Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[DarthEnderX]

I knew it, Ganondorf is allergic to rabbits because the Master Sword is made of bunnies.

Or the souls of dead bunnies at least.

*the sounds of the Doom Slayer screaming can be heard in the distance*

 

[TheHeartbreakKid]

I don't have any hate for ARMS, and think it's a deserving inclusion (though would have been infinitely better as a base roster inclusion), but imagine how incredibly bull**** we'd all be rn if we didn't already know it was an ARMS character, and their announcement was reserved for June.

Like, the drought from March to now has been rough, but could you even BEGIN to imagine how angry we'd all be had we not gotten that mini direct? 4-5 months since the last revealed character (a reveal met with near-universal scorn and derision), and the payoff is another Nintendo shill pick? The butthurt would be nuclear

I would bet my literal soul on the fact that Byleth and ARMS were NEVER supposed to be back-to-back, and I imagine we'll eventually hear confirmation of this from Sakurai himself. As extremely counterintuitive, stupid, and almost spiteful as Nintendo's marketing/business decisions with Smash have come across at times, this would be next-level dumb as anything but a circumstantial set of events.

 

[Cosmic77]

I don't have any hate for ARMS, and think it's a deserving inclusion (though would have been infinitely better as a base roster inclusion), but imagine how incredibly bull**** we'd all be rn if we didn't already know it was an ARMS character, and their announcement was reserved for June.

Like, the drought from March to now has been rough, but could you even BEGIN to imagine how angry we'd all be had we not gotten that mini direct? 4-5 months since the last revealed character (a reveal met with near-universal scorn and derision), and the payoff is another Nintendo shill pick? The butthurt would be nuclear

I would bet my literal soul on the fact that Byleth and ARMS were NEVER supposed to be back-to-back, and I imagine we'll eventually hear confirmation of this from Sakurai himself. As extremely counterintuitive, stupid, and almost spiteful as Nintendo's marketing/business decisions with Smash have come across at times, this would be next-level dumb as anything but a circumstantial set of events.

Revealing Byleth and the ARMS character back-to-back wasn't the problem. In all honesty, both feel like standard additions to the roster.

Hate me for saying it, but revealing four third-parties back-to-back is what's to blame. People have the mentality that Smash DLC is synonymous with third-parties, even though there's nothing that suggests that. Now all of the shill pick characters that people were predicting back in 2018 before Joker existed are controversial, even though a lot of people at that time were mentally prepared and ready to accept reps for ARMS, XC2, 3H, and SwSh.

I'm hoping that Byleth and ARMS will be enough to steer people back to the ways of base roster speculation, because in hindsight, Nintendo choosing an ARMS rep isn't that unexpected. We were just blinded by patterns, which is why I believe it would've been best to reveal Byleth somewhere in the middle of the first pass instead of making him dead last when everyone was expecting third-party #5.

 

[Guynamednelson]

even though a lot of people at that time were mentally prepared and ready to accept reps for ARMS, XC2

Eh...I'm sure a lot of people were expecting them to be out because of the content they received in the base.

 

[ALongWistfulSquiggle]

Revealing Byleth and the ARMS character back-to-back wasn't the problem. In all honesty, both feel like standard additions to the roster.

Hate me for saying it, but revealing four third-parties back-to-back is what's to blame. People have the mentality that Smash DLC is synonymous with third-parties, even though there's nothing that suggests that. Now all of the shill pick characters that people were predicting back in 2018 before Joker existed are controversial, even though a lot of people at that time were mentally prepared and ready to accept reps for ARMS, XC2, 3H, and SwSh.

I'm hoping that Byleth and ARMS will be enough to steer people back to the ways of base roster speculation, because in hindsight, Nintendo choosing an ARMS rep isn't that unexpected. We were just blinded by patterns, which is why I believe it would've been best to reveal Byleth somewhere in the middle of the first pass instead of making him dead last when everyone was expecting third-party #5.

I kinda agree, but there was no good time in pass 1 to reveal Byleth. Any sooner and people would have been more angry about the advertising nature of the pick, so any goodwill gained from the lack of third party pattern would have been lost. People would still be disgruntled about first party DLC.

On the other hand, I feel like ARMS probably was picked for fighter 1 of pass 2 from the beginning, and this is just Nintendo being weird about marketing/DLC business decisions. They might have needed more time to prep for more exciting additions and just decided to release the ARMS character earlier to allow for that flexibility. Maybe not, but Nintendo as a whole has always made strange choices.

 

[Goombaic]

Eh...I'm sure a lot of people were expecting them to be out because of the content they received in the base.

ARMS was in dead water, I thought its best hope was for Smash 6. So many other first parties were talked about more before the ARMS announcement. There may have been one person that thought it was suspicious that the series didn't have music, even then I think I may be misremembering a conversation that was happening here.

 

[Cosmic77]

Eh...I'm sure a lot of people were expecting them to be out because of the content they received in the base.

Believe it or not, there were still a notable amount of people who were predicting Rex or Spring Man (though I will admit, the former didn't make much sense. Why go through the trouble of making a Rex costume if the character it's based off of will eventually be DLC?)

Granted, I think a lot of people had absolutely no idea what Nintendo characters they would've chosen, so they were just choosing the shill picks that made sense. Still, I do think someone like Spring Man would've been better received it he were one of the first three DLC characters. The pass was just starting and people hadn't locked down on their predictions of all third-parties just yet.

I kinda agree, but there was no good time in pass 1 to reveal Byleth. Any sooner and people would have been more angry about the advertising nature of the pick, so any goodwill gained from the lack of third party pattern would have been lost. People would still be disgruntled about first party DLC.

On the other hand, I feel like ARMS probably was picked for fighter 1 of pass 2 from the beginning, and this is just Nintendo being weird about marketing/DLC business decisions. They might have needed more time to prep for more exciting additions and just decided to release the ARMS character earlier to allow for that flexibility. Maybe not, but Nintendo as a whole has always made strange choices.

Less bad? I guess that's what I'm trying to say?

Like, if Byleth had been revealed when Hero was, people would still have been angry, but expectations also would've been more reasonable, making him seem more obvious at the time. After Terry, pretty much everyone was expecting a notable third-party to cap off the first pass.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

So what you're saying is that the TRUE way to play competitive Smash is like this?
View attachment 273436

But wait there's more.

 

[ALongWistfulSquiggle]

Less bad? I guess that's what I'm trying to say?

Like, if Byleth had been revealed when Hero was, people would still have been angry, but expectations also would've been more reasonable, making him seem more obvious at the time. After Terry, pretty much everyone was expecting a notable third-party to cap off the first pass.

Hmm. As far as tempering expectations, you're probably right. People wouldn't have been as attached to the idea of third party only. It would push the end of the pass to actually being a third party, though. I don't know how that would have affected speculation for the second pass.

Had two seasons been planned from the beginning I would've put the ARMS rep around Hero's inclusion for sure. Then I would put Byleth as the beginning of pass 2. That honestly would have had better reception. I guess the outcome of these placements might depend on who the rest of the fighters are, and we don't know that yet. ARMS as fighter 6 could seem like a perfect or terrible placement later on depending on who we get.

 

[TheHeartbreakKid]

I guess the outcome of these placements might depend on who the rest of the fighters are, and we don't know that yet. ARMS as fighter 6 could seem like a perfect or terrible placement later on depending on who we get.

Again, I really wanna be careful about saying this, cause ARMS is wicked dope and I have no doubt that whoever the character is, they will be a fantastic roster addition. However...

Aside from another Fire Emblem rep or a Pokémon rep, I can't even FATHOM what character would be a more deflating first-reveal for FP2 than ARMS.

Maybe Nintendo's strategy is "completely backend all the hype, and ease them in with ARMS"?

 

[RetrogamerMax]

When Ultimate was announced, I figured he'd be a lock for base roster. The fact that he STILL hasn't appeared as DLC is frankly mind-blowing to me.

The only reason I won't officially call him a lock (which I confidently did with Banjo right before the Shinobi leak, due to the frankly absurd amount of assuring signals coalescing at the time) is because... why not earlier?

Ubisoft and Nintendo share an almost creepy level of closeness these days. Mario + Rabbids showed that the two companies collaborate very well together, and that the Rayman universe mixes very well with Mario's aesthetic. Ubisoft clearly want Rayman in Smash over any other character (what with their overeagerness to supply a full 3D model for just a trophy in Smash 4, and the shameless amount of Smash-baiting/teasing they've done with the character), and the ArtsyOmni leak occurred early enough in Ultimate development for both companies to see how well-received Rayman's potential inclusion was by the Smash fanbase, and how disappointed people were to find out it wasn't really happening.

Tbh, I feel like the biggest knock against Rayman's chances are that it HASN'T happened already. If Nintendo wanted to do it, certainly it would've happened in the FIRST round of DLC, right? It's not like there were any legal or logistical hurdles to getting him in, so if he were coming, why did Nintendo seemingly pass over him already when the first pass was decided on? Unless the narrative of "only one pass was initially planned" isn't entirely accurate.

Like I mentioned earlier, I think one of the reasons that could be preventing Rayman from getting in is his franchise not doing so well in Japan. But really that shouldn't keep him from getting in by any means. Metroid is mostly popular in the west while it's not so much in the east. Dragon Quest is insanely popular in the east while it's not so much in the west. Rayman has more than enough going for him to warrant a inclusion into Smash.

 

[Shinuto]

I keep saying this but I'm fairly certain the main reason Rayman even appears in Smash at all is because of the fact that Nintendo published Rayman Legends in Japan. Same thing with Shovel Knight.

The biggest indicator to me there is the fact that the all of the Rayman and Shovel Knight spirits are grouped with the misc. Nintendo IPs like ARMS and Sushi Striker in the spirits inventory, rather than being jammed in at the end with Bomberman, Akira and Shantae.

What does that mean for Shantae then? A non AT, non playable 3rd party who also has an online icon, that Rayman DID NOT get

Her having an online tag icon is really fishy to me.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

Revealing Byleth and the ARMS character back-to-back wasn't the problem. In all honesty, both feel like standard additions to the roster.

Hate me for saying it, but revealing four third-parties back-to-back is what's to blame. People have the mentality that Smash DLC is synonymous with third-parties, even though there's nothing that suggests that. Now all of the shill pick characters that people were predicting back in 2018 before Joker existed are controversial, even though a lot of people at that time were mentally prepared and ready to accept reps for ARMS, XC2, 3H, and SwSh.

I'm hoping that Byleth and ARMS will be enough to steer people back to the ways of base roster speculation, because in hindsight, Nintendo choosing an ARMS rep isn't that unexpected. We were just blinded by patterns, which is why I believe it would've been best to reveal Byleth somewhere in the middle of the first pass instead of making him dead last when everyone was expecting third-party #5.

I don't think it would have been a wise decision to put Byleth as a E3 reveal last year instead of Hero or Banjo & Kazooie. Byleth got enough hate from the fans, could you imagine what peoples' reaction would have been if Byleth was a E3 reveal instead of a huge fan favorite like Banjo & Kazooie people would be knocking on Nintendo's door with pitchforks. E3 is where the big fish get announced.

 

[GoodGrief741]

I don't think it would have been a wise decision to put Byleth as a E3 reveal last year instead of Hero or Banjo & Kazooie. Byleth got enough hate from the fans, could you imagine what peoples' reaction would have been if Byleth was a E3 reveal instead of a huge fan favorite like Banjo & Kazooie people would be knocking on Nintendo's door with pitchforks. E3 is where the big fish get announced.

I think they meant to reveal Byleth instead of Hero.

It's a valid point, too. Sure, that moves Byleth to before 3H's release and that makes him more akin to Corrin, but at the same time revealing a character next to Banjo-freaking-Kazooie is probably the safest bet at harnessing those brief moments of "I'll never ask for anything again!"

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

I don’t think Nintendo swapped around any of the pass. I’m 100% sure everything was revealed in the order it was originally planned. People are kind of underestimating the difficulty of “simply changing the order” of the passes. Plans are made well ahead and I’m sure those plans stick to the plan. If not. A WHOOOOOOLE lotta juggling has to go on with a lot of different parties for a shuffle to happen.

 

[Arcanir]

I doubt that Hero and Byleth were switched.

• We already know with Banjo that they started discussions and development on the character about a year before his release. Hero probably would've had the same amount of time devoted to their development and they released a couple months earlier then Banjo.
• Hero's (or rather, 'Brave's') data was found in the game's code alongside Piranha Plant and Joker early on in Ultimate's release, they were the first two DLC characters and that was about six months before Hero's release.
• A SE character was rumored even during pre-Ultimate's release period.

Take that together and it's pretty clear that Hero was likely pegged and slotted in early on in DLC discussions. It's very unlikely Byleth was switched with them considering the development timeline that we have access to.

 

[Dinoman96]

What does that mean for Shantae then? A non AT, non playable 3rd party who also has an online icon, that Rayman DID NOT get

Her having an online tag icon is really fishy to me.

A very weird outlier in the base game.

She probably did well enough on the ballot to be acknowledged, so they contacted Wayforward about it to get two spirits from it.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I can clearly imagine that Hero and BK were always meant to be the E3 reveals.

It's no secret that E3 is the big event for American (and Western in general) gamers, so they'd naturally want to reveal the big characters for the westerners there. BK obviously since they're western in the first place and have been hotly requested, and Hero since the DQ developers are desperately trying to get the USA to be more interested in the series.

If Byleth could have taken any other slot to 'soften the blow,' as it were, it would have been the September reveal. There's no big event there to match up with, and then you wouldn't have the "this is the last character" angst thrown in.

Still, I'm not sure that Byleth was switched with anyone. If they had been, it would make more sense for them to have originally been in season 2 and they decided to bump them forward for any number of reasons: the 'last character' could now be a big name reveal in season 2, they could have been trying to push Byleth closer to their release, they could be trying to meet some other anniversary, they could even have had some technical issues. Heck, they could have just seen everyone talking about an all-third-party pass and said "this'll show them!"

Now with the lockdown, they could also have reshuffled to put ARMS first to give more time for finalizing the other characters as the world starts to reopen, but it comes to the same end: who cares if anyone got shuffled around? At the end, there's a near-zero percent chance that they dropped any of the DLC characters they had planned and negotiated on, so we just get them in a different order.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Sakurai's Pic of the Day.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Digital Hazard]

The trailer for the last Three Houses DLC was released the same as Byleth's reveal.

How are people thinking they were swapped for someone else or that they didn't have any promotional intentions befhind their inclusion?

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I know Nintendo usually stay away from doing statements such as these but it would be nice if they said something about the situation, despite of being a very japanese centric company.

Nintendo being Japan centric means they'd have more reason to speak out, Japan's protesting against police brutality too after an unlawful and violent arrest of a Kurdish man, Shibuya was filled with protesters.

Also people who had issues with Byleth wouldn't magically not have those issues if they were significantly later or even after the characters they wanted so much they'd never ask for anything again

 

[Ben Holt]

So there's a private Nintendo video.
Spring Man incoming?

 

[Digital Hazard]

So there's a private Nintendo video.
Spring Man incoming?

Most likely Pokémon DLC

 

[Cutie Gwen]

So there's a private Nintendo video.
Spring Man incoming?

Nintendo often privates old ads they have, so there's a decent chance it means literally nothing

 

[Ben Holt]

Nintendo often privates old ads they have, so there's a decent chance it means literally nothing

True, but it IS June, E3 Season (despite being cancelled, many games were definitely planned for reveal at this time), and Zippo said that this is going to be a big week, not just Thursday.

 

[andree123]

I'd probably have reason to believe it if the player is Jon Cartwright, he's their resident insider. But even then it looks like Gamefaqs users are reading too much into it:

https://twitter.com/MrNintendo97/status/1267030529775333376

Had anyone saw this?

 

[ZenythSmash]

I think the whole "BTFO culture" thing kinda plays it into it

A lot of people treat assist trophies and spirits as basically the ultimate humilation. Just look at all those creepy 4chan fanart of K. Rool violently eating/killing/beating up Ashley after he was confirmed as a fighter and she was confirmed as an AT.

As Goombaic said on the other page, there really are a lot of people that don't want the likes of Spring Man or Min Min upgraded because it'd supposedly give hope for spirited/assisted characters like Waluigi and Geno, both of which are frequently mocked amongst 4chan Smash discussions and they want those characters to forever remain "BTFO'd". Case in point this recent post:

View attachment 272778

OR maybe that anon just wanted to post a Malos image and speak characteristically, hahahaha

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

Had anyone saw this?

There’s nothing to see. He even says that’s not even him playing the game in that video.

 

[Mamboo07]

I think the whole "BTFO culture" thing kinda plays it into it

A lot of people treat assist trophies and spirits as basically the ultimate humilation. Just look at all those creepy 4chan fanart of K. Rool violently eating/killing/beating up Ashley after he was confirmed as a fighter and she was confirmed as an AT.

As Goombaic said on the other page, there really are a lot of people that don't want the likes of Spring Man or Min Min upgraded because it'd supposedly give hope for spirited/assisted characters like Waluigi and Geno, both of which are frequently mocked amongst 4chan Smash discussions and they want those characters to forever remain "BTFO'd". Case in point this recent post:

View attachment 272778

About the K. Rool Ashley thing, you mean something like this?

Spoiler

 

[PSIGuy]

"The problem was it's all third parties! Our hopes were too high"
"The problem was it was an anime sword fighter! We all know Smash fans were biased!"
"The problem was the DMC reveal on the same day sent people mixed signals! People only hate Byleth because they're not Dante!"
"The problem was people thought it was the end of all the DLC! They expected it to be big or they hate it for being the last thing we got!"
"The problem was this that these those thus and such!"

The problem is that it was Byleth. There would be literally no good time to add another Fire Emblem character because any Fire Emblem character you announce is still the 8th Fire Emblem character, and would still tap into the same wellspring of negativity that was always waiting for them. There are dozens of Nintendo characters and 'anime swordfighters' who would've gone over as good additions. Isaac fits snugly into both categories, even. We already knew there was going to be more DLC. The reveal of an ARMS fighter was met with indifference at worst; you could probably assume the promotion of any franchise that only had supporting content would be met the same way.

There was no other character who could take advantage of so many existing factors to create the most negatively received Smash DLC yet. Just as a great speech must take advantage of ethos (appeal to ethics), pathos (appeal to emotion) and logos (appeal to logic) at the right time and place (kairos), so too does a terrible Smash character build off existing expectations, lingering negativity and poor timing/presentation to deliver the absolute worst reveal possible. No other reveal could thread that needle.

And holy crap it's been like half a year since they were added. God, what a way to start 2020. Truly Byleth's year.

 

[Ben Holt]

"The problem was it's all third parties! Our hopes were too high"
"The problem was it was an anime sword fighter! We all know Smash fans were biased!"
"The problem was the DMC reveal on the same day sent people mixed signals! People only hate Byleth because they're not Dante!"
"The problem was people thought it was the end of all the DLC! They expected it to be big or they hate it for being the last thing we got!"
"The problem was this that these those thus and such!"

The problem is that it was Byleth. There would be literally no good time to add another Fire Emblem character because any Fire Emblem character you announce is still the 8th Fire Emblem character, and would still tap into the same wellspring of negativity that was always waiting for them. There are dozens of Nintendo characters and 'anime swordfighters' who would've gone over as good additions. Isaac fits snugly into both categories, even. We already knew there was going to be more DLC. The reveal of an ARMS fighter was met with indifference at worst; you could probably assume the promotion of any franchise that only had supporting content would be met the same way.

There was no other character who could take advantage of so many existing factors to create the most negatively received Smash DLC yet. Just as a great speech must take advantage of ethos (appeal to ethics), pathos (appeal to emotion) and logos (appeal to logic) at the right time and place (kairos), so too does a terrible Smash character build off existing expectations, lingering negativity and poor timing/presentation to deliver the absolute worst reveal possible. No other reveal could thread that needle.

And holy crap it's been like half a year since they were added. God, what a way to start 2020. Truly Byleth's year.

Byleth was coming anyway, as it's the best selling Fire Emblem game ever.
Honestly, it's worse that we got random marketing characters.
Our Fire Emblem cast should have been Marth, Ike, Chrom, Byleth to coincide with the most iconic games in the series.
But now that we have 8 Fire Emblem characters, I'm forced to defend them all, as the one thing I hate more than Fire Emblem overrepresentation is cutting characters. Once a Smash Bro., always a Smash Bro.

 

[ZelDan]

There isn't a problem with Byleth at all. As far as FE characters go Byleth is one of the more unique characters and Three Houses is one of the most successful and popular FE games in the series.

There isn't even an issue with Fire Emblem getting an 8th rep. The issue is that people seem to have some "playable characters per sales" mindset, while ignoring countless other factors, such as legacy. FE maybe doesn't have the sales that other franchises have, but FE is a franchise that has existed ever since the NES era and has existed before many other franchises in Smash, and has consistently seen game releases since that time too.

When it comes to Smash content, people only seem to focus on playable characters and ignore literally every other gameplay element in Smash; there's just too much tunnel vision. yes, FE has a couple more playable characters than Zelda, but then Zelda has more content than FE in almost every other way. And no, just because some people don't care about nonplayabl content as much or at all doesn't mean there doesn't exist people that DO, not to mention that regardless of how people feel about it nonplayable content is still content that Sakurai and his team had to put alot of work and time into, work and time that could have gone into anything else but didn't.

honestly, on top of all this, it just seems silly how only FE seems to get this "overrepresentation" complaint. I mean, Animal Crossing is a much bigger deal nowadays compared to stuff like Star Fox and Kid Icarus, yet AC has less playable characters than both franchises. Where's the complaints of "over-representation" with SF and KI? Kid Icarus had some of it back during Smash 4 but I don't see anyone making said complaints now despite the fact that KI still has more playable characters compared to bigger franchises. Some people might be willing to bring up "legacy" for SF or KI but then why the hell wouldn't that count for FE for the reasons I brought up before?

There are issues and complaints that could be had with FE's representation in Smash:

-of the 8 characters, 3 characters from Awakening. I get Awakening was a huge deal for FE but sheesh, I think 2 was just fine.
-4 movesets that are pretty similar to eachother (Marth, Roy, Lucina, Chrom) Obviously these characters aren't completely 100% the same (not even Lucina) but are still similar enough to not really be exciting on the moveset front
-The weapons triangle doesn't exist outside of Byleth
-Still no villain or antagonist. Every other major Nintendo franchise has gotten this, why not FE? black Knight would be cool, or a certain character from Three Houses.
-One thing that really disappoints me is the fact that Fire Emblem 7 doesn't have a playable rep, you know, the first game to release outside Japan and introduce FE to almost every non-Japanese person.

So yeah, FE's representation has problems, but the fact that it has 8 character ain't one of them. Quite frankly if the above issues were addressed, I'd have absolutely no issues with FE having 8 characters.

 

[snowgolem]

Not trying to start an argument, or call anybody out, I'm just genuinely curious

how come when people are complaining about the lack of Zelda characters, they will exclude clones as 'actual characters'
But when they're complaining about FE characters, they'll make sure to count all the clones out as if they were unique?

 

[GoodGrief741]

I doubt that Hero and Byleth were switched.

• We already know with Banjo that they started discussions and development on the character about a year before his release. Hero probably would've had the same amount of time devoted to their development and they released a couple months earlier then Banjo.
• Hero's (or rather, 'Brave's') data was found in the game's code alongside Piranha Plant and Joker early on in Ultimate's release, they were the first two DLC characters and that was about six months before Hero's release.
• A SE character was rumored even during pre-Ultimate's release period.

Take that together and it's pretty clear that Hero was likely pegged and slotted in early on in DLC discussions. It's very unlikely Byleth was switched with them considering the development timeline that we have access to.

I can clearly imagine that Hero and BK were always meant to be the E3 reveals.

It's no secret that E3 is the big event for American (and Western in general) gamers, so they'd naturally want to reveal the big characters for the westerners there. BK obviously since they're western in the first place and have been hotly requested, and Hero since the DQ developers are desperately trying to get the USA to be more interested in the series.

If Byleth could have taken any other slot to 'soften the blow,' as it were, it would have been the September reveal. There's no big event there to match up with, and then you wouldn't have the "this is the last character" angst thrown in.

Still, I'm not sure that Byleth was switched with anyone. If they had been, it would make more sense for them to have originally been in season 2 and they decided to bump them forward for any number of reasons: the 'last character' could now be a big name reveal in season 2, they could have been trying to push Byleth closer to their release, they could be trying to meet some other anniversary, they could even have had some technical issues. Heck, they could have just seen everyone talking about an all-third-party pass and said "this'll show them!"

Now with the lockdown, they could also have reshuffled to put ARMS first to give more time for finalizing the other characters as the world starts to reopen, but it comes to the same end: who cares if anyone got shuffled around? At the end, there's a near-zero percent chance that they dropped any of the DLC characters they had planned and negotiated on, so we just get them in a different order.

The trailer for the last Three Houses DLC was released the same as Byleth's reveal.

How are people thinking they were swapped for someone else or that they didn't have any promotional intentions befhind their inclusion?

I think you're replying to my post, looking at it it isn't clear. I didn't mean that Byleth was swapped with Hero, that's bonkers, I just tried to clarify that it's what another user suggested would have been better. Tried and failed, it seems.

 

[NeonBurrito]

I don’t think Nintendo swapped around any of the pass. I’m 100% sure everything was revealed in the order it was originally planned. People are kind of underestimating the difficulty of “simply changing the order” of the passes. Plans are made well ahead and I’m sure those plans stick to the plan. If not. A WHOOOOOOLE lotta juggling has to go on with a lot of different parties for a shuffle to happen.

This 100%. Nintendo is nowhere near as clueless as people are suspecting. In fact, I'll go even further and say that Nintendo purposefully chose ARMS as the first fighter of the 2nd pass for the same reason they chose Joker for the first. Joker was there to represent what the pass was going to consist of: unexpected, not necessarily highly requested (aside from Banjo), third party characters from franchises that had yet to be represented in Smash. I believe that the ARMS character is similarly going to represent the 2nd pass: more predictable, first party picks one would more expect see in the base game for Smash rather than DLC.

Of course there's exceptions to the rule (Byleth in pass 1, obviously) and I don't think the pass will be completely first party, but Joker set up what the first pass was going to be near perfectly and I believe the ARMS character is doing the same again. The people who think that "Nintendo's juggling the characters around because of corona!" don't understand how unfeasible drastically shifting release schedules around is, especially if they were third party characters. I think a whole lot of people are setting their expectations way too high because of the four third party characters in the first pass and are going to be very disappointed in the pass when it consists mainly of more predictable characters.

 

[Shroob]

This 100%. Nintendo is nowhere near as clueless as people are suspecting. In fact, I'll go even further and say that Nintendo purposefully chose ARMS as the first fighter of the 2nd pass for the same reason they chose Joker for the first. Joker was there to represent what the pass was going to consist of: unexpected, not necessarily highly requested (aside from Banjo), third party characters from franchises that had yet to be represented in Smash. I believe that the ARMS character is similarly going to represent the 2nd pass: more predictable, first party picks one would more expect see in the base game for Smash rather than DLC.

Of course there's exceptions to the rule (Byleth in pass 1, obviously) and I don't think the pass will be completely first party, but Joker set up what the first pass was going to be near perfectly and I believe the ARMS character is doing the same again. The people who think that "Nintendo's juggling the characters around because of corona!" don't understand how unfeasible drastically shifting release schedules around is, especially if they were third party characters. I think a whole lot of people are setting their expectations way too high because of the four third party characters in the first pass and are going to be very disappointed in the pass when it consists mainly of more predictable characters.

Honestly, it feels foolish to make judgement on the first character of the pass for FP2.


The fact of the matter is, we won't really know until character 3-4 what the 'theme' of this pass will be. They could slap us with ARMs and another 1st party IP, and then slam us with 4 3rd parties, or just go straight up all 1st/3rd party, or a mix of both. We just don't have enough information with 1/6 characters.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Not trying to start an argument, or call anybody out, I'm just genuinely curious

how come when people are complaining about the lack of Zelda characters, they will exclude clones as 'actual characters'
But when they're complaining about FE characters, they'll make sure to count all the clones out as if they were unique?

Simply because they're fans of the Zelda series and people just naturally tilt things in their own favour when debating.
Either that or they're two different groups with the one arguing for character representation and one arguing against moveset over-saturation.
It's hard to debate with the net as you're arguing against a bunch of people at once who haven't swapped debate team notes.

 

[DarthEnderX]

Not trying to start an argument, or call anybody out, I'm just genuinely curious

how come when people are complaining about the lack of Zelda characters, they will exclude clones as 'actual characters'
But when they're complaining about FE characters, they'll make sure to count all the clones out as if they were unique?

Well, to be fair, despite being clones, none of the Zelda characters are technically echoes.

But yes. Either Zelda has 6 characters and FE has 8, or Zelda has 4(3) characters and FE has 5.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

There isn't a problem with Byleth at all. As far as FE characters go Byleth is one of the more unique characters and Three Houses is one of the most successful and popular FE games in the series.

There isn't even an issue with Fire Emblem getting an 8th rep. The issue is that people seem to have some "playable characters per sales" mindset, while ignoring countless other factors, such as legacy. FE maybe doesn't have the sales that other franchises have, but FE is a franchise that has existed ever since the NES era and has existed before many other franchises in Smash, and has consistently seen game releases since that time too.

When it comes to Smash content, people only seem to focus on playable characters and ignore literally every other gameplay element in Smash; there's just too much tunnel vision. yes, FE has a couple more playable characters than Zelda, but then Zelda has more content than FE in almost every other way. And no, just because some people don't care about nonplayabl content as much or at all doesn't mean there doesn't exist people that DO, not to mention that regardless of how people feel about it nonplayable content is still content that Sakurai and his team had to put alot of work and time into, work and time that could have gone into anything else but didn't.

honestly, on top of all this, it just seems silly how only FE seems to get this "overrepresentation" complaint. I mean, Animal Crossing is a much bigger deal nowadays compared to stuff like Star Fox and Kid Icarus, yet AC has less playable characters than both franchises. Where's the complaints of "over-representation" with SF and KI? Kid Icarus had some of it back during Smash 4 but I don't see anyone making said complaints now despite the fact that KI still has more playable characters compared to bigger franchises. Some people might be willing to bring up "legacy" for SF or KI but then why the hell wouldn't that count for FE for the reasons I brought up before?

There are issues and complaints that could be had with FE's representation in Smash:

-of the 8 characters, 3 characters from Awakening. I get Awakening was a huge deal for FE but sheesh, I think 2 was just fine.
-4 movesets that are pretty similar to eachother (Marth, Roy, Lucina, Chrom) Obviously these characters aren't completely 100% the same (not even Lucina) but are still similar enough to not really be exciting on the moveset front
-The weapons triangle doesn't exist outside of Byleth
-Still no villain or antagonist. Every other major Nintendo franchise has gotten this, why not FE? black Knight would be cool, or a certain character from Three Houses.
-One thing that really disappoints me is the fact that Fire Emblem 7 doesn't have a playable rep, you know, the first game to release outside Japan and introduce FE to almost every non-Japanese person.

So yeah, FE's representation has problems, but the fact that it has 8 character ain't one of them. Quite frankly if the above issues were addressed, I'd have absolutely no issues with FE having 8 characters.

There wasn't just a bit of criticism over KI's overrepresentation in Smash 4, it got lambasted just as hard as FE does these days, at least on these boards. Not just because it got two newcomers, but also two new stages, a ton of items, and iirc it also had the most enemies in Smash Run out of any series. It got the deluxe treatment, and it goes to show that it's not necessarily a choice between new characters and other forms of representation, as you can easily get both.

People don't complain about KI and Star Fox overrepresentation anymore though (although both got that criticism at one point), because three characters really aren't that much in the current roster. You don't see comparisons between them and AC because that's just a case of AC being underrepresented as a result of how late it got its first playable character, Star Fox already had its entire current cast in Smash before AC even made it onto the roster, so there's never been much reason to compare those series. Back when the complaints existed about those series being overrepresented it was because people felt that DKC and Metroid were underrepresented, and that was easier to compare back then as those series were building up their representation at the same time, where as AC only arrived at the next train.

Also, while I absolutely agree about there being issues with how FE is represented, I think it's important to realize that it simply wouldn't have 8 characters if it didn't get so many promotional characters. Legacy Fire Emblem characters have never actually competed with the characters we did get, because a big part of Nintendo's intention with putting Fire Emblem characters into Smash is to promote new releases, and not necessarily to represent the series as a whole. If that hadn't been the case, then Fire Emblem probably would be down to something like 4 or 5 characters, since a big reason most of its characters are in is for promotional reasons (Marth and Chrom are the only two outliers), so even if the series had been treated like any other, it still wouldn't have the perfect representation you're describing.

Although I agree with all of your points and would personally love to see Lyn and Black Knight, it's important to realize that the alternative to how the series is currently being handled isn't necessarily that we get those characters, but rather that the series never reaches so many characters where they feel like significant omissions. With that perspective it's pretty clear that Fire Emblem is being treated extremely well, regardless of whatever issues there might be with how it's currently represented.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

There wasn't just a bit of criticism over KI's overrepresentation in Smash 4, it got lambasted just as hard as FE does these days, at least on these boards. Not just because it got two newcomers, but also two new stages, a ton of items, and iirc it also had the most enemies in Smash Run out of any series. It got the deluxe treatment, and it goes to show that it's not necessarily a choice between new characters and other forms of representation, as you can easily get both.

People don't complain about KI and Star Fox overrepresentation anymore though (although both got that criticism at one point), because three characters really aren't that much in the current roster. You don't see comparisons between them and AC because that's just a case of AC being underrepresented as a result of how late it got its first playable character, Star Fox already had its entire current cast in Smash before AC even made it onto the roster, so there's never been much reason to compare those series. Back when the complaints existed about those series being overrepresented it was because people felt that DKC and Metroid were underrepresented, and that was easier to compare back then as those series were building up their representation at the same time, where as AC only arrived at the next train.

Also, while I absolutely agree about there being issues with how FE is represented, I think it's important to realize that it simply wouldn't have 8 characters if it didn't get so many promotional characters. Legacy Fire Emblem characters have never actually competed with the characters we did get, because Nintendo's intention with putting Fire Emblem characters into Smash is primarily to promote new releases, and not necessarily to represent the series as a whole. If that hadn't been the case, then Fire Emblem probably would be down to something like 4 or 5 characters, since the primary reason most of its characters are in is for promotional reason (Marth and Chrom are the only two outliers), so even if the series had been treated like any other, it still wouldn't have the perfect representation you're describing. Although I agree with all of your points and would personally love to see Lyn and Black Knight, it's important to realize that the alternative to how the series is currently being handled isn't necessarily that we get those characters, but rather that the series never reaches so many characters where they feel like significant omissions, and with that perspective it's pretty clear that Fire Emblem is being treated extremely well, regardless of whatever issues there might be with how it's currently represented.

I'd dispute Ike and Robin (and Lucina) being a promotional picks but if your definition of promotional in this case is "from most recent game" then I agree with the rest of it.