Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[Schnee117]

Having to resort to alts to suggest there's a resemblance is incredibly dishonest.

 

[Nightguything]

Honestly growing g tired of the character bashing. Nightmare is the face of Soul Calibur so let’s puts some respect on his name even if you don’t care for his appearance.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Look for less likely characters who, even with a barricade, have a fair bit of merit to them

Believe me, I'm not trying to be some contrarian snowflake who thinks Dr. Goomba Tower has a chance because of all the "unrealistic" characters we've gotten when I say that Eevee could get in over Cinderace. I'm looking at how much the Pokemon Company likes to make merchandise of its family and so on.

 

[Ornl]

[Trivia] CEDEC 2015*
The CEDEC Awards are an annual event in Tokyo. In CEDEC 2015, two Special Award were distributed with a same consideration to honor the first generation of video games: the first was to Toru Iwatani, for having created Pac-Man, the second was to Tomohiro Nishikaku, for having created Space Invaders. Masahiro Sakurai was here.

CEDEC Awards*
• Special Award – Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy), Ken Kutaragi (Sony), Koichi Hamamura (Famitsu), Koichi Sugiyama & Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest), Masahiro Sakurai (Nintendo), Masaya Nakamura (Namco), Satoshi Tajiri & Tsunekazu Ishihara (Pokémon), Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo), Tomohiro Nishikado (Space Invaders), Toru Iwatani (Pac-Man), Yōichi Erikawa (Koei), Yu Suzuki (Sega arcade).
• Other Awards – Akihiro Hino (Level-5), Masayoshi Sutoh (Atlus).
• Other series that won Awards – Guilty Gear (Arc System Works), Ico & Shadow of the Colossus (Team Ico), Journey (Jenova Chen), Kantai Collection (Kadokawa Games), Monster Hunter & Street Fighter (Capcom), Neko Atsume (Hit-Point), NieR & Ōkami (developed by PlatinumGames), Puzzle & Dragons (GungHo Online), Rhythm Heaven & Splatoon (Nintendo), Souls (FromSoftware).

 

[Oracle Link]

Honestly growing g tired of the character bashing. Nightmare is the face of Soul Calibur so let’s puts some respect on his name even if you don’t care for his appearance.

Ahh i dont know Soul Calibur that good when he is in i hope we get Link in Soul Calibur again (with Costumes From all 3d Zeldas)

 

[7NATOR]

Since Capcom and Namco Characters are the topic, and There's the prevalent theory that This pass might be focusing on Old Ideas, I got New Theory

Old Companies, New Avenues

So To get straight to the point of this theory, let’s look at all the 3rd party Companies currently represented in the Main Roster (Including Sub-Companies)

Konami
Sega (Atlus)
Capcom
Namco
Square (And Enix)
Microsoft (Rare, Mojiang)
SNK

With these 7 Companies, here are the Companies that got new Unique characters in this Game

Konami
Atlus
Microsoft (Rare, Mojiang)
Square (and Enix)
SNK


And the Companies that did not get any New Unique Characters

Sega
Capcom
Namco


So the Gist of this theory is that if you realize, Fighter Pass 2 has been repeating Companies already in the game, but they’ve also been different branches of the Company. I assume with different branches, comes different negotiations. Anyway here’s an example to show

Banjo (Rare) in Fighter Pass 1, Steve (Mojiang) in Fighter Pass 2
Hero (Enix) in Fighter Pass 1, Sephiroth (Square) in Fighter Pass 2

So what if the same thing could be true, for example

Joker (Atlus) in Fighter Pass 1, ??? (Sega) in Fighter Pass 2

And this applies wholly to Namco and Capcom since they did not get Unique characters in base or DLC

However, Capcom did get Ken as an Echo Fighter of Ryu.

TL;DR: Sega, Capcom, and Namco might be implied to get characters this pass. Microsoft and Square got 1 Character in each pass, and each of those characters come from different branches of Company (Rare in FP1, Mojiang in FP2) (Enix in FP1, Square in FP2)

So it might be same with Sega (Atlus in FP1, Perhaps Sega in FP2), and Namco and Capcom haven't gotten any unique characters at all this game, however Capcom had Ken as echo

 

[Strife]

Honestly growing g tired of the character bashing. Nightmare is the face of Soul Calibur so let’s puts some respect on his name even if you don’t care for his appearance.

This is just inaccurate though. The series has had multiple protagonists and Nightmare has never been the most popular. I don't think even Namco has promoted him has the primary character of the game. Thats just something thats caught on in the smash community, due to thier ignorance of other franchises.

 

[SharkLord]

This is just inaccurate though. The series has had multiple protagonists and Nightmare has never been the most popular. I don't think even Namco has promoted him has the primary character of the game. Thats just something thats caught on in the smash community, due to thier ignorance of other franchises.

Maybe I'm wrong, but wasn't Siegfreid-Nightmare considered the (Still villainous) protagonist of SoulCalibur II?

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

We need the king himself, Rex, so he can swap between being swordie Ganondorf & swordie Sheik at the press of a button and no this is not a thinly veiled Latin joke it just turned out that way

That reminds me, I was thinking a bit more on how Xenoblade Chronicles 2's mechanics could translate to Super Smash Bros., and I think I've got a more fleshed out idea.

So Rex would be a character of mediocre speed and frame data in exchange for his range and power, not unlike Sephiroth, but not quite as crazy, at least in the range department. His Up, Down, and Side Special Attacks would be his Driver Arts, Rolling Smash, Anchor Shot Ha!, and Double Spinning Edge. Which one is which depends on whether an Aetheresque or a Spin Attackesque recovery would be better for the overall design (You could also use Anchor Shot as a tether recovery but I'd rather its primary use be offensive. A move that trips your opponent from a distance and forces a tech chase could be really interesting on a character like this).

His Driver Arts would all have gauges on Rex's display, and you fill them up by landing normal attacks. When these gauges are full, you can cancel your normal attacks and other Driver Art Special Moves into these Driver Arts. Rex's Neutral Special also has a gauge, but it only fills up by canceling attacks into Special Attacks, so it's much riskier to try and fill. Either tapping the Special Attack button, or using it while the gauge hasn't been filled yet uses Blade Switch, which swaps Pyra with Mythra, and vice versa. Using it while the gauge is full has Pyra or Mythra preform a Blade Special, which changes depending on the level of charge.

Pyra and Mythra stand next to Rex, granting him power. This is shown through a tether of light. The more golden it is, the higher a charge you have for your Blade Special (at least for Player 1. It might be a good idea to change the color of the tether for the other player positions so you don't get confused). You can also look at the number on the gauge in the display. Pyra and Mythra will move along with Rex at a set distance away, however, while they can keep up with Rex's initial dash, they lag behind a bit beyond that, and can no longer supply power until they catch up. Even when lagging behind though, they still maintain a set distance from Rex, so they can't be desynced that way since they aren't actually slower. If Pyra and Mythra don't have the tether up, they cannot use Blade Specials. In addition, the Level IV Blade Specials work differently than the other tiers. Using Special Moves actually halts the charge. Instead, you have to just maintain proximity to Pyra or Mythra. Breaking this proximity cancels the charge, and you have to start back at base Level III.

Aside from different Blade Specials, Pyra and Mythra add different traits to Rex while they're in proximity: The Aegis Sword has a sweet spot near the end of the blade, and Pyra makes this sweet spot stronger, while Mythra's is more forgiving, but instead of doing more damage, it charges your Driver Arts more. Attacks from Pyra's Aegis Sword can instantly K.O. non-fighter characters like Pikmin, Luma, and Assist Trophies, while Mythra makes Rex's dodges invincible out quicker depending on how big of a charge you have on your Blade Special.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

View attachment 296384

[Trivia] CEDEC 2015*
The CEDEC Awards are an annual event in Tokyo. In CEDEC 2015, two Special Award were distributed with a same consideration to honor the first generation of video games: the first was to Toru Iwatani, for having created Pac-Man, the second was to Tomohiro Nishikaku, for having created Space Invaders. Masahiro Sakurai was here.

CEDEC Awards*
• Special Award – Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy), Ken Kutaragi (Sony), Koichi Hamamura (Famitsu), Koichi Sugiyama & Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest), Masahiro Sakurai (Nintendo), Masaya Nakamura (Namco), Satoshi Tajiri & Tsunekazu Ishihara (Pokémon), Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo), Tomohiro Nishikado (Space Invaders), Toru Iwatani (Pac-Man), Yōichi Erikawa (Koei), Yu Suzuki (Sega arcade).
• Other Awards – Akihiro Hino (Level-5), Masayoshi Sutoh (Atlus).
• Other series that won Awards – Guilty Gear (Arc System Works), Ico & Shadow of the Colossus (Team Ico), Journey (Jenova Chen), Kantai Collection (Kadokawa Games), Monster Hunter & Street Fighter (Capcom), Neko Atsume (Hit-Point), NieR & Ōkami (developed by PlatinumGames), Puzzle & Dragons (GungHo Online), Rhythm Heaven & Splatoon (Nintendo), Souls (FromSoftware).

It doesn't seem as though we're getting anything Space Invaders related because Square owns Taito now and we already have Sephiroth and there was no Taito Mii Costumes in the pass. Maybe Taito will be treated differently like Mojang though. It still seems weird that there's no content from Taito at all, I would have expected a spirit event by now.

 

[Cosmic77]

There are a lot of characters who should probably get more discussion, but it feels like people shoot them down way too quickly. ARMS and Minecraft were both frequent victims of this. ARMS for already having content in Smash and being "dead", and Minecraft because it would look too weird and wouldn't work...which never exactly felt like a genuine reason for why we couldn't get Steve.

I don't expect anyone to correctly predict one character after the other, but we keep predicting the same old characters only to end up getting someone who was sort of brushed off and neglected.

 

[Guynamednelson]

and being "dead"

Not just that, but because it was a first party that was new, but not super-super-super-super new.

 

[StarBot]

I gotta a bad felling that Rex is going to be the new Geno

As in, a character that Sakurai openly said he wanted in, but due to people forgetting that as time move forward, people mind changes

 

[StarBot]

There are a lot of characters who should probably get more discussion, but it feels like people shoot them down way too quickly. ARMS and Minecraft were both frequent victims of this. ARMS for already having content in Smash and being "dead", and Minecraft because it would look too weird and wouldn't work...which never exactly felt like a genuine reason for why we couldn't get Steve.

I don't expect anyone to correctly predict one character after the other, but we keep predicting the same old characters only to end up getting someone who was sort of brushed off and neglected.

I learned that if it's a character that this site desperately wants, it's definitely not going to happen

And if is a character that this site don't like, it's probably going to happen in some way

 

[Arcanir]

So going through things, it looks like our timeline for potential early development leaks/rumors so far is:

August 2018: Verge mentions a second SE rep (can't find the original post, but there are a number of threads that pop up during that month referring to it).
August 8th: Imran alludes to a second Namco and SE rep in a tweet.
October 12th: Imran clarifies that he was only talking about SE.
November 2nd: Verge mentions a list of seven SE characters, but doesn't say who.
November 28th/29th: The DM of said list leaks out, confirms the list to be Slime, Erdrick, Luminary, Sephiroth, Geno, Sora, and Crono. Also has some details on inner speculation such as Erdrick and Luminary sharing a slot, Sora was not the character, and Geno was not taken seriously as an option.
December 19th: The Chun-Li/Tales of rumor is posted. Mentions Chun-Li, Lloyd/Yuri, Steve (as default Minecraft guy), Erdrick, and Sephiroth as notable considerations/worked on, says Sora and Geno were rejected for not being able to include other Disney characters and being too tied to Smash to be viable respectively.
December 31st: Tansut mentions that DQ is coming, but is not far along.
January 3rd 2019: Brave is datamined alongside Jack (Joker) and Pakkun (Piranha Plant). Speculation determines that it means "Yuusha", which is a common name for Hero.

Minecraft content was also mentioned on May 30th by Verge, but that information seems to be more contested from my understanding.

Anything else that I may be missing here?

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

I think you're confusing the term light weight with glass cannons. Jiggilypuff has a single high damaging move, she is not a glass cannon. The term glass canon, is often misused in the smash communities anyways, perhaps prepatch Pichu was a glass a canon but he isn't anymore. He just has long combo strings, his archtype is more similar to Shiek than anything. The point of glass cannon is they hit hard, that's Sephiorth not Jigglypuff. Its an archetype, not a mechanic.

It is an archetype, it's just really broad. The only requirements are explosive power in exchange for cruddy surviveability. Pichu fits this to a T by being light, and dealing a crap ton of damage, but also harming himself in the process. Jigglypuff's damage output is higher than one might expect, with almost all of her aerial attacks doing over 10%. This along with its speed in the air allows it to do a lot of damage, then escape. If it does not escape, then it's likely to be K.O.ed due to its low weight.

Not all glass cannons are as such due to a low weight though. Little Mac is fairly light, but he's not a featherweight. Instead, he has explosive power on the ground but his disadvantage state is just...the worst. Most notably with his recovery being pretty nonexistent. It can even be argued that Ganondorf is a glass cannon since like with Little Mac, he's absurdly powerful in exchange for the worst recovery in the game, which gets him killed pretty early half the time.

And I don't consider Sephiroth a zoner because his projectiles suck for zoning, his neutral b is way too slow to zone and his side b has to short range and has no hitstun. Having long range doesn't make you a zoner, by that logic all sword characters are zoners, which is pretty silly. Having a poor disadvantage state doesn't make you a zooner either. Take Greninja(rush down) who has poor get off me options and Pacman(zoner) who has a good disadvantage state. The more I write on this topic is the more I realize you don't know what you're talking about.

Projectile zoners are only one type of zoner. While Sephiroth's projectiles are terrible for zoning, his normals are great for it due to their range, and their lack of safety up close encourages this behavior. You are correct in that traits like long range and poor disadvantage states do not make a zoner on their own, but together, they are textbook qualities.

Also, while not all sword characters are zoners, most of them are, either being apart of the swordsman archetype (Marth, Byleth, Corrin, etc.) or the projectile zoner archetype (Link, Robin, Mii Swordfighter, etc.). There are outliers like Roy, who uses shorter and quicker swings to rush you down, Cloud, who's more of an all-rounder, and Ike, who blurs the line between swordsman and grappler/super heavyweight, but most of them want to keep you away with big, disjointed hitboxes.

And yes I think there is a resemblance. I hope I attached them right.

I guess I can kinda see it in those two images, but that's not Nightmare's usual design, and would likely get in as an alternate costume if it gets in at all. Looking at both characters's main character designs though, there's no resemblance.

 

[StarBot]

That is true, but I bet that if those guy saw any mention of Smash Bros in it, it would have been released first too ngl.

Counter point, the leaker apprently dosn't care about Nintendo, thus Smash

So he probably just didn't brother / skipped past it

 

[Louie G.]

There are a lot of characters who should probably get more discussion, but it feels like people shoot them down way too quickly. ARMS and Minecraft were both frequent victims of this. ARMS for already having content in Smash and being "dead", and Minecraft because it would look too weird and wouldn't work...which never exactly felt like a genuine reason for why we couldn't get Steve.

They come up a little more often, but this is exactly why I keep predicting Monster Hunter. "Monster Hunter is represented fine with Rathalos" seems like one of those excuses ripe to be dismantled and yet I see it all the time. People continue to cite an article from 2011 as gospel.

It kinda baffles me that some people sleep on it while touting Dante and Phoenix as frontrunners too, considering it's so much bigger than both of their respective series. So it does kinda get slept on in another sense too. I don't think people recognize how massive it is in Japan (Hero part 2).

Speaking of Capcom, in regards to that leak going around I'm not super into Tales but would be over the moon if Chun-Li made it.

 

[SharkLord]

They come up a little more often, but this is exactly why I keep predicting Monster Hunter. "Monster Hunter is represented fine with Rathalos" seems like one of those excuses ripe to be dismantled.

It kinda baffles me that some people sleep on it while touting Dante and Phoenix as frontrunners too, considering it's so much bigger than both of their respective series. So it does kinda get slept on in another sense too.

Speaking of Capcom, in regards to that leak going around I'm not super into Tales but would be over the moon if Chun-Li made it.

Really? From where I'm standing, everyone's been saying Monster Hunter's got everything lining up for it.

 

[Louie G.]

Really? From where I'm standing, everyone's been saying Monster Hunter's got everything lining up for it.

I see a little of both. I think now that Sephiroth has made it apparent that we can expand on base game content even more people are starting to come around and recognize that Monster Hunter isn't such a far off idea.

People have always seemed more open to Monster Hunter here than on other sites in general, so that might also be part of it.

 

[N3ON]

I gotta a bad felling that Rex is going to be the new Geno

As in, a character that Sakurai openly said he wanted in, but due to people forgetting that as time move forward, people mind changes

Rex isn't going to be the new Geno. Rex is going to be the new Elma (who is the new Zoroark, who is the new Lyn) once the next Xenoblade cast is revealed, which will probably happen sooner than later, and the window for his possible inclusion closes. As it has for basically every no-longer current character in a series with rotating casts.

 

[Faso115]

Remember, just because speculation alludes that a character having great chances that usually is not the case. If anything, the only time speculation was kinda right about anything was....what, Banjo?

Without leaks we have never ever predicted a character in Ultimate's DLC cycle.

 

[Louie G.]

Rex isn't going to be the new Geno. Rex is going to be the new Elma (who is the new Zoroark, who is the new Lyn) once the next Xenoblade cast is revealed, which will probably happen sooner than later, and the window for his possible inclusion closes. As it has for basically every no-longer current character in a series with rotating casts.

Agreed, but from what I've observed Lyn is still really popular. I feel like she'd have continued to be heavily requested if Fire Emblem wasn't... you know.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Remember, just because speculation alludes that a character having great chances that usually is not the case. If anything, the only time speculation was kinda right about anything was....what, Banjo?

More like Byleth, and even then people thought they'd be saved for after FP1.

 

[zriL]

I agree that Monster Hunter is very likely right now. Especially since there is a monster hunter mii that is bound to come back. But if Monster Hunter happens, I think it should be a monster. I don't know Monster Hunter very well so I'm not sure if it has other iconic monster besides Rathalos (a bit like Pokemon), or if Rathalos is the only legitimate representant, far above the others.

 

[N3ON]

Agreed, but from what I've observed Lyn is still really popular. I feel like she'd have continued to be heavily requested if Fire Emblem wasn't... you know.

That's true, but tangential to the point of how these are characters limited by timing. Soon enough Xenoblade will have a new cast, and expectation will shift to them.

I mean it's not the end of the road for those characters, it's just very unlikely they accrue enough popularity to disrupt the current trend of only getting the newest option (apart from clones). I think it would require them actually getting a new (non-remake) title.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I don't know what's worse, the fact that someone had the audacity to say that a finesse katana wielder is too similar to a beeeeeg chonky greatsword or the fact this isn't the first time I've seen someone say a finesse blade user means Nightmare would be too similar

 

[The Rhythm Theif]

Remember, just because speculation alludes that a character having great chances that usually is not the case. If anything, the only time speculation was kinda right about anything was....what, Banjo?

Without leaks we have never ever predicted a character in Ultimate's DLC cycle.

There was no leak for Cloud Strife in Smash 4 and I predicted him.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I actually don't remember Nightmare having a second stance, only remember him holding his claymore like a broad sword.

Lemme blow your mind then because he actually has THREE alternate stances.

One where he carries the sword on his back, which boosts his overall mobility.

One where he holds it to the side (it’s more obvious in older games since his default stance isn’t similar to that stance)

And a third one where he’s in a constant crouching state.

All of these stances completely change his normals, giving him some really good mixup potential if used right.

 

[Goombaic]

While I agree that looking at Nightmare as the only possible representative for Soul Calibur is a bit ignorant of Soul Calibur's other mascots and protagonists, he is not like Sephiroth at all, or any of the villains in Smash for that matter.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

There are a lot of characters who should probably get more discussion, but it feels like people shoot them down way too quickly. ARMS and Minecraft were both frequent victims of this. ARMS for already having content in Smash and being "dead", and Minecraft because it would look too weird and wouldn't work...which never exactly felt like a genuine reason for why we couldn't get Steve.

For Steve, I think it was both a "no because I don't like him" and a genuine concern depending on who it was. Those that genuinely believed this tend to still believe this from what I've seen.

Rex isn't going to be the new Geno. Rex is going to be the new Elma (who is the new Zoroark, who is the new Lyn) once the next Xenoblade cast is revealed, which will probably happen sooner than later, and the window for his possible inclusion closes. As it has for basically every no-longer current character in a series with rotating casts.

Which is a shame really. People moving on is normal. Newer things come by and interests shift, but I feel like a lot of characters get thrown out (particularly from Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda) because of the perception that Nintendo would never add them.

Sadly this perception affecting popularity also makes it true since without relevancy, the characters would have to be picks for the fans, and since the fans have a hard time rallying behind characters with no hope, they don't get added, which reinforces the mentality that they have no hope.

I wonder just how much this cycle would break if a character that has been rotated out gets added. Would support for Lyn, the Skull Kid, and various older, but popular Pokémon be renewed or would they just be viewed as exceptions, causing everything to stay the same.

EDIT: It would be kind of funny if they added...I dunno, Arceus or something, and then the Pokémon fans went "ZOMG, this means there's a chance for Scizor, Grovyle, Sceptile, Blaziken, Chandelure, Heracross, Karrablast, Eevee, Mimikyu, Empoleon, Lycanroc..."

 

[SpecterFlower]

Since Capcom and Namco Characters are the topic, and There's the prevalent theory that This pass might be focusing on Old Ideas, I got New Theory

Old Companies, New Avenues

So To get straight to the point of this theory, let’s look at all the 3rd party Companies currently represented in the Main Roster (Including Sub-Companies)

Konami
Sega (Atlus)
Capcom
Namco
Square (And Enix)
Microsoft (Rare, Mojiang)
SNK

With these 7 Companies, here are the Companies that got new Unique characters in this Game

Konami
Atlus
Microsoft (Rare, Mojiang)
Square (and Enix)
SNK


And the Companies that did not get any New Unique Characters

Sega
Capcom
Namco


So the Gist of this theory is that if you realize, Fighter Pass 2 has been repeating Companies already in the game, but they’ve also been different branches of the Company. I assume with different branches, comes different negotiations. Anyway here’s an example to show

Banjo (Rare) in Fighter Pass 1, Steve (Mojiang) in Fighter Pass 2
Hero (Enix) in Fighter Pass 1, Sephiroth (Square) in Fighter Pass 2

So what if the same thing could be true, for example

Joker (Atlus) in Fighter Pass 1, ??? (Sega) in Fighter Pass 2

And this applies wholly to Namco and Capcom since they did not get Unique characters in base or DLC

However, Capcom did get Ken as an Echo Fighter of Ryu.

TL;DR: Sega, Capcom, and Namco might be implied to get characters this pass. Microsoft and Square got 1 Character in each pass, and each of those characters come from different branches of Company (Rare in FP1, Mojiang in FP2) (Enix in FP1, Square in FP2)

So it might be same with Sega (Atlus in FP1, Perhaps Sega in FP2), and Namco and Capcom haven't gotten any unique characters at all this game, however Capcom had Ken as echo

Persona is basically sega's biggest series behind football manager and total war.

If Joker isn't a sega character shulk isn't a nintendo character.

the only 2 companies with no new representation are Namco and Capcom.

Edit: i don't think it's a good idea to count subsidiary company's as a seperate company because legally they really aren't, to get Joker Nintendo talked to Sega and payed money to Sega for all purposes Sega see's it as them getting a character in rather than Atlus getting one in because Atlus is as much Sega as sonic or yakuza is.

 

[Will]

just say you don't want nightmare and move on, don't be an idiot by making stupid comparisons that make no sense

 

[MagnesD3]

Not gonna lie Nightmare would be pretty badass now that I think on it. His gimmick would just be the fact he has multiple stances and he’s a heavy swordsvillain.

 

[Greyfox22]

So going through things, it looks like our timeline for potential early development leaks/rumors so far is:

August 2018: Verge mentions a second SE rep (can't find the original post, but there are a number of threads that pop up during that month referring to it).
August 8th: Imran alludes to a second Namco and SE rep in a tweet.
October 12th: Imran clarifies that he was only talking about SE.
November 2nd: Verge mentions a list of seven SE characters, but doesn't say who.
November 28th/29th: The DM of said list leaks out, confirms the list to be Slime, Erdrick, Luminary, Sephiroth, Geno, Sora, and Crono. Also has some details on inner speculation such as Erdrick and Luminary sharing a slot, Sora was not the character, and Geno was not taken seriously as an option.
December 19th: The Chun-Li/Tales of rumor is posted. Mentions Chun-Li, Lloyd/Yuri, Steve (as default Minecraft guy), Erdrick, and Sephiroth as notable considerations/worked on, says Sora and Geno were rejected for not being able to include other Disney characters and being too tied to Smash to be viable respectively.
December 31st: Tansut mentions that DQ is coming, but is not far along.
January 3rd 2019: Brave is datamined alongside Jack (Joker) and Pakkun (Piranha Plant). Speculation determines that it means "Yuusha", which is a common name for Hero.

Minecraft content was also mentioned on May 30th by Verge, but that information seems to be more contested from my understanding.

Anything else that I may be missing here?

So I guess this means Chun-Li and a Tales of rep have a decent shot. That would definitely be pretty interesting if it turns out to be true. I wonder how well people would react to another secondary third party rep like Chun-Li. I don't see a lot of people talking about her, but I think she'd be a pretty welcome addition with most people.

 

[SvartWolf]

I'm having a hard time dealing with the reality of Ganondorf's moveset lately. I feel like the respect that Sephiroth got triggered it. WHY is he like this? I would've happily left him out of Melee if I knew this was going to happen. He should be reflecting projectiles instead of being dominated by them. He should have his own projectile.

I understand there are people that like his moveset, but surely there's a compromise we can reach? Probably will never happen unless Sakurai steps down from Smash, but I feel like simply changing his specials would do it. Let him keep Flame Choke, but give him Deadman's Volley, Float, and a cape parry. That would flesh out his options so much and make him that much more true to his original character.

I guess I'm just kind of babbling. I'm grateful he's in the game at all, but this just gets me down every so often. Smash would be nearly perfect to me if they gave Ganondorf a decent overall.

Any encouraging words for me? Lol

Still, it's a worthwhile discussion to have now that Sephiroth's out and has a moveset that's as explosive as Ganondorf's. If not even more explosive since Sephiroth has multiple ways to set up instant shield breaks / devastating shield pokes (while Ganondorf's Smashes and Volcano Kick come close, they're not as consistent IMHO):

Source video here - Larry Lurr titled the video "Don't shield against Sephiroth" for a reason.



Besides agreeing on the whole (and reiterating my thoughts from a couple days ago):

It's pretty much certain that Ganondorf's clone status was not intended to be a dis-service or anything: Sakurai outright admitted on the Japanese Melee website that Ganondorf was initially not part of the project plan, but got in not just because of how easy it was to clone him, but also due to popularity (as evidenced by the Smash 2 poll).

And it's worth noting that there are multiple reasons for people to go back to older titles (at least for a session or two): It's not just competitive 64 and Melee players who generally stick to their title, but also instances where people simply lack access to Ultimate at someone's house or whatever. Sakurai's probably thinking of that in order to avoid jarring character changes.

That said, if there's any encouraging words? The sword Smashes were a step in the right direction IMHO, and it's certainly possible that Ganondorf recieves further changes when Smash 6 comes along. I doubt that several of his Falcon-inspired moves will go away (Down Air is famous for being the strongest Spike in Smash, for instance), I mean, DORIYAH was really well-recieved to begin with, even if his Brawl / 4 Up Smash was removed (and that one was well-recieved too).

I'm someone who really likes the Falcondorf moveset, but it might be for the best to give him something new like DMV and / or the float when Smash 6 comes around. His current status is that he can be potentially devastating (both in casual and competitive settings, yes), but he shouldn't be plagued with a combination of sluggish neutral, really bad disadvantage and a very exploitable recovery. Reducing one or a couple of the weaknesses with the float and / or DMV / whatever a bit might be a good way to go, even if it winds up reducing his sheer power a bit to compensate.

the biggest problem that ganondorf has is that falcon dorf is actually fun to play, at least in lower levels were you dont get completely obliterated. That being said, what irks me most about the stuff is that he really don't need an overhaul just a couple of key changes.

Imo the biggest and easiest one is his jab. change the animation to a cape slap, keep the frame data, maybe reduce very slightly the damage and knockback, and give it like 5 frames of reflecting projectiles.

The most disctintive ganondorf/ganon boss fight feature have been havingping pong matches with his projectiles.. so there is no reason for him not having a reflector. it won't completely negate his weakness to projectiles since he cant use it in teh air or from teh back.. but certainly would be helpful. and extremely ganondorf like.

the other is getting rid of warlock punch. completely useless move that has some uses in free for all, but anything that he gets instead would be more useful there instead. It also happened to me when looking at sephirot that i wondered.. why ganondorf doesnt have something like flare/mega flare/ Giga Flare. easy to copy from sephirot. is not gamechanging as mario fireballs or sheik needles. and is also a charfge move meaning is not completely different to warlock punch. and even ifis not the most super move ever is still a buff considering he loses something usless instead.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I still see Monster Hunter as a logical, and likely next addition. Most of the Fighter Pass 2 characters seem to be based on deals with companies they already established in the past, Capcom seems logical to follow suit, especially Monster Hunter since the game is becoming bigger with the minute. As Sephiroth is currently doing for the FF7 remake, Monster Hunter will likely do the same promotional stuff for Monster Hunter World, and whatever else is coming for the franchise.

Is Namco gonna have another character you all say? Maybe. I could see it happening yes. 2B, Lloyd, and Nightmare seem solid choices. I could see Yoshimitsu happening as well, because he's both from Tekken and Soul Calibur and seems their go-to choice for crossovers regarding fighting games for this reason.

It's also entirely likely we get a second character from a already big 3rd party franchise, as Sonic, or Street Fighter. Chun-Li is mentoined a lot. Wouldn't be upset about her... But I do think these sort of additions aren't best suited for DLC spots, but who am I? For me, I really want Isaac, Dixie Kong and Impa... But that doesn't seem to be very likely anymore.

 

[3BitSaurus]

Another interesting thing about this Chun-Li rumor is that, paired with the stuff Sakurai has said on Alucard and the fact that we just got Sephiroth probably means that the Smash team is more open to second, non-echo characters from third party franchises than anyone originally thought. Only reason it took this long for them to happen was because they've been outprioritized thus far (if the rumors are true, that is).

 

[SharkLord]

So I guess this means Chun-Li and a Tales of rep have a decent shot. That would definitely be pretty interesting if it turns out to be true. I wonder how well people would react to another secondary third party rep like Chun-Li. I don't see a lot of people talking about her, but I think she'd be a pretty welcome addition with most people.

I mean yesterday was pretty Chun-Li centric towards the end.

Something that makes me doubt Chun-Li is that her deal had actual closure. Steve, Sephiroth, Erdrick, and the Tales of duo just "disappeared," while Chun-Li was stated to have been replaced by Ken. It seems to me that her deal was changed into Ken's rather than being put on hold or cancelled entirely.

I still stand by the theory of the Tales rep being held off to see how well Berseria did, in case Velvet could be a viable option as well. Remember that the base game's roster was finalized in 2015, while Berseria was released the following year and then localized the year after. Vesperia DE could also be a reason as well, having released in 2019. That could also be something Nintendo and/or Bamco could've been evaluating; Since FP2 was allegedly finalized around E3 2019, there would still be time to wait and see.

Of course, Lloyd's game has more influence and he's been a major request for long time. It's entirely possible-Likely, even-That he could still get chosen over Velvet or Yuri, even with their recent releases.

 

[Greyfox22]

Another interesting thing about this Chun-Li rumor is that, paired with the stuff Sakurai has said on Alucard and the fact that we just got Sephiroth probably means that the Smash team is more open to second, non-echo characters from third party franchises than anyone originally thought. Only reason it took this long for them to happen was because they've been outprioritized thus far (if the rumors are true, that is).

Man, I would have loved to get Alucard, especially after playing through Symphony of the Night recently. I wonder if we did get him people would say Sephiroth is too similar though because of the sword and silver hair...

It makes sense that new franchises would be prioritized but I'm definitely into the idea of more secondary third party characters. After so many crazy new additions to smash I just like the idea of fleshing out already present series rosters. Plus, there's so many great potential characters from series already in smash; Sonic, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Castlevania ect.