Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[SuperSmashStephen]

I guarantee all of my favourites and sacrifice all of the characters I hate!

I win! :^)

The sacrifice has to be someone you want.

 

[P.Kat]

She said that in a livestream of the game, so you can go watch that fot yourself

I would need an hour of free time to go into detail, but basically, bad voice direction, not addressing some big criticisms from the previous game, combat being sluggish, a painfully slow beginning, removal of features, a camera that during a scene of a character's death would rather focus on Pyra's ass than the murderer, a DRASTICALLY different tone and style of gameplay from both of the prior games despite being hyped up as a game for people who were disappointed with X, Gacha elements in a single player game, a worse protagonist, no actual romance unlike with the first game but rather "All the girls want the protagonist because he's sooooooo cool", a different artstyle which is especially noticable with the image below and more I can't think of at the minute
View attachment 267763
I don't have a compilation of the Fiora artwork of the Xenoblade games but her differences in the 2 stle are also very noticable for the worse

I thought XB2 was very good overall although the gacha elements are tedious at times, and I didn't really have a problem with Rex as a character, other than the fact his VA can't act well, when it comes to part where he has to yell.

Yeah the romance in the game was a bit ambiguous, I think the one character with possibly the most fleshed out romance was Zeke, and it still left me unsatisfied.

Now that XB1 DE is coming, I want to try it out since many people enjoyed, (Seeing how I jumped to XB2), but I'm unsure about how combat works in that game, mind giving me a little more info on it.

 

[Evil Trapezium]

Cortez

I don't know who that is.

The sacrifice has to be someone you want.

That sounds silly. Why would I sacrifice someone I want when I could sacrifice a character that I don't want?

 

[YoshiandToad]

THIS IS GAME FOR BABIES AND KIRBY

You can guarantee your second most wanted, but you must pay the price - your most desired character will never be in.

Guarantee Toad by sacrificing Captain Toad?

I guess I could live with that.

 

[Mamboo07]

Guarantee Toad by sacrificing Captain Toad?

I guess I could live with that.

Toadception.

 

[HansShotFirst20]

The hate, although obsession might be a more appropiate word at this point, around Xenoblade 2 reminds me a lot of the curious hatebase that developed around Fire Emblem Awakening. It has so many similar parallels:

Supposed long time fans complaining about how anime it is while seemingly ignoring every other entry in the series.

Insistence that the game was poorly received by players while all evidence points to the contrary (thanks to wynn for already posting the metacritic scores).

Longevity. Years after the game's release the hate is still going strong.

Dramatic exaggeration of supposed flaws that would be easily forgiven in other JRPGs, or flat-out ignored. Two prominent examples that come to mind:
- Complaints about harem/waifus. Just like Awakening. Even more laughable in the Smash fanbase here considering we got Joker and Byleth in the previous pass, literal self-inserts who get to **** whoever they want (like Joker getting to **** his hot teacher who moonlights as a sexy French maid) yet you don't hear a peep from these people.
- Complaints about filler plots, much like the Valm section of Awakening's plot. Usually having Tora as point of contention, despite the fact that artificial blades become a plot point later on and thus is by definition not filler, this is yet another "fault" that gets comically exaggerated. Does anyone care that Red XIII's subplot is completely unrelated to the rest of the plot of Final Fantasy VII? Did anyone have their experience ruined because of it?

Fearmongering that because of the game's success every entry in the series after it will be just as terrible, or worse.

General omnipresence in conversation. Even when the topic is centered on other games in the series, haters will still find a way to inject Awakening/XB2 in the discussion, ironically prolonging the longevity of these games.

I could keep going but you get the idea. I'm not worried though, if the parallels continue then Xenoblade has a bright future ahead of itself...

Except FE: Awakening has:

- Good character design
- Good writing and dialogue
- Good voice acting
- A good combat system
- 99% fewer tutorials

(This is also true of Three Houses and P5, and then P5 has its amazing visual style on top of that)

 

[Renmazuo]

Except FE: Awakening has:

- Good character design
- Good writing and dialogue
- Good voice acting
- A good combat system
- 99% fewer tutorials

(This is also true of Three Houses and P5, and then P5 has its amazing visual style on top of that)

Haha yeah okay dude. I encourage you to check out FE's subreddit during the time period between Awakening's and Fates' releases to get an idea of what I'm talking about. Prepare for a ton of "toilet armor", "story full of plotholes", "characters are just anime tropes", "every mission is braindead rout the enemy" and "fantasy themed dating sim" comments.

 

[SuperSmashStephen]

I don't know who that is.



That sounds silly. Why would I sacrifice someone I want when I could sacrifice a character that I don't want?

Because I literally posed the question that way. It’s supposed to be challenging.

If we could guarantee characters we wanted and sacrifice ones we didn’t want then the question is pointless. Of course we would all do that.

What I was asking was if you could guarantee one character you wanted, but had to sacrifice another one that you wanted AKA them not getting in, who would you choose? I chose Sora as the guarantee and 2B as the sacrifice. They are both characters I want, but if I could for sure guarantee Sora’s inclusion, I wouldn’t mind not see 2B make.

 

[HansShotFirst20]

Haha yeah okay dude. I encourage you to check out FE's subreddit during the time period between Awakening's and Fates' releases to get an idea of what I'm talking about. Prepare for a ton of "toilet armor", "story full of plotholes", "characters are just anime tropes", "every mission is braindead rout the enemy" and "fantasy themed dating sim" comments.

Yeah I get that FE Awakening got a lot of **** for being different, and more 'anime' than the earlier FE's, but my point was that it had enough redeeming qualities to justify the new direction. It's the same with Three Houses being called 'Persona Emblem' for a while at launch, but eventually it ended up being the most well-liked FE game due to its likeable characters.

I'm hoping whatever Xenoblade game comes next steers away from the 'cuz anime tiddy' route, because that would pretty much ruin the franchise for me. Unfortunately it seems the sales and reception of XC2 will lead to us getting Highschool DxD: the JRPG sooner than later.

It will be weird, though, if the hate continues after the next new Xenoblade game. Until then, I think it's understandable that people continue to voice their dislike and concern, given its still the most recent entry.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

I don't know who that is.

That sounds silly. Why would I sacrifice someone I want when I could sacrifice a character that I don't want?

Because a sacrifice has to mean something.
I could sacrifice watching soap operas but it wouldn't mean squat as I hate the things.

 

[I.D.]

I'm hoping whatever Xenoblade game comes next steers away from the 'cuz anime tiddy' route, because that would pretty much ruin the franchise for me. Unfortunately it seems the sales and reception of XC2 will lead to us getting Highschool DxD: the JRPG sooner than later.

You just keep proving him right

 

[HansShotFirst20]

Are there any character archetypes you think are missing from Smash? I'm talking things like 'young, brave adventurers' (like Link or Hero) or 'haughty, rotund antagonists' (like DeDeDe or K Rool).

I'm thinking Smash could use a big, imposing armored knight -- Ganondorf kinda sorta scratches that itch, but not really. Characters that could fit would be:
- Nightmare (Soul Calibur)
- Death Knight (Fire Emblem)
- Black Knight (Fire Emblem)
- Artorias (Dark Souls)
- Soul of Cinder (Dark Souls)

You just keep proving him right

-_-

 

[Deleted member]

Except FE: Awakening has:

- Good character design

Gonna agree with everything in your post except this. It's not as consistently bad as Fates, but good lord.

 

[HansShotFirst20]

Gonna agree with everything in your post except this. It's not as consistently bad as Fates, but good lord.

Imma agree with you on that -- at least it's the exception

 

[Deleted member]

Imma agree with you on that -- at least it's the exception

I mean, there's also Cherche and Tharja.

Spoiler: Image

 

[HansShotFirst20]

I mean, there's also Cherche and Tharja.

Spoiler: Image

At least they don't have the XC2 watermelon boobs. My point is that the designs are bad because they're ridiculous, not because they're revealing. Look at Rex and his thunder thighs

 

[Evil Trapezium]

Because I literally posed the question that way. It’s supposed to be challenging.

If we could guarantee characters we wanted and sacrifice ones we didn’t want then the question is pointless. Of course we would all do that.

What I was asking was if you could guarantee one character you wanted, but had to sacrifice another one that you wanted AKA them not getting in, who would you choose? I chose Sora as the guarantee and 2B as the sacrifice. They are both characters I want, but if I could for sure guarantee Sora’s inclusion, I wouldn’t mind not see 2B make.

Then I guarantee Sgt. Cortez and sacrifice Dovahkiin because I don't like him.

Because Sgt. Cortez can time travel, stop me from sacrificing my other favourites, then that would force me to choose a character I don't want and then I can sacrifice Dovahkiin because he's lame.

I win! :^)

 

[Deleted member]

At least they don't have the XC2 watermelon boobs

I mean, yeah. But at that point, we're comparing which crap smells worse.

 

[HansShotFirst20]

I mean, yeah. But at that point, we're comparing which crap smells worse.

see edit

 

[Mamboo07]

At least they don't have the XC2 watermelon boobs. My point is that the designs are bad because they're ridiculous, not because they're revealing. Look at Rex and his thunder thighs

What thunder thighs?

 

[Rie Sonomura]

I mean, there's also Cherche and Tharja.

Spoiler: Image

Remember when Tharja had a Smash 4 leaked trophy that was ultimately cut pre release

good times

 

[Deleted member]

see edit

The designs are still pretty ridiculous. Chrom's right arm is completely exposed for some reason and the only piece of armor he wears is one shoulder plate.

Frederick is literally wearing a suit underneath his armor.

Kellam's entire gimmick of being literally unnoticable is stupid as **** despite wearing ten tons worth of armor, and you can't convince me otherwise.

Etc

 

[HansShotFirst20]

What thunder thighs?

Thunder Thighs

Spoiler

Fixed version

Spoiler

Kellam's entire gimmick of being literally unnoticable is stupid as **** despite wearing ten tons worth of armor, and you can't convince me otherwise.

Etc

He's just doing his best Gerbera Tetra cosplay, and hey, at least Chrom and Frederick look good.

 

[StarBot]

I mean, there's also Cherche and Tharja.

Spoiler: Image

"Sexy characters are bad character designs"

Okay ResetERA

EDIT: XB2 characters design looks weird because it's way to moe like and their breast are ballon like

These actually look like humans

 

[StrangeKitten]

I'll finally throw my hat in the ring for my ideal Pass:

1) Spring Man, Ribbon Girl, Ninjara, Min Min in a Hero situation - Controversial I know, but I'd love for the ARMS rep to demolish the assist trophies/spirits/costumes deconfirm argument, and something like this would do that fourfold.

2) Geno - This placement puts him at the 7th Pass character, and 77th on the roster. Perfectly fitting for Legend of the Seven Stars.

3) Crash Bandicoot

4) Sora

5) Eggman

6) Gruntilda (She's 99% not happening, but this is who I want, not who I think is likely)

Waluigi as one final bonus character (not likely we'll get post-pass characters, but again these are my wants over what I think is likely to happen)

 

[HansShotFirst20]

I'll finally throw my hat in the ring for my ideal Pass:
2) Geno - This placement puts him at the 7th Pass character, and 77th on the roster. Perfectly fitting for Legend of the Seven Stars.

I'm not a Geno guy but that would be some s-tier planning.

Remember when Tharja had a Smash 4 leaked trophy that was ultimately cut pre release

good times

Tharja is not for good boys and girls

 

[SuperSmashStephen]

Then I guarantee Sgt. Cortez and sacrifice Dovahkiin because I don't like him.

Because Sgt. Cortez can time travel, stop me from sacrificing my other favourites, then that would force me to choose a character I don't want and then I can sacrifice Dovahkiin because he's lame.

I win! :^)

You’re still not choosing someone you want in to sacrifice...but okay.

 

[Metal Shop X]

Thunder Thighs

Spoiler

Fixed version

Spoiler

He's just doing his best Gerbera Tetra cosplay

The "Fixed" version make him look fragile & doesn't fit the job he has (it's a dive suit, a fantasy theme one, yes, but a dive suit nonetheless).

I'm all for redesigning Rex if he were to reappear in another game (with say, the power of TIMESKIP), but this ain't the way imo.

Also, this added shoulder pad look ugly, what's it's there for? His suit ain't a battle or knight armor.

 

[Deleted member]

"Sexy characters are bad character designs"

Okay ResetERA

You know that's not my point. My point is that Cherche is a wyvern rider, which typically have a hankering for armor because they ride jagged and rough dragons and are usually front-liners. Instead, Cherche dresses like she's going to a club which no protection. Her legs are gonna be cut-up just from riding her dragon.

Tharja's design is more terrible in context when you realize she's supposed to be the fetish character. She stalks the player character, is a witch, fights in a bikini, and can punish you as her husband. I mean, it worked for me, but there's a reason someone like her doesn't appear in Three Houses.

 

[clearandsweet]

The designs are still pretty ridiculous. Chrom's right arm is completely exposed for some reason and the only piece of armor he wears is one shoulder plate.

Frederick is literally wearing a dress shirt underneath his armor.

Kellam's entire gimmick of being literally unnoticable is stupid as **** despite wearing ten tons worth of armor, and you can't convince me otherwise.

Etc

Ya and Cherche and other fliers always have their inner thigh exposed, when if you were riding a mount, that would be the place you need the MOST padding.

Just imagine the chaffing. Hell, they'd be bleeding by the end of a medium-length flight from friction alone.

I remember reading famous character designer Raita talk about what he valued in coming up with the designs of the military outfits in Valkyria Chronicles 1's art book and it was pretty interesting. For example, he needed Alicia to stand out as a main character at a glance. So he went through a number of different options until he arrived at a red bandanna. Her entire backstory as a baker spawned FROM that bandanna. He also had a ton of great insights on where he fudged obvious military uniform status quo to make their characters more appealing, like the kneepads and skirts. Rule of cool.

Frankly, I think those Awakening character designs, for the purpose of creating interesting, unique characters that embody their personality, are very awesome. Frederick's dress shirt and tie tells me everything I need to know about him. Chrom's shoulder is so you can see the Mark of the Exalt. I particularly love Lucina and her mask. A large part of Thajra is her lust and the fear of getting close to her mixed with the desire to. Never got why people think Nowi's design is bad. She's confident, carefree, more than a little disinterested with society or fitting in, but also extremely vulnerable, as her backstory shows.

Honestly, I can think of a couple huge examples of trash character design hurting the final product:

• Icons: Combat Arena
• Bravely Default 1+2
• Xenoblade Chronicles 1+2 (with the obvious exception of Finch of course)

I think you can't do a better job than studying Kinu Nishimura. She's the best to ever exist. Even if you've never played Code of Princess, I bet you think these guys look cool:

And not _practicial_, but cool.

 

[Jocario Zero]

Can we please move on from the "Xenoblade 2 & Fire Emblem Awakening-Discussion"?

It starts to get annoying and doesn't add anything to the topic of this thread (y'know character speculation?)

 

[Deleted member]

I remember reading famous character designer Raita talk about what he valued in coming up with the designs of the military outfits in Valkyria Chronicles 1's art book and it was pretty interesting. For example, he needed Alicia to stand out as a main character at a glance. So he went through a number of different options until he arrived at a red bandanna. Her entire backstory as a baker spawned FROM that bandanna. He also had a ton of great insights on where he fudged obvious military uniform status quo to make their characters more appealing, like the kneepads and skirts.

Frankly, I think those Awakening character designs, for the purpose of creating interesting, unique characters that embody their personality, are very awesome. Frederick's dress shirt and tie tells me everything I need to know about him. Chrom's shoulder is so you can see the Mark of the Exalt. I particularly love Lucina and her mask. A large part of Thajra is her lust and the fear of getting close to her mixed with the desire to. Never got why people think Nowi's design is bad. She's confident, carefree, more than a little disinterested with society or fitting in, but also extremely vulnerable, as her backstory shows.

You know, when you put it like that, it makes everything look better. You're right in that I can just look at his characters and get an idea of who they are (even if they're not practical military garbs).

With that, I'll move on from this topic because it's getting on peoples nerves and I made my point.

 

[Will]

If ARMS2 is basically confirmed after this event, I wonder if other characters in the pass are going to have upcoming games related.

like travis

 

[wynn728]

I thought XB2 was very good overall although the gacha elements are tedious at times, and I didn't really have a problem with Rex as a character, other than the fact his VA can't act well, when it comes to part where he has to yell.

Yeah the romance in the game was a bit ambiguous, I think the one character with possibly the most fleshed out romance was Zeke, and it still left me unsatisfied.

Now that XB1 DE is coming, I want to try it out since many people enjoyed, (Seeing how I jumped to XB2), but I'm unsure about how combat works in that game, mind giving me a little more info on it.

The combat is similar to Xenoblade 2, but instead of switching between weapon types all characters have their standard weapon with arts that have cool down timers. One of the biggest thing that makes Xenoblade's combat so good is the ability to see the future and change it. Randomly the party will receive a vision showing who's getting attacked, how dangerous it's gonna be, and how long you have to change it. You're given a lot of options to help change the future of your fight, you can even warn your party members at the cost of the bar that allows you to do chain attacks.
It's a really great mechanic. The visions also apply to side quest so when you randomly pick up items Shulk will receive a vision say something like "Oh, this is the 9th cool potato we found, now we can give it to that Greg so he can be happy" and the item will be marked in your inventory to know that you'll need it for the future.

 

[Deleted member]

If ARMS2 is basically confirmed after this event, I wonder if other characters in the pass are going to have upcoming games related.

like travis

We might be sleeping on Bravely Default, because Nintendo is pushing its sequel like nobody's business. Has a very similar feel for when they were marketing DQ 11.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

The hate, although obsession might be a more appropiate word at this point, around Xenoblade 2 reminds me a lot of the curious hatebase that developed around Fire Emblem Awakening. It has so many similar parallels:

Supposed long time fans complaining about how anime it is while seemingly ignoring every other entry in the series.

Insistence that the game was poorly received by players while all evidence points to the contrary (thanks to wynn for already posting the metacritic scores).

Longevity. Years after the game's release the hate is still going strong.

Dramatic exaggeration of supposed flaws that would be easily forgiven in other JRPGs, or flat-out ignored. Two prominent examples that come to mind:
- Complaints about harem/waifus. Just like Awakening. Even more laughable in the Smash fanbase here considering we got Joker and Byleth in the previous pass, literal self-inserts who get to **** whoever they want (like Joker getting to **** his hot teacher who moonlights as a sexy French maid) yet you don't hear a peep from these people.
- Complaints about filler plots, much like the Valm section of Awakening's plot. Usually having Tora as point of contention, despite the fact that artificial blades become a plot point later on and thus is by definition not filler, this is yet another "fault" that gets comically exaggerated. Does anyone care that Red XIII's subplot is completely unrelated to the rest of the plot of Final Fantasy VII? Did anyone have their experience ruined because of it?

Fearmongering that because of the game's success every entry in the series after it will be just as terrible, or worse.

General omnipresence in conversation. Even when the topic is centered on other games in the series, haters will still find a way to inject Awakening/XB2 in the discussion, ironically prolonging the longevity of these games.

I could keep going but you get the idea. I'm not worried though, if the parallels continue then Xenoblade has a bright future ahead of itself...

At first I thought you may have had a halfdecent point as both are heavily criticized for heavily simplifying the characters but the more I read it the less sense it makes sense.

For starters, these entries sold better than the previous ones so no **** that the core fandom being mixed doesn't matter to people who never touched prior entries

The longevity of hatred isn't a thing for Awakening, that goes to Fates, which would fit your comparison much better

Marriage was a system in FE4 and matchmaking was always a thing in Fire Emblem as seen with paired endings and limited supports, which was 5 per character pre-Awakening. The criticism there is about how much emphasis it got in Awakening due to it being integral to the story, you REALLY should have used Fates as a example as that game has the same thing, only not justified in story and has a ****ton of awful implications including "Wow incest and deadbeat parents are so cool". Meanwhile XB2 has characters with boobs that move at mach 5 contantly blush because Protagonist-kun is soooo attractive. XB2 has the sleepwalking scene, XB2 has Tora lusting over an 8 year old wiggling her ass in a bunny suit, having multiple girls fight and call eachother degrading things because "Protagonist-kun likes me more!" "No he liked me more!". None of these fit at all in the prior games, the closest there is to it is Melia having feelings for Shulk but knowing Shulk doesn't share the feelings, which Sharla picks up on and talks to Melia about how she needs to accept that Shulk loves someone else. Meanwhile Rex doesn't realize all the ladies want him and doesn't understand why a woman would blush when he talks about penis jokes. Why is the game which was advertised as "If X disappointed you then you'll like this" so drastically different in tone from the first game? Awakening never pretended it was a return to form for the series and unlike 2, so the Awakening's more comedic tone doesn't get as much flak for being different as again, 2 was billed as a return to form after X but had a tone that fit neither prior games


There's a huge difference between filler and straightup nothing important happening. A major point of contention for 2 is the pacing, by the time the plot starts going somewhere is around the time you explore Prison Island in 1, in which you witnessed the attack on Colony 9, the aftermath of Colony 6, the twist that Faced Mechon aren't mindless beasts, the assassination plot against Melia,and obviously the thing that'll help make Faced Mechon easier to deal with. It's been a while since I played Awakening's story so I admittedly can't comment on Valm. For FFVII, Red's arc serves as developing him, obviously, but FFVII's filled with silly filler, the issue for XB2 isn't filler, it's that it takes forever for the plot to start going somewhere, and when it takes 10-20 hours to start getting some story progress in an 80 or so hour JRPG, then there's an issue.

Honestly, at first I thought this was meant as a criticism about Fire Emblem fans conviniently forgetting how games like 7 and 8 became either tropey, brimming with fanservice or both and how both Awakening and 2 are criticized for weaker writing, but it becomes obvious that the post was made because someone who's bitter people didn't like their favourite entry in the series. This completely ignores the context of the criticisms, how both games handled criticisms of prior installments, how FE had a better example and how both were marketed. Overall, I found this post very disappointing

 

[Michael the Spikester]

We might be sleeping on Bravely Default, because Nintendo is pushing its sequel like nobody's business. Has a very similar feel for when they were marketing DQ 11.

On top of Bravely Default there's also Dragalia Lost.

 

[Will]

We might be sleeping on Bravely Default, because Nintendo is pushing its sequel like nobody's business. Has a very similar feel for when they were marketing DQ 11.

We?

It ain't me bruh, I've been ready for Ringabel for 6 years.

 

[Schnee117]

We might be sleeping on Bravely Default,.

Somewhere, a panda is stirring...

 

[Deleted member]

Somewhere, a panda is stirring...

That sounds like something Gentlepanda should worry about.

On top of Bravely Default there's also Dragalia Lost.

I've heard about this game but know nothing about it other than it's a mobile game. Does it have a chance?