Well here's a hypothetical question to break up the monotony a little bit.
For Sony owned/exclusive characters, which fighter would bring the most interesting moveset, stage, music, or spirits? And which would be the most novel in terms of impact on the public?
Warning: long-ass post incoming
Moveset wise? There are a good amount of options.
- Kratos. The why is obvious. Countless weapons, different abilities, protagonist from an heavy action game...
They would probably just focus on the blades, which would be totally unique in Smash, and the blades are enough to pull off a cool moveset. Plus Kratos is super strong, he could also fight with his fists without a problem. They could also give him his Leviathan axe from the latest game, which is basically Mjölnir but with ice properties, and that is cool as ****. The thing is, young Kratos doesn't use the axe and I'd guess that version of the character would be prioritized, so giving him the axe from the last game wouldn't be accurate AT ALL. But Smash sometimes is like that, so who knows.
If they decided to focus in old Kratos, they could even throw Atreus in his moveset lol
- Kat. Her gravity powers are enough to make an interesting moveset. Though I feel it would be kind of hard to properly add her, to be honest. Gravity Rush 2 also gave her more battle abilities, I don't remember the names but she had a heavy style of combat and a fast one, which could also work for Smash. Maybe even her cat could aid her in some of her moves.
- Ratchet & Clank. Ratchet has like 237238 weapons across the series. That + Clank unique abilities, makes him a character with vast gameplay options.
Some honorable mentions: Infamous protagonists and their different powers, Aloy, Patapon character, the Hunter from Bloodborne...
Stages. This is even harder, I think. So many good options:
- God of War, due to it's setting, could offer multiple cool options. The classic games have a lot of great locations, same goes for the 2018 game. I was mainly thinking of a stage based in God of War 3 intro, which is pretty epic and has a lot of gods and titans involved, which could appear in the background fighting each other.
- Bloodborne, with a Yharnam stage. The setting alone makes it a worthy option.
- The Last of Us. I think they could pull off a cool stage for the series, even if almost all locations are pretty much realistic. I was thinking in stage with a big focus in the infecteds, and assuming it wouldn't be a problem for CERO, I believe it could be a nice option.
- An stage based on ICO / Shadow of the Colossus / The Last Guardian. One of those 3 options. Shadow of the Colossus has probably the most catchy locations, but ICO and Last Guardian also had fantastic locations. Maybe even a stage based on the 3 games... the architecture in all 3 games is pretty similar, so with some creative freedom, I think it could be possible.
- Ratchet and Clank stage. I mean in each game the duo has visited like 8 or 9 new planets. There's massive potential with a Ratchet and Clank stage. But it would probably be a Metropolis stage.
- Lastly but not less important and lowkey the best option, a Wipeout stage. Some could argue that would be kind of redundant because we have F-Zero stages, but Wipeout has an unique personality. Playing in a Wipeout inspired stage while listening to Wipeout music sounds perfect to me:
Honorable mentions: a Death Stranding stage could be cool, specially if the BTs were a big part of said stage. Gravity Rush stage or an Ape Escape stage sounds cool as well. Oh, a Journey stage would also be a fantastic concept.
Music is a hard one as well. Not gonna write much about this because this post would be super long if I keep like this, but all the series I mentioned so far have pretty much fantastic music, each one in it's own way.
For Smash tho, I think some of the more fitting options would be God of War (
The End Begins, Deliverance), Shadow of the Colossus (
The Opened Way,
A Despair-Filled Farewell) or Wipeout. I think Uncharted as well, the series has a really good soundtrack (
Nate's Theme,
Cut to the Chase).
Though I'd also love to hear remixes for songs like
Old Town from Gravity Rush,
You Were There from ICO or the
Main Theme from Horizon: Zero Dawn.
As for spirits, well, I think almost any franchise works for that as long they have around 8-10 good options for spirits.
If I had to pick one, I'd honestly go with Kratos. Not gonna deny that I'm biased here, but overall he feels as one of the best options, if not the best one, if we're looking for a balance in all the aspects we're discussing.