Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[Cosmic77]

Regardless of where you stand on the "too many swordfighters" argument, at least be respectful of others and try to understand where they're coming from.

And that goes both ways. I've seen plenty of times when someone tried to explain why they disliked swordfighters and the responses were, "LOL I know how you really feel! You just hate FE! You probably think we have too many anime characters too, right!?"

 

[SnowClaws]

It is Spring Man because the protagonist/mascot always comes first.

I also expect the Hero route with Ribbon Girl, Ninjara and Minmin.

Yes some may say they play differently and might have different waist sizes and dimensions but





Just to remind you all.

I, on the other hand, expect a ARMS duo something like a Ice Climbers and a reference toward Team Fight; after all, ARMS is not just a 1 vs 1 fighting game, it can also be 2 vs 2.

My character of choice would be Mechanica since she won the very first online tournament hosted by Nintendo known as the Online Open Sparring. She ends up winning the whole tournament and she shocks the Japanese audience when she was consider to be low-tier. For Smash, she can once again shock the Japanese audience twice.

For context/source:

Also, her Japanese voice actor is Ayumi Fujimura, the voice behind Fi in The Legend of Zelda series, and Princess Zelda in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. So boom, there is your Zelda representative for Fighter Pass 2.

 

[Ramen Tengoku]

The amount of times we've brought up this old tired swordfighter debate absolutely eclipses the actual amount of swordsmen on the roster

 

[ZephyrZ]

Believe me, there's still a lot of people opposed to another Pokemon.

Anyways, Pokemon does have an advantage in the sense that all of its characters save Pichu are completely unique in both appearance and playstyle. I don't think I've ever seen anyone complain about getting another Pokemon character because they were convinced that whoever got in would be a clone of some sorts.

Did you not see any of the people comparing Incineroar to Bowser because they're both "fire-themed wrestlers" pre-release? It was a really silly argument but people made it.

I think people were actively looking for reasons to complain about Incineroar, though.

 

[pupNapoleon]

I always found the "unique silhouette" talking point equally as disingenuous as it is pretentious, personally. Like you can just say you want more cartoons. You don't need to have your head make up a third of your height to be a good character.

I don't understand your point.
I brought up three separate references to why silhouette's have significance to Smash bros specifically.
And your response is that you feel its pompous and a way to justify feelings.

It the response supposed to be ironic? To dissuade any counterpoint with the same disregard you describe others of having?

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Well, clearly a certain group of fans feel that way, considering the "too many swordsman" thing.

I have never seen a character be hated on the basis that they weren't cartoony. The whole "anime swordsman" thing is a slander against the Fire Emblem crowd that bled into other characters since swords are common in anime style games.

Believe me, there's still a lot of people opposed to another Pokemon.

Yeah, but the reasoning isn't really the fact that they hail from the Pokémon series anymore. It's usually just people finding them to not be interesting.

I always found the "unique silhouette" talking point equally as disingenuous as it is pretentious, personally. Like you can just say you want more cartoons. You don't need to have your head make up a third of your height to be a good character.

Besides, the human characters have unique silhouettes as well. Eeeexcept for the Fire Emblem characters...because capes...and clones with the same idle animations...Though Ike does have a much larger profile so there's that.

 

[N3ON]

Yeah, but it's still silly that the public opinion went.



Ew! Too many Pokémon.



Ok. Pokémon's cool. ZOMG! TOO MANY FIRE EMBLEM CHARACTERS!!!

EDIT EDIT: It makes me wonder if people just hated Corrin that much.
EDIT: It's also interesting that this has never been a critique of Super Mario even though they have nearly as many characters.

This a lapse in memory; before people had a problem with FE, they had a problem with Kid Icarus, not Pokemon. Especially because your example comes right off the heels of getting Mewtwo back, who was maybe the most requested character at that point.

Pokemon being too overabundant has never been a common complaint, presumably because people realize it’s Pokemon.

 

[Cosmic77]

Did you not see any of the people comparing Incineroar to Bowser because they're both "fire-themed wrestlers" pre-release? It was a really silly argument but people made it.

I think people were actively looking for reasons to complain about Incineroar, though.

I mean, I saw a few of them every couple weeks or so, but I think most people had enough common sense to realize that it was a pretty ridiculous comparison. They look nothing alike and Bowser only fits the wrestler niche if you really try to force it. Once we saw Incineroar's moveset, the few people who were making that claim seemed to stop.

 

[Garteam]

We're having the Anime Swordsman argument again.

And it's slowly evolving towards the Punchy Cereal Box Mascot argument again.

How about we discuss characters beyond using memes to describe what they hit each other with? It's the most surface level way to describe a potential character.

 

[Opossum]

I don't understand your point.
I brought up three separate references to why silhouette's have significance to Smash bros specifically.
And your response is that you feel its pompous and a way to justify feelings.

It the response supposed to be ironic? To dissuade any counterpoint with the same disregard you describe others of having?

Because, frankly, anyone who tries to use it as a reason to be against "anime swordsmen" stretches the truth to fit it. Hell, one of your three points is an unsourced claim about Wolf that came out of nowhere, the first of them has nothing to do with silhouettes, and the third is literally a matter of the pose they use for the official art.

I have never seen a character be hated on the basis that they weren't cartoony. The whole "anime swordsman" thing is a slander against the Fire Emblem crowd that bled into other characters since swords are common in anime style games.


Yeah, but the reasoning isn't really the fact that they hail from the Pokémon series anymore. It's usually just people finding them to not be interesting.


Besides, the human characters have unique silhouettes as well. Eeeexcept for the Fire Emblem characters...because capes...and clones with the same idle animations...Though Ike does have a much larger profile so there's that.

Lucina is literally the only one of the four who shares Marth's idle animation. What are you talking about?

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

The clear compromise here is to have a cartoony platformer mascot who wields a sword to please everyone.

Sparkster, its your time to shine!

 

[Dark Bagel]

"Anime" characters... "Cartoon" characters, tsk tsk. When will you people learn? BOTH sides are equally at fault.

Seriously, how can you really trust anyone who has incredibly large and detailed eyes, multicolored hair, and at least one medieval weapon of choice? And don't even get me STARTED on their looks... You know what kind of people are that beautiful? People who have something to hide, that's who. I bet Byleth killed a guy in his sleep before.

And toons are no better, look at Banjo for instance. Those exaggerated, hokey-pokey proportions, those cold, beady eyes, and that menacing "guh-huh!" ITS UNNATURAL, DAMMIT! No grizzly bear should ever look and sound like that, it's a disgusting affront to all natural law, and that freak should be purged with the rest of his dinky-looking brethren. No more of these reprehensible physics-defying plumbers, apes, or crocodiles. Enough is enough.

What we need is a true paragon of character design, someone whose aspects aren't overly exaggerated, nor humanistically perfectionist. Someone whose design is absolutely inoffensive, and equally as powerful in its simplicity. That's right.

ATARI ADVENTURER JOINS THE BATTLE!

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

This a lapse in memory; before people had a problem with FE, they had a problem with Kid Icarus, not Pokemon. Especially because your example comes right off the heels of getting Mewtwo back, who was maybe the most requested character at that point.

Pokemon being too overabundant has never been a common complaint, presumably because people realize it’s Pokemon.

No no no. I may have forgotten the Kid Icarus series causing the whole "Sakurai bias" thing, but I clearly remember having many a large argument about Pokémon's large number of characters in the previous game's DLC speculation thread.

Lucina is literally the only one of the four who shares Marth's idle animation. What are you talking about?

I'm just saying that their idle stances are very similar and the capes make things worse because it obscures limbs in the silhouette.
EDIT: That's not to say that they're not at all distinct, they're just the most similar of all the characters for these reasons.

I bet Byleth killed a guy in his sleep before.

That's not true!

Spoiler: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Spoilers

It was a little girl, and he was in a coma.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I think a lot of these arguments boil down to a simple "it's not the character I wanted."

Problem is if you come online to say you don't like something, people also don't really like to take "I don't like it" as a good enough reason, so they make you explain it. "Why don't you like Corrin? S/He can turn into a dragon! What's not to love?"

So you try to explain, but there's really nothing concrete you don't like about them. You just don't like them, but people won't accept it without a fully-referenced thesis. So you say "I don't like Anime/JRPGs/Fire Emblem." And now, since you gave a reason, people can try to attack those arguments and try to prove you wrong. But it's not an objective thing - nobody can look at proof and say "well, you play Ike so therefore you do like characters like Corrin so your argument is invalid q.e.d"

It's good to have lots of different styles of characters in the game. We have everything from literal blobs to cartoony characters to chibi characters to anime characters to gritty realistic characters. We have characters who punch, kick, shoot, slash, and cast. I don't think any of the five remaining slots will overburden any of these categories, even if they do share a few normals with some other characters.

 

[N3ON]

No no no. I may have forgotten the Kid Icarus series causing the whole "Sakurai bias" thing, but I clearly remember having many a large argument about Pokémon's large number of characters in the previous game's DLC speculation thread.

Well that doesn't make much sense considering for the majority of the Smash 4 cycle Pokemon had fewer characters than it did in Brawl, and the character that brought the number back only to where it was the game previously was possibly the most requested character at the time.

In fact, it ended up with fewer characters than people thought it would, considering Squirtle and Ivysaur were cut.

I'm not going to say that conversation didn't happen, but believe me, if people thought there were too many Pokemon, those people were in vast minority behind those complaining about other series. Even in Brawl, when it had the same number as Smash 4, but other series had less, people were complaining about Star Fox and Kirby, not Pokemon.

Pokemon has never been the target of much ire on the basis of their volume. The promotional nature of some of their picks, sure, but the quantity, far less.

 

[Cosmic77]

There have always been people complaining about the number of Pokemon reps, but I don't think there has ever truly been a time when a majority of people weren't at least somewhat interested in discussing Pokemon.

Smash 4 should be obvious, considering how Mewtwo was one of, if not the most popular character during the base game speculation. Ultimate had a lot hype around a Pokemon newcomer too, and a lot of the bitterness people had for Incineroar comes from wanting a different Pokemon.

 

[3BitSaurus]

And how often do you see people complain about Link or Metaknight for being swordsmen, outside of examples like this where they're trying to demonstrate just how many sword characters there are?

To be completely honest... quite often. Aside from the fighters created from the Marth moveset, Link complaints are usually not that far behind - especially because you could theoretically make a legitimate case for three separate movesets for Link, Young Link and Toon Link and also because Zelda has other characters to pull besides the Triforce trio. Put these two things together and yeah, there's a good amount of complaints.

 

[Koopaul]

Oh this discussion again. Let it go on record that I don't hate Fire Emblem, but still feel like there is too many Fire Emblem characters.

There's lots of people like me who feel no ill will towards Fire Emblem characters or "anime swordsmen". I love the Donkey Kong series but if they had as many fighters on the roster as Fire Emblem then I'd be annoyed at that too.

 

[GoodGrief741]

I think I prefer cartoony characters over more realistically proportioned characters because I like the stylistic clash that happens when, say, Mario fights with Sonic. Both of them are cartoony, but they were still designed with different philosophies in mind (like, Sonic's noodle legs and single eye would not be on any Mario character).

To be fair, realistic characters can and usually are also designed with wildly different styles (compare Shulk's concept art and in-game appearance in the original game to Snake in, say, Twin Snakes or Guns of the Patriots, and it's day and night). Brawl, and to a lesser extent, Sm4sh did a really good job at translating the differences in art-styles - you wouldn't confuse Pit for a Fire Emblem character, for example, because Marth and Ike had much sharper facial features, were taller and more slender, etc. And Snake in Brawl looked as realistic as a human could on the Wii. But I feel that Ultimate really dropped the ball with an incredibly homogenized artsyle for all the human characters. Like, you can't really see a difference in design for Little Mac, or the Street Fighters, or Cloud, they all look like they were designed by the same person and that really takes out a bit of the uniqueness.

And the trend toward human characters in Smash is sadly just a representation of an industry-wide trend. Most Western developers switched to realism when the shooter genre took off, but Japanese devs have also gone down the same path, just with anime human designs taking over. It might be a lack of creativity, or maybe it's for marketing reasons as audiences see anything non-realistic as childish. Or it might be due to the downfall of the platformer as a reigning genre aside from the established icons and Indies with less to lose. But just like I don't blame Sakurai for representing unfortunate industry trends with less-than desired representation for women and characters of color, I can't blame him for the exclusion of cartoony characters when that's also an industry-wide tendency. At the very least, both he and Nintendo as a company have done a great job at keeping that side of character design ingrained in their ethos.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

...Link complaints are usually not that far behind - especially because you could theoretically make a legitimate case for three separate movesets for Link, Young Link and Toon Link and also because Zelda has other characters to pull besides the Triforce trio. Put these two things together and yeah, there's a good amount of complaints.

These aren't complaints about him being a swordsman though. It's about the missed opportunities within the three character's movesets, Zelda's roster picks, and the fact that there are three Links in the first place.

Were the three Link's movesets based on other source material, and other Zelda characters have fighter representation, then two of these complaints would go away, and one of them would likely be less frequent.

I love the Donkey Kong series but if they had as many fighters on the roster as Fire Emblem then I'd be annoyed at that too.

I'd just be confused as to why Kritter and Cranky Kong were on the roster.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

I, on the other hand, expect a ARMS duo something like a Ice Climbers and a reference toward Team Fight; after all, ARMS is not just a 1 vs 1 fighting game, it can also be 2 vs 2.

My character of choice would be Mechanica since she won the very first online tournament hosted by Nintendo known as the Online Open Sparring. She ends up winning the whole tournament and she shocks the Japanese audience when she was consider to be low-tier. For Smash, she can once again shock the Japanese audience twice.

For context/source:

Also, her Japanese voice actor is Ayumi Fujimura, the voice behind Fi in The Legend of Zelda series, and Princess Zelda in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. So boom, there is your Zelda representative for Fighter Pass 2.

But Snow...

Protagonist/Mascot first.

Mechanica isn't the protagonist nor mascot. So she's ruled out.

 

[Koopaul]

I'd just be confused as to why Kritter and Cranky Kong were on the roster.

If Donkey Kong was in the same situation as Fire Emblem we'd have:

Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr. (DK clone)
Funky Kong (DK clone)
Dread Kong (DK clone)
Diddy Kong
Dixie Kong (Diddy Clone)
Cranky Kong
Lord Fredrick

In that order.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

But Snow...

Protagonist/Mascot first.

Mechanica isn't the protagonist nor mascot. So she's ruled out.

I think Spring Man is the most likely character as well, but this reasoning just screams "No you're wrong! Lalala I can't hear you!" with how often you whip it out and how you use it as the only argument.

If Donkey Kong was in the same situation as Fire Emblem we'd have:

Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr. (DK clone)
Funky Kong (DK clone)
Dread Kong (DK clone)
Diddy Kong
Dixie Kong (Diddy Clone)
Cranky Kong
Lord Fredrick

In that order.

Not quite. The third and sixth characters (Ike and Corrin) aren't clones of Marth. The seventh one is a clone of Roy.

Also, I'm imagining Donkey Kong Jr. with a math based moveset since he would be the one to get decloned in this scenario.

 

[Speed Weed]

But Snow...

Protagonist/Mascot first.

Mechanica isn't the protagonist nor mascot. So she's ruled out.

i agree that protags/mascots should take priority but it's not as hard a rule as you're making it out to be

 

[Koopaul]

i agree that protags/mascots should take priority but it's not as hard a rule as you're making it out to be

It's not a rule. But it is a very probable scenario when doing speculation. Smash speculation should be about analyzing the situation and coming up with a hypothesis.

 

[Perkilator]

But Snow...

Protagonist/Mascot first.

Mechanica isn't the protagonist nor mascot. So she's ruled out.

Okay, can we just wait until the character’s revealed before we keep up this tirade? There’s literally only a 1/15 chance of this actually coming into fruition, and a 14/15 chance of this little rule getting vetoed.

 

[Speed Weed]

It's not a rule. But it is a very probable scenario when doing speculation. Smash speculation should be about analyzing the situation and coming up with a hypothesis.

again
i agree that protags and mascots should take priority
problem is, he was acting as if it was a 100% hard official infallible rule and basically wording it like "no shut up that can't happen protags/mascots only"

 

[Koopaul]

Okay, can we just wait until the character’s revealed before we keep up this tirade? There’s literally only a 1/15 chance of this actually coming into fruition, and a 14/15 chance of this little rule getting vetoed.

It's not that simple. We're not rolling a 15 sided die. There are other factors when making predictions and they should all be considered. I do think everyone should acknowledge that educated guesses are just educated guesses. We don't make the rules here.

 

[GillyGrime]

Every time someone makes a "Paper Mario is the Arms rep" joke, Isabelle takes a falcon punch to the face.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

I mean I'm just saying...

Super Mario Bros.:
Donkey Kong:
The Legend of Zelda:
Metroid:
Yoshi:
Kirby:
StarFox:
Pokemon:
EarthBound:
F-Zero:
Fire Emblem:
Kid Icarus:
Metal Gear:
Sonic the Hedgehog:
Pikmin:
Animal Crossing:
Mega Man:
Punch-Out!!:
Pac-Man:
Xenoblade:
Street Fighter:
Final Fantasy:
Bayonetta:
Splatoon:
Castlevania:
Persona 5:
Dragon Quest:
Banjo & Kazooie:
Fatal Fury/King of Fighters:

Spring Man confirmed.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Every time someone makes a "Paper Mario is the Arms rep" joke, Isabelle takes a falcon punch to the face.

Don't worry though. She's a cartoon character, and it only happened like, 5 times. Her face will recover after a bit of medicine.

 

[Speed Weed]

I mean I'm just saying...

Super Mario Bros.:
Donkey Kong:
The Legend of Zelda:
Metroid:
Yoshi:
Kirby:
StarFox:
Pokemon:
EarthBound:
F-Zero:
Fire Emblem:
Kid Icarus:
Metal Gear:
Sonic the Hedgehog:
Pikmin:
Animal Crossing:
Mega Man:
Punch-Out!!:
Pac-Man:
Xenoblade:
Street Fighter:
Final Fantasy:
Bayonetta:
Splatoon:
Castlevania:
Persona 5:
Dragon Quest:
Banjo & Kazooie:
Fatal Fury/King of Fighters:

Spring Man confirmed.

it's not that i think you're wrong, it's that you're already 100% banking on him and shutting off any other possibility

 

[Michael the Spikester]

it's not that i think you're wrong, it's that you're already 100% banking on him and shutting off any other possibility

I mean if the list is anything to go by shouldn't it be obvious it'll be him? What makes you so sure this might be an exception?

 

[Perkilator]

I mean if the list is anything to go by shouldn't it be obvious it'll be him? What makes you so sure this might be an exception?

If it was, they would’ve said it instead saying it could be ANY ONE OF THEM.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

If it was, they would’ve said it instead saying it could be ANY ONE OF THEM.

You mean like how everyone passed off Box Theory?

The fact COVID-19 likely had interfered with development and so couldn't reveal him right away?

Also Sm4sh when people were so certain on Ridley based on that shadow or as someone shared in the Geno thread.

'Here's a car shaped sheet covering the mystery prize which we won't reveal yet.'

-4 months later-

'Surprise! It was a car the whole time. Weren't you shocked?'

 

[Speed Weed]

I mean if the list is anything to go by shouldn't it be obvious it'll be him? What makes you so sure this might be an exception?

i actually agree that it'll be spring man, but we have to at least entertain alternate scenarios
sometimes you just gotta take a step back, and think:
"hey
what if i'm wrong"

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Spring Man confirmed.

He ain't confirmed until they reveal him dude. Your argument has precedent, but with how often precedents are dropped they can't function as rock solid arguments. This combined with the merits of other the characters prevents Spring Man from being a lock.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Still thinking its Spring Man for obvious reasons.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

When its Spring Man. Don't say I told you so.

Even if it is Spring Man it doesn't retroactively make him the only option they could have realistically have gone with.

 

[pupNapoleon]

Because, frankly, anyone who tries to use it as a reason to be against "anime swordsmen" stretches the truth to fit it. Hell, one of your three points is an unsourced claim about Wolf that came out of nowhere, the first of them has nothing to do with silhouettes, and the third is literally a matter of the pose they use for the official art.

Lucina is literally the only one of the four who shares Marth's idle animation. What are you talking about?

I never said I was against anime swordsman.
Someone clearly has a chip on their shoulder.
But its okay to feel that way. I'm still going ot acknowledge youre disputing statements of merit and calling it opinion,
and then bashing with your own opinion as if its a fact. Please dont put words in my mouth- I love the Zelda characters, Kid Icarus characters, and majority of who you deemed for me as 'anime swordsman.'