Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[TheQuester]

Let me just say this about the idea of "references = good design". While it's nice to have references to make it true to the character in a way, it would be nice for them to mix it up and implement their own moves to fit Smash itself. Although, this may or may not have to be the case if it were a traditional fighting game character.

Also, the next Smash game definitely needs a Boss Rush mode. In fact, I talked about boss battles awhile back.

On the subject of bosses, Dhoulmagus from DQ8 would make such a cool boss.
What new bosses would you guys want?

If it makes you feel better Project X Zone's parent series SRW is still ongoing. But that's mostly anime characters crossing over not videogame ones.

I didn't know Super Robot Wars was the parent series of PXZ...the only thing i know about it is that Sanger from PXZ1 is from that series.
Not really a big fan of the PXZ series, mostly bc of the issues i mentioned early, altrough the second game was pretty decent gameplay-wise, it's a shame certain aspects of the dialogue and creepy anime fanservice draged the whole thing down, because they had a decent game there.
I see some people ask for a PXZ3 so i was curious if they'll ever continue the series, if they tone down the bad stuff from the dialogue and fanservice, it could be great.

 

[Perkilator]

On the subject of bosses, Dhoulmagus from DQ8 would make such a cool boss.
What new bosses would you guys want?

Realistically speaking:

• Fury Bowser
• Magolor Soul
• Grima
• Dragaux

 

[ScrubReborn]

On the subject of bosses, Dhoulmagus from DQ8 would make such a cool boss.
What new bosses would you guys want?

Hard question since Ult already got most of my desires in but:

• Eggman, but only if they're not gonna make him playable.
• Safer Sepiroth. You can't have a iconic boss like Sepiroth in without his final boss form.
• Mother Brain. If they can make another Assist a dual boss (the Monster Hunter Dragon thing), they can do it here too.
• Hell, they could even take Metal Face or some of the other stage bosses and just upgrade 'em to proper bosses, that'd go hard. It'd prolly be a better use of them.
• Oh yeah almost forgot - Duon! My dual faced *****. Shoulda been him over Galleom, but I wanna at least see him get a HD makeover in 6. Don't let him starve Sakurai.

There's more but I'm not sure they would get considered, especially for a non Ult game and i'm tryna be realistic.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

I didn't know Super Robot Wars was the parent series of PXZ...the only thing i know about it is that Sanger from PXZ1 is from that series.
Not really a big fan of the PXZ series, mostly bc of the issues i mentioned early, altrough the second game was pretty decent gameplay-wise, it's a shame certain aspects of the dialogue and creepy anime fanservice draged the whole thing down, because they had a decent game there.
I see some people ask for a PXZ3 so i was curious if they'll ever continue the series, if they tone down the bad stuff from the dialogue and fanservice, it could be great.

PXZ is pretty much just a spin off of SRW.

The last game that came out even calls back to it by having Sanger and the Sakura Wars characters act like friends to each other, you know since they've met before.

On the subject of bosses, Dhoulmagus from DQ8 would make such a cool boss.
What new bosses would you guys want?

The fact that we dont have Dr Eggman and Dr Wily boss battles is a ****ing crime.

 

[ninjahmos]

If Eggman and Wily were bosses, Eggman would have to use the Death Egg Robot and Wily would use the Wily Capsule/Machine.

 

[TheQuester]

Realistically speaking:

• Fury Bowser
• Magolor Soul
• Grima
• Dragaux

Grima? from Fire Emblem Awakening? Like we would fight in his back like in FE:A? That would be unique.
Dragaux seems likely if we get Ring Fit Trainee in.

Maybe we could have some Ultra Beast from Pokemon as a boss, Pheromosa or Xuritree.

 

[Wonder Smash]

They need to bring Porky back as a boss.

Did they ever explain why he wasn't in Ultimate?

 

[DarthEnderX]

What new bosses would you guys want?

Returning Bosses
Fury Bowser (replacing Giga Bowser)
Porky
Ganon
Marx
Dracula
Rathalos

New Bosses
Mother Brain [Metroid]
Andross [Star Fox]
Arceus [Pokemon]
Medusa [Kid Icarus]
Liquid Snake piloting Metal Gear REX [Metal Gear]
Eggman piloting Death Egg Robot [Sonic the Hedgehog]
Dr. Wily piloting Wily Machine [Mega Man]
Safer∙Sephiroth [Final Fantasy]
Astaroth [Ghosts ‘n Goblins]

If Eggman and Wily were bosses, Eggman would have to use the Death Egg Robot and Wily would use the Wily Capsule/Machine.

 

[SpecterFlower]

The way Kirby as a series operates doesn't leave much room for permanent villains. Unless it's Dark Matter, who is just a being of pure evil and chaos as far as we're aware, and I suppose Nightmare. Most other one-shot villains and recurring characters circa the 2000s are either misunderstood or see redemption arcs throughout the course of the story. Magolor is by all means a villain in the context of his debut game. His roles beyond that are minor but we've been given those small lore tidbits about him redeeming himself, and RTDL Deluxe gave us that little Magolor substory. So the pool is slightly muddled but I don't think it would be unreasonable to consider him a new villain or at least rival character if he were added. The likes of Bowser or Wolf have shifted their alliance here and there too, but their role is otherwise clear. Magolor's one major role in the series sees him as the main antagonist.

Which is to say in general I don't think Kirby will ever see a true "bad guy" character in Smash, but King Dedede and Meta Knight at least fulfill some degree of rival / "recurring boss" role which is more befitting of Kirby as a whole. Kirby is a character who tends to take things on the chin and see the good in others, so it's natural that the series has more of an emphasis on redemption and forgiveness and doesn't linger too long on someone's misdeeds.

But I dunno, if Magolor doesn't count as a Kirby villain then nobody they could practically add does. Except Marx, probably.

microtransactions are also canon, so you can see him as a villain through microtransactions.

but really hes just been the 5th mascot of the series and one of kirbys friends outside of that one time.

there are still some villains like marx and daroach but eh idk if i would include them.

personally i would rather see 02 as a boss.

that way we can get the biggest villain in the series rather than a two off like marx.

Spoiler

After he dies in return to dreamland he goes through kirby hell and goes to another medieval dimension where he sells gem apples, then he comes back to kirbys world and makes theme parks seemingly. and after that he allied with kirby to stop hyness.[SPOILER/]

 

[ninjahmos]

If the next Smash game has a Classic Mode where each character gets their own route like in Ultimate, I think it'd be pretty cool if Captain Falcon's Classic Mode route was an homage to Smash 64's 1P Mode. Mostly because his moveset took elements from Dragon King.

Although, I guess Jigglypuff has that in Ultimate.

 

[ScrubReborn]

The fact that we dont have Dr Eggman and Dr Wily boss battles is a ****ing crime.

The only mild contention I have is that Eggman would be a pretty cool real fighter too. So I'm kinda conflicted.

Actually while I was typing, I just got a solution. If they choose to make Eggman playable - just do it anyways. Playable Eggman and then give him a larger mech as a Boss. If you get squeamish over the idea of two Eggmans onscreen then replace Boss!Eggman with Eggman Nega or something if you're using Playable!Eggman.

Or hell, don't lol. Just make him like Chrom if you wanna be lazy. At least this time you could bull**** it away by saying Eggman cloned himself or some ****.

 

[Perkilator]

The only mild contention I have is that Eggman would be a pretty cool real fighter too. So I'm kinda conflicted.

Actually while I was typing, I just got a solution. If Eggman is playable - just do it anyways. Playable Eggman and then give him a larger mech as a Boss. If you get squeamish over the idea of two Eggmans onscreen then replace Boss!Eggman with Eggman Nega or something if you're using Playable!Eggman.

Or hell, don't lol. Just make him like Chrom if you wanna be lazy. At least this time you could bull** it away by saying Eggman cloned himself or some **.

Or maybe Classic Eggman and Eggrobo as alternate costumes to explain away the other Eggman in the mech?

 

[ninjahmos]

Ganondorf's Classic Mode route could be an homage to Melee's Adventure Mode, which could also be seen as a reference of how he made his Smash debut as a Captain Falcon clone.

There could also be another variation of it, where he fights all the Melee newcomers (that make it in the next game).

 

[cashregister9]

What new bosses would you guys want?

The Cyberdemon (DOOM)
Grima (Fire Emblem)
DJ Octavio (Splatoon)
Mordegon (Dragon Quest)
Ultra Necrozma (Pokemon)
Eternatus (Pokemon)

 

[Louie G.]

there are still some villains like marx and daroach but eh idk if i would include them.

personally i would rather see 02 as a boss.

that way we can get the biggest villain in the series rather than a two off like marx.

It's odd to think of Daroach on a villain equivalent to Marx, mostly just being a greedy treasure hunter akin to Wario and less so any serious antagonist. The Squeaks pretty much make up with Kirby at the end of the game, a more definitive on-screen redemption than Magolor gets in his original game. He even plays kind of a supporting role in Mass Attack and gives you advice how to proceed. But regardless, it's kind of splitting hairs and Kirby is not a series that offers itself very efficiently to a black or white label of good guy and bad guy.

Also, 02 is not the biggest villain in the series. We can speculate on their associations with other bosses or Dark Matter, but 02 isn't even definitively confirmed to be the same guy as Zero from KDL3, and if it was, only appears prominently in two games. The general threat of "Dark Matter" is consistent enough to appear in three games, by proxy making it the most consistent antagonistic force, but there isn't really any canonical word on whether the Swordsman, Zero and 02 are the same being or how closely related they are. So on paper making 02 the boss isn't all that much more productive than it being Marx.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Honestly Kirby is a bit atypical for Nintendo in that there really isn't really regular antagonist in the games anyway. You can squint and connect the various bits from Zero Two/Three, Nightmare, Dark Matter, etc but for the most part it's just new enemies in each installment with the occasional connecting tissue being hinted at with the lore or the likes of Dedede/Meta Knight being brainwashed.

 

[7NATOR]

Definitely, especially seeing as it stands to reason the models in Ultimate are significant downgrades from the models they have in-house and presumably use for the trailer CGI. That is to say that on a more powerful system, they could just use those models once again, but not downgrade them quite as much.

You're such a genius for considering this, I didn't even think of that. I could see the CGI/Render Models being worked on first because the CGI/Render Models have the most Detail in in them, and then then they are scaled back as far as the Switch can handle

If those models could be re-used, I actually don't think there's any need for upgraded models to be made. This is an advantage Smash has because Smash is really the Only Fighting game franchise that uses such high Quality assets for it's Trailers. Most other Trailers in the genre use ingame footage all the way. This would make it easier to bring characters back for Smash 6

Here's hoping Joker is a base game character next time, because i know Sora wont be.

On this, I don't know if this has been stated in this past, but I think the fact that Sora still got an Amiibo (as late as it was) along with how his Content is represented in the game (Only KH1 Music, No Disney Characters) means they probably were able to secure him for this next game as well

Completely built from the ground up? 0%. Sakurai's design philosophy is all about making development as efficient as possible through strong planning to maximize the amount of content in the game, with reusing assets from previous entries being a major pillar of this philosophy. Assets will be reused, much to the chagrin of those who would effectively nuke the roster under the hope that the radiation would mutate Ganondorf and Sonic into having better movesets.

And while this Next Game will be using a New engine, I'm sure the Assets from Ultimate will be used at least as a base or starting point in development. It's been the same for the previous games at least going back to Brawl

Brawl Started off a base of Melee, Brawl itself was ported to Wii U and 3DS to see how things ran, and the Same was doing with Wii U/3DS to see how much The Switch can handle, in terms of what takes the most space and power to run

What 1.1.7 Might Tell Us About the Future of Smash

epicmartin7 discusses how Smash Wii U/3DS’s data could hint towards the future of the series.

sourcegaming.info

x.com

twitter.com

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate CEDEC Talk Reveals Unused Battlefields, Original Game Size, And More

www.siliconera.com

『大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ SPECIAL』膨大なアセットのビルド時間＆容量との戦い：CEDEC 2019

PCの高性能化とCPUのコアの並列化や、アセットビルドのキャッシュを利用することで時間短縮

jp.ign.com

『大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ SPECIAL』膨大なアセットのビルド時間＆容量との戦い：CEDEC 2019

PCの高性能化とCPUのコアの並列化や、アセットビルドのキャッシュを利用することで時間短縮

jp-ign-com.translate.goog

At least with Smash 4, it was assumed the porting Job was done while Sakurai was working on Kid Icarus. The same might have been true with Smash 4 to the Switch as well while Smash DLC was being made. I want to assume the Project Plan that's usually made before Full Scale Development starts takes into account the results of Port jobs of previous games to the current systems that the new game will be built off of

Which is why the New Engine that this Next Smash will be built on and it's development cycle is very interesting. The Engine Development Coincides with after Smash Ultimate itself was finished late 2018 and when it went in it's DLC Development Cycle. It was stated to finish at least around the time that Sakurai started his Youtube Channel to late 2022, as well as the Sending out of Switch 2 Devkits

バンダイナムコスタジオが「オープンワールドも作れる」内製ゲームエンジンを本気で制作中、開発者募集。開発経緯や求める人材について訊いた - AUTOMATON

バンダイナムコスタジオは現在、内製ゲームエンジンを開発中だ。同社が開発を進めるのが、「オープンワールドのような大規模ゲーム開発に耐えうるような設計のエンジン」。また、同エンジンに携わる技術者を募集中だという。詳しく話を訊いた。

automaton-media.com

バンダイナムコスタジオが「オープンワールドも作れる」内製ゲームエンジンを本気で制作中、開発者募集。開発経緯や求める人材について訊いた - AUTOMATON

バンダイナムコスタジオは現在、内製ゲームエンジンを開発中だ。同社が開発を進めるのが、「オープンワールドのような大規模ゲーム開発に耐えうるような設計のエンジン」。また、同エンジンに携わる技術者を募集中だという。詳しく話を訊いた。

automaton--media-com.translate.goog

I've linked this Article so many times, but it's a good source and really the closet link to the Asset (engine) that will separate previous Smash games from the rest. One of the guys in the Article about the Engine, Minami, is also one of the people that gave the technical talks about Smash Ultimate in CEDEC in 2019

So I'm starting to think that while there were no new games in Development while the Engine was being worked (Counting games that will use the engine, not ones that were still using Unreal like Tekken 8), I could see Smash Ultimate being ported to this New Engine while the engine is being developed to test how the New engine runs assets, and also to test various Techniques like ones detailed in the CEDEC Talk, like the ones used to Compress the music so Smash Ultimate was able to have the amount of music it did at launch

From there, once Sakurai actually gets on board, the Project Plan gets made, and then the Smash 6 could enter its actual Development Cycle probably sometime Late 2022 - Early 2023,

I'd also imagine that since the New Console is just a beefier version of a previous one, this Next Smash has access to a whole console's worth of assets to re-use, which if people are expecting a Story mode, would be necessary for Mooks, enemies, and environments.

Now in terms of the actual power of the Assets that will be in the final game, If the Switch 2 can run the UE5 Matrix Demo, even as a Tech Demo, than maybe the Next Smash can look as good as the CGI Trailers, but in actual gameplay

 

[ninjahmos]

Here are some new bosses I'd like to see:

Majora
Hades (Kid Icarus)
Dark Matter (Kirby)
Perfect Chaos
Lavos (Chrono Trigger)

 

[DarthEnderX]

Or maybe Classic Eggman and Eggrobo as alternate costumes to explain away the other Eggman in the mech?

Why would they need to explain it?

It's not like you can't fight Ganon using Ganondorf.

 

[Gorgonzales]

What new bosses would you guys want?

The original DK could be a great boss. Climbing up 25m like in the original game before going one-on-one with him once you reach the top. I'd want him and the environment to be modernized (unlike 75m).

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Smash pulls another Alfonzo; when almost all the fighters are present, its Eggman in the mech. When he's present, it's a Sonic 3 & Knuckles style Egg Robo in the mech.

 

[DarthEnderX]

The original DK could be a great boss. Climbing up 25m like in the original game before going one-on-one with him once you reach the top. I'd want him and the environment to be modernized (unlike 75m).

Smash 64 Announcer: "GIANT DONKEY KONG!"

 

[Ivander]

What new bosses would you guys want?

Mother Brain from Metroid
Necrozma/Ultra Necrozma from Pokemon
Porky Minch from Earthbound
Grima from Fire Emblem Awakening or Fomortiis from Fire Emblem Sacred Stones or Embla from Fire Emblem Heroes (Basically, any one of these three)
Chaos Kin from Kid Icarus Uprising
Metal Face from Xenoblade
Dark Emperor from Find Mii 2
Death Egg Robo from Sonic the Hedgehog
Jenova BIRTH or Jenova Dreamweaver from Final Fantasy VII
Darkside from Kingdom Hearts

 

[cashregister9]

I do think Smash bros. should embrace character sized bosses to add some variety, but with how bosses work by necessity in Platform Fighters, I can understand why it would be weird

which is why I propose that the next smash have the World Of Warcraft style of "Making this normally human sized character ****ing massive for a boss fight for no reason aside from clarity"

 

[DarthEnderX]

I do think Smash bros. should embrace character sized bosses to add some variety

I really don't see the point in that.

If you go to all the trouble to make and entire model and moveset for a person-sized character...why wouldn't you just make them a Fighter instead?

 

[cashregister9]

I really don't see the point in that.

If you go to all the trouble to make and entire model and moveset for a person-sized character...why wouldn't you just make them a Fighter instead?

Well the simple answer would be...

do both

Having character sized bosses would add more variety, and then you can unlock them later by beating them

 

[Louie G.]

What new bosses would you guys want?

I've sold myself pretty hard on the idea of a Space Invaders boss that operates like the original game, where you have to fend off a slowly progressing mob of Invaders from above by aiming high with aerial attacks and/or items that spawn to assist you. A bit more like a minigame than a standard boss battle, but I can't think of a better way to represent such an iconic game so I think it'd be a pretty fun little detour during say, Classic Mode or something.

 

[Laniv]

Oh, boss discussion? Oh boy!

• Petey Piranha
• Rayquaza (Mega Evolves for Phase 2?)
• Mother Brain (her mobile form from Super Metroid as a Phase 2)
• Dr. Wily (the same machine as in 7. Get ready to tear your hair out again!)
• Porky and Giygas (fights in a spider mech for Phase 1, unleashes Giygas in Phase 2)
• Necrozma (Maybe Ultra Necrozma as Phase 2?)
• Queen Sectonia
• Death Egg Robot (Eggman deserves at least this)
• Nightmare (from Kirby)
• Duon (Galleom is lonely)
• Bashmaster (no real reason for him, I just like his design)

 

[Zerp]

Okay this is silly, Marx as the biggest Kirby antagonist? Sorry, but that's nonsensical, Marx just isn't that big.

Spoiler: Comparison with a bigger Kirby Antagonist

The biggest Kirby antagonist is obviously everyone's favorite family assistant AI, Star Dream. The clockwork star is nearly as big as planet Popstar, meanwhile Marx is merely around Kracko's size, it's not even close.



Huh..? What do you all mean that isn't what you all meant by biggest?

Smash pulls another Alfonzo; when almost all the fighters are present, its Eggman in the mech. When he's present, it's a Sonic 3 & Knuckles style Egg Robo in the mech.

That's definitely the most fitting choice, although there's an even cooler option, they could have Mecha Sonic pilot the mech too!

 

[ninjahmos]

Y'know, I think it'd be pretty cool if Smash bosses had two or three phases. For example, if they bring back Marx as a boss for the next Smash game, they could add in Marx Soul as his Phase 2.

They could even include this sound...

 

[SPEN18]

People are inherently attached to the characters and franchises already in Smash.

Sure but what I'm saying is they're not necessarily more attached to the average third party than they are the average bubble first party.

Regardless, because of the nature of them being guests which require more extensive licensing and negotiation costs and efforts, you can't judge the third parties the same way anyway. One doesn't get to just say "clearly Kazuya would be higher priority than Ness and Little Mac because Tekken is a much bigger and more relevant series than Mother or Punch Out." The comparison doesn't work the same way as if you replace "Kazuya" and "Tekken" with "Inkling" and "Splatoon." Especially if, in exchange for whatever you're paying for Kazuya, you can't even hype him up like a newcomer or as one of the top few biggest headliners like Sonic or Pac-Man. And that's before even considering that I'd guess Ness or Mac being cut would be felt more heavily than one of the lesser third parties anyway.

Actually, this is kind of a separate thought, but I feel being a DLC character in general may be a slight disadvantage in the following regard: you can't hype those returnees up like they're newcomers, but also there's a big portion of the playerbase who didn't buy them and therefore isn't going to be attached to them like they potentially would be a character who everyone was guaranteed to have. Maybe it won't ultimately flip any decisions that would have been made anyway but idk.

Saying "it'll be fine to cut Cloud, Joker, Terry, and Kazuya so long as we add Arle and Bomberman because fans of those characters just want third parties generally" doesn't check out for the same reason saying "it'll be fine to cut Sheik, Ike, R.O.B, and Greninja so long as we add Rauru and Oatchi because fans of those characters just want Nintendo characters generally". It fails to look past the intrinsic meaning and significance those characters individually have.

Thing is, those two scenarios will probably both happen, not with those specific characters but in essence. I don't think Ike or Greninja will be cut at least, and the third parties are difficult to judge because licensing et al., but I mean the general premise of getting some old favorites cut while adding some newer faces (on both the 1P and 3P sides).

Fundamentally, yes, the game will be fine even if that comes to pass. But that's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that the difference between all third parties coming back and, say, half of them coming back with the leftover resources dumped into first party vets is not really worth it relative to the cost of the former (if that difference would even be in favor of more third party vets to begin with).

Assuming we get about 20 cuts in total (as most of the thread thinks)

If that's the baseline you're working with then that explains part of the gap between our positions. 20 cuts leaves us still with over 60 vets, so with a reasonable number of newcomers that pushes the roster over 70. I think it kind of has to be more like 30 cuts at least to accommodate newcomers. At that point, the difference between keeping all third parties and keeping like 6-8 is pretty massive.

Smash for Wii U/3DS was able to cut away with cutting Snake because his exclusion was a one-off anomaly in how Smash has generally treated third parties that a lot were able to rationalize as a side-effect of Konami and Kojima's rapidly deteriorating relationship. If cutting third-party veterans became the norm instead of the exception, the negative reception to those cuts is going to increase in intensity over time, especially if tempered by the perception that those cuts are happening because Nintendo wants to push characters they are more directly tied to.

The part about Snake kind of just supports my point? If a third party gets cut, Nintendo has an easy out because they know people will just assume negotiations fell through or licensing was too expensive, whether or not that's actually the reason. Exactly what happened with Snake; didn't stop people from asking to get him back, sure, but the point is it's extremely difficult to justify or sustain significant backlash when there's that much going on behind the scenes that the public isn't privy to.
The second part about cutting third parties becoming the norm...no, when something becomes the norm it tends to gain acceptance over time, not the other way round. And I think that's kind of what you have to do now: renormalize a more sustainable paradigm for third party additions, where it becomes understood that some of the guests might have to rotate out to a certain extent.

 

[Perkilator]

I've been experimenting with hazardless stages recently and I unironically think some stages like Skyloft, Pilotwings and Wuhu Island are way more fu with hazards turned off.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

I think ShinAkuma could be a cool boss

 

[ninjahmos]

M. Bison would also be a pretty cool boss.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

The thing about two Eggman? ...It's literally a thing in Sonic anyway. Thanks to time travel craziness.

That said, just having regular Eggman is fine. If you play as Eggman and were to randomly face him, replacing the boss with Eggrobo also makes sense. Not unlike Toon Link being in the Spirit Train stage.

...Speaking of, Toon Link needs the Conductor outfit as a costume,, but also, his casual shirt from the WW post file. That was really nice. And fitting. I honestly do feel some characters could have extra costumes. We need a minimum of 8, not a maximum. Fire Mario being gone too is ridiculous.

(Fun fact: Toon Link is the only one based around an artstyle, not a specific character. The rest are from a very specific game itself, at least since Brawl. This is why Toon Link has Spirit Tracks among his games listed. Young Link is not an exception. He really isn't from the first Zelda game. That's a weird oddity in the English version first, and while a perfectly okay thing to say, since the overhead design looks young, the character is actually specifically just from OOT and MM respectively. Zelda also does this only in Ultimate, since she's a fusion of the ALTTP and ALBW designs. Ganondorf and Sheik are clearly still OOT, though some BOTW stuff was put on Sheik for asset reuse. Regular Link was always updated to a new design. It's just his overall kit was meant to span more than one game anyway).

 

[Godzillathewonderdog]

New bosses I would like to see

Dr. Eggman: The fight starts with Eggman in his Egg Carrier, but mid match he will fly off screen and will come back in his iconic Death Egg Robot from Sonic 2.

King Boo: Takes inspiration from Luigi’s Mansion games, he will summon Boos to assist him mid match.

Zygarde: Starts the fight in it’s regular serpent form then transforms into its 100% form mid match.

Nightmare: From Metroid, it’s face plating will break off mid match, with it then becoming more aggressive.

I would like a Resient Evil boss like Nemisis, but it and most other options are probably too grotesque for an E10 game

I thought about Dr. Wily and DJ Octavio, but I think one guy in a floating mech is good enough

It would also be cool if Yellow Devil and Metal Face were to be upgraded to proper bosses

Also something from Pikmin, anything from Pikmin

 

[Garteam]

Sure but what I'm saying is they're not necessarily more attached to the average third party than they are the average bubble first party.

Regardless, because of the nature of them being guests which require more extensive licensing and negotiation costs and efforts, you can't judge the third parties the same way anyway. One doesn't get to just say "clearly Kazuya would be higher priority than Ness and Little Mac because Tekken is a much bigger and more relevant series than Mother or Punch Out." The comparison doesn't work the same way as if you replace "Kazuya" and "Tekken" with "Inkling" and "Splatoon." Especially if, in exchange for whatever you're paying for Kazuya, you can't even hype him up like a newcomer or as one of the top few biggest headliners like Sonic or Pac-Man. And that's before even considering that I'd guess Ness or Mac being cut would be felt more heavily than one of the lesser third parties anyway.

Actually, this is kind of a separate thought, but I feel being a DLC character in general may be a slight disadvantage in the following regard: you can't hype those returnees up like they're newcomers, but also there's a big portion of the playerbase who didn't buy them and therefore isn't going to be attached to them like they potentially would be a character who everyone was guaranteed to have. Maybe it won't ultimately flip any decisions that would have been made anyway but idk.



Thing is, those two scenarios will probably both happen, not with those specific characters but in essence. I don't think Ike or Greninja will be cut at least, and the third parties are difficult to judge because licensing et al., but I mean the general premise of getting some old favorites cut while adding some newer faces (on both the 1P and 3P sides).

Fundamentally, yes, the game will be fine even if that comes to pass. But that's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that the difference between all third parties coming back and, say, half of them coming back with the leftover resources dumped into first party vets is not really worth it relative to the cost of the former (if that difference would even be in favor of more third party vets to begin with).



If that's the baseline you're working with then that explains part of the gap between our positions. 20 cuts leaves us still with over 60 vets, so with a reasonable number of newcomers that pushes the roster over 70. I think it kind of has to be more like 30 cuts at least to accommodate newcomers. At that point, the difference between keeping all third parties and keeping like 6-8 is pretty massive.



The part about Snake kind of just supports my point? If a third party gets cut, Nintendo has an easy out because they know people will just assume negotiations fell through or licensing was too expensive, whether or not that's actually the reason. Exactly what happened with Snake; didn't stop people from asking to get him back, sure, but the point is it's extremely difficult to justify or sustain significant backlash when there's that much going on behind the scenes that the public isn't privy to.
The second part about cutting third parties becoming the norm...no, when something becomes the norm it tends to gain acceptance over time, not the other way round. And I think that's kind of what you have to do now: renormalize a more sustainable paradigm for third party additions, where it becomes understood that some of the guests might have to rotate out to a certain extent.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "average bubble" first party. However, if you mean that people are not more attached to the average third-party vet than the average first-party vet that has a significant chance of being cut, then I'd respectfully disagree with you.

When we're talking first-party vets that could get cut, we're not talking about the likes of Ness and Little Mac here. Those characters are high enough up the totem poll that they're in no real risk of going anywhere in my mind. Historically, cuts have primarily been characters that are derivative of others on the roster, supporting characters from franchises with a lot of reps or franchises that have gone inactive, and characters cut for technical reasons. I don't think the last factor is in play when we're working with hardware that is more powerful than the 3DS, so that really leaves the former two categories.

The question then becomes, is losing characters like Joker, Terry, Kazuya, etc. more deleterious for Smash as a game and a series than losing characters like Roy, ZSS, Incineroar, etc? I honestly think the answer is yes. Losing any character sucks, but losing a full franchise is a lot worse. Mario fans still get to have a lot of characters on the roster to choose from that franchise, Dragon Quest fans are out of luck. We're also not exactly losing small fish here. Tekken is the third biggest fighting game franchise after Smash itself and Mortal Kombat and Kazuya is one of the most unique characters on the roster. Persona 5 has basically become the face of modern JRPGs and Joker is one of if not the most well-received DLC character. Minecraft is Minecraft and Steve is, well, Steve, but that can be tweaked to be a little less broken.

Yeah, cuts are going to happen, but who is cut matters a lot more than ensuring the right megacorp owns a high enough portion of the roster. In the abstract, I don't think there would be any discussion regarding whether or not the third-parties will return if Nintendo owned them. If Nintendo owned Final Fantasy, then there would be no humming and hawing about whether or not Cloud or Sephiroth were in the game. They'd be shoe-ins. That's the approach I think Nintendo is ultimately going to take. They'll try to get them all back, license whoever they feasibly can, and let the card lie where they land. If that means all of the third-parties are back, great. If that means half of the third parties are back, great. If that means only 5 of the third parties are back, great. Nintendo will gun for the highest number they can rather than setting themselves to some arbitrary limit.

I think a lot of this disagreement is founded on different visions of what the next Smash will be. Judging back the fact that you think there will be 30+ cuts for the base roster from Ultimate, my guess is you think the next Smash will be more similar to Smash for Wii U than Ultimate. There will be less characters and the scale of the crossover will be scaled back, but vets will get more attention and there will be more supporting content. I, admittedly, can't envision the series going that way after how successful Ultimate was. I truly believe that the base roster will be slightly larger than Ultimate's starting roster and third parties will continue to play an increased role relative to previous entries, but a lot of content will be reused and we're not going to see much single-player stuff.

 

[BritishGuy54]

For boss selection in the next Smash, Xenoblade has some good options I can see a lot of merit in.

Zanza, Z, and Alpha all lend themselves to unique backdrops and mechanics. Leaning more to Z or Alpha here since 3 is the newer game. Having one of these as bosses sounds pretty enjoyable and unique for Smash.

Malos, N, and to a lesser extent, Alvis all could lend themselves to being decent extra playable characters if dev time allows it for echoes/semi-clones.

 

[7NATOR]

I really don't see the point in that.

If you go to all the trouble to make and entire model and moveset for a person-sized character...why wouldn't you just make them a Fighter instead?

I assume if there were Human size Bosses, they'd just be suped up versions of Assist Trophy characters,

So they Might have more attacks compared to the average Assist Trophy (8-10 compared to the 4-5 Regular Assists have) but not enough material to be considered an actual Fighter

On the subject of bosses, Dhoulmagus from DQ8 would make such a cool boss.
What new bosses would you guys want?

-I want all the Old Bosses to come back, so Rayquaza, Duon, Tabuu, Master core, etc

-Sans. I think I am leaning on the side that Sans might not be Fighter material, or at least I think Both Sakurai/Toby might not feel it might be in character, but Sans would work really well as a boss, Dodging everything and Spamming Gaster Blasters at you

-M.Bison. If he's not going to be Playable, You could have him Floating around the Stage, doing his Slide attack and his Special Moves, and spamming Psycho Crushers everywhere

-Eggman. You could do it in Phases where he cycles between him being in the Regular Egg Mobile, to the the Death Egg Robot, and maybe to the Egg Dragoon if you want to go that far

-Rugal. The Genocide Cutter should be one of the Strongest Attacks in the game

-Safer Sephiroth. I don't know if Supernova needs to be a 2 minute cutscene, but have the True Godlike form of Sephiroth that's not a PNG would be cool

-MoM. If Master Hand/Crazy Hand are the personification of a Child playing with his figurines, then there must be a Mother that checks in to make sure the Figurines aren't taking over. Master Mom.

-DaD. And same thing here. Master Dad.

 

[cashregister9]

For boss selection in the next Smash, Xenoblade has some good options I can see a lot of merit in.

Zanza, Z, and Alpha all lend themselves to unique backdrops and mechanics. Leaning more to Z or Alpha here since 3 is the newer game. Having one of these as bosses sounds pretty enjoyable and unique for Smash.

Malos, N, and to a lesser extent, Alvis all could lend themselves to being decent extra playable characters if dev time allows it for echoes/semi-clones.

I've liked the idea of one of the Faced Mechon as a boss

Metal Face really should have been a full fledged boss all things considered. Jade Face or Yaldabaoth would also be pretty cool as bosses