Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[Lamperouge]

You guys already know mine.



Bothandwere close seconds.

What about their playstyles don't you like?

 

[osby]

There was never a "Byleth and Hayabusa switched places" rumor. That, as of right now, is an unproven conspiracy theory that really makes little sense if you take any metric about game development and project plans into account.

Wasn't Fatman advocating for "Byleth switched places with X" theory super hard?

That alone is a good reason to not care about it.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

What about their playstyles don't you like?

Oh I thought we were talking about who were our most wanted previously until they got in.

 

[blackghost]

Except Banjo.

I kid, I kid. I actually dislike a few of his move choices (forward air should be Pack Whack for visual flavor, for instance), but more than that I dislike how half-hearted his unique mechanic is. 5 Gold Feathers seems like an arbitrary way to acknowledge his collectathon origins. If they expanded on it it'd make him much more interesting, especially since lots of people think he's a bit underbaked as well.

• Up B in mid-air is a Flight Pad, which uses one Red Feather. You can Up B multiple times while in mid-air, but each time it uses a Red Feather, of which he only has 15 total. (Grounded Up-Bs are still Shock Spring Pad jumps, and you get a vastly weakened Shock Spring Jump if you're out of Red Feathers and in mid-air)
• Side B after using a Flight Pad is a Beak Bomber, essentially a weaker Wonder Wing that uses a Red Feather
• Shield + B is Egg Change which affects Neutral B. He can switch between regular eggs (50), fire eggs (20) and ice eggs (10). Fire eggs burn while ice eggs can freeze, obviously.
• His collectibles can all appear from containers if items are turned on. When collected by someone other than Banjo, Eggs heal, red feathers increase mobility temporarily and golden feathers grant short invincibility

He's easily my favorite character pick so far but that doesn't stop me from thinking he could be improved.

i wouldnt say banjo was even universally loved for people that didnt play the games due to age or simply missing them he feels like he didnt receive NEARLY the polish the other dlc did. Banjo hype died almost immediately. He isnt really relevant depsite being better than hero and possibly byleth. the decision to make his side b a limited resource will bother me for the rest of this game's lifespan. not to mention banjo had virtually no meta impact. hero is a worse character and had meta impact.

as for byleth. i dont know if he is bad or not havent played him, but i was hoping edelgard would be in instead. i dont think people should be surprised that byleth time manipulation wasnt added seriously ya'll forget how loud the whining was the last time that was added sakurai isn't dumb. About byleth moveset i was hoping hed do the pokemon trainer and work in the background cycling through all three house leaders. its a much harder character to make but three houses is special becuase of the house lords and thier stories and gameplay. byleth is just the player avatar.

 

[MooMew64]

There was never a "Byleth and Hayabusa switched places" rumor. That, as of right now, is an unproven conspiracy theory that really makes little sense if you take any metric about game development and project plans into account.

Sounds more like an excuse for people disappointed with Byleth to try and find an "explanation" when it's pretty clear as day that DLC Vol. 2 wasn't even being considered yet when Vol. 1 was being decided on, Byleth was always going to come out when they were going to come out, and Nintendo doesn't give a dang diddly darn what the vocal minority anti-FE crowd of Smash has to say about the character choice and what order they get announced.

That's just my thoughts, anyways.

 

[Blade of Evil's Bane]

Wasn’t there another insider who claimed Hayabusa wouldn’t come in 2019? It would also line up with the “Byleth and Hayabusa switched places” rumor

I must admit i'm a bit out of the loop with the recent rumors/theories and such so i probably missed it.

 

[Flyboy]

Wasn't Fatman advocating for "Byleth switched places with X" theory super hard?

That alone is a good reason to not care about it.

He was trying to argue that Byleth was meant for base game somehow, which, lol.

Sounds more like an excuse for people disappointed with Byleth to try and find an "explanation" when it's pretty clear as day that DLC Vol. 2 wasn't even being considered yet when Vol. 1 was being decided on, Byleth was always going to come out when they were going to come out, and Nintendo doesn't give a dang diddly darn what the vocal minority anti-FE crowd of Smash has to say about the character choice and what order they get announced.

That's just my thoughts, anyways.

Exactly. It does none of us any good to try and grasp at straws like that. It's more possible that Nintendo left in a spot in the fighters pass for "2019 Switch Game Character" or something like that. When you make a project plan for a game, yes you have some flexibility (so things like the deadlines not being hard other than 'February 2020') but as a whole outside of full cuts you don't suddenly decide to completely scrap and rework an entire fighter pack because that's a colossal waste of time, money, and resources. There's a pipeline that is followed and each part of that pipeline has to be working in tandem to achieve the final goal. It's not as simple as Sakurai showing up to the office, flipping a table, and shouting "PUT THE FIRE EMBLEM IN". There's a whole team at work here. The credits last as long as they do for a reason.

 

[MooMew64]

He was trying to argue that Byleth was meant for base game somehow, which, lol.

...What?

Spoiler

No, really, what? How...how does one reach that conclusion? In a world where ARMs and Xenoblade 2 were too new for base game? How...?

I just...That's got to be one of the most out there theories I've ever heard for Smash. It's pretty dang close to Chair Theory levels of goofy.

Exactly. It does none of us any good to try and grasp at straws like that. It's more possible that Nintendo left in a spot in the fighters pass for "2019 Switch Game Character" or something like that. When you make a project plan for a game, yes you have some flexibility (so things like the deadlines not being hard other than 'February 2020') but as a whole outside of full cuts you don't suddenly decide to completely scrap and rework an entire fighter pack because that's a colossal waste of time, money, and resources. There's a pipeline that is followed and each part of that pipeline has to be working in tandem to achieve the final goal. It's not as simple as Sakurai showing up to the office, flipping a table, and shouting "PUT THE FIRE EMBLEM IN".

Yep, completely agree. More than likely what happened was Nintendo did want a first party pick of theirs in the pass (we know from Sakurai that Nintendo were the ones to submit a list of who they wanted, and let him pick from it), and Sakurai went with Three Houses because he saw an opportunity for a hecka unique moveset via Byleth.

Plus, dude just really likes Fire Emblem, lol. People just gotta let the man enjoy things and add things he likes.

 

[Jomosensual]

Genuine question:

How many times in Smash has a leaker been legitimately right?

I don't mean "yeah I heard this character is in it, but take it with a grain of salt" then the character shows up later. I mean a wholehearted, absolute, stake-my-reputation-on-this-leak leaker getting a prediction exactly right.

Here's the list of leaks that have been Smash related and 100% right for DLC:
The Banjo leak before E3

Nobody knows anything.

 

[Impa4Smash]

Man I really wish Byleth had been the 3rd or 4th DLC character, just to prevent all this salt and conspiracy. If Banjo was 5th everyone would have went quietly into the night til the 2nd pass started dropping characters

 

[NintenZ]

There was never a "Byleth and Hayabusa switched places" rumor. That, as of right now, is an unproven conspiracy theory that really makes little sense if you take any metric about game development and project plans into account.

Tbh the whole Hayabusa rumor didn't exactly seem bulletproof, and considering that the same person said that all the DLC characters would be third-party and we got Byleth I don't really see it as super credible anymore.

 

[MooMew64]

Man I really wish Byleth had been the 3rd or 4th DLC character, just to prevent all this salt and conspiracy. If Banjo was 5th everyone would have went quietly into the night til the 2nd pass started dropping characters

TBH I don't think the placement would've helped anything, unfortunately. People were always gonna be mad about Byleth because of what series icon is by them in the CSS. And that's what's so fascinating about all of this: The only reason people are mad (from what I've seen) really is just because it's Fire Emblem. It honestly makes me wonder: If Byleth weren't from Fire Emblem, would everyone still be this mad? Probably not as many, and that is weird. So many people in this fanbase have such disdain for a franchise just for...existing, I guess? Anyways, people in this fandom will always be hypocritical because they'll claim "Sakurai bias bad" when it's something they don't like but if someone's favorite series gets more characters, then it's "Oh no, that's fine, because it's something I like".

The double standards this fandom has is incredible. Some people really love trying to say 'Just gimme only what I want. >>>:-(" in the most complicated and conspiracy theorist way possible.

 

[Blade of Evil's Bane]

He was trying to argue that Byleth was meant for base game somehow, which, lol.

In a world where ARMs and Xenoblade 2 were too new for base game? How...?

I'm not saying it could explain everything but...

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[osby]

Man I really wish Byleth had been the 3rd or 4th DLC character, just to prevent all this salt and conspiracy. If Banjo was 5th everyone would have went quietly into the night til the 2nd pass started dropping characters

Dealing with Banjo fandom's salt after Hero/Byleth/Terry reveals for months sounds like a nightmare, tbh.

 

[Ridrool64]

There is a 90% chance, at least, that Byleth was simply intended to be the final Super Smash Bros. newcomer (in the foreseeable future), regardless of how poorly it'd be received. While I can't exactly rule out the possibility Byleth was moved up, that would be an insane feat unless it happened after Sakurai learned that Volume 2 was a thing, but before work on Byleth started as post-pass 1.

This would also require that they froze development of the original last character in Smash, and if they're third party, tell the third party "umm, hey dude. we ain't gonna do what character we said we were gonna. your char is like, 6th now lol" and hope like hell they don't get agitated enough to break relations. Unless the original FP5 was a third party newcomer whose company was like "Psyche! No character from us today!" and Byleth was only put in because negotiations for the character fell through, I highly doubt that.

Occam's razor, everybody. Do you believe that A. a third party company quit being in Smash, or decided to pull the plug on the character, and Byleth was quickly made as a replacement, B. the original character was somebody who they swapped with Byleth as a marketing scheme because of Volume 2 being a thing, or C. Sakurai simply wanted to get Byleth in, and Nintendo wanted a DLC character from Three Houses as it was a roaring success?

 

[Deleted member]

TBH I don't think the placement would've helped anything, unfortunately. People were always gonna be mad about Byleth because of what series icon is by them in the CSS. And that's what's so fascinating about all of this: The only reason people are mad (from what I've seen) really is just because it's Fire Emblem. It honestly makes me wonder: If Byleth weren't from Fire Emblem, would everyone still be this mad? Probably not as many, and that is weird. So many people in this fanbase have such disdain for a franchise just for...existing, I guess? Anyways, people in this fandom will always be hypocritical because they'll claim "Sakurai bias bad" when it's something they don't like but if someone's favorite series gets more characters, then it's "Oh no, that's fine, because it's something I like".

The double standards this fandom has is incredible. Some people really love trying to say 'Just gimme only what I want. >>>:-(" in the most complicated and conspiracy theorist way possible.

I've learned after all of this speculation and conflict that my most wanteds(except for like 1 or 2) aren't possible anyway, so I'll be happy with pretty much anything.

 

[SlickWylde]

TBH I don't think the placement would've helped anything, unfortunately. People were always gonna be mad about Byleth because of what series icon is by them in the CSS. And that's what's so fascinating about all of this: The only reason people are mad (from what I've seen) really is just because it's Fire Emblem. It honestly makes me wonder: If Byleth weren't from Fire Emblem, would everyone still be this mad? Probably not as many, and that is weird. So many people in this fanbase have such disdain for a franchise just for...existing, I guess? Anyways, people in this fandom will always be hypocritical because they'll claim "Sakurai bias bad" when it's something they don't like but if someone's favorite series gets more characters, then it's "Oh no, that's fine, because it's something I like".

The double standards this fandom has is incredible. Some people really love trying to say 'Just gimme only what I want. >>>:-(" in the most complicated and conspiracy theorist way possible.

If he looked exactly the same, people would still be mad. 99% of the reason the "average" western fans don't like the FE characters is because most of them look the same to them, just with different hair colors. Of course, each series has some of this (Mario, Luigi, Wario all look similar), but usually have more variety. Fox, Falco and Cloud can all be considered *somewhat semi clones (not as much Wolf), but all 3 look quite different from each other. Marth, Chrom, Ike, Lucina and now Byleth all look quite similar to the untrained eye (I know that fans will see a huge difference, but besides maybe Ike, I can't really tell the difference). Robin and Corrin actually look pretty different off the top of my head. But a large portion of their series look like the others, just with small differences, like Ike being a little bigger, and Roy having different hair color.

I need to make it clear that I'm NOT salty about Byleth and I'm very happy for his/her fans. But I firmly believe that if he wasn't another blue haired fighter who's main picture shows him with a sword (and the first half of the trailer), he would be more accepted, but only a little. I think many western fans dislike FE more than the others because of how many clones/look alikes take up their ranks, and so even if they get new unique characters, the fans feel negativity towards the series unfortunately.

Not excusing the mentality, but after conversations with my friends (who I feel would be considered average western games) I believe this is a lot of the mentality. "Another blue haired swordsman" (Again, I know he's not a swordsman, but that seems to be what you see when they show him).

 

[Evil Trapezium]

Man I really wish Byleth had been the 3rd or 4th DLC character, just to prevent all this salt and conspiracy. If Banjo was 5th everyone would have went quietly into the night til the 2nd pass started dropping characters

Nah, I'd rather have Banjo & Kazooie release when they did! Salt exists whether people like it or not.

 

[Flyboy]

Not excusing the mentality, but after conversations with my friends (who I feel would be considered average western games) I believe this is a lot of the mentality. "Another blue haired swordsman" (Again, I know he's not a swordsman, but that seems to be what you see when they show him).

The only thing stopping me from believing this in its entirety is that we got Corrin last game and people were still mad despite Corrin having white hair and being half-dragon.

Like, personally, I dislike Corrin immensely because he came out during a time where the Soleil controversy regarding Fates (as well as the game as a whole just not looking great) was raging, but he at least looks totally different yet got the same level of vitriol.

I think to some extent that this is a self-propagating phenomenon. Jason Schreier is as a whole a great journalist but his article on Byleth was written like "oh great, Nintendo reveals another Fire Emblem character for Smash!". Like, one, that's horrific from a journalism perspective, and two, that really smacked of people not giving the character a chance despite TH being considered one of the best games of 2019 even by the site he writes for.

It's almost like people trick themselves into disliking a character or are afraid to confront their own reasons as to why they care so much. And don't get me wrong, despite being a Byleth and TH fan there was a twinge of disappointment that it wasn't someone a little more exciting, but that twinge was easily replaced by the fact that I thoroughly loved Three Houses as a game.

I really do have a theory that if Three houses was seen as a "new IP" but was functionally the same in every other way people would be kinder to its representation in Smash, but there are too many factors that go into that to know for sure.

 

[blackghost]

if byleth was 3rd he would have been revealed around e3 like banjo and hero were. You guys cant possibly believe that would have gone well. if he had been 4th he would have been followed by terry who the community definitely received with open arms upon reveal /s.

there was no ideal spot for byleth. people were gonna be mad either way.

 

[N3ON]

Ideally they would've revealed FP6 as well to help pacify the crowd and mitigate the Byleth blowback. Like when they tacked WFT onto the E3 that had already revealed Villager and Mega Man. That was smart. And frankly, judging by Byleth's trailer, it seems like a Smash presentation quite possibly wasn't always the intended venue for that reveal anyway.

But it's not like it's the end of the world. People were angry but it's not like DLC is over. Eventually the focus will be on different characters.

 

[Voodoo7995]

Like 4 of these aren't even from fighting games.

They may not have originated in fighting games, but that doesn't mean they've never been in fighting games. Its called a guest-star. Mortal Kombat & Soul Calibur are infamous for them

 

[Souless_shadow]

They may not have originated in fighting games, but that doesn't mean they've never been in fighting games. Its called a guest-star. Mortal Kombat & Soul Calibur are infamous for them

Guest starring in a fighting game doesn’t make them a fighting game character. Using that logic I could say that Phoenix Wright is a fighting game character because of UMvC3

 

[TriggerX]

Sounds more like an excuse for people disappointed with Byleth to try and find an "explanation" when it's pretty clear as day that DLC Vol. 2 wasn't even being considered yet when Vol. 1 was being decided on, Byleth was always going to come out when they were going to come out, and Nintendo doesn't give a dang diddly darn what the vocal minority anti-FE crowd of Smash has to say about the character choice and what order they get announced.

That's just my thoughts, anyways.

It’s definitely possible. Apparently it takes a little over a year to develop a character.
That video was shot in November.
And the first character of the pass I assume would release sometime before June.
If it takes a year for the character to actually be developed then I doubt that even considers the time involved for negotiations of said character and handling of all the business related elements behind their addition.

More than likely the second dlc pass was already given thought when the first one was announced

Well Unless it’s all 1st party characters.

Also from a game development point of view, Byleth ‘s development would likely take less time than some other original character. So I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s development time caught up and passed whoever “fp5” was supposed to be.

 

[RetroBro]

Here it is again. No one's allowed to feel any negative emotions towards Byleth's inclusion. Everyone's supposed to adore and love him/her.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

 

[Michael the Spikester]

We got every single character from previous installments back such aspeople wanted back

Fan favorites likewho has been demanded for years.

An roster over currently 80 characters.

How the **** can people whine after getting an character like Byleth. That I'll never understand...

 

[Flyboy]

Here it is again. No one's allowed to feel any negative emotions towards Byleth's inclusion. Everyone's supposed to adore and love him/her.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

It's more like no one's allowed to make up complete bull**** and spread weird "this character replaced this character" conspiracy theories with no basis because that does nothing to help speculation, but go off I guess.

 

[TriggerX]

If the second pass is all third party characters, there may be some truth behind the whole Hayabusa rumour.
Cuz at that point it would look as if the second was designed to mirror the first with Byleth essentially being the Piranha plant of that season.

Lol could still just be a coincidence too.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Hayabusa is still worth keeping an eye on given IAmShifty predictedas well as Marx and Dracula as bosses.

 

[MooMew64]

Here it is again. No one's allowed to feel any negative emotions towards Byleth's inclusion. Everyone's supposed to adore and love him/her.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Don't see how you got that from what we were talking about, but 'aight, whatever floats your boat.

 

[Curious Villager]

Here it is again. No one's allowed to feel any negative emotions towards Byleth's inclusion. Everyone's supposed to adore and love him/her.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

I mean, you are talking on a forum where Fire Emblem was such a common discussion to the point where people made "Fire Emblem General" memes and even the site itself having made an April Fools prank about it once.

I don't have much feelings about it one way or the other. Byleth will release, people will play with the character, those who like them will enjoy them, and others will probably just do their classic mode and spirit board and move on to speculating on fighter 6.

TL;DR life goes on..

 

[RoboFist]

We got every single character from previous installments back such aspeople wanted back

Fan favorites likewho has been demanded for years.

An roster over currently 80 characters.

How the **** can people whine after getting an character like Byleth. That I'll never understand...

Does anyone else go back and watch those old Direct reveals after a long/stressful day? Just to, like, reminisce on how incredible they made you feel when you witnessed them for the first time? The whole "Everyone Is Here" thing, Ridley's announcement, that killer Belmont trailer, etc?

No? Just me? And in fact, watching old Smash Directs to unwind is actually something only a crazy person does and I should seek professional therapeutic aid? Hm...yeah, seems about right. Carry on.

 

[MooMew64]

I feel some people come into this thread asking "Why does this community that has Fire Emblem fans in it disagree with me when I say I don't like Fire Emblem?" a lot.

Like, when a community has lots of FE fans in it (which Smashboards does: You should've seen the Corrin Social back in the day, it was shockingly big and active), of course there's gonna be a lot of FE discussion and praise for things that we like.

 

[Voodoo7995]

Guest starring in a fighting game doesn’t make them a fighting game character. Using that logic I could say that Phoenix Wright is a fighting game character because of UMvC3

Is he not? He's a capcom character in a capcom fighting game, although he just happens ton originate in his own series... By that logic, everyone thats ever been playable or been aboss in a fighting game can be considered a fighting game character. It just depends on who you ask... Right?

 

[MasterOfKnees]

Does anyone else go back and watch those old Direct reveals after a long/stressful day? Just to, like, reminisce on how incredible they made you feel when you witnessed them for the first time? The whole "Everyone Is Here" thing, Ridley's announcement, that killer Belmont trailer, etc?

No? Just me? And in fact, watching old Smash Directs to unwind is actually something only a crazy person does and I should seek professional therapeutic aid? Hm...yeah, seems about right. Carry on.

I've gone back to watch Sakurai's presentation of Ridley at E3 way too many times, even after I've been playing the character myself for over a year now, it was just such a surreal moment for me. I also rewatched the 8/8/18 Direct so many times in the leadup to the game's release, it's just a super well stitched together presentation from start to finish, it manages to pack so many things into 27 minutes and still transition from one thing to another really smoothly.

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

Don't see how you got that from what we were talking about, but 'aight, whatever floats your boat.

That the default thing people go to when we talk about Byleth now, its funny tbh

 

[EricTheGamerman]

Yeah, I really hate theories that base themselves around the idea that Byleth was somehow not intended for this position because it either comes as a childish attempt to move goal posts for whatever specific theory you have in mind, or an even more childish attempt to justify a character you don't like being in the game and that Nintendo somehow chose Byleth as some sort of solely promotional device to replace a "more conventionally hype in certain circles" type decision and that Byleth wasn't chosen on their own merits.

You're free to kick and scream that Three Houses wasn't out by that point, but the idea of a Byleth that represented a variety of weapons that are super important to Fire Emblem in a fun move set that also was one of Nintendo's bigger upcoming projects from one of their most consistently growing franchises. shouldn't be this hard for people to understand. There's clearly not as much value placed on the anti-Fire Emblem crowd of Smash Bros. fandoms. That just didn't matter to them if they got to make an interesting and fun character from Three Houses and in general clearly has not mattered too much to Sakurai/Nintendo.

 

[I.D.]

Nintendo somehow chose Byleth as some sort of solely promotional device to replace a "more conventionally hype in certain circles" type decision and that Byleth wasn't chosen on their own merits.

Mind listing those merits?

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Does anyone else go back and watch those old Direct reveals after a long/stressful day? Just to, like, reminisce on how incredible they made you feel when you witnessed them for the first time? The whole "Everyone Is Here" thing, Ridley's announcement, that killer Belmont trailer, etc?

No? Just me? And in fact, watching old Smash Directs to unwind is actually something only a crazy person does and I should seek professional therapeutic aid? Hm...yeah, seems about right. Carry on.

Nope you ain't alone there. It amazes me how far Sakurai goes for his fans in giving us the Ultimate game.

 

[Schnee117]

Here it is again. No one's allowed to feel any negative emotions towards Byleth's inclusion. Everyone's supposed to adore and love him/her.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

People were just fine talking about a part of why they dislike Byleth last night.

It's almost like people hate stupid conspiracy theories peddled by grifters and carried around by ignorant manchildren.