this case, heh.

 

[Megadoomer]

I wonder if the "no third party can have more than three characters" theory will continue to hold up

Considering that "no third party company can have more than one character" (something that I admittedly believed in; I figured they wouldn't want to make one third party company more prominent than the others) and "no third party franchise can have more than one character" have been debunked, I doubt it.

 

[Dinoman96]

I still just think it sucks that Resident Evil, Bomberman and Monster Hunter were all kicked to the curb even though they all could of easily had playable characters in Smash, and sometimes I wonder if it's because they're from Capcom and Konami who already have three characters each.

 

[Dalek_Kolt]

Is that a thing?

The Smash fanbase tends to think super-conservatively in terms of who is possible; characters are impossible to put in until proven otherwise, except those counterexamples didn't count for one reason for another.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

I still just think it sucks that Resident Evil, Bomberman and Monster Hunter were all kicked to the curb even though they all could of easily had playable characters in Smash, and sometimes I wonder if it's because they're from Capcom and Konami who already have three characters each.

If Smash only had playable characters to add, I might agree.

However, this hyper-sensitive focus on playable characters as this "stage of Nirvana" in Smash is something that the fanbase believes in, while Sakurai himself doesn't seem look at it that way. Adding characters as Assist Trophies is seen as another opportunity to essentially add characters that couldn't make it in as playable characters based on development time, priorities, and essentially timing. I think all three of those series would have amazing playable characters, but if you don't have the chance to add a playable character from Monster Hunter for example, then having Rathalos as a boss is a pretty awesome alternative to getting the game represented at all, at least in my humble opinion.

I'd also say that while I love Bomberman and the series itself, I think he works quite well as an Assist Trophy all things considered. I'm sad over Resident Evil myself, but even then there might be ratings issues. Who knows? I really would have loved Leon or Jill though.

Back to what I said earlier with Assist Trophies, I believe the same applies to spirits. While it seems more reasonable that Spirits could be "upgraded", I think the development team has a different view of the additional content than fans do. Fans look at them in the lens of, "I can't believe they're not playable" while Sakurai has shown in the past to look at it as, "Well they aren't playable, but isn't this cool instead?". Those are two fairly different viewpoints. Would Sakurai change his mind? At this point, we don't have a real answer. Then again, Nintendo is calling the shots.

Basically, I don't think it's arbitrary rules that decide stuff like that, but development-related realities. There's simply no way to add every single requested or popular character, so cramming in as much stuff, in some way, shape, or form, is their goal. It's more of a difference in perspective between fans and developers.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I still just think it sucks that Resident Evil, Bomberman and Monster Hunter were all kicked to the curb even though they all could of easily had playable characters in Smash, and sometimes I wonder if it's because they're from Capcom and Konami who already have three characters each.

Bomberman probably was lower priority. It's also possible he couldn't envision him that easily with making the tons of bomb abilities balanced. But I'd say the former has a bit more weight to it, especially when you had Snake returning, and two other Konami characters. He can only have so much playable.

The Monsters are far more iconic to Monster Hunter, so that makes sense. It still hasn't gotten the costume returned, oddly enough.

Resident Evil also has things like Zombies, along with an ammo-based gameplay. Maybe he couldn't figure out a faithful way to represent the entire franchise and keep it e10+?

 

[Hadokeyblade]

I wish monster Hunter had a stage, feels like a shame to just relegate it to a boss fight when you could make the monsters cool stage hazards or background cameos easily.

 

[Deleted member]

I am going to be part of Fighter Pass 2.

"But JDC, you aren't a videogame character"

... Are you sure about that?

This comes from a real Fire Emblem hack.

 

[Rangez]

So Delzethin recently made a video talking about FP1, and I noticed he brought up some interesting points about speculation at the moment, so I wanted to share.

Y’know... I kinda felt bad for him during the near end of the video with what he had to say overall about the future.

 

[Proceleon]

Why is Zelda still being talked about? I know BOTW2 is coming, but people seem to think just because Sakurai brought up Zelda we'll be getting her appearance in BOTW2, no, Sakurai brought up Zelda to specifically say BOTW Zelda wasn't a fighter, so logically she should be out of the running either way.

Predicting a BOTW2 Spirit Event at most.

 

[Dalek_Kolt]

Why is Zelda still being talked about?

Desperation, mostly. Same thing with Kirby.

 

[DarthEnderX]

The reason we didn't get a Capcom rep in the first pass is because the second pass will be Nintendo vs. Capcom.

You heard it here first.

Supported.

Is that a thing?

First I've heard of it. And clearly made up.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

The reason we didn't get a Capcom rep in the first pass is because the second pass will be Nintendo vs. Capcom.

You heard it here first.

Phoenix Wright
Chun-Li
Monster Hunter
Leon/Jill/Chris/Claire
Amaterasu
Morrigan

 

[PSIGuy]

A more practical reason for not having too many characters from any single third party company is making sure they’re not huge losses if they prove to be too hard to work with in future. What’s that? Capcom’s playing hardball when it comes to licensing for the next game? Good bye MegaMan and Street Fighter, but at least they don’t make up a bigger portion of the playable franchises. If they can’t get the license back then it doesn’t matter that they can reuse assets forever and ever, they have to drop everything relating to that franchise. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and all that.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I personally think some characters being "heavily requested" are somewhat skewed toward what is commonly talked about in Smash communities.

Don't have anything to really base that on, but I'd surmise most of the Top 10 of the Smash ballot were characters that casuals voted for in droves, or characters that had a BUTT TON of support behind them. Considering "Everyone is Here!" happened to take place right after the ballot, and it took place while DLC was in development (and we didn't really know when it would apply), I would guess picks in the Top 10 might have looked something like a mix of the following characters:

Snake, K. Rool, Ridley, Ice Climbers, Goku, Bayonetta, Pokemon Trainer, Wolf, Banjo-Kazooie, Sora, Young Link, Pichu, Ryu, Cloud, Castlevania, etc...

These are all picks that would likely make sense considering the disappearance of popular picks from Brawl, Top picks that didn't make it into Wii U but were hotly debated upon, and then characters we could kinda figure wouldn't be in Smash anyway, like Goku.

The Fire Emblem devs didn't realize Lyn was incredibly popular. Nintendo didn't realize how popular King K.Rool was for Smash until the ballot. Up until the ballot, everybody was convinced King K. Rool was a lock for Wii U/3DS. I think we heavily overestimate characters that that don't receive MASSIVE support from those days. Geno? Eh, not as big as he used to be, and not universally supported within the community. Bandanna Dee? I don't really know that I've seen the same type of support over time, and I'm not sure how marketable he is for DLC when he's a side character compared to 9 picks that have all been protagonists of their respective games or series. It would simply be a massive shift from what we've consistently gotten.
--
Another thing I figured I would mention, thinking about the Zelda talk yesterday. We really can't say much regarding a potential "shill" pick for BOTW considering we don't have much of an idea for who will show up. We already have Link, the Champions are gone, and Zelda is the same Zelda from BOTW 1. Sakurai himself said that they opted to pick a different Zelda because she was, "more interested in exploring than fighting" in BOTW.

That could change if Zelda does something beyond exploring in BOTW 2, but even then that doesn't mean we'd get a pick. Just figured I'd throw that out there.

Shut up they only count as heavily requested if I wanted them! However, instead of the heavily requested Jersey Devil, we got slapped in the face by getting Cloud 'literally who' Strife, who even wanted him? Such a betrayal towards the fans

 

[DarthEnderX]

Phoenix Wright
Chun-Li
Monster Hunter
Leon/Jill/Chris/Claire
Amaterasu
Morrigan

Arthur
Morrigan
Jill
Dante
Amaterasu
Phoenix

 

[Knight Dude]

A more practical reason for not having too many characters from any single third party company is making sure they’re not huge losses if they prove to be too hard to work with in future. What’s that? Capcom’s playing hardball when it comes to licensing for the next game? Good bye MegaMan and Street Fighter, but at least they don’t make up a bigger portion of the playable franchises. If they can’t get the license back then it doesn’t matter that they can reuse assets forever and ever, they have to drop everything relating to that franchise. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and all that.

I can see what you mean from that perspective, but Capcom(and Namco to a lesser extent) are well known for their collaborations between titles and having crossovers. It's kind of hard to not imagine them being willing to work with Nintendo on this, especially since Smash is a good way to get the unfamiliar to know a character.

Sega seems pretty buddy-buddy with Nintendo as well, at least with Sonic stuff. I think Konami would be the ones to play hardball the most out of the companies, while Square's main issue is more so on music than most other things.

Though perhaps I'm only saying that because Sonic and Mega Man didn't have problems between games, but Snake was out of Smash 4.

 

[wynn728]

If Smash only had playable characters to add, I might agree.

However, this hyper-sensitive focus on playable characters as this "stage of Nirvana" in Smash is something that the fanbase believes in, while Sakurai himself doesn't seem look at it that way. Adding characters as Assist Trophies is seen as another opportunity to essentially add characters that couldn't make it in as playable characters based on development time, priorities, and essentially timing. I think all three of those series would have amazing playable characters, but if you don't have the chance to add a playable character from Monster Hunter for example, then having Rathalos as a boss is a pretty awesome alternative to getting the game represented at all, at least in my humble opinion.

I'd also say that while I love Bomberman and the series itself, I think he works quite well as an Assist Trophy all things considered. I'm sad over Resident Evil myself, but even then there might be ratings issues. Who knows? I really would have loved Leon or Jill though.

Back to what I said earlier with Assist Trophies, I believe the same applies to spirits. While it seems more reasonable that Spirits could be "upgraded", I think the development team has a different view of the additional content than fans do. Fans look at them in the lens of, "I can't believe they're not playable" while Sakurai has shown in the past to look at it as, "Well they aren't playable, but isn't this cool instead?". Those are two fairly different viewpoints. Would Sakurai change his mind? At this point, we don't have a real answer. Then again, Nintendo is calling the shots.

Basically, I don't think it's arbitrary rules that decide stuff like that, but development-related realities. There's simply no way to add every single requested or popular character, so cramming in as much stuff, in some way, shape, or form, is their goal. It's more of a difference in perspective between fans and developers.

They're set in their ways despite the fact that many people don't share their same viewpoints. When you're making a product and selling it to people you probably should understand their viewpoints to help structure your product. But instead Sakurai thinks it's great so everyone has to agree with that. And that's the reason why we keep getting awful Mii Costumes. Sakurai totally believes that people feel like they're playing as those character despite the fact that they look ugly with their messed up proportions so no one really feels like their playing as any of those characters, but because Sakurai believes it they will keep focusing on that as DLC instead Echo Fighters, different modes, or costumes.
Still super lame that they went out of their way to get Bomberman only to make him a 1 out 59 chance summon when the game decides to have Assist Trophy show up.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

They're set in their ways despite the fact that many people don't share their same viewpoints. When you're making a product and selling it to people you probably should understand their viewpoints to help structure your product. But instead Sakurai thinks it's great so everyone has to agree with that. And that's the reason why we keep getting awful Mii Costumes. Sakurai totally believes that people feel like they're playing as those character despite the fact that they look ugly with their messed up proportions so no one really feels like their playing as any of those characters, but because Sakurai believes it they will keep focusing on that as DLC instead Echo Fighters, different modes, or costumes.
Still super lame that they went out of their way to get Bomberman only to make him a 1 out 59 chance summon when the game decides to have Assist Trophy show up.

Eh, I'm not sure I really agree with that.

The reality that Smash fans never cease to ignore is that at some point in the next two years, we're done. There will be characters that people think should have been playable that just aren't going to be. That doesn't mean they have to be fine with it, but they will need to accept it for the time being. That will inevitably happen.

It's legitimately impossible for the Smash development team to satisfy everyone with the playable roster, but considering what they've been able to do, it's pretty close an attempt to do so as I think they could have managed. Smash isn't just about filling the roster with fan requests all the time either...another factor that folks seem to miss. Especially now that Nintendo has the power over character selection, it may not have much to do with major fan requests, similar to the two previous Smash DLC groupings.

Now, this isn't to say that I entirely agree with the idea that people need to just "get over it". But if you complain (not saying you specifically) about Smash on the internet, and that you didn't get your most wanted in a game with 80+ characters in it, and continue to buy new content as it comes out, then it becomes clear that Nintendo doesn't need to listen to you in order to make their money, which is, in tandem with developing business relationships at this point, their goal for DLC characters in Smash Ultimate.

Smash Ultimate is what it is because of all the crossovers present, putting more and more characters up against each other or even showing up in the game at all. At the end of the day, I do understand what it feels like when your most wanted ends up as an NPC...I myself wanted Snake to return for Wii U, and when he didn't, that hurt, real bad. Resident Evil got snubbed and spirited away, which was also a crappy day for me. However, I am certain that there are fans out there that appreciate their most wanted having any appearance at all.

I guess it just comes down to a difference in opinion.

 

[Koopaul]

Speaking of rhythm games and guitars, anybody remember that Barbara the Bat chick from Brawl?

I was the one who made her support topic. Believe it or not she's done quite a bit more than most people realize. In fact her service for the 3DS game just ended. It lasted for quite a while.