Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[Garteam]

Lloyd is kind of in a weird spot, honestly. The other Namco Mii Costumes finally dropping in Fighter's Pass #2 does somewhat concern me for the chances of another Namco rep in general, seeing that character would presumably have Gil and possibly Heihachi as part of their wave. On the other hand, the fact that Lloyd is the last one standing from Namco does make me raise a couple of eyebrows.

That being said, I think it's Lloyd or bust as far as Tales in Smash goes. Even ignoring Sakurai's "Who else but Lloyd?" comment from Smash for's DLC, I don't think Yuri's popularity among the core fanbase is enough to save him. Yes, Cloud was able to bypass other options from Final Fantasy that had tighter Nintendo connections, but he's also Cloud ****ing Strife. Even people who know absolutely nothing about Final Fantasy are familiar with the character through cultural osmosis. Aside from maybe the black/white mages and Sephiroth, no character in the entire Final Fantasy pantheon approaches his level of recognizability. Yuri really isn't at the level of cultural relevancy.

 

[Idon]

Personally speaking I just think Yuri is more likely since he had a Switch Definitive Release and Lloyd didn't lol.

 

[Banado_Boy]

Quick, someone give me good Tales music so I can get sold on them and be fine with either series in Smash.

Some people have already posted some Symphonia, so here's some Vesperia:

Furnace of War (Vesperia Battle Theme 1)
Burning Fighting Spirit (Vesperia Battle Theme 2)
Tenacity (Vesperia Battle Theme 3)
Fury Sparks
Ring a Bell
Ring a Bell (Project X Zone 2 ver.)

 

[Ivander]

Honestly when it comes to Tales I think it's 50-50 between Yuri and Lloyd.

I think it would be funny if Yuri ends being the one tho. I already can see complainings in the comment section of Smash related tweets, because Lloyd certainly is more popular among Smash/Nintendo fans.

I mean, I think Yuri can also satisfy them if they go the distance with him. Lloyd is a popular choice not just because of his popularity with Nintendo and Smash fans, but mostly because he'd technically be our first Dual-sword wielder. While Pit and Dark Pit do have dual-blades, those dual blades are more because the main weapon is a bow that can be split, whereas Lloyd would actually be wielding two different swords.
But Yuri can also satisfy the new weapon niche as well if they go the distance with him. While Yuri mainly uses his sword alongside punches and kicks, his sword can be replaced with an axe. Yuri uses swords and axes in his game and his moveset stays relatively the same when using either of them. So I think Yuri could get players' attention if they have one of his alternate costumes wielding an axe. Heck, they could really appeal to the edge crowd if they gave him his Dark Enforcer outfit to go with an axe.

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

I just have more of a personal connection with Yuri

I just think their neat

 

[TwiceEXE]

Velvet is never happening, but dang would she bring a cool moveset. Which would likely go over better with anyone tired of anime swordsmen and who don't care about Tales.

 

[SharkLord]

I mean, I think Yuri can also satisfy them if they go the distance with him. Lloyd is a popular choice not just because of his popularity with Nintendo and Smash fans, but mostly because he'd technically be our first Dual-sword wielder. While Pit and Dark Pit do have dual-blades, those dual blades are more because the main weapon is a bow that can be split, whereas Lloyd would actually be wielding two different swords.
But Yuri can also satisfy the new weapon niche as well if they go the distance with him. While Yuri mainly uses his sword alongside punches and kicks, his sword can be replaced with an axe. Yuri uses swords and axes in his game and his moveset stays relatively the same when using either of them. So I think Yuri could get players' attention if they have one of his alternate costumes wielding an axe. Heck, they could really appeal to the edge crowd if they gave him his Dark Enforcer outfit to go with an axe.

That seems like an awkward way to sheath your sword. Wouldn't it be easier to put it on your hip or your back?

...Or is he holding the sheath by a string? Not sure if that makes it more or less awkward.

 

[DarthEnderX]

Without complexity, some characters wouldnt function like themselves. and Steve included.

I think Steve is a lot more complicated than he needed to be and still decently represent the character.

Like, having different materials is the part that makes him overcomplicated. It would be one thing if he just had a generic "Materials" meter that he had to fill up by mining. And then you spent that meter on upgrading or to use certain moves. That'd put him on about the same level as Inklings. But having specific materials needed for specific moves and upgrades you have to mine from specific surfaces is, frankly, ridiculous.

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

That seems like an awkward way to sheath your sword. Wouldn't it be easier to put it on your hip or your back?

...Or is he holding the sheath by a string? Not sure if that makes it more or less awkward.

I think he just carries it around in his hand like that most of the time

 

[Ivander]

That seems like an awkward way to sheath your sword. Wouldn't it be easier to put it on your hip or your back?

...Or is he holding the sheath by a string? Not sure if that makes it more or less awkward.

If you think that's weird, you should see the way he unsheathes it.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

By the way, stick around to the end of the video for another reason why Tales of Vesperia is awesome. Yuri's canine companion Repede dressed as Jotaro Kujo.......yes I'm frickin' serious.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Agumon would be a really interesting addition. I wonder how they'd make Digivolving work? It was kind of a comeback factor in the anime, and people tend to dislike comeback factors, though the devs don't seem to mind them. Makes me think Greymon could be like Arsene, except he'd stick around longer and have the downside of being Charizard-sized. Maybe they could even let you Digivolve into Greymon at will after a while, instead of not having as much control over when he comes out. Kind of a Joker/PT hybrid, I'd love that!

That seems like an awkward way to sheath your sword. Wouldn't it be easier to put it on your hip or your back?

...Or is he holding the sheath by a string? Not sure if that makes it more or less awkward.

I imagine swords would be really annoying to carry around all the time, no matter how you held them. Dunno how JRPG characters don't get tired of it, lol

 

[SharkLord]

If you think that's weird, you should see the way he unsheathes it.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

By the way, stick around to the end of the video for another reason why Tales of Vesperia is awesome. Yuri's canine companion Repede dressed as Jotaro Kujo.......yes I'm frickin' serious.

Why is there Jotaro Doggo
WHY IS THERE JOTARO DOGGO

HOW

WHEN

WHY

 

[Shroob]

We didn't get a character every two months in the first pass. We went from Joker in December until E3 in June- that's half a year. All these theories about time waited and this being the longest time frame are rubbish, and mathematically incorrect. That was a brutal wait.
--people are already spending majority of the time on here discussing the next character. It doesn't seem to matter what the character is, it will only ever be about the next one.

Hmmmmm....... Did you do your homework or.....? Cause it doesn't seem like it:


December 6th: Joker is revealed at TGAs

February 1st: Piranha Plant releases(57 days later)

April 17th: Joker release date(75 days)

June 11th: Hero and Banjo are revealed(55 days)

July 30th: Hero release date(49 days since E3, 104 since Joker)

September 4th: Banjo release date, Terry revealed(36 days)

November 6th: Terry release date(63 days)

January 16th: Byleth's teaser date(71 days)

January 28th: Byleth's release date(12 days)

March 26th: ARMs guessing game(57 days)

June 22nd: Min Min revealed(88 days)

June 29th: Min Min released(7 days)

October 1st: Steve revealed(94 days)



So, yeah, say again how the wait between Min Min and Steve wasn't the longest, because the only bigger gap was between Joker and Hero, and we got TWO characters shown off at E3 that year to tide us over, otherwise, the wait basically didn't exist.


So yes, the first pass basically WAS a 2 month wait, give or take a week or two if you want to be super pedantic, the only major gap of the first pass was Joker to E3, and again, we got 2 characters shown off there, which held off people's appetite for news immensely.


And yeah, kinda, people will always want to know what's next. That's just kinda the nature of this thread, to know what's next. We're called the Newcomer Speculation thread for a reason, because you can't really speculate on characters that you already know are confirmed.

 

[SKX31]

Something I think is worth noting is that Lloyd still seems to get the bulk of the Smash requests. While we have gotten less-requested characters over more popular requests, like Joker, I think it holds a bit more weight when we narrow it down to a specific series. Back when we got Cloud, it was stated that he took up more than a third of the Final Fantasy requests, and that FF7 is still the most popular despite not being on a Nintendo system at that time.
In addition, Japanese fans observed that Cloud seemed to appeal more to overseas fans. It's also not like we haven't had more Western-appeal characters before, like Little Mac, Ridley, and the Belmonts. In fact, quite a few Japanese fans wished we had gotten Bomberman over the Belmonts instead. I don't think we should count out Western audiences entirely.

That's a good point - it's often a good idea to mix wants, even if sections of the fanbase can be befuddled when a certain character is chosen.

It does raise the question of what happens when Nintendo and Smash gets a more sizeable foothold in other regions (that's going to be a very slow process, but that day will probably come). While I'd argue that China's closest to this, I'm going to be conservative and say that it will take a little more time for the Switch base there to reach 5 million there. Not quite the 10 million mark that JP / NA / EU routinely see with Nintendo consoles. There's a chance that the Switch base has reached 5 million (New Horizons and especially Ring Fit did really, really well there), but the last update was a rough guess on 3 million, so yeaaah.

That seems like an awkward way to sheath your sword. Wouldn't it be easier to put it on your hip or your back?

...Or is he holding the sheath by a string? Not sure if that makes it more or less awkward.

He follows the George Lucas school of "Spinning is always a good trick" and uses his sword as if he doesn't give a ****.

That's my headcanon for him anyway, and that's why Yuri's my favorite Tales character.

 

[blackghost]

If the rest of the pass was...

Geno
Lloyd
Monster Hunter
Ryu Hayabusa

How would you react?

if monster hunter was dante i'd be good. i'd only buy 3 of the 4 though. probably would skip geno.

 

[Cosmic77]

Personally, I'm leaning more toward Lloyd or any Tales rep not being one of the remaining four characters. After Heihachi and Gil, I feel like there's too much time left for the Mii costume to return.

Speaking of Heihachi and Gil, they along with Lloyd all come from Namco. If 2/3 Namco costumes were randomly dropped with completely unrelated characters, then I don't consider that a good sign. Would've made a lot more sense to release the costumes alongside the character who's owned by the same company. That's what happened with Sega, SE, SNK, and now Microsoft.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Didn't you post about wanting an entire Three Houses fighters pass?

Yes.

But I was joking.

However, I wouldn't object to Dimitri at all.

 

[blackghost]

Honestly when it comes to Tales I think it's 50-50 between Yuri and Lloyd.

I think it would be funny if Yuri ends being the one tho. I already can see the complains in the comment section of Smash related tweets, because Lloyd certainly is more popular among Smash/Nintendo fans.

What if Sakurai decides to please everyone, and adds both as a duo team? lmao

Personally I'd be okay with either one. But if I had to choose one... I like Yuri more, to be honest.

yuri is the better character. Yuri does things in Vesperia that JRPG characters never do. No memory loss, he's not naive, he isnt even a "choosen one." Thhats not even adding in the fact he does things like assassinate enemies on his own. once again we are seeing the mostly insular nintendo fanbase favor the character that was on the Nintendo system. From fans that have played the games that arent on nintendo consoles Lloyd hasnt had the staying power yuri has demonstrated. Even a character like velvet crowe has made a huge impact recently.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Yes.

But I was joking.

However, I wouldn't object to Dimitri at all.

Sakurai appears onscreen for the next reveal

"You ungrateful swine!", he begins. "You all hated Blyeth, so instead of Crash, Doomguy, Ryu Hayabusa, and Yuri Lowell, your next four characters will be Dimitri, Claude, Edelgard, and Sothis. Never ask me for anything ever again!" He then puts on sunglasses and moonwalks out of the room.

 

[MooMew64]

Sakurai appears onscreen for the next reveal

"You ungrateful swine!", he begins. "You all hated Blyeth, so instead of Crash, Doomguy, Ryu Hayabusa, and Yuri Lowell, your next four characters will be Dimitri, Calude, Edelgard, and Sothis. Never ask me for anything ever again!" He then puts on sunglasses and moonwalks out of the room.

...

Okay, not gonna lie, I would not be upset at this scenario.

Just sayin', Dimitri would be cool.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Are people really complaining because it takes us about three months between characters?

Did y'all really forget how Smash 4 literally spend 5 entire months without announcing any new character after Ryu, the only newcomer DLC at the time, before dropping Cloud out of nowhere?

Cloud wasn't even leaked either, so it really was just complete radio silence for nearly half a year.

 

[pupNapoleon]

As I have reiterated before, I don't think Agumon is bad choice, and yes, due to the anime the Digimon series is more well known. But a few of your facts are wrong, just by looking at the second link you provided.
1. No Digimon does not have more game sales then Dragon Quest. The wiki (the second link in your post) even gives a break down of where most of the money came from. Digimon made about 500-600 million from the digital pets and console combined (its worth noting console sales were only at 90 million). Dragon Quest made 6.501 BILLION from video games alone. In fact the wiki has Digimon at a total of 6.36 billion vs Dragon Quest's 12.9 billion. I don't understand where you got that Dragon Quest had lower game sales , but I will assume it was an error on your part.
2. The breakdown also did state something interesting I thought I would point out. The largest contributions by far to Digimon's ranking comes from licensed merchandising, not video games. To give some context, I said the actual virtual pet/consoles were about 500-600 million earlier, the merchandising was 5.39 billion, approximately 84 percent of the total earnings from the Digimon franchise.
3. The Tales of series last reported that they sold about 20 million copies throughout the entire run of the series. If we assume the lowest possible value for a Tales game, which was back on the SNES and was about 30 dollars a game (although I might have the value wrong, correct me if I am off), and multiply that by the 20 million total sales, that means the lowest possible estimate for the sales of the Tales of series was 600 million. And keep in mind, this number is grossly lower then what is actually is, since the really popular tales games that sold the best (Symphonia, Vesperia and Xillia) were actually around the 50-60 dollars a game. In other word, the Tales of series has most definitely made more money through its video games then Digimon. However, do not mistake this as me saying the Tales of series has made more money OVERALL or as a media, because that isn't factually true.

I want to reiterate one more time, I like Agumon, and think he would be a fantastic addition. I also think being a bigger media could be a good point for him. But I feel in a lot of your posts you are really downplaying the Tales of series importance simply because you would rather have another Bamco rep.

I didn't think I was much downplaying Tales. I'll take a look at the data I provided that lists Digimon as a high game franchise, in addition to being a higher media franchise. It was two separate links). From what I've seen, Tales doesn't rank on either sort of list.

Both aside, as I initially stated- I do want Agumon. And Heihachi. And even Nighmare. I think all three are more Smash ...Caliber (haha) than Lloyd. But I also think RPG characters have an unnecessary bias, and an over abundance of characterization in Smash Bros.

I'd make more comments but honestly... it's 2020 and life is just hard. I don't care about this anymore.

 

[ZelDan]

Sakurai appears onscreen for the next reveal

"You ungrateful swine!", he begins. "You all hated Blyeth, so instead of Crash, Doomguy, Ryu Hayabusa, and Yuri Lowell, your next four characters will be Dimitri, Claude, Edelgard, and Sothis. Never ask me for anything ever again!" He then puts on sunglasses and moonwalks out of the room.

Smash fanbase: IS THIS SOME KIND OF TWISTED JOKE!?

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

The best part of Yuri is he gives no ****s about anything

 

[Shroob]

Are people really complaining because it takes us about three months between characters?

Did y'all really forget how Smash 4 literally spend 5 entire months without announcing any new character after Ryu, the only newcomer DLC at the time, before dropping Cloud out of nowhere?

Cloud wasn't even leaked either, so it really was just complete radio silence for nearly half a year.

Different time, different place. You really can't compare Smash 4's DLC to Ultimate's.


Smash 4's DLC felt incredibly unstructured and "You'll get it when it's done". Likewise, the Fighter's Pass is very organized.


I don't think anyone's complaining about 3 months in between, what people are saying is to not expect these 5 month gaps when we have a deadline to hit, and probably will hit it before said deadline even is an issue.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

The Tales rep should be Velvet because 1: I'm gay, 2: Symphonia bored me to the point of dropping it after 18 hours, 3: She's got a **** ton of unique qualities, not just in comparison to Lloyd and Yuri, but compared to ANY character. Who else could you say has her unique dual wielding style where one sword's on her foot alongside a giant demonic claw that eats people and lets her steal powers? And finally 4: I'm very gay

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Sakurai appears onscreen for the next reveal

"You ungrateful swine!", he begins. "You all hated Blyeth, so instead of Crash, Doomguy, Ryu Hayabusa, and Yuri Lowell, your next four characters will be Dimitri, Claude, Edelgard, and Sothis. Never ask me for anything ever again!" He then puts on sunglasses and moonwalks out of the room.

I would unironically love Sothis as a character, not gonna lie.

 

[SpectreJordan]

I just find it funny that after Min Min and Steve, people still expect/talk about the same 10 or so characters that were talked about at the start of this pass. The only thing that changed is that Hayabusa made a big comeback, but I still find it funny. After 2 characters who I think most people did not enter this pass expecting, speculation really hasn't changed a lot. I guess you could count out Travis now though.

Some time ago after Steve, I saw someone arguing that the rest of this pass will 100% contain 4 of these characters.

• Crash Bandicoot
• Geno
• Lloyd
• Rex and Pyra
• Hayabusa
• Dante
• and characters of a similar level

And I'm like: "We're not really good at this, are we?"
Like I get why people would be confident in these sort of picks, but ALL 4?! I expected by now that people would expect at least 1 more "Surprise, you didn't expect this" type of character.

I don’t get where this idea that nobody expected Steve came from. He’s been one of the most discussed characters during Ultimate’s lifespan. Discussions about him had died down a bit on here this year, but he still kept getting brought up. On top of that, there was still tons of talk about him on Twitter & amongst Smash YTers.

I think Steve cements the fact that no one except for Nintendo has any Idea about budget, Steve probably cost thousands of dollars or he could have cost a ham sandwich, Even then we don't know if the budget is a fixed number or expandable. The lack of knowledge about anything regarding the budget makes speculating about it a bit fruitless IMO.

I definitely agree with this. Is there any proof that they’ve significantly lowered the budget for FP2? I know that’s what normally happens with games. But FP2 has an extra character that the first pass didn’t. On top of that, Ultimate isn’t your average game; it’s the highest selling fighting game ever & the third highest selling Switch game (it was #2 when FP2 was greenlit).

They wouldn't have invested too many resources and budget into Steve unless they fully expected the character to make returns on that. It feels like Nintendo was very intent on making it happen well-aware of the fact Steve alone could push sales significantly, even outside of DLC.

I'm actually really curious to learn one day about that development process. At what point did they know he would be DLC? Was he at one point intended for DLC 1 before being pushed to 2?

I am too. There’s a lot I’d like to know about Ultimate’s development. Especially the decision to seemingly skip over Resident Evil & Monster Hunter for a Fighter spot.

I hope a character with a support thread with only one page and less than 10 posts gets in

Does Commander Shepard have a thread? They’re a big-ish character but they also have little to no Smash support. Everyone wins... especially me.

I don't think Steve will damage the quality of rest of the pass, however I believe we'll see the effects of the limited budget in some way.

Ryu and Cloud were big but other Smash 4 DLC fighters were either Nintendo characters or Bayonetta. Other than Hero, the first pass characters were noticably more low-key.

I'm not saying we won't get any big name characters from now on but personally, I lowered my expectations about them.

I’m curious, what does everyone consider a “big” character/series. For me, I’d say that the series has to have around 30 million total sales. But there’s a decent amount of popular characters rn that don’t fit that.

Devil May Cry is at around 22mil rn which is big, but definitely below what most of the third parties have. Tales is at 20 mil. Super Mario RPG is at 2 mil. Nier: Automata is over 4 mil & I doubt the first Nier/Drakengard series are even a fraction of that. I can’t find any series sales numbers for Ninja Gaiden but it’s probably around 10 mil. Etc, etc...

So there’s definitely a lot of commonly discussed characters that aren’t from these huge mega series. I get some of the frustration about how people focus on certain characters but it’s not like people are going “We must have ONLY characters from the most popular game series ever!”

 

[GillyGrime]

You know thinking about it, it's a miracle Cloud made it into Smash 4 DLC and wasn't reliant on Ultimate DLC.

With the seeming impossibility to get much FF content in the game, it'd be so lacking to have a challenger pack with 2 pieces of music and no spirits/ stage cameos / costumes other than Chocobo.

 

[pupNapoleon]

Yuri and another Tales character named Leon got 1st in almost every popularity poll up to 2017 so much that they took the two off of the. polls and put them in the Hall of Fame making them not be able to participate in the popularity polls anymore

Yuri and another Tales character named Leon got 1st in almost every popularity poll up to 2017 so much that they took the two off of the. polls and put them in the Hall of Fame making them not be able to participate in the popularity polls anymore

Basically, Namco actually has popularity polls for the Tales series in Japan.

テイルズチャンネル+

「テイルズチャンネル＋」は『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの公式ポータルサイトです。

tales-ch.jp

And they've been around for a long time. Like around 2000s time.

Apple Gumi - Part 2

I guess this looks alright...Thanks to WDR for proof reading! Original encoding: ShinryuTranslation and subs: MeNote: I didn't translate the attack names bec...

www.youtube.com

Like while that video was posted in the 2007s, those Gumi "skits" they did were around before then. The 2nd place winner in that video is Leon Magnus, one of the ones who got banned from popularity polls later.
When Tales of VS. came out, it showed the recent popularity poll that was after Tales of Vesperia had released for Xbox and before it came for Playstation 3.

Tales of VS. テイルズ オブ★ザ・ダークナイト(Part 1/2)

Tales of VS. ドラマチックDVD～ダークヒーロー篇～に収録されているスキットドラマ テイルズ オブ★ザ・ダークナイトのPart 1です

www.youtube.com

Yuri was Number 1 despite his game only coming out on Xbox, with Leon Magnus still holding his 2nd place.

And those polls are a yearly thing. And Yuri was eventually removed because he kept getting 1st place all the time and Leon joined him. Their popularity is practically symbolised by them being the two shown at the top before the poll results are shown as they are in the first link.

Either both at the same time or Yuri first, then Leon. And Yuri is a fantastic character in Vesperia. He is a farcry from your traditional JRPG protagonist and while he is a smacktalker and joker, he's far from your goody-two shoes. And before he got some new voiced lines in the Definitive edition done by Grant George, Yuri was originally played by Troy Baker.

I'm happy to be proven wrong. I hear what youre all saying... so can anyone provide a single resource? This still doesn't make much sense to me. What company removes free advertising? I've seen Tales' characters in most of these speculated links, and they just don't appear at number one. Or anywhere near the top. I might not be on top of every leaked poll, but I frequent speculation to feel I'd have seen them at some point in a place of notoriety.

 

[SharkLord]

The Tales rep should be Velvet because 1: I'm gay, 2: Symphonia bored me to the point of dropping it after 18 hours, 3: She's got a **** ton of unique qualities, not just in comparison to Lloyd and Yuri, but compared to ANY character. Who else could you say has her unique dual wielding style where one sword's on her foot alongside a giant demonic claw that eats people and lets her steal powers? And finally 4: I'm very gay

Okay but does her demon arm get replaced by various robot arms after her half-demon deadbeat dad yoinks off her demon arm to reclaim his demon sword and split himself in two just like the song says and turn the game into Kingdom Hearts as his demon half yeets everything in sight to grow his demon tree that leads to an entire game's worth of Velvet being called dead weight until she finally snaps and regrows her arm and flips the bird while saying the frick word?

Long story short, the demonic claw reminds me of Nero's Devil Bringer.

 

[Idon]

As someone who has quite literally no experience with the Tales franchise, my personal pick would be Alphen from that upcoming Arise game.

Black armor, blue cape, white hair, broken mask, giant flaming sword...
He appeals to all my edgy design sensibilities.

 

[Ivander]

Thhats not even adding in the fact he does things like assassinate enemies on his own.

Is it sorta weird that to me, assassinate feels like it fits less compared to just murder? Like I guess after games like Assassin's Creed, Dishonoured, etc, assassinate sounds more like stylish murder, where in Yuri's case, there's no style or whatnot. No, he just goes out and murders the two pricks because he knows they won't get punished for their crimes. Although it is cool that, while he isn't punished for doing so, it still comes back to bite him later when he has to help a man he really respects commit seppuku.

 

[SharkLord]

As someone who has quite literally no experience with the Tales franchise, my personal pick would be Alphen from that upcoming Arise game.

Black armor, blue cape, white hair, broken mask, giant flaming sword...
He appeals to all my edgy design sensibilities.

Seeing this makes me wish more was done with Roy's fire sword. As popular as fire seems to be with JRPG heroes, there doesn't seem to be much of it Smash.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Different time, different place. You really can't compare Smash 4's DLC to Ultimate's.


Smash 4's DLC felt incredibly unstructured and "You'll get it when it's done". Likewise, the Fighter's Pass is very organized.


I don't think anyone's complaining about 3 months in between, what people are saying is to not expect these 5 month gaps when we have a deadline to hit, and probably will hit it before said deadline even is an issue.

Even if it was unstructured, the gap between Roy/Lucas/Ryu and Cloud was still the only one that wasn't around two months, aside from the base game's release and Mewtwo, but we knew of Mewtwo at that time and Lucas was announced a few days before Mewtwo released.

What I'm saying is that we've endured bigger droughts. We can survive through whatever the future holds for Pass 2 announcements.

And December 31st 2021 was always a localization-exclusive thing anyway. We might even be done with Pass 2 before October 2021, if we're lucky enough.

 

[Shroob]

Even if it was unstructured, the gap between Roy/Lucas/Ryu and Cloud was still the only one that wasn't around two months, aside from the base game's release and Mewtwo, but we knew of Mewtwo at that time and Lucas was announced a few days before Mewtwo released.

What I'm saying is that we've endured bigger droughts.

And December 31st 2021 was always a localization-exclusive thing anyway. We might even be done with Pass 2 before October 2021, if we're lucky enough.

I mean, to your last part, that's what I've been saying for awhile now. December 31st is a FUBAR date in case something goes horribly wrong.

TBH, now that Steve's done, and it seems like the team's comfortable from working at home, I kinda expect things to get closer to how the first pass was handled in terms of dev time.

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

I'm happy to be proven wrong. I hear what youre all saying... so can anyone provide a single resource? This still doesn't make much sense to me. What company removes free advertising? I've seen Tales' characters in most of these speculated links, and they just don't appear at number one. Or anywhere near the top. I might not be on top of every leaked poll, but I frequent speculation to feel I'd have seen them at some point in a place of notoriety.

here is what Ive been refrencing

Mikleo Takes The Crown in the 8th Tales of Character Popularity Poll Rankings! - Abyssal Chronicles ver3 (Beta) - Tales of Series fansite

The results are in! Meet your top 20 favorite Tales of characters as voted for by fans! The results of the 8th Tales of Character Popularity Poll Rankings are now out! For the main characters [Read More...]

www.abyssalchronicles.com

It has links to the other polls as well further down the page

 

[pupNapoleon]

Just go into the Lloyd thread then. There are some good write-ups there on why he'd be unique. I'm not going to copy and paste stuff from people that put more thought into it than I did.



Digimon was big during a very specific time period, and more as a multi-media franchise than a gaming one. They tried the dual-release thing Pokemon does and it didn't work out very well, to the point the series wasn't even seen as viable globally anymore. It took Cyber Sleuth doing well to convince Bamco to localize the games again.

The trajectory for Tales is a little different. It was always considered one of the biggest JRPG series in Japan after FF and DQ, but took a while to get a real foothold in the west, but it never lost it after it did, even if the status of it was a little murky during the time period between Symphonia and Vesperia. One thing that can be said for sure is it definitely thrived more than Digimon did globally in that time period.

I honestly don't understand you're point. A series with more sales and media didn't do well for a time period, and therefore makes less sense?
I truly don't care enough to visit a Lloyd page. If he is important enough to be mentioned here for three pages, it's important

Hmmmmm....... Did you do your homework or.....? Cause it doesn't seem like it:


December 6th: Joker is revealed at TGAs

February 1st: Piranha Plant releases(57 days later)

April 17th: Joker release date(75 days)

June 11th: Hero and Banjo are revealed(55 days)

July 30th: Hero release date(49 days since E3, 104 since Joker)

September 4th: Banjo release date, Terry revealed(36 days)

November 6th: Terry release date(63 days)

January 16th: Byleth's teaser date(71 days)

January 28th: Byleth's release date(12 days)

March 26th: ARMs guessing game(57 days)

June 22nd: Min Min revealed(88 days)

June 29th: Min Min released(7 days)

October 1st: Steve revealed(94 days)



So, yeah, say again how the wait between Min Min and Steve wasn't the longest, because the only bigger gap was between Joker and Hero, and we got TWO characters shown off at E3 that year to tide us over, otherwise, the wait basically didn't exist.


So yes, the first pass basically WAS a 2 month wait, give or take a week or two if you want to be super pedantic, the only major gap of the first pass was Joker to E3, and again, we got 2 characters shown off there, which held off people's appetite for news immensely.


And yeah, kinda, people will always want to know what's next. That's just kinda the nature of this thread, to know what's next. We're called the Newcomer Speculation thread for a reason, because you can't really speculate on characters that you already know are confirmed.

Alright. If we are counting releases, then I insist we count the release of the Small Battlefield. They arent equivalent, but you insist they need to be forced into the same category. (Steve isn't even a week old since release, and you, amonst others, are talking about the next reveal. The only logical comparison is to put forth every Smash release, and Small Battlefield was a game changer).

I'm comparing reveal schedules.... because I don't think it makes any sense to add in the superfluous data. Unless we use all of it, rather than being randomly subjective. Small Battlefield arguably changed the game more than any individual character, and if we are comparing speculation, then a reveal means significantly more than a release.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I mean, to your last part, that's what I've been saying for awhile now. December 31st is a FUBAR date in case something goes horribly wrong.

TBH, now that Steve's done, and it seems like the team's comfortable from working at home, I kinda expect things to get closer to how the first pass was handled in terms of dev time.

Heck, even if we assume there's a three-month gap between releases, it lands right on October.

If Pass 2 ends in December 2021, some of these characters will have taken a really long time to make. And Minecraft "I needed every goddamn stage in the game to be redone for my gimmick to work" Steve feels like the peak of ambition for what he needed to function as a character, so I don't even want to begin to imagine what could a character need for them to take like, 6 months to make.

 

[Shroob]

Heck, even if we assume there's a three-month gap between releases, it lands right on October.

If Pass 2 ends in December 2021, some of these characters will have taken a really long time to make. And Minecraft "I needed every goddamn stage in the game to be redone for my gimmick to work" Steve feels like the peak of ambition for what he needed to function as a character.

Again, that's what I'm saying lol. That's why I can't believe when people say things like CP8 will be in, March, over 140 days since Steve came out. Like, holy crap.

I honestly don't understand you're point. A series with more sales and media didn't do well for a time period, and therefore makes less sense?
I truly don't care enough to visit a Lloyd page. If he is important enough to be mentioned here for three pages, it's important

Alright. If we are counting releases, then I insist we count the release of the Small Battlefield. They arent equivalent, but you insist they need to be forced into the same category. (Steve isn't even a week old since release, and you, amonst others, are talking about the next reveal. The only logical comparison is to put forth every Smash release, and Small Battlefield was a game changer).

I'm comparing reveal schedules.... because I don't think it makes any sense to add in the superfluous data. Unless we use all of it, rather than being randomly subjective. Small Battlefield arguably changed the game more than any individual character, and if we are comparing speculation, then a reveal means significantly more than a release.

You really gonna say a tiny version of an existing stage "Changed the game" more than the guy who literally needed over 110 stages to be updated to accommodate him?