Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[BlondeLombax]

I think it really was just the language barrier. People who speak both Swedish and Japanese are relatively rare in and of themselves, let alone finding someone who speaks both languages and would be comfortable translating a multimillion dollar contract full of legal jargon. It's likely they had to use English as a common language and then translate from there to their respective languages.

There's also the fact that Sakurai likes to have both the opinions and approval of the original game's devs, which further compounded the language barrier.

Don’t forget about the fact that Minecraft is made by a Swedish team, meaning there’s a lot more to it than getting in contact with Microsoft in America.

 

[Icedragonadam]

You know considering that perhaps Rathalos could have been planned to be the Ender Dragon as his code name is End Dragon. Maybe 9.0.0's new feature could be a boss rush mode with new bosses like the Ender Dragon. And they would replace the Master Hand and Crazy Hand boss fights for some of the characters.

 

[SharkLord]

So riddle me this.

Challenger Pack 6 is Min Min. She was an E3 pick, and paired with an ARMS demo. This clearly, to me at least, seems like an attempt for a second wind for a game that lost a lot of steam after some time.

Do we really think that Nintendo would want to push Min Min, only to crush that effort by revealing Minecraft? That would be arguably the most bone headed thing they could do.

I think it was Min Min, and ONLY Min Min.

I don't even think Min Min was planned to be an E3 reveal in the first place. They stated that the ARMS rep had to be delayed so the team could work on it more back when we went through the guessing game. I think CP7 and CP8 were meant to be E3 reveals, but then Min Min had to be delayed because of her screwy control scheme, and then COVID kicked in, and THEN E3 got canceled, shunting everyone back a fair distance.

 

[I.D.]

There you people go, acting like different characters don't have different reasons behind them. I don't know if it's recency bias or what.

 

[GoodGrief741]

Not gonna lie, this is actually insane.

Not to mention, remember IAmShifty's Hayabusa rumors? From the source that gave him Piranha Plant? They would become a lot more likely if we could potentially have this much of a delay between when info on a character first comes around and when the character is revealed.

In a strange way, this kinda reminds me of Gematsu, even.

****, if we really are looking at potential years-long negotiations, then any leak that was thought disproven because the DLC cycle ended could still turn out to be true.

shudders in Hitagi

I think it really was just the language barrier. People who speak both Swedish and Japanese are relatively rare in and of themselves, let alone finding someone who speaks both languages and would be comfortable translating a multimillion dollar contract full of legal jargon. It's likely they had to use English as a common language and then translate from there to their respective languages.

There's also the fact that Sakurai likes to have both the opinions and approval of the original game's devs, which further compounded the language barrier.

This is a possibility, but would they really have spoken to the Minecraft devs? We know Sakurai likes to do that, but I doubt Notch would have been contacted, after how Mojang and Microsoft (understandably) distanced themselves from him. And it's not like Steve is this complex character that's hard to get right in design. I would have thought they'd just run things by the higher ups at Microsoft and that's it.

 

[TheBeastHimself]

There you people go, acting like different characters don't have different reasons behind them. I don't know if it's recency bias or what.

Without naming names, what specifically are you referring to?

 

[SKX31]

I think Lucario needs a bit of a rework. His attacks are probably fine, but his Aura probably needs to be more than a simple damage scale. Maybe make his moves combo oriented at low percents and kill oriented with high percents.

Dr. Mario should get a total makeover if he appears again. I'd much rather see him use Dr. Mario inspired mechanics than Mario's old moveset. Also, taking a somewhat speedy brawler and making him slower was a silly idea.

Oh yeah, I can honestly see that. I do wonder if Aura would have to be reworked a bit to account for Rage in that scenario, then again, we already have several characters who can kill ridicolously early if the pieces fall together. So that might actually work.

While Dr Mario feels like a wasted opportunity (now that he's returned twice) I'm not entirely sure he needs a total makeover. In Smash 6 they could change how Pill / Cape works and a couple other aspects.

I feel like just giving Lucario some frame data buffs would help him a lot. He's just kind of slow for what he is without aura. If he were to be a bit faster to attack it be really nice.

Completely agree with a pill buff for Doc. He mostly just struggles in neutral and that could be the ticket he needs.

I wish Ganon could get some love, too, but I feel like his general design is what's holding him back more than any weaknesses in the moves themselves. The only things I could see helping him a lot at this point would be to let him act after a whiffed aerial side-B or to give him throw combos.

Is Bowser Jr considered kind of bad, or do people think he's good and just don't use him? I haven't gone into competitive viability discussions in a while, so I don't know.

The Google Doc in question (which uses the methodology).

I do agree that it's Ganondorf's general design that's the problem here - he doesn't need to have a sluggish neutral, terrible disadvantage and horrible recovery rolled into one for all that power he has. Either throw combos (what he had in Melee) or maybe even if they're riskier give him his float (for a short while). That way, they make his recovery a bit better but more technical so it isn't easy to pull off.

IIRC Bowser Jr.'s in a weird position. A couple pros rank him in the middle-of-the-pack, but there are also three pros that see him still as Bottom 10. The problem he has is that he lacks out of shield stuff and is susceptible to gimps. He could use some buffs, but I'm not sure where. His frame data maybe?

I think it really was just the language barrier. People who speak both Swedish and Japanese are relatively rare in and of themselves, let alone finding someone who speaks both languages and would be comfortable translating a multimillion dollar contract full of legal jargon. It's likely they had to use English as a common language and then translate from there to their respective languages.

There's also the fact that Sakurai likes to have both the opinions and approval of the original game's devs, which further compounded the language barrier.

A lot of Swedes (especially in the tech sector, like Bergensten) learn English to a fluent degree nowadays - it's the second language from as early as 4th grade. And many kids do get exposed to American media (incl. video games) alike the rest of the EU. Subs are also prevalent since unlike the bigger EU countries (France, Germany), there's not as much incentive to dub stuff - animated / child-friendly films are dubbed and that's kinda that. Swedish is spoken here as well as a minority in Finland... and that's pretty much it. There's a much larger audience that speak French / German / Italian / Spanish.

Edit: Misread the whole thing completely, thanks GoodGrief741 .

 

[GoodGrief741]

Oh yeah, I can honestly see that. I do wonder if Aura would have to be reworked a bit to account for Rage in that scenario, then again, we already have several characters who can kill ridicolously early if the pieces fall together. So that might actually work.

While Dr Mario feels like a wasted opportunity (now that he's returned twice) I'm not entirely sure he needs a total makeover. In Smash 6 they could change how Pill / Cape works and a couple other aspects.



The Google Doc in question (which uses the methodology).

I do agree that it's Ganondorf's general design that's the problem here - he doesn't need to have a sluggish neutral, terrible disadvantage and horrible recovery rolled into one for all that power he has. Either throw combos (what he had in Melee) or maybe even if they're riskier giving him his float. Make his recovery a bit better but more technical so it isn't easy to pull off.

IIRC Bowser Jr.'s in a weird position. A couple pros rank him in the middle-of-the-pack, but there are also three pros that see him still as Bottom 10. The problem he has is that he lacks out of shield stuff and is susceptible to gimps. He could use some buffs, but I'm not sure where. His frame data maybe?



A lot of Swedes (especially in the tech sector, like Bergensten) learn English to a fluent degree nowadays - it's the second language from as early as 4th grade. And many kids do get exposed to American media (incl. video games) alike the rest of the EU. Subs are also prevalent since unlike the bigger EU countries (France, Germany), there's not as much incentive to dub stuff - animated / child-friendly films are dubbed and that's kinda that. Swedish is spoken here as well as a minority in Finland... and that's pretty much it. There's a much larger audience that speak French / German / Italian / Spanish.

I don't think Mojang's Swedish employees would be much of a hindrance.

The problem isn't how many Swedes speak English though, it's how many of them speak Japanese. You don't draft a contract through two translators, that's just looking for something to get lost in translation.

 

[pupNapoleon]

I've realized... more than anything, I want more fighting game characters.
Even series that arent at my top, like Darkstalkers or Guilty Gears. (Though, I really hope we get Tekken and Mortal Kombat).

I dream of that true 8 player smash.
So far we have Ryu (I'm not counting Ken), Min Min, Terry.... and...I'll count Little Mac.
Wow. This cannot happen.

 

[cosmicB]

So I just realized that Smash now has the highest selling single game of all time (Minecraft), the highest selling video game franchise (Mario), and the highest grossing media franchise of all time (Pokemon).

You quite literally can't get bigger than what we have in the world of not only gaming, but media in general. To go any bigger would require Sakurai to not only break his rules on non-gaming franchises, but on fiction in general. We'd need a widely known public figure like Jesus to top what we have.

 

[I.D.]

Without naming names, what specifically are you referring to?

Well we just got the most sold game in the world so every character has to be a mega-promo in disguise. It's so funny that people still insist on forcing that argument for Min Min. Where's ARMS 2? What happened to all those plans? Did they even start printing physical copies of the game again? Pretty sure they didn't. So far the ARMS "second wind" has only amounted to a 1 week trial that had already happened multiple times.

The notion that Nintendo wouldn't drop the Minecraft nuke at E3 in fear of cockblocking potential sales for a 3 year old game no longer in print is, frankly, completely ridiculous. Let's stop pretending Min Min was some sort of huge attempt to "resurrect" ARMS please.

 

[Iko MattOrr]

All things considered I find personality a pretty unimportant facet of Smash implementation or merit in a character's favour (which is good for Steve), considering how many characters have the personality of cardboard and how little it informs the actual gameplay of the character. That said, I think Steve's pose in his art is fairly lifeless, though that's certainly not the main drive of my sentiment. Nor even are the animations.

I just notice that almost all the mockups and renders done (which are presumably made by the fans of the character) are of him with a more clean look aimed, presumably, to capture the Smash aesthetic. And now that there's a bit of dissonance between what some of the fans created, and what came to fruition in Smash, Steve being represented in a Smash style is now being criticized within the Smash fandom.

I can see why people don't like him, especially the way how he's presented in Smash, but I'm personally ok with it. The pose is dull, ok, but that fact of it being dull IMO is what makes the character look unique... most fan renders are trying to hide the nature of the character by giving him some more dynamic poses, but he's not dynamic in the actual game, he's just like that. I appreciate how they instead decided to proudly show Steve the way he is, a set of boxes, and that's his strenght point, boxes... he's boxes, the series' icon is a box, his world and its inhabitants are boxes too.

I think the pose is funny because it's weird, and it reminds me of that old "Weegee" meme; also I'm one of the few people who likes the pixelated and blocky arstyle of minecraft, so this may be the reason of why I prefer the more shaded version over the cleaner look.

You'd think, without the influence of Smash, it would be the other way around. And, it has been, to date. Personally, and ofc there are exceptions, but I think it enforces that people will just defend whatever Smash does.

I agree with you, though I'm one of those exceptions: I have been disappointed of Smash stuff several times and I complained a lot of the series; this thing of Steve is one of the few cases where I like the decision taken by the Smash team; though I'm fine with people having different opinions.

Something that I find relevant is that sometimes when a picture is not detailed enough, people see that picture in a different way, and the vision of it may vary from person to person.
In Smash, if I remember, Giga-Bowser is designed after Sakurai's vision of Bowser's sprite in Super Mario Bros 1 on NES

I personally see it as a funny deformed version of Bowser, it seems like he's laughing happily to me... Sakurai has seen a huge and menacing monster in it.

I don't disagree with you, I'm just saying that Steve is too much stylized and weird, so maybe people see it differently.

EDIT: I mean that "smash aesthetic" Steve is subjective too, since you can never have a Steve that perfectly fits Smash unless you drastically alter his design to the point he doesn't fith his origin series anymore.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

I've realized... more than anything, I want more fighting game characters.
Even series that arent at my top, like Darkstalkers or Guilty Gears. (Though, I really hope we get Tekken and Mortal Kombat).

I dream of that true 8 player smash.
So far we have Ryu (I'm not counting Ken), Min Min.... and...I'll count Little Mac.
Wow. This cannot happen.

And Terry?

You could Lucario and Cloud too since they starred in their own fighters.

 

[ALongWistfulSquiggle]

I've realized... more than anything, I want more fighting game characters.
Even series that arent at my top, like Darkstalkers or Guilty Gears. (Though, I really hope we get Tekken and Mortal Kombat).

I dream of that true 8 player smash.
So far we have Ryu (I'm not counting Ken), Min Min.... and...I'll count Little Mac.
Wow. This cannot happen.

Did you forget Terry?

 

[3BitSaurus]

****, if we really are looking at potential years-long negotiations, then any leak that was thought disproven because the DLC cycle ended could still turn out to be true.

shudders in Hitagi

To be fair, there aren't a lot of things left from Hitagi's old rumors.

They were, as far as I remember: Steve, Katalina (they later confirmed this was actually for GBFVS), "a Bandai Namco character" (specifically not Heihachi or Agumon, I believe), "another western character" and Erdrick (turned out to be Hero).

So really, all we'd be missing is a Bamco character and maybe another western rep (if you don't count the fact that Banjo & Kazooie happened).

 

[RouffWestie]

So I just realized that Smash now has the highest selling single game of all time (Minecraft), the highest selling video game franchise (Mario), and the highest grossing media franchise of all time (Pokemon).

You quite literally can't get bigger than what we have in the world of not only gaming, but media in general. To go any bigger would require Sakurai to not only break his rules on non-gaming franchises, but on fiction in general. We'd need a widely known public figure like Jesus to top what we have.

Okay but would Jesus be another camper?

 

[SKX31]

The problem isn't how many Swedes speak English though, it's how many of them speak Japanese. You don't draft a contract through two translators, that's just looking for something to get lost in translation.

Oh yes **** forgot Japanese completely there. Thanks.

Japanese is not part of the standard curriculum here at all (the third - selectable - languages students choose to learn are between German / French / Spanish IIRC), it would have to be through specialist education at high school level or above. Mojang could possibly have a specialist, but yeah, that would be a hindrance.

Okay but would Jesus be another camper?

Hmm... maybe, maybe not?

 

[zeldasmash]

I've realized... more than anything, I want more fighting game characters.
Even series that arent at my top, like Darkstalkers or Guilty Gears. (Though, I really hope we get Tekken and Mortal Kombat).

I dream of that true 8 player smash.
So far we have Ryu (I'm not counting Ken), Min Min.... and...I'll count Little Mac.
Wow. This cannot happen.

You forgetting Terry, my guy.

 

[TheBeastHimself]

Well we just got the most sold game in the world so every character has to be a mega-promo in disguise. It's so funny that people still insist on forcing that argument for Min Min. Where's ARMS 2? What happened to all those plans? Did they even start printing physical copies of the game again? Pretty sure they didn't. So far the ARMS "second wind" has only amounted to a 1 week trial that had already happened multiple times.

The notion that Nintendo wouldn't drop the Minecraft nuke at E3 in fear of cockblocking potential sales for a 3 year old game no longer in print is, frankly, completely ridiculous. Let's stop pretending Min Min was some sort of huge attempt to "resurrect" ARMS please.

Agreed. I believe Nintendo wanted to rep one of their new franchises, that's all. There's nothing promotional about Min Min like there was Corrin, for example. But, you can make the argument that every character is a promotional pick because Smash Bros. is the one advertisement that people enjoy.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

So has this place finally settled down now?

 

[Garteam]

This is a possibility, but would they really have spoken to the Minecraft devs? We know Sakurai likes to do that, but I doubt Notch would have been contacted, after how Mojang and Microsoft (understandably) distanced themselves from him. And it's not like Steve is this complex character that's hard to get right in design. I would have thought they'd just run things by the higher ups at Microsoft and that's it.

I definitely don't think Notch was contacted, nor do I really think he'd be that receptive if Sakurai were to contact him given his general indifference to the property now. However, I do think the current leaders of Minecraft's development team were, at the very least, regularly consulted throughout the process. Judging by his reaction in the trailer, it really seemed like Sakurai was somewhat hesitant if he could do Minecraft justice. He knew he was working with a massive property that would be difficult to adapt, so I'd be somewhat surprised if he wasn't regularly contacting Minecraft's original dev team to see where the lines are.

 

[Cosmic77]

So riddle me this.

Challenger Pack 6 is Min Min. She was an E3 pick, and paired with an ARMS demo. This clearly, to me at least, seems like an attempt for a second wind for a game that lost a lot of steam after some time.

Do we really think that Nintendo would want to push Min Min, only to crush that effort by revealing Minecraft? That would be arguably the most bone headed thing they could do.

I think it was Min Min, and ONLY Min Min.

I don't even think Min Min was planned to be an E3 reveal in the first place. They stated that the ARMS rep had to be delayed so the team could work on it more back when we went through the guessing game. I think CP7 and CP8 were meant to be E3 reveals, but then Min Min had to be delayed because of her screwy control scheme, and then COVID kicked in, and THEN E3 got canceled, shunting everyone back a fair distance.

Honestly, I don't think COVID effected the DLC schedule as much as people think it did.

Min Min was likely always planned for E3. The March Direct was pre-recorded and said the character would be revealed in June, so that on top of Sakurai himself saying F6 might take a while tells me everything played out close to how they expected.

As for Steve, the gap between his reveal and Min Min's is pretty close to the three month gap I was expecting for each character. Because of the amiibo release dates, I'm absolutely positive that we were never getting Steve until late September at the earliest. They could've revealed Steve at E3, but it would be nearly three months before we'd get him, which would be longer than Hero and Banjo. Plus, you'd have to assume they didn't have any plans to reveal Steve in some type of Direct or mini they had scheduled between E3 and now.

I think E3 2020 was nothing but Min Min. Not sure if this opinion will ever catch on, but I feel like there's more evidence supporting it than there is for Steve being at E3. The best argument you could make is saying Steve is a big deal, so they'd definitely reveal him at E3. It's an assumption at best.

 

[StarBot]

There's nothing promotional about Min Min like there was Corrin

Just admit ya'll just don't like Fire Emblem and move on lol

Corrin got in for the exact same reason, the devs (not anyone high up, I must stress this out) wanted a new character at the time as well

 

[GoodGrief741]

So I just realized that Smash now has the highest selling single game of all time (Minecraft), the highest selling video game franchise (Mario), and the highest grossing media franchise of all time (Pokemon).

You quite literally can't get bigger than what we have in the world of not only gaming, but media in general. To go any bigger would require Sakurai to not only break his rules on non-gaming franchises, but on fiction in general. We'd need a widely known public figure like Jesus to top what we have.

They could go for the highest grossing videogame (and entertainment product) of all time, but that might not be appropriate for good boys and girls.

 

[N3ON]

Just because there are talks doesn't mean the talks amounted to anything.

If there were talks for five years about Minecraft, it means it took until the fourth time Nintendo was scavenging for additions before it was added. (4's DLC, Ultimate base, FP1 and FP2). We have it on pretty good authority that all of these instances happened at different times (though there was overlap with the first two), so talks don't imply action.

I mean, the Doom guys said they had conversed with Nintendo about Smash. It's just those talks, presumably, never went anywhere.

I'm sure many companies have spoken to Nintendo about it, only to have been shut down.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

So I just realized that Smash now has the highest selling single game of all time (Minecraft), the highest selling video game franchise (Mario), and the highest grossing media franchise of all time (Pokemon).

You quite literally can't get bigger than what we have in the world of not only gaming, but media in general. To go any bigger would require Sakurai to not only break his rules on non-gaming franchises, but on fiction in general. We'd need a widely known public figure like Jesus to top what we have.

He'll come to Smash for da people.

EDIT:

 

[Cosmic77]

I think Min Min was promotional in the sense that Nintendo wanted to ensure the IP stayed alive.

Corrin and Byleth aren't the same. In both instances, they were specifically looking for someone brand new to add.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

I keep going back to the trailer because that piece of music is sick

 

[SKX31]

I definitely don't think Notch was contacted, nor do I really think he'd be that receptive if Sakurai were to contact him given his general indifference to the property now. However, I do think the current leaders of Minecraft's development team were, at the very least, regularly consulted throughout the process. Judging by his reaction in the trailer, it really seemed like Sakurai was somewhat hesitant if he could do Minecraft justice. He knew he was working with a massive property that would be difficult to adapt, so I'd be somewhat surprised if he wasn't regularly contacting Minecraft's original dev team to see where the lines are.

Yeah, if anything, it's Bergensten (Jeb) and co. who helped Sakurai and co. with the whole shebang. Bergensten has lead Minecraft's development since Dec. 2011, so he and his team has pretty much shaped it into what it is today. It's also possible that Steve was implemented in a rather basic way since, well, Sakurai's team had to rework every stage to allow blocks.

Wait a second... Jeb....

Couldn't resist.

 

[TheBeastHimself]

Just admit ya'll just don't like Fire Emblem and move on lol

Corrin got in for the exact same reason, the devs (not anyone high up, I must stress this out) wanted a new character at the time as well

Oh? Was that really the reason? I've heard that Corrin was a promotional pick so many times in the past that I legitimately thought that was the reason for their inclusion. And to be frank, I actually have a lot of admiration for Fire Emblem due to how influential it has become as it evolved over the decades, even though I don't play the games myself. Saying I don't like Fire Emblem is a rather baseless assumption for what I said in my opinion.

 

[Icedragonadam]

And there's also that other 2ch rumor with Hero(who also correctly got the mii costumes right), Tales character, Nakoruru, Resident Evil, and Minecraft content.

Social - Ultimate Social Thread: Under Construction. Be Back Soon!

Oh Matpat's controversial, be it his attitude around criticism or his content, he's ****ed up multiple times I’m just gonna go to sleep before we get into another MatPat flamewar. I’m still cleaning the salt off my keyboard from the last one.

smashboards.com

Erdrick/Hero is playable
Steve is playable
Resident Evil are spirits
Nakoruru is a mii costume

So that leaves the Tales character unaccounted for.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

And there's also that other 2ch rumor with Hero(who also correctly got the mii costumes right), Tales character, Nakoruru, Resident Evil, and Minecraft content.

Social - Ultimate Social Thread: Under Construction. Be Back Soon!

Oh Matpat's controversial, be it his attitude around criticism or his content, he's ****ed up multiple times I’m just gonna go to sleep before we get into another MatPat flamewar. I’m still cleaning the salt off my keyboard from the last one.

smashboards.com

Erdrick/Hero is playable
Steve is playable
Resident Evil are spirits
Nakoruru is a mii costume

So that leaves the Tales character unaccounted for.

Judging by the context I don’t think it means a playable Tales character

 

[ZelDan]

So I just realized that Smash now has the highest selling single game of all time (Minecraft), the highest selling video game franchise (Mario), and the highest grossing media franchise of all time (Pokemon).

You quite literally can't get bigger than what we have in the world of not only gaming, but media in general. To go any bigger would require Sakurai to not only break his rules on non-gaming franchises, but on fiction in general. We'd need a widely known public figure like Jesus to top what we have.

If we were to go beyond fiction to get a widely known public figure in Smash, I feel like they should still have some ties to Nintendo like most third party characters in Smash do.

So, just going to throw it out there:

 

[Garteam]

While I don't think Nintendo is doing anything with ARMS immediately, I'd be somewhat surprised if talks aren't going on right now about it's future.

Sakurai has traditionally held off on adding new Nintendo franchises until they've proven themselves at market. For example, neither Animal Crossing nor Pikmin had a playable character in Melee, despite the fact they were going to be big pillars in the Gamecube's early library. Similarly, Splatoon only got a costume in Smash for Wii U/3DS and Astral Chain and Ring Fit Adventure only got spirit events, even though both games had a DLC slot designated for a character from a new release.

It's likely that ARMS did well enough and has enough potential to justify keeping it around as an evergreen title (most likely to provide another pillar to Nintendo's attempt to break into the e-sports market) and to develop a sequel as a late Switch title (or as an early title on the Switch's successor), explaining why Nintendo suddenly decided to pick it back up again after dropping it in 2018. We know Sakurai is privy about the inside workings of Nintendo, so it wouldn't surprise me if he knew about any plans being currently made for ARMS' future.

 

[pupNapoleon]

And Terry?

You could Lucario and Cloud too since they starred in their own fighters.

Did you forget Terry?

Agreed. I believe Nintendo wanted to rep one of their new franchises, that's all. There's nothing promotional about Min Min like there was Corrin, for example. But, you can make the argument that every character is a promotional pick because Smash Bros. is the one advertisement that people enjoy.

Yes, I honestly thought I typed it out. My bad. Editing.

 

[DougEfresh]

I usually hang around the competitive discussion thread, but just wanted to come in here and say congrats to anyone who wanted Steve and Minecraft content in general in Smash, I'm happy for y'all! Personally, the reveal was not at all what I was expecting and I was initially disappointed by it (and still not super thrilled), but I can at least appreciate how amazing it is to have Minecraft represented in smash from a crossover standpoint and I'm intrigued by how he'll function (though he looks extremely campy; probably going to be a nightmare to fight against on quickplay lol).

Actual serious answer:

• Some very, very slight nerfs, but nothing serious. Most characters are in a good place, but there are a few moves that are a bit over-tuned. Pikachu's Dash Attack, G&W's Up B, Snake's U-Tilt (overtuned since Brawl by the by). And not just since I hate those moves - the characters are strong even without those moves being so good.
• Characters that desperately need some SAUCE (buffs): - He's in a completely undertuned state; his moves does not do much at all without Aura, at which point a love tap kills him - The Strength / Speed trade off does not work for him, he'd need something else like a sauce-up Pill if he's going to avoid feeling like he's doing much less than regular Mario. One could argue , and Using the Average Pro Tier list for 8.1. (where the last three rank rather low). I'd love if and got some sauce (or preferably reworks at least in Mac's case) in the future, but they sadly seem destined to fill their niché.
• Mechanic Change. Not sure what exactly, but my dream scenario is that shield-dropping or edge cancelling aerials get re-instated. So people have more of a reason to use the platforms instead of just sharking underneath. Probably not going to happen now, but eh, not the end of the world if this doesn't happen.
• Further Online improvements. Sakurai promised, Harada talked about it. Not expecting them to reinvent the wheel, but anything to lessen the pain of missed inputs would help immensely.
• New mode changes (besides Boss Rush): Minecraft blocks in Stage Builder. Golden Opportunity here. Just sayin'.

Can't speak much about most of these characters, but I completely agree with buffs for and . I've played both characters pretty seriously in ultimate, and while I think most of the smash community vastly exaggerates how "underwhelming" they are as characters, they both suffer from lackluster start up on their moves and generally don't have much in the way of safe moves.

I agree with the user who said Lucario needs fdata buffs (especially dtilt and ftilt; as it stands now, his cqc is quite poor because he basically has the range of with the start up of on many of his moves), but I also want to add that force palm grab NEEDS to get fixed so that Lucario can have a consistent command grab that he can use to punish opponents for abusing shield and not risk it completely whiffing point blank on shield. Aura sphere is also a bit laggy on start up and cool down, so maybe fix that to avoid him getting smothered so easily. Those fixes alone would probably raise him up nearly a full tier and make him a much more viable competitive character.


needs much less by comparison, Imo. Less landing lag on bair and nair would be great, and maybe making the latter be a smidge faster with more damage output could be a nice QoL change. Fair is pretty solid, but could afford 3 or so frames of start up reduced to make it a truly great move. Up smash is unnecessarily unsafe on shield at -35, and the last move I'd like to see fixed is dtilt (again, just a couple frames shaved off its start up would be quite nice).

With these improvements, I think both Lucario and Banjo would be in pretty good spots and they'd feel solid enough to better justify the substantial time and effort it takes to learn their unintuitive kits and use them well. The longer gaps between character reveals and releases for DLC at this point may help the odds that characters with inconsistencies in their tools will end up getting fixed/buffed, but we'll have to wait and see.

 

[N3ON]

While I don't think Nintendo is doing anything with ARMS immediately, I'd be somewhat surprised if talks aren't going on right now about it's future.

Sakurai has traditionally held off on adding new Nintendo franchises until they've proven themselves at market. For example, neither Animal Crossing nor Pikmin had a playable character in Melee, despite the fact they were going to be big pillars in the Gamecube's early library. Similarly, Splatoon only got a costume in Smash for Wii U/3DS and Astral Chain and Ring Fit Adventure only got spirit events, even though both games had a DLC slot designated for a character from a new release.

It's likely that ARMS did well enough and has enough potential to justify keeping it around as an evergreen title (most likely to provide another pillar to Nintendo's attempt to break into the e-sports market) and to develop a sequel as a late Switch title (or as an early title on the Switch's successor), explaining why Nintendo suddenly decided to pick it back up again after dropping it in 2018. We know Sakurai is privy about the inside workings of Nintendo, so it wouldn't surprise me if he knew about any plans being currently made for ARMS' future.

Yeah, like I said back when everyone was real down on ARMS' future, you don't just sell over 2 mil as a new IP and have Nintendo abandon you*. ARMS will be back.


*unless you're Duck Hunt. Yes, thank you, all you lovely, exhausting pedants.

 

[ALongWistfulSquiggle]

Nintendo probably went shopping around for quotes at some point. If they had a budget, they would have wanted to know what their options were to spend that money. So in theory they would have talked to a lot of different companies to ask whether they were willing to add stuff to Smash. Then they would have everything on the table so they don't have to wing it and hope things work out when they propose the pass to companies involved.

Yes, I honestly thought I typed it out. My bad. Editing.

It's all good. Happens to everyone.

 

[TheCJBrine]

Quoting a post I made elsewhere for the "Steve was talked about years ago" topic in here since I saw this stuff:

Supposedly they were trying to get Minecraft in Smash since 2014?! If ZhugeEX isn't wrong.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

edit: sounds like it, Kaplan was a former Mojang employee and I guess did business and devwork or something, and he implies it has DEFINITELY been a while:

https://twitter.com/Kappische/status/1311732452054925315

GoNintendo says this too though no source and I can't find where Kaplan specifically says this on his twitter:

Former Mojang business developer says discussions about Minecraft being added to Smash Bros. started "at least 5" years ago

Not quite an overnight deal

gonintendo.com

edit: oh Kaplan was a production director for Minecraft and I guess the first employee at Mojang.

 

[Garteam]

Yeah, like I said back when everyone was real down on ARMS' future, you don't just sell over 2 mil as a new IP and have Nintendo abandon you*. ARMS will be back.


*unless you're Duck Hunt. Yes, thank you, all you lovely, exhausting pedants.

Duck Hunt Multiplayer FPS when?