Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[SpectreJordan]

I don't think what Sakurai feels about Halo matters that much when Nintendo picks the characters.

Also, I know a good part of Smash is influenced by Sakurai's own gaming experience but can we slow down with the "fighter selection depends on whether or not Sakurai is a fanboy of this series" line of thought? The guy's a professional and you don't become a highly respected developer in your field if you reject working on things just because it's not your personal fave.

I was exaggerating a bit, but with the exception of maaaaybe Banjo the last Pass was all from series that Sakurai was very passionate about. I assume that will probably be the case for this Pass too (excluding Arms, I assume). Though TBF, Sakurai is a HARDCORE gamer who plays tons of different games on various systems. So his list of games he’s passionate about is probably huge.

As for the reveals, I wasn’t around for the Brawl hype so my list goes:

S: Everyone Is Here!,

A:
B:
C: , Arms character
D:
F:

 

[RouffWestie]

Ranking the newcomer trailers themselves, I'd have to go with this:
Perfect:
Solid:
Pretty weak:
Boring:

If I had to rank my excitement upon seeing them revealed:
Genuinely excited:
Mildly excited:
No excitement:

Not ranking veterans because, like, announcing cut content returning to the game is going to be something I'll like, but by default it can never be as potentially exceptional as seeing new content.

 

[SKX31]

When I say "Nintendo", I usually mean "whoever picks the DLC characters in Nintendo".

While I'm sure Sakurai has a significant say in the matter, he's ultimately a third party. I doubt that characters are rejected or accepted based on whether Sakurai likes their face.

Yeah, I fully understand that - "Nintendo" works for all intents and purposes. It's just that people don't mention Furukawa specifically at all, and I got a little tired (understatement) of that.

Allow me. This is my personal experiences, so don't take this as objectivity.

Wasn't there, don't kill me:

I was about to comment "Brawl's jank was... special. There was some really wonderful jank, but also really bad jank." But then again, every Smash game has lots of jank and strange stuff in it.

For example: I understand fully why Sakurai and co gave some unique mechanics, but suffice to say, it's a good thing those unique mechanics were removed when Ultimate came along. To writ, Brawl PKMN Trainer had two mechanics: A PKMN-esque weakness cycle (> > > . Rinse, repeat.) and a Stamina (1 min or so in and the Pokemon battling gets tired, lowering the Pokemon's damage and thus encouraging switching). Again, these mechanics were intended (like Brawl overall) as mechanics to improve gameplay.

Problem was, there were almost no other Grass or Water characters in the game, while there were a lot of Fire-using characters. Pretty much meant was KOed earlier by fire-users like Falcon than was. The Stamina mechanic was also a mechanic with no real upside to it, and could wind up "forcing" a change at a bad time,

 

[Deleted member]

I guess this is my ranking for character reveals in Ultimate:

The reveals I found perfect: Everyone is here, , , , , ,

The reveals I found amazing: , , ,

The reveals which I found good: , , ,

The reveals I found funny: ,

The "ok, they exist" reveals: , ,

 

[Perkilator]

I was about to comment "Brawl's jank was... special. There was some really wonderful jank, but also really bad jank." But then again, every Smash game has lots of jank and strange stuff in it.

For example: I understand fully why Sakurai and co gave some unique mechanics, but suffice to say, it's a good thing those unique mechanics were removed when Ultimate came along. To writ, Brawl PKMN Trainer had two mechanics: A PKMN-esque weakness cycle (> > > . Rinse, repeat.) and a Stamina (1 min or so in and the Pokemon battling gets tired, lowering the Pokemon's damage and thus encouraging switching). Again, these mechanics were intended (like Brawl overall) as mechanics to improve gameplay.

Problem was, there were almost no other Grass or Water characters in the game, while there were a lot of Fire-using characters. Pretty much meant was KOed earlier by fire-users like Falcon than was. The Stamina mechanic was also a mechanic with no real upside to it, and could wind up "forcing" a change at a bad time,

This was for reveals, not overall playstyles.

 

[GillyGrime]

The one thing regarding Rayman is that I'd assume they would've saved the Altair and Rabbids costumes to launch alongside him.

So for them to simply plop those alongside Byleth has me doubtful on him or any Ubisoft rep getting in.

Could be wrong, but I feel like that ship has sailed.

I think the really suspicious thing is Rayman not getting a costume while Altair and Rabbids did. If we had just one Ubisoft costume, it would've been Rayman. And they can easily have Rayman specific Mii Costumes (as with DQ and SNK) to go alongside his pack.

 

[Lamperouge]

I guess this is my ranking for character reveals in Ultimate:

The reveals I found perfect: Everyone is here, , , , , ,

The reveals I found amazing: , , ,

The reveals which I found good: , , ,

The reveals I found funny: ,

The "ok, they exist" reveals: , ,

Swap Terry with Byleth and you pretty much have my rankings.

 

[pupNapoleon]

In the fandom of Smash, whenever an Smash game runs its course of DLC, there's always salt and never pleasing the fans.

This happened one time- what do you mean 'whenever?'
We have only had one game of DLC end.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

Are we all in agreement that an ARMS 2 newcomer isn’t going to happen for Ultimate?

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Are we all in agreement that an ARMS 2 newcomer isn’t going to happen for Ultimate?

If it was an ARMS 2 character they wouldn’t show off the whole case of ARMS 1 (including Spring Man) in the direct.

as for the fighter spirit if the fighter’s already a Spirit: just use the fighter render. Cloud and Robin do that

 

[Cutie Gwen]

If it was an ARMS 2 character they wouldn’t show off the whole case of ARMS 1 (including Spring Man) in the direct.

as for the fighter spirit if the fighter’s already a Spirit: just use the fighter render. Cloud and Robin do that

Cloud's a case of rights issue whereas Robin doesn't seem to have any official artwork from Awakening

 

[Trevenant]

I think the really suspicious thing is Rayman not getting a costume while Altair and Rabbids did. If we had just one Ubisoft costume, it would've been Rayman. And they can easily have Rayman specific Mii Costumes (as with DQ and SNK) to go alongside his pack.

That could be excused due to his lack of limbs and how it'd directly contradict one of Raymans most important and iconic traits.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Are we all in agreement that an ARMS 2 newcomer isn’t going to happen for Ultimate?

Probably not, but unless it just amounts to an alternate costume, I wouldn't think so because:

• They showed us a list of candidates. Picking one that's not on the list or even known to the general public would be worse than picking just the one everyone has labeled to be "the boring one".
• This is assuming there even is an ARMS 2.

On the off chance that there is an ARMS 2, and the characters get redesigns in it, then I could see something like Spring Man (ARMS), Ribbon Girl (ARMS), Spring Man (ARMS 2), and Ribbon Girl (ARMS 2). Still a long-shot though.

 

[SKX31]

This was for reveals, not overall playstyles.

Yeah, I get that. I was just being nostalgic in the "Brawl was a wild ride" sense. Also, the history lesson was meant to note that the effects mechanics ultimately have is very difficult to know until after the character's actually in the game.

Again, I should note: those mechanics were well-intentioned and noble. I don't doubt Sakurai on that. Nor do I doubt fan movesets in general that include special mechanics - most of them are well-intentioned (those that aren't are generally troll movesets). I'm not trying to discourage you or anyone else from coming up with special mechanics just because a couple of Sakurai's backfired.

Cloud's a case of rights issue whereas Robin doesn't seem to have any official artwork from Awakening

*Looks at the fact that they managed to cram Luminary's entire party into a Spirit and give Veronica's hat out as Mii Gear.*

*Dreams a bit about a FF7R spirit event and more music tracks.*

*Sighs and reminds himself that the most important thing is that Cloud is in at all.*

 

[snowgolem]

I’m too lazy to make a full tier list but a lot of people are doing this so I’ll just make two tiers

Top/High Tier: , , Everyone is Here, , , , , , *, , ,
Low/Bottom Tier: , , , , , , ,

Not rating the arm fighter because we don’t even have their trailer yet

*Why are people rating Hero’s alts separately? It’s the exact same reveal. We’re rating the reveal, not the character.

 

[Deleted member]

*Why are people rating Hero’s alts separately? It’s the exact same reveal. We’re rating the reveal, not the character.

In my case because the DQ8 was my most wanted DQ rep out of all of them.

 

[Trevenant]

Are we all in agreement that an ARMS 2 newcomer isn’t going to happen for Ultimate?

Probably not. The original cast was shown, smash never really takes risks like that aside from clones, fire emblem and pokemon, we don't know if it even exists etc. Most of it points towards us not getting one and I am kinda glad as I wouldn't want the first character of a series to be one that is for blatant promotion of a new game

 

[Knight Dude]

Question for all of you. What's been the best Smash reveals since Brawl's?

Third party? Sonic, Mega Man and Cloud. Maybe Banjo. Pac-Man was kind of treated as a secondary dude. Ryu was unfortunately leaked way early. Personal bias would say Mega Man > Ryu > Terry > Simon > Sonic >>> The rest >>> Joker. But obviously we all have different tastes.

1. Sonic being the main rival of Mario made their crossover the hypest. Like Marvel vs DC type ****. Being the posterboy for his own company helps a lot too.
2. Mega Man's franchise is practically a cousin or step-brother to Nintendo as a whole, so it was kind of "family reunion" deal, along with him having a hiatus that made people miss him. And being one of the most iconic platformer characters.
3. Not many people saw Cloud happening. I certainly didn't. Dude's practically the posterboy for the Non-Nintendo Final Fantasy. But he does make the most sense in hindsight, since he's the most iconic FF protag, it just seemed like a pipe dream.
4. Banjo-Kazooie being former Nintendo characters but getting to meet up with them again was another reunion type deal. Also a huge request.

First Party? A bit more debatable. But Ridley, K.Rool, Little Mac, were all post-Snake inclusions that were huge deals. Rosalina's kind of close, but since a lot of Mario folks were in, it wasn't AS big of a deal. Inkling was kind of a huge deal, despite literally everyone predicting they'd happen.

 

[Perkilator]

Cloud's a case of rights issue whereas Robin doesn't seem to have any official artwork from Awakening

Both Robins still have talking portraits in Awakening, see?


They did this for Tharja's Spirit because "good boys and girls", they could've done this for Robin's Fighter Spirit.

 

[Phoenix Douchebag]

We ranking reveals? Oh boy here i go Killing gushing about Simon again.

Super Chad tier. Objective Masterpiece:

Great Tier:

Good Tier:

Meh Tier:

Garbage:


Smash 4:
Godlike:

Good:

Meh:

Tr4sh:

If im missing any other character, it's because:

1-I care so little about them that i don't see a reason to even ranking. As in, they don't even deserve to be on the bottom tier.
2-I missed the reveal lol (actually happened to Cloud which is why he's not on this list)

 

[Knight Dude]

What your reaction would be if Steve, Doomguy and let's say Rayman are in Super Smash Bros Ultimate ?

Doom Slayer: WE MOVE!
Rayman: Ok, could have been Crash or Spyro. Don't hate him though.
Steve: Fulgore was robbed twice. You hate to see it, I'm going to sleep.

 

[SnowClaws]

Are we all in agreement that an ARMS 2 newcomer isn’t going to happen for Ultimate?

It depend, is ARMS 2 a sequel, prequel, midquel, or spin-off?

 

[MrMcNuts]

What your reaction would be if Steve, Doomguy and let's say Rayman are in Super Smash Bros Ultimate ?

Steve: not bad, makes alot of people happy
Doom: Aye now that's a good pick!
Rayman: ABOUT TIME MY BOI IS IN HE'S OVERDUE!!

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Both Robins still have talking portraits in Awakening, see?

View attachment 272632View attachment 272631
They did this for Tharja's Spirit because "good boys and girls", they could've done this for Robin's Fighter Spirit.

Ok so there's portraits but there's no official art with any dynamic posing that they could have used, and I double checked Tharja and you're right, this **** is weird

 

[Knight Dude]

That said, my personal rankings would be like this. My tastes are clearly the best. Also based on vague memories of Brawl - Smash 4 as well.

Smokin' Sick Style:
Sick Style:
Stylish:
Atomic:
Badass:
Cool:
Dismal:
Miis:

All in all, WAY more stuff I like than stuff I don't.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Miis:

Ah yes. My favorite Devil May Cry combo rating.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

If it was an ARMS 2 character they wouldn’t show off the whole case of ARMS 1 (including Spring Man) in the direct.


as for the fighter spirit if the fighter’s already a Spirit: just use the fighter render. Cloud and Robin do that

Indeed, the ARMS 2 theory is one that has holes in it and the idea of having a complete unknown from a merely speculated sequel as a newcomer DLC really seems like a stretch. If there are people who truly believe that then

Spoiler: 104% legit leak

yes that is the case. My friend who worked at Nintendo has confirmed to me that FP6 is a new ARMS character from the sequel - a samurai catgirl apparently. The next five fighters he leaked through the power of telepathy were: Gadget Hackwrench from Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers; Lola Bunny From Space Jam; Captain Amelia from Treasure Planet; Magica De Spell of Ducktales fame and Judy Hopps from Zootopia. So many non-video game characters and no Goku or Shrek?!?

 

[GillyGrime]

That could be excused due to his lack of limbs and how it'd directly contradict one of Raymans most important and iconic traits.

If they can force a Cuphead shaped head on the normal round/oval shaped Mii head, they can do a Mii brawler costume with invisible arms and legs, as long as the proportions match the hit box. And if a premium costume is out of the question, at the very very very least a Rayman head hat (like Slime or Tails).

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

What your reaction would be if Steve, Doomguy and let's say Rayman are in Super Smash Bros Ultimate ?

Isnit cheating to say no reaction for any of them?

 

[Dark Bagel]

TIME FOR SADISM

Smash 4/Ultimate reveal trailer tier list based on the amount of sweet, utter carnage that shows up in each:

People's hopes and dreams get bodied:

Multiple people get absolutely destroyed:

At least one character gets demolished:

At least someone gets mildly thrashed:

No one gets Shrek Superslammed outside of in-game footage:

Overall vibe of the trailer has a disproportionately high amount of warm fuzzies. Disgusting.

 

[SNEKeater]

Even if a sequel to ARMS is in the works, the characters from the first game can still apear in ARMS 2, which is usually what happens with fighting games. Yeah, they would include new characters, but the main cast and the popular ones won't go anywhere. Spring Man, Ribbon Girl, Ninjara and Min Min would appear 100% for sure if they make a new ARMS game.

With that in mind, it makes more sense to put an ARMS character that has appeared in both games, instead of putting a new character from the sequel.

 

[Megadoomer]

My rankings for how I felt about characters based on their reveal are a little arbitrary, and I don't recall my reaction to Melee aside from being excited for Mewtwo and Falco (they weren't spread out like they were for later games, at least from English sources - I think there was a Japanese blog for Melee), it would be something like...

S (GOAT):

A (excited): **

B (they could be fun): ***

C (they look all right);

D (not interested):

F (actively disliked):

I think that's everyone.

My opinions have changed since then (I don't dislike any inclusion, and Snake's one of my favourite characters), and anyone with a star next to them inspired me to play their game(s), which caused me to be much more excited about their inclusion.

With Snake and Cloud, I wasn't familiar with Metal Gear Solid and hadn't played Final Fantasy 7 at the time, but the possibilities that their inclusion brought about still excited me. Snake's inclusion caused me to remember articles about MGS: The Twin Snakes in my Nintendo Power collection, which encouraged me to get that game and beat it between his announcement and the release of Brawl, while for Cloud, I finally beat FF7 last summer on the Switch after trying the PC version and putting it down due to some baffling choices made with the interface.

I didn't have much experience with Castlevania (I tried Castlevania 1 and Super Castlevania 4, but disliked them both), Dragon Quest (I had started 8 and 9, but hadn't gotten very far into them), or Persona (I had bought 5 on sale, but hadn't played it) at the time of those announcements, though they encouraged me to play through Symphony of the Night, Dragon Quest 1 and 11, and Persona 5 (and later 4, and currently 3), which I enjoyed. (I greatly prefer the Metroid-inspired Castlevanias over the classic ones)

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

If they can force a Cuphead shaped head on the normal round/oval shaped Mii head, they can do a Mii brawler costume with invisible arms and legs, as long as the proportions match the hit box. And if a premium costume is out of the question, at the very very very least a Rayman head hat (like Slime or Tails).

They definitely can. I just don't think it would look right in motion. Certain attacks may have too big of a loss in visual clarity as well. For example, Onslaught starting with a knee strike would become much harder to read when the character no longer has knees.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

TIME FOR SADISM

Smash reveal tier list based on the amount of sweet, utter carnage that shows up in each

People's hopes and dreams get bodied:

Multiple people get absolutely destroyed:

At least one character gets demolished:

At least someone gets mildly thrashed:

No one gets Shrek Superslammed outside of in-game footage:

Overall vibe of the trailer has a disproportionately high amount of warm fuzzies. Disgusting.

You forgot someone

 

[Trevenant]

If they can force a Cuphead shaped head on the normal round/oval shaped Mii head, they can do a Mii brawler costume with invisible arms and legs, as long as the proportions match the hit box. And if a premium costume is out of the question, at the very very very least a Rayman head hat (like Slime or Tails).

I guess it could but at least Cuphead feasibly worked. It probably is because it'd look weird if It were a full costume. A mii hat I definitely could agree with though.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

I'm gonna rate the reveals based on how I felt about them at the time, at least to the best of my memory. I've mellowed out a lot since and would place a lot of characters much higher now, but that's not nearly as fun as stupid hot takes from over a decade ago.

Brawl:

S:

A:

B:

C:

D:

I'm not even gonna bother defending this list, because it's pretty awful, but this is what I thought back then as far as I can remember. I wasn't very old, so shallow arguments like "I'm tired of hearing about him" and "This isn't Ridley" are what I used to justify my negative opinions. If I had to re-do this even just one or two years after Brawl's release, it would look very different and probably only be comprised of three tiers, I think every inclusion brought something good with them.

Smash 4:

S:

A:

B:

C:

D:

My opinions here haven't changed as much as with Brawl, I'd put Cloud and Ryu higher up (sword overload and leak dampened them for me at the time), but aside from those Smash 4 was a case of pretty trailers covering over what was, and still is to me a pretty lackluster newcomer roster. There were a fair few historic additions here, but none which really meant much to me personally, even to this day I rarely ever play any Smash 4 newcomers since they just don't do much for me.

Ultimate:

S:

A:

B:

C:

D:

I think I'd probably change more on this list now than with the Smash 4 one actually, and only in positive ways as I've gotten to know the characters/series better since. Ultimate is just one or two great additions away from topping Brawl for my favorite newcomer roster, if Byleth had been Edelgard then that probably would already have been the case. Needless to say, Ridley is my favorite reveal ever.

 

[MarioRaccoon]

I always think that Could reveal was the most impacting for me because at that time, Sakurai stated that a requirement of a third party character to be in Smash is to have been appeared in a Nintendo console before (preferably in his main game and not an spin-off). The other third party that got in fit with that criteria and really nobody expected Cloud to appear as his main game didn't get ported at that time for a Nintendo console, hey, FFVII is PS1's flagship game and a gamechanger in that generation of consoles. I think if at that time we debated about a Final Fantasy rep for Smash, most of you would say Terra (FFVI MC) or Cecil (FFIV), even some of you would say Black Mage from FFI before Cloud.

Changing for other topic, do you think we will see a character from another M-rated IP like Bayonetta or Persona ?

 

[kirbsmash]

Changing for other topic, do you think we will see a character from another M-rated IP like Bayonetta or Persona ?

Snake and Simon says hi btw ! It's likely though.

 

[Megadoomer]

Changing for other topic, do you think we will see a character from another M-rated IP like Bayonetta or Persona ?

I think so; the inclusion of characters like Snake, Bayonetta, and Joker shows that it's not a barrier, though I'm thinking it might just be one or two. (even though I hope for more; three of my six most wanted are from games that more than earned their M rating)

 

[SNEKeater]

I always think that Could reveal was the most impacting for me because at that time, Sakurai stated that a requirement of a third party character to be in Smash is to have been appeared in a Nintendo console before (preferably in his main game and not an spin-off). The other third party that got in fit with that criteria and really nobody expected Cloud to appear as his main game didn't get ported at that time for a Nintendo console, hey, FFVII is PS1's flagship game and a gamechanger in that generation of consoles. I think if at that time we debated about a Final Fantasy rep for Smash, most of you would say Terra (FFVI MC) or Cecil (FFIV), even some of you would say Black Mage from FFI before Cloud.

Changing for other topic, do you think we will see a character from another M-rated IP like Bayonetta or Persona ?

Probably yes, I'd be surprised if we don't get at least one more M-rated character, honestly.