Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[HyperSomari64]

Diddy (who was tied up in legal hell at the time)

Is this the reason why he and Cranky Kong haven't got a trophy in Melee. Please, tell me more.

 

[RileyXY1]

As a Mother fan and longtime Ness main, I have to agree that the series is overvalued by Smash fans.
They're excellent games, and even get attention on lists of top Nintendo/SNES/RPG/etc. lists. But honestly I wouldn't really complain if it had a bit less representation; I consider it a pretty fortunate series.

Yeah. Lucas was lucky to even get in Brawl, and that was only due to timing and ease of development.

 

[fogbadge]

Also, grovyle it's the most iconic characters from the games aside from the protagonist and his partner.

yeah but nothing gives mystery dungeon an edge over the other spin offs

 

[Gengar84]

I’m a huge JRPG fan but for some reason, Earthbound/Mother is one series I could never really get into. To be fair, I probably didn’t give it enough of a chance. I played about an hour of it and determined it wasn’t really clicking with me. I acknowledge that it’s probably just me since my friend played the game and absolutely loved it. For me, I think it was partially due to the character designs not really appealing to me too much and the old style battle perspective where you only see the enemies and not your party members. I’ve always preferred the Final Fantasy layout where your party is on the left and the enemies are on the right rather than being first person. Maybe I should give the series another chance.

 

[Golden Icarus]

It really is quite confusing people here seem to think "more time for development for Melee means a bunch more new unique characters (and no clones because clones icky and bad and I hate em )".

No. That's not how it works. At all.

If Melee had more development time, it wouldn't magically have changed that the initial planning stage on July 5th, 1999 only called for .
Why we even got the clones was two things.
-A later decision to increase the number of available fighters (something that is typically avoided in development for Smash, mind you)
-Saving resources by copying existing fighters.

We know for a fact, for example, in the time frame we got the clones, we could not have had even a single "unique" later addition like Wario.
Sakurai would even point out that if even Luigi and Jigglypuff were scrapped, Wario still wouldn't have made it.
The biggest kicker? He also said that to include Wario, he would had to replace both Marth and Mewtwo for it to happen.

And yet people seem to have it in their heads that we could have had all of Wario, Dedede, -insert non-Pichu Johto Pokémon here-, Ganondorf with unique moveset, Diddy (who was tied up in legal hell at the time), etc. if we had more time.


"If I was in charge of Smash, I would-"
You would have done jack **** because things don't magically work like that just because you want it to.


The ONLY thing more time would have realistically done is give Melee more polish.

Fair. But it’s just a fun little hypothetical. We’re already suggesting traveling back in time to help develop a game that released twenty years ago. It’s less about what realistic changes a person could make with a bit more time, but rather “hey wouldn’t it be cool if we got this instead!”

Is it a tired out and pointless conversation? Yes. But hypothetical time travel scenarios are fun and dammit where else are we supposed to go to talk about this kinda ****?

I’m a huge JRPG fan but for some reason, Earthbound/Mother is one series I could never really get into. To be fair, I probably didn’t give it enough of a chance. I played about an hour of it and determined it wasn’t really clicking with me. I acknowledge that it’s probably just me since my friend played the game and absolutely loved it. For me, I think it was partially due to the character designs not really appealing to me too much and the old style battle perspective where you only see the enemies and not your party members. I’ve always preferred the Final Fantasy layout where your party is on the left and the enemies are on the right rather than being first person. Maybe I should give the series another chance.

Did you play Earthbound or Mother 3? Speaking anecdotally, I played Earthbound first and couldn’t really get into it, then I tried out Mother 3 and absolutely loved it. Imo that game does a much more effective job at hooking the player.

 

[Gengar84]

Fair. But it’s just a fun little hypothetical. We’re already suggesting traveling back in time to help develop a game that released twenty years ago. It’s less about what realistic changes a person could make with a bit more time, but rather “hey wouldn’t it be cool if we got this instead!”

Is it a tired out and pointless conversation? Yes. But hypothetical time travel scenarios are fun and dammit where else are we supposed to go to talk about this kinda ****?

Did you play Earthbound or Mother 3? Speaking anecdotally, I played Earthbound first and couldn’t really get into it, then I tried out Mother 3 and absolutely loved it. Imo that game does a much more effective job at hooking the player.

I played Earthbound on the virtual console. I’ve never tried Mother 3. If Nintendo ever actually releases an English translated version of the game, I’ll have to give it a shot.

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

Fair. But it’s just a fun little hypothetical. We’re already suggesting traveling back in time to help develop a game that released twenty years ago. It’s less about what realistic changes a person could make with a bit more time, but rather “hey wouldn’t it be cool if we got this instead!”

Is it a tired out and pointless conversation? Yes. But hypothetical time travel scenarios are fun and dammit where else are we supposed to go to talk about this kinda ****?

Forgive me for being cynical, but I just don't find that kind of self-serving hypothetical to be entertaining.
Because at the end of the day, that's all it boils down to. "Wouldn't it be cool if -thing I want- happened and -thing I don't want- didn't?"

 

[Gengar84]

Forgive me for being cynical, but I just don't find that kind of self-serving hypothetical to be entertaining.
Because at the end of the day, that's all it boils down to. "Wouldn't it be cool if -thing I want- happened and -thing I don't want- didn't?"

What if Nintendo never sold RARE to Microsoft 20+ years ago? Thats one I always wonder about for multiple reasons. I imagine we’d at least have Banjo, Rash, Fulgore, Joanna Dark, and Conker in Smash by now. I’m curious whether Nintendo would have done more with their IP than Microsoft has. I know the core team was already on their way out by that point but I think there’s so much missed potential in their IP for the past couple decades.

 

[CannonStreak]

900g is more of fan take. The link shows official materials to back up.

Like I said, the laws of physics of fiction and reality are different, or it could be that the planet has a certain density.

Not everything has to make sense.

 

[fogbadge]

I’m a huge JRPG fan but for some reason, Earthbound/Mother is one series I could never really get into. To be fair, I probably didn’t give it enough of a chance. I played about an hour of it and determined it wasn’t really clicking with me. I acknowledge that it’s probably just me since my friend played the game and absolutely loved it. For me, I think it was partially due to the character designs not really appealing to me too much and the old style battle perspective where you only see the enemies and not your party members. I’ve always preferred the Final Fantasy layout where your party is on the left and the enemies are on the right rather than being first person. Maybe I should give the series another chance.

if it doesn’t click for you then it can’t be helped. Give it another chance if you want but if you still don’t like it well there’s no shame in that

 

[Golden Icarus]

Forgive me for being cynical, but I just don't find that kind of self-serving hypothetical to be entertaining.
Because at the end of the day, that's all it boils down to. "Wouldn't it be cool if -thing I want- happened and -thing I don't want- didn't?"

Different strokes, I suppose. I think there's two types who engage in speculation. Those who prefer the more hypothetical, idealistic topics that might not be grounded in realism, while others enjoy being a bit more analytical and logical, with the intention of identifying patterns and what not. Talking about things that would have been cool twenty years ago "if I had a say" can be fun every once in a while, but I can imagine it isn't all that stimulating for someone who doesn't really care for purely ideological discussion that mostly throws realism out the window.

 

[Gengar84]

Different strokes, I suppose. I think there's two types who engage in speculation. Those who prefer the more hypothetical, idealistic topics that might not be grounded in realism, while others enjoy being a bit more analytical and logical, with the intention of identifying patterns and what not. Talking about things that would have been cool twenty years ago "if I had a say" can be fun every once in a while, but I can imagine it isn't all that stimulating for someone who doesn't really care for purely ideological discussion that mostly throws realism out the window.

I think it’s good to have a mix of both more idealistic and hypothetical discussions with more realistic predictions and analysis. Limiting ourselves to just one of these could get old fast for those only interested in one or the other. Since I admit many characters I really want aren’t particularly likely, I tend to lean towards the idealistic side since it gives me a chance to talk about the characters in most interested in. I don’t mind chiming in with more realistic predictions now and then like I did earlier with my Octoling prediction but it’s not really what I focus on.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

Earthbound's first 3-4 hours can be pretty rough. The beginning of the game is a little slow and the fights are brutal if you don't already know the game well. It becomes more smooth sailing once you get Paula.
To me it was more than worth it pushing through that first section, it's by far one of my GOATs. I love the surreal vibes it has.

Mother 3 is indeed more approachable and, let's admit it, a little more deep as an RPG. Love both though.
Nintendo just refusing to officially release Mother 3 in the West is criminal.

 

[Lionfranky]

Like I said, the laws of physics of fiction and reality are different, or it could be that the planet has a certain density.

Not everything has to make sense.

Yeah... that's actually another reasoning not to take 900g claim seriously... let's leave it at that.

 

[CannonStreak]

Yeah... that's actually another reasoning not to take 900g claim seriously... let's leave it at that.

And a lot of things are supposed to be taken seriously in fiction?

 

[chinkuru]

It still boggles me that Melee took only 13 months of development.

What do you think would have happened if they had been given 6 more months?

Is there a character that died harder than Balloon Fighter? He wasn’t a huge request, but I remember him being discussed plenty back during Brawl speculation and early Smash 4 speculation as one of the more highly considered “retro reps.”

Then the Smash 4 announcement trailer dropped and Villager’s Up-B was shown to be a direct reference to Balloon Fight. I don’t think he’s even been mildly discussed since.

I would love to see Ballon Fighter for the simple fact that it would be the most possible way to have Tingle in Smash even if it were as his Echo

 

[Gengar84]

I would love to see Ballon Fighter for the simple fact that it would be the most possible way to have Tingle in Smash even if it were as his Echo

I wonder if Tingle could technically work as a Villager or Isabelle echo. I know it wouldn’t be entirely accurate but I could envision Tingle doing most of the same attacks and animations as they do and it wouldn’t look too out of place.

 

[SpecterFlower]

If we're saying Lara Croft isn't important anymore, we're too far gone.

I’m not saying she isn’t important in saying gaming has evolved where more women are in games and more women are playing games.

it’s not just peach here and chub li there are tons of iconic women in games now like Ellie, Zelda, that horizon lady, any Genshin character, gaming is more mainstream than ever and Lara really wasn’t around during this era of if.

 

[Gengar84]

I’m not saying she isn’t important in saying gaming has evolved where more women are in games and more women are playing games.

it’s not just peach here and chub li there are tons of iconic women in games now like Ellie, Zelda, that horizon lady, any Genshin character, gaming is more mainstream than ever and Lara really wasn’t around during this era of if.

That Horizon lady’s name is Aloy. I played the first Horizon game and it was pretty fun. I don’t typically play many open world games but there was just something cool about hunting giant robot dinosaurs and beasts. That said, it’s kind of amusing hearing Aloy described as “that Horizon lady” in the same sentence as claiming she’s iconic. I don’t dispute that she is, its just a funny example.

 

[CannonStreak]

I’m not saying she isn’t important in saying gaming has evolved where more women are in games and more women are playing games.

it’s not just peach here and chub li there are tons of iconic women in games now like Ellie, Zelda, that horizon lady, any Genshin character, gaming is more mainstream than ever and Lara really wasn’t around during this era of if.

Makes sense. In fact, it makes too much sense to deny. It’s not like Lara was the first female gaming icon out there, let alone one to star in her own game.

But anyway, yeah, I am sure you have a point here.

 

[SpecterFlower]

That Horizon lady’s name is Aloy. I played the first Horizon game and it was pretty fun. I don’t typically play many open world games but there was just something cool about hunting giant robot dinosaurs and beasts. That said, it’s kind of amusing hearing her described as “that Horizon lady” in the same sentence as her being described as iconic.

I’m sorry I just never played her games, but they sold like crazy (20mil) so yeah.

isabelle and a lot of animal crossing characters also have a good shot at it.

plus Lucia is Bassicaly a guaranteed icon.

 

[Gengar84]

I’m sorry I just never played her games, but they sold like crazy (20mil) so yeah.

isabelle and a lot of animal crossing characters also have a good shot at it.

plus Lucia is Bassicaly a guaranteed icon.

No worries, I just thought it read funny is all. Her game did sell a ton so she probably does qualify as iconic at this point. Not to the same level as Lara or Chun-Li in my opinion but still.

On the subject of iconic women in gaming, there’s also Jinx and Sarah Kerrigan. League of Legends is crazy popular and has a really great Netflix series and StarCraft was hugely influential in popularizing e-sports and online gaming in general. I feel like Jinx is probably even more popular than Lara at this point but it could just be me.

 

[CannonStreak]

In response to an above post by SpecterFlower…

Still, while agree with what was said, Lara Croft is still one big important gaming icon, especially after her debut and during her time. With that kind of significance, I can still see why she should be one to be included in a future Smash Brothers game.

 

[TheLastMaverickHunter]

Screw that, Melee should’ve gotten a whole other year of development; 25 months. Anyway, here’s my personally biased Melee roster.

Luigi​	Wario​	Mario​	Donkey Kong​	Link​	Samus​	Yoshi​	Diddy Kong​	Ganondorf​
Falco​	Jigglypuff​	Kirby​	Fox​	Pikachu​	Ness​	Captain Falcon​	Mewtwo​	Marth​
​	Mach Rider​	Peach​	Bowser​	Zelda / Sheik​	Scizor​	Ice Climbers​	Mr. Game & Watch​	​

This is pretty much what I would have done (other than cutting Sheik or someone else for Dedede).

 

[ninjahmos]

OK, hear me out...

What if the next Smash game had an Adventure Mode that combined elements of Melee's Adventure Mode, Subspace Emissary and World of Light?

 

[CannonStreak]

OK, hear me out...

What if the next Smash game had an Adventure Mode that combined elements of Melee's Adventure Mode, Subspace Emissary and World of Light?

Not sure how World of Light would be included, but otherwise, that would be sweet!

 

[Gengar84]

OK, hear me out...

What if the next Smash game had an Adventure Mode that combined elements of Melee's Adventure Mode, Subspace Emissary and World of Light?

I’d love another adventure mode that incorporates the best elements of everything that came before and improves on them. I loved SSE despite its flaws and I really want to see Smash take another swing at something similar.

 

[SpecterFlower]

Melee adventure mode is the best an expansion of that with sub space cutscenes is good.

 

[SPEN18]

m a huge JRPG fan but for some reason, Earthbound/Mother is one series I could never really get into. To be fair, I probably didn’t give it enough of a chance. I played about an hour of it and determined it wasn’t really clicking with me.

As others have already said, it's pretty common for EB to not click with people in the first hour. The menuing is clunky by modern standards, people respond differently to story-heavy openings, the difficulty is more than it probably should be early-on, and game overs can be a bit discouraging in this game. Still, this is not really any different than many other older games in this genre. Though if you play a lot of JRPGs, maybe the difficulty is less a problem and the sticker is getting hooked on the setting. If you're having trouble getting immersed, I'd suggest focusing on the details in the game world, talking to NPCs, and appreciating the way the game pulls off its unique setting. One last thing is I kind of disagree with people saying you should try Mother 3 instead (esp. if you have no legal way to play it); if you only play one game in the Mother series, that should probably be Mother 2 IMO.

 

[Gengar84]

As others have already said, it's pretty common for EB to not click with people in the first hour. The menuing is clunky by modern standards, people respond differently to story-heavy openings, the difficulty is more than it probably should be early-on, and game overs can be a bit discouraging in this game. Still, this is not really any different than many other older games in this genre. Though if you play a lot of JRPGs, maybe the difficulty is less a problem and the sticker is getting hooked on the setting. If you're having trouble getting immersed, I'd suggest focusing on the details in the game world, talking to NPCs, and appreciating the way the game pulls off its unique setting. One last thing is I kind of disagree with people saying you should try Mother 3 instead (esp. if you have no legal way to play it); if you only play one game in the Mother series, that should probably be Mother 2 IMO.

I play a lot of RPGs but I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m good at them. I usually end up putting them on easy when it’s an option. I did manage to beat Dragon Quest VIII and the main story of XI and they’re supposedly pretty hard so that’s something. If it’s on the Switch online subscription maybe I’ll give it another shot if I ever renew my subscription.

 

[Golden Icarus]

I would love to see Ballon Fighter for the simple fact that it would be the most possible way to have Tingle in Smash even if it were as his Echo

I'm just so ready for the them to open the floodgates with Zelda...

Only having different versions of Link, Zelda and Captain Falcondorf to play with since Melee is really doing the series a disservice. It might not be quite on par with Mario and Pokemon, but it's still one of "the big three" Nintendo series, yet it's been totally left in the dust in comparison. We have six reps right now, but it feels like way less.

I'm not a huge proponent of a full-on reboot for the next game, as I really love Ultimate and would kinda like them to just iterate on it again for the next Smash. That being said, I would honestly love if they totally reworked the Zelda series. Cut it down to just Link, Zelda and Ganondorf, with Ganondorf getting a totally reworked moveset. Give Impa her chance as she's easily the next major character that needs to be added, throw in a big fan favorite character like Skull Kid or Midna, then some other "toon" character to represent that art style, which could just be a Toon Link, but I think having someone like Vaati, Tetra or Tingle would be a lot more fun and low-key Tingle might have the best case among those, given that he's got a nice combination of being both recognizable and iconic, as well as weird and unexpected.

Man Zelda just has so much untapped potential...

I’d love another adventure mode that incorporates the best elements of everything that came before and improves on them. I loved SSE despite its flaws and I really want to see Smash take another swing at something similar.

SSE is still my favorite adventure mode and it actually isn't even close. I don't know if it's just because I was 9 years old, but seeing all those cutscenes with all my favorite characters was maybe the coolest thing ever back then and actually still kinda is the coolest thing ever. I'd love if they did something similar again.

 

[CapitaineCrash]

It really is quite confusing people here seem to think "more time for development for Melee means a bunch more new unique characters (and no clones because clones icky and bad and I hate em )".

No. That's not how it works. At all.

If Melee had more development time, it wouldn't magically have changed that the initial planning stage on July 5th, 1999 only called for .
Why we even got the clones was two things.
-A later decision to increase the number of available fighters (something that is typically avoided in development for Smash, mind you)
-Saving resources by copying existing fighters.

We know for a fact, for example, in the time frame we got the clones, we could not have had even a single "unique" later addition like Wario.
Sakurai would even point out that if even Luigi and Jigglypuff were scrapped, Wario still wouldn't have made it.
The biggest kicker? He also said that to include Wario, he would had to replace both Marth and Mewtwo for it to happen.

And yet people seem to have it in their heads that we could have had all of Wario, Dedede, -insert non-Pichu Johto Pokémon here-, Ganondorf with unique moveset, Diddy (who was tied up in legal hell at the time), etc. if we had more time.


"If I was in charge of Smash, I would-"
You would have done jack **** because things don't magically work like that just because you want it to.


The ONLY thing more time would have realistically done is give Melee more polish.

The only thing that would have actually changed if Melee was given more development time was that Ice climbers would have a second stage (named Summit), Fire emblem would have a stage based on Archaneia and Pokémon would have a Sprout tower stages (my theory is the stage was cut and replace last minute with Poké floats wich is just a bunch of models from Stadium glued together, so if my theory is right Poké floats wouldn't exist).

Is this the reason why he and Cranky Kong haven't got a trophy in Melee. Please, tell me more.

At the time of Melee, Rare was getting bought by Microsoft. Now to be fair I don't think this is the reason why Diddy and Cranky have no trophies, because other Rare characters like Dixie and K. Rool do have trophies (and Nintendo still own Diddy despite the buyout). So my guess is that Diddy is either a huge oversight or lack of time to make models.

 

[SpecterFlower]

I'm just so ready for the them to open the floodgates with Zelda...

Only having different versions of Link, Zelda and Captain Falcondorf to play with since Melee is really doing the series a disservice. It might not be quite on par with Mario and Pokemon, but it's still one of "the big three" Nintendo series, yet it's been totally left in the dust in comparison. We have six reps right now, but it feels like way less.

I'm not a huge proponent of a full-on reboot for the next game, as I really love Ultimate and would kinda like them to just iterate on it again for the next Smash. That being said, I would honestly love if they totally reworked the Zelda series. Cut it down to just Link, Zelda and Ganondorf, with Ganondorf getting a totally reworked moveset. Give Impa her chance as she's easily the next major character that needs to be added, throw in a big fan favorite character like Skull Kid or Midna, then some other "toon" character to represent that art style, which could just be a Toon Link, but I think having someone like Vaati, Tetra or Tingle would be a lot more fun and low-key Tingle might have the best case among those, given that he's got a nice combination of being both recognizable and iconic, as well as weird and unexpected.

Man Zelda just has so much untapped potential...

SSE is still my favorite adventure mode and it actually isn't even close. I don't know if it's just because I was 9 years old, but seeing all those cutscenes with all my favorite characters was maybe the coolest thing ever back then and actually still kinda is the coolest thing ever. I'd love if they did something similar again.

Not on par with Pokémon band Mario when it’s outselling mainline Pokémon and Mario.

only Nintendo franchises that sells more are Mario kart and animal l crossing.

I think it comes down to Sakurai not seeing how Zelda reps can be improved, there’s link and Zelda and ganandorf what next? Another link

smash ultimate was planned before the switch era

the switch era has changed so much of Nintendo’s franchise hierarchy and I think the next game will reflect that in 1st party newcomers.

 

[ninjahmos]

I'm guessing Ganondorf was probably a last minute addition to Melee, because they just copied and pasted Captain Falcon's moveset and tweaked it to make it more like dark energy instead of fire.

Also, Ganon is a bit slower and stronger than Falcon. And just listen to how enthusiastic the announcer sounds...

 

[SpecterFlower]

Kirby
Animal crossing
Zelda
Splatoon
Pikmin

are the 1st party franchises that be fitted the msot form the switch and could use newcomers for the next game.

2 for Kirby 2 for Zelda, 1 for ac pikmin and splatoon.

(Zelda is the only series I would honestly celebrate cuts for, both Kirby and Zelda have such bad representation)

 

[Gengar84]

(Zelda is the only series I would honestly celebrate cuts for, both Kirby and Zelda have such bad representation)

tell me you didn't just say that

post this video if you see someone saying something unbelievable (usually disrespect towards you or something really stupid)

m.youtube.com

I agree that Zelda is long overdue for several more characters but I will not hear any talk of cutting Sheik.

 

[SpecterFlower]

tell me you didn't just say that

post this video if you see someone saying something unbelievable (usually disrespect towards you or something really stupid)

m.youtube.com

I agree that Zelda is long overdue for several more characters but I will not hear any talk of cutting Sheik.

She’s a one off from a game that isn’t even in the 3 most popular in the series.

here we go

Cut toon link cut young link cut sheik cut ganondorf

Newcomers: ganondorf, rauru,midna, impa
I also debated adding skull kid but if ganondorf retains his oot look it’s fine.

yes that many newcomers but it needs it, it’s one of the biggest series of all time and half the roster is clones.

 

[Gengar84]

She’s a one off from a game that isn’t even in the 3 most popular in the series.

here we go

Cut toon link cut young link cut sheik cut ganondorf

Newcomers: ganondorf, rauru,midna, impa
I also debated adding skull kid but if ganondorf retains his oot look it’s fine.

yes that many newcomers but it needs it, it’s one of the biggest series of all time and half the roster is clones.

True but she does have a long history as a Smash veteran and that’s important too. Plus, I think you’re forgetting the most important thing: she’s really cool. I’ve got no issues with a large amount of Zelda newcomers as I feel the series deserves it and there are lots of great options but I’d keep Sheik if it were up to me.

 

[fogbadge]

She’s a one off from a game that isn’t even in the 3 most popular in the series.

here we go

Cut toon link cut young link cut sheik cut ganondorf

Newcomers: ganondorf, rauru,midna, impa
I also debated adding skull kid but if ganondorf retains his oot look it’s fine.

yes that many newcomers but it needs it, it’s one of the biggest series of all time and half the roster is clones.

why bring up the fact that she’s from one game while suggesting they cut characters who’ve been in more than one and adding in more one offs?

 

[Gengar84]

I personally don’t see anything wrong with including one-off characters in Smash. As long as the character is popular enough or has a fun enough moveset, I don’t understand why it matters if they were one-off. You’re really limiting your potential roster newcomers if you only allow for recurring characters. Particularly from Zelda where your only other real options would be Impa, Beetle, and Tingle. Most of the really popular character options left only appeared in one game.