Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Masked Borb]

Let's talk about the new stages that Ultimate has given us. There weren't a lot. There were definitely less new stages than characters. But while the new characters were near universally seen as high quality, the stages are a bit more mixed.

How do you feel about them? For the record, the new stages in Ultimate are...

• Small Battlefield
• New Donk City Hall
• Great Plateau Tower
• Moray Towers
• Dracula's Castle
• Mementos
• Yggdrasil's Alter
• Spiral Mountain
• King of Fighters Stadium
• Gareg Mach Monastery
• Spring Stadium
• Minecraft World
• Northern Cave
• Cloud Sea of Alrest
• Mishima Dojo
• Hollow Bastion

Some of my various thoughts.

• I appreciate the less focus on crazy sizes and wacky hazards. Not to say these stages don't have hazards, but they're not as ridiculous as Great Cave Offensive or 75m.
• Stage cameos have been a big goal for the team. Out of these new stages, only Small Battlefield and Northern Cave don't have a cameo from a character or two. This is neither good nor bad, but it is interesting.
• I appreciate the additions of newer competitive stages like Small Battlefield, Northen Cave and Hollow Bastion. It's great for the health of the game. But I am getting sick of stages that are similar to Smashville or Pokemon Stadium. They're an objective good, but when I want to play casually, I generally don't pick them.
• The new stages in the vanilla Ultimate... are kind of boring. New Donk City is as bland as they come, even with the Pauline gimmick. Great Plateau Tower fares much better and has a unique layout. I like Moray Towers more than most people (in both Splatoon and Smash), but its a bit lifeless for a Splatoon stage. Dracula's Castle is pretty much perfect for what I expect. It's stylish, has a unique layout and is visually interesting.
• The DLC stages are much more interesting. Out of the first pass, the only real dud I think if Spiral Mountain. Making people sick aside, its just... weird. I don't know if making the titular spiral mountain spin was a good idea. I don't even think you would need to add platforms to make it interesting. Just making the mountain by itself could have worked.
• The second pass has what I consider objectively good stages. None of them are so intrusive that they spoil the fun and they're all visually interesting enough that even competitive stages say fresh. I'm actually going to praise Spring Stadium and Cloud Sea of Alrest for having explicit gimmicks that are constantly changing the match, yet are so simple that they just flow into the game.
• Some personal favorites of mine are Dracula's Castle, King of Fighters Stadium, Spring Stadium, Northern Cave and Cloud Sea of Alrest. Spiral Mountain and New Donk City Hall would be stages I feel are lacking.

Not the best judge on what stages are good or bad (I like Great Cave Offensive & 3D Land, 3-Stock me), but here we go-

• Small Battlefield is the funniest thing ever and I think it should become a mainstay with the rest of its Battlefield brethren.
• New Donk City Hall's Pauline gimmick is neat. But like others have said, it works when ONE song in particular is playing. With or without it, all we get is a boring version of Isle Delfino.
• Spiral Mountain has an amazing gimmick that everyone likes but me.
• Minecraft World has an interesting gimmick, but when you're in a match that's 5+ minutes long, all the blocks are probably broken by then, and you're just on another version of Pokemon Stadium.
• The Squeenix DLC stages are boring (to me). The visuals are nice, sure. And they were probably the best they could do for these series. But they kinda blend in when you remove those bits of spectacle. Especially Northern Cave. It knows what it did.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

Let's talk about the new stages that Ultimate has given us. There weren't a lot. There were definitely less new stages than characters. But while the new characters were near universally seen as high quality, the stages are a bit more mixed.

How do you feel about them? For the record, the new stages in Ultimate are...

• Small Battlefield
• New Donk City Hall
• Great Plateau Tower
• Moray Towers
• Dracula's Castle
• Mementos
• Yggdrasil's Alter
• Spiral Mountain
• King of Fighters Stadium
• Gareg Mach Monastery
• Spring Stadium
• Minecraft World
• Northern Cave
• Cloud Sea of Alrest
• Mishima Dojo
• Hollow Bastion

Some of my various thoughts.

• I appreciate the less focus on crazy sizes and wacky hazards. Not to say these stages don't have hazards, but they're not as ridiculous as Great Cave Offensive or 75m.
• Stage cameos have been a big goal for the team. Out of these new stages, only Small Battlefield and Northern Cave don't have a cameo from a character or two. This is neither good nor bad, but it is interesting.
• I appreciate the additions of newer competitive stages like Small Battlefield, Northen Cave and Hollow Bastion. It's great for the health of the game. But I am getting sick of stages that are similar to Smashville or Pokemon Stadium. They're an objective good, but when I want to play casually, I generally don't pick them.
• The new stages in the vanilla Ultimate... are kind of boring. New Donk City is as bland as they come, even with the Pauline gimmick. Great Plateau Tower fares much better and has a unique layout. I like Moray Towers more than most people (in both Splatoon and Smash), but its a bit lifeless for a Splatoon stage. Dracula's Castle is pretty much perfect for what I expect. It's stylish, has a unique layout and is visually interesting.
• The DLC stages are much more interesting. Out of the first pass, the only real dud I think if Spiral Mountain. Making people sick aside, its just... weird. I don't know if making the titular spiral mountain spin was a good idea. I don't even think you would need to add platforms to make it interesting. Just making the mountain by itself could have worked.
• The second pass has what I consider objectively good stages. None of them are so intrusive that they spoil the fun and they're all visually interesting enough that even competitive stages say fresh. I'm actually going to praise Spring Stadium and Cloud Sea of Alrest for having explicit gimmicks that are constantly changing the match, yet are so simple that they just flow into the game.
• Some personal favorites of mine are Dracula's Castle, King of Fighters Stadium, Spring Stadium, Northern Cave and Cloud Sea of Alrest. Spiral Mountain and New Donk City Hall would be stages I feel are lacking.

I think I pretty much like every new stage in Ultimate, or at least there aren't any I consider bad like 75m, Palutena's Temple, and GCO (I really hate big stages where everyone ****s off into their own corner if you couldn't guess).

I wish Moray Towers was more visually interesting beyond the bit where you're loading in and the stage gets splattered in ink and I wish Northern Cave's meteor segment didn't make me go blind like Smash 4 FD, but aside from those nitpicks I think they're all pretty good.

I also very much appreciate giving stages cameos and I hope that continues for some stages in the next game (I want to see the rest of the Xenoblade 3 party and maybe the Heroes and stuff please on whatever stage Xenoblade 3 gets).

 

[Opossum]

Let's talk about the new stages that Ultimate has given us. There weren't a lot. There were definitely less new stages than characters. But while the new characters were near universally seen as high quality, the stages are a bit more mixed.

How do you feel about them? For the record, the new stages in Ultimate are...

• Small Battlefield
• New Donk City Hall
• Great Plateau Tower
• Moray Towers
• Dracula's Castle
• Mementos
• Yggdrasil's Alter
• Spiral Mountain
• King of Fighters Stadium
• Gareg Mach Monastery
• Spring Stadium
• Minecraft World
• Northern Cave
• Cloud Sea of Alrest
• Mishima Dojo
• Hollow Bastion

Small Battlefield is nice. I like the contrast with standard Battlefield and Big Battlefield.

New Donk City Hall is...okay, but even then that's mostly from me enjoying city stages. Take that away and honestly I think they could've done a lot better as far as potential Odyssey stages are concerned. Not using the nighttime festival version was a huge missed opportunity. Great Plateau Tower is fine but it's definitely one of the most "it exists" of the new stages for me. The roof can also be annoying. Moray Towers is awful. Terrible layout that makes navigation confusing. Saltspray Rig was also RIGHT THERE and it's such a shame that that wasn't chosen instead. Dracula's Castle is easily the best of the new base game stages. I like the small walls, the slope, and the cameos. It's a very fun casual stage.

Mementos offered a memorable start for the Fighter Pass 1 stages. The different colors and layouts based on the music was really cool, and giving Mementos the menu aesthetic was a great choice. Another very fun casual stage. Yggdrasil's Altar has the Great Plateau problem in that it just Exists. There's genuinely nothing to say about it beyond the Mimic being kind of funny. Spiral Mountain is only good when it's not moving. When it moves it's the worst stage in the game. It was the first and only time a video game has given me motion sickness. Praying that if Banjo somehow returns they take away the spinning from the stage, or change it to like Rusty Bucket Bay or something. King of Fighters Stadium, on the other hand, is hands down the BEST new stage in Ultimate as a whole. Amazing aesthetically, and with its gameplay gimmick of the invisible, breakable walls, it solved the walk off problem...now if only that was given to the other walk offs. The cameos are also a ton of fun. Garreg Mach Monastery is a mixed bag. I like...half of it. The Marketplace and Reception Hall are the good parts of it, with their own gameplay gimmicks making them more than featureless walk offs. Though I'd definitely make the market stalls taller on the Marketplace so they NEED to be broken for most horizontal KOs to work, and I'd lower the Reception Hall chandeliers more because Little Mac shouldn't suffer like that. The Bridge and the Cathedral are dull as dirt because they provide nothing. It's a shame the cameos don't appear on the hazardless and Omega/Battlefield versions, though that's likely due to the models themselves being fairly low poly and looking very low quality when put outdoors (the Reception Hall and Cathedral cameos look better due to the indoor lighting...it's very noticeable, however, in the Marketplace and ESPECIALLY the Bridge). I like it mostly, but the stage does have problems that will hopefully be solved in the next game.

Spring Stadium is great. A very fun stage with the jump pads, and teching off the roof slabs is also fun. Another fun casual stage. The jumbotron cameos are also nice. Minecraft World, much like KOF Stadium, is super appreciated because it offered a feature that other stages DESPERATELY needed, and will hopefully get next time: the ability to select specific static forms of a stage. Spirits also allowed this, so the fact that it's not something you can do outside of Minecraft World is BAFFLING. Being able to select a specific static form for Wuhu Island and Arena Ferox would be a game changer. Northern Cave is amazing and it's such a shame that DMCAs exist. It's a great stage and we really need to do something about archaic copyright laws. In this essay I will...Cloud Sea of Alrest was a pleasant surprise! Gramps makes for a fun hazard. The stage is small, but it's fine as a casual romp. The amount of times Gramps got stabbed through the head by Prominence Revolt though. Sad times. Mishima Dojo is okay. It's fine but nothing to write home about. The one thing giving it a leg up on Yggdrasil's Altar and Great Plateau Tower is the music selection. Hollow Bastion is amazing. I just really wish the Dive to the Heart portion was kept with Hazards Off. Why is that a hazard when Smash 4 Final Destination was allowed to exist. It makes no sense. I'm so happy this stage is just Outright Legal.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Minecraft World has an interesting gimmick, but when you're in a match that's 5+ minutes long, all the blocks are probably broken by then, and you're just on another version of Pokemon Stadium.

I think the Snowy Tundra biome is the only one with a Pokémon Stadium layout. The rest of them tend to have a single platform off to one side of the stage (or none at all).

 

[Speed Weed]

Since we're on the topic, I had this list of characters I'd like to see a while back:

I have to wonder how this would hold up now.....I think most of it's still fine, though I would maybe replace Alis with Elenor from PSO or Sakura Shinguji, and I think the bottom row of weirdos might have a couple swapped out for other picks - Shiren and Reco probably stay on, not so sure about the other two. The first-party corner also fluctuates a lot depending on my mood

 

[DarthEnderX]

My biggest problem is that this doesn't happen if the music isn't two of the over one hundred Mario tracks.

It's so uncommon, it almost doesn't exist.

Except those 100 tracks on default don't all have an equal chance of playing. Those 2 tracks play, like, 90% of the time. So it almost always happens.

People have these great big wishlists and that’s awesome

Meanwhile I’m just sitting over here with three guys

18 is a popular number of newcomers because it puts us at Fighter #100.

Since we're on the topic, I had this list of characters I'd like to see a while back:

Solid. But regrettably Hayabusaless.

 

[Louie G.]

Since we're on the topic, I had this list of characters I'd like to see a while back:

Lots of overlap with my favorites here, which shouldn't be too surprising. Arle and Morrigan are both sitting somewhere in my Top 5, Don Chan and Shiori are some oddball picks that I've really taken a liking to, Saki is probably one of my most wanted first parties. I'm still not sure if Nakoruru would be my first pick, I'm slightly inclined toward Haohmaru, but Samurai Shodown rep would be dope whichever way we cut it.

I should probably put one of these together but I've been busy and/or lazy. I don't think I'm very coy about which characters I'm passionate toward though, so many of you can probably deduce that on your own LOL.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Let's talk about the new stages that Ultimate has given us. There weren't a lot. There were definitely less new stages than characters. But while the new characters were near universally seen as high quality, the stages are a bit more mixed.

How do you feel about them? For the record, the new stages in Ultimate are...

• Small Battlefield
• New Donk City Hall
• Great Plateau Tower
• Moray Towers
• Dracula's Castle
• Mementos
• Yggdrasil's Alter
• Spiral Mountain
• King of Fighters Stadium
• Gareg Mach Monastery
• Spring Stadium
• Minecraft World
• Northern Cave
• Cloud Sea of Alrest
• Mishima Dojo
• Hollow Bastion

Some of my various thoughts.

• I appreciate the less focus on crazy sizes and wacky hazards. Not to say these stages don't have hazards, but they're not as ridiculous as Great Cave Offensive or 75m.
• Stage cameos have been a big goal for the team. Out of these new stages, only Small Battlefield and Northern Cave don't have a cameo from a character or two. This is neither good nor bad, but it is interesting.
• I appreciate the additions of newer competitive stages like Small Battlefield, Northen Cave and Hollow Bastion. It's great for the health of the game. But I am getting sick of stages that are similar to Smashville or Pokemon Stadium. They're an objective good, but when I want to play casually, I generally don't pick them.
• The new stages in the vanilla Ultimate... are kind of boring. New Donk City is as bland as they come, even with the Pauline gimmick. Great Plateau Tower fares much better and has a unique layout. I like Moray Towers more than most people (in both Splatoon and Smash), but its a bit lifeless for a Splatoon stage. Dracula's Castle is pretty much perfect for what I expect. It's stylish, has a unique layout and is visually interesting.
• The DLC stages are much more interesting. Out of the first pass, the only real dud I think if Spiral Mountain. Making people sick aside, its just... weird. I don't know if making the titular spiral mountain spin was a good idea. I don't even think you would need to add platforms to make it interesting. Just making the mountain by itself could have worked.
• The second pass has what I consider objectively good stages. None of them are so intrusive that they spoil the fun and they're all visually interesting enough that even competitive stages say fresh. I'm actually going to praise Spring Stadium and Cloud Sea of Alrest for having explicit gimmicks that are constantly changing the match, yet are so simple that they just flow into the game.
• Some personal favorites of mine are Dracula's Castle, King of Fighters Stadium, Spring Stadium, Northern Cave and Cloud Sea of Alrest. Spiral Mountain and New Donk City Hall would be stages I feel are lacking.

New Donk City Hall isn't really anything special. It's kind of like a less enjoyable Prism Tower since it has walk-offs, and a bunch of transformations that are just kinda awkward to navigate. While I tend to play with hazards off, the fact that the band members only work with three songs is pretty sad. Great Plateau Tower is super cramped. I don't like the ceiling there since it just gets in the way and bisects the very small stage by preventing jumps in the middle. Moray Towers is extremely awkward to traverse. Maybe you could have added the option to run downstairs by holding down forward, but even so vertical stages like this are kinda weird to fight in. Dracula's Castle is pretty unique, and I enjoy it in small doses. Not a huge fan of the vignette though, and the werewolf back-flipping into oblivion will always be silly, and not in a good way. The other cameos are fun though.

Mementos Is fun both in chaotic item battles and in itemless 1v1s. I like the aesthetics, and the music is great too. Yggdrasil's Altar is a fairly standard competitive style stage, which I suppose makes it a bit bland, but I like it. The main thing holding it back is the fact that there isn't a single music track on it that's actually good. Spiral Mountain bothers me because the spinning has no explanation. Everyone just starts sliding along the z-axis. That and if it comes back those with motion sickness very much need it to spin slower. Other than that, it's a pretty fun item battle stage, but I don't play it very often for 1v1s due to the step being a little hidey hole. King of Fighters Stadium makes the basic flat layout actually fun. Nice job. Gareg Mach Monastery is interesting only because it doesn't stay in the same place for too long, but it's definitely one of those stages where you just sit there and abuse walk-offs. I think its fun for item battles though.

Spring Stadium has some fun gimmicks with hazards on, and is a fun 1v1 stage hazards off. It's neat. Small Battlefield is fun and should become a series staple, but the three battlefields should really have aesthetic differences beyond the obvious. At the very least, make them set at different times of day. Minecraft World is a bit awkward with hazards on, but it smooths out throughout the match. I like it as a 1v1 stage hazards off too. Also, Halland/Dalarna is one of the best songs in the game. Love it. Northern Cave never really bothered me with its flashbang, but I will recognize it as a problem. Other than that, it's a more fun version of Kalos Pokémon League. Cloud Sea of Alrest is such a fun idea, and it's executed in a way that's so charming. Now if only we had the original version of Counterattack...Mishima Dojo takes the premise of King of Fighters Stadium and makes it weird. I don't know why it's weird and awkward, but something about how characters interact with the wall just doesn't work the same way. And then when you break the top half of the wall, but not the bottom half, funny stuff happens, and that I enjoy. I don't dislike it, but I don't love it either. Hollow Bastion only has one good track, which is sad, but Dive Into Heart is so freaking pretty that I wish it happened even with hazards off. Overall I really like it.

EDIT: Overall I think that Great Plateau Tower and Morray Towers are the only two outright unfun stages in my opinion, but the lows definitely aren't as low as SSBWiiU's low points. I do think the newer designs are a bit more conservative, as New Donk City Hall seems to be the only one that tries any majorly unique layouts in terms of terrain (no I'm not counting the platforms way up near the ceiling in Gareg Mach Monastery since they're basically just a jump height check). This does mean that the stages tend to flow better than some of the previous ones, but there's definitely a hard shift in stage design since the previous game.

 

[ninjahmos]

If Sora makes it into the next game (and if Disney is willing to let him in), they could add Roxas as an Echo or semi-clone, and they could use The Other Promise and Another Side, Another Story for his reveal trailer. They could also use both his Twilight Town outfit and his Organization outfit.

 

[Schnee117]

Saber Gang stay winning

 

[Wonder Smash]

One of my favorite themes from the River City series is Yokohama Funky!, Shinji's theme from Renegade. It had two remixes later in the series but I hope the one from River City Melee makes it in if Kunio and Riki become playable characters in the next Smash.

Awesome theme!

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

Finally made my version of the images people were making for the characters they want next game. Took a while because I'm not particularly great or experienced at editing, but I think it came out pretty well considering I don't normally do this sort of thing. Please excuse the frankly **** coloring job, my inexperience means I was using a fill bucket in an image editor (though thankfully not Paint's fill bucket lol). My wants for next game are mostly feasible (Bandana Dee through Noah and Mio), but I had to throw in my crazy longshot picks for posterity's sake and they also made the image a nice even 10 instead of just a pic of 6 characters that were all somewhat likely anyway

Working on this also made me realize that there are a lot of red/orange characters on my list, since about half of them got some kind of blue as a complementary color for the background lol

 

[Borskaboska]

Finally made my version of the images people were making for the characters they want next game. Took a while because I'm not particularly great or experienced at editing, but I think it came out pretty well considering I don't normally do this sort of thing. Please excuse the frankly **** coloring job, my inexperience means I was using a fill bucket in an image editor (though thankfully not Paint's fill bucket lol). My wants for next game are mostly feasible (Bandana Dee through Noah and Mio), but I had to throw in my crazy longshot picks for posterity's sake and they also made the image a nice even 10 instead of just a pic of 6 characters that were all somewhat likely anyway

Working on this also made me realize that there are a lot of red/orange characters on my list, since about half of them got some kind of blue as a complementary color for the background lol

View attachment 393125

I have thought that the fossil fighters T-rex would make for a good obscure first party pick.

 

[robot067]

Regarding discussion of single player content in the next smash, I feel like some are forgetting how much there was in Ultimate? Ultimate had 1,297 spirits at launch, and even more now. Compare that to the Brawl's 41 and Melee's 51 event matches. Ultimate also had an entire adventure mode that was similar in length to Subspace (iirc it took me me 20-25 hours - I recently replayed SSE and it took me 17). WOL lacked the platforming sections, and trophies/stickers were more satisfying to collect, so it doesn't feel quite as long (at least in my opinion, and from what it seems a large portion of the fanbase's). Plus every character has a unique Classic Mode (even if IMO the other games' Classic Modes feel less samey due to not having the same bonus level). In terms of sheer amount of content Ultimate more than matches the other games. It does feel like Ultimate cut corners on single player content in order to focus on bringing back old veterans/stages, but this to me is an issue of going for quantity over quality. Melee objectively has much less single player content than Ultimate, but it feels like more due to the amount of time put into the trophies and the difficulty making it more satisfying to get through. Brawl definitely beats Ultimate in terms of both quality and quantity (there are more spirits in Ultimate than trophies + stickers in Brawl, but again consider effort put into the trophies plus more modes and a more robust adventure mode), but I would say Ultimate beats Sm4sh (admittedly I never played much of the 3DS version and Smash Run, though that mode was more focused on multiplayer anyway).

I bring all this up to say that if the next game is able to do Everyone Is Here again and they build off of Ultimate, we could potentially get quite a lot of single player content. After all Ultimate already had an impressive amount despite the constraints EIH put on development, and those constraints would no longer be a factor. Consider also that Sm4sh was constrained by having to make two seperate versions of the game. I sincerely doubt Brawl and SSE will ever happen again, but I just think it's worthwhile to mention that Ultimate DX/2 =/= no or minimal single player content. My personal prediction is a short adventure mode a la. Melee, with a greatly expanded Stage Builder that also allows you to make adventure mode levels as well as event matches. This could also allow you to design custom Break the Targets/Race to the Finish/Whatever the Next Game Has levels. This sort of 'Smash Maker' mode would be a huge selling point and would more than make up for minimal changes to core gameplay and veteran movesets to most players IMO.

I would rather have a reboot than EIH 2 myself, but I guess my main point is to defend Ultimate's single player content a bit. I enjoyed WOL a lot especially due to the hand-drawn world map and the light vs. darkness/law vs. chaos thing it had going which I'm always a sucker for. I also may be misinterpreting others when they talk about the game's single player, but it feels like much of the community repeats that Ultimate had no single player content when that is very much not true. It's not as strong as Melee or Brawl but I consider it a huge step up from Sm4sh. I think Nintendo will at least try to do EIH again, but licensing or development issues might get in the way of bringing absolutely everyone back. I predict a game that builds on Ultimate with the same core gameplay, and like 10-15 cuts, the majority of which will come back as DLC.

 

[RouffWestie]

Regarding discussion of single player content in the next smash, I feel like some are forgetting how much there was in Ultimate? Ultimate had 1,297 spirits at launch, and even more now. Compare that to the Brawl's 41 and Melee's 51 event matches.

I'm gonna need you to acknowledge half of those spirit fights being a character literally just starting with an itsm.

 

[fogbadge]

Let's talk about the new stages that Ultimate has given us. There weren't a lot. There were definitely less new stages than characters. But while the new characters were near universally seen as high quality, the stages are a bit more mixed.

How do you feel about them? For the record, the new stages in Ultimate are...

• Small Battlefield
• New Donk City Hall
• Great Plateau Tower
• Moray Towers
• Dracula's Castle
• Mementos
• Yggdrasil's Alter
• Spiral Mountain
• King of Fighters Stadium
• Gareg Mach Monastery
• Spring Stadium
• Minecraft World
• Northern Cave
• Cloud Sea of Alrest
• Mishima Dojo
• Hollow Bastion

well as you're asking

Small Battlefield - I forgot this was a thing
New Donk City Hall - perfectly good stage. although captain toad should appear more often
Great Plateau Tower - there's nothing wrong with it, it just happens to be one of the least interesting choices for a botw stage
Moray Towers - my least favourite stage in splatoon. although there's nothing wrong with it here
Dracula's Castle - it's alright. having never played castlevania it's probably wasted on me
Mementos - it's a cool stage but it's design does make it feel like your fighting of P5's menu screen rather than mementos it's self
Yggdrasil's Altar - I don't really have an opinion on this one
Spiral Mountain - awesome. this is exactly how I pictured a BK stage
KOF Stadium - boring. having never played SNK's games the million cameos and music is wasted on me.
Gareg Mach Monetary - probably the best FE stage we have. even then I feel uncompelled to play on it most of the time. and I liked three houses very much. I dunno I guess it just doesn't click for me
Spring Stadium - another perfectly good stage. although part of me does think we should have got ramen bowl with min min
Minecraft World - eh I've never played minecraft do I'm pretty indifferent. though the music is nice
Northern Cave - quite simplistic but very atmospheric. and a great selection of music
Cloud Sea of Alrest - if any stage could be used as example of why we should stop using starting areas it would be this. of all the memorable locations from the game they go with one with 10 seconds of gameplay on it. what a waste
Mishima Dojo - I also forgot this was a thing
Hollow Bastion - an amazing stage. but it could have been better. ultimately it feels like we're flying around hollow bastion rather than fighting on it. and the transition into dive to the heart feels wasted as it only happens near the end. some times the fights over before it's finished loading in

so yeah quite a mix of stages but mind you I feel a lot of the new stuff in ultimate were quite mixed so it makes sense I guess

 

[DarthEnderX]

I'm gonna need you to acknowledge half of those spirit fights being a character literally just starting with an itsm.

Half of all video game characters are just a guy carrying a thing.

 

[Gengar84]

One of my favorite themes from the River City series is Yokohama Funky!, Shinji's theme from Renegade. It had two remixes later in the series but I hope the one from River City Melee makes it in if Kunio and Riki become playable characters in the next Smash.

Awesome theme!

I thought the River City Girls games had really good soundtracks. Several of the songs from those games still get stuck in my head. Hope we get some music from them if we get Riki and Kunio in Smash.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

I'm gonna need you to acknowledge half of those spirit fights being a character literally just starting with an itsm.

Spirit fights usually mix various conditions:
-Buffs/debuffs to power, speed, specific moves, etc.
-Modifications to characters' AI (how aggressive they are, which moves they prefer etc.)
-Modifications to the spawn rate of items
-External conditions (wind, fog, lava, ice, poison, etc.)
-Other stuff

What they're missing from Events is specific win conditions and exclusive stages (aside from bosses).

 

[Pupp135]

Let's talk about the new stages that Ultimate has given us. There weren't a lot. There were definitely less new stages than characters. But while the new characters were near universally seen as high quality, the stages are a bit more mixed.

How do you feel about them? For the record, the new stages in Ultimate are...

• Small Battlefield
• New Donk City Hall
• Great Plateau Tower
• Moray Towers
• Dracula's Castle
• Mementos
• Yggdrasil's Alter
• Spiral Mountain
• King of Fighters Stadium
• Gareg Mach Monastery
• Spring Stadium
• Minecraft World
• Northern Cave
• Cloud Sea of Alrest
• Mishima Dojo
• Hollow Bastion

Some of my various thoughts.

• I appreciate the less focus on crazy sizes and wacky hazards. Not to say these stages don't have hazards, but they're not as ridiculous as Great Cave Offensive or 75m.
• Stage cameos have been a big goal for the team. Out of these new stages, only Small Battlefield and Northern Cave don't have a cameo from a character or two. This is neither good nor bad, but it is interesting.
• I appreciate the additions of newer competitive stages like Small Battlefield, Northen Cave and Hollow Bastion. It's great for the health of the game. But I am getting sick of stages that are similar to Smashville or Pokemon Stadium. They're an objective good, but when I want to play casually, I generally don't pick them.
• The new stages in the vanilla Ultimate... are kind of boring. New Donk City is as bland as they come, even with the Pauline gimmick. Great Plateau Tower fares much better and has a unique layout. I like Moray Towers more than most people (in both Splatoon and Smash), but its a bit lifeless for a Splatoon stage. Dracula's Castle is pretty much perfect for what I expect. It's stylish, has a unique layout and is visually interesting.
• The DLC stages are much more interesting. Out of the first pass, the only real dud I think if Spiral Mountain. Making people sick aside, its just... weird. I don't know if making the titular spiral mountain spin was a good idea. I don't even think you would need to add platforms to make it interesting. Just making the mountain by itself could have worked.
• The second pass has what I consider objectively good stages. None of them are so intrusive that they spoil the fun and they're all visually interesting enough that even competitive stages say fresh. I'm actually going to praise Spring Stadium and Cloud Sea of Alrest for having explicit gimmicks that are constantly changing the match, yet are so simple that they just flow into the game.
• Some personal favorites of mine are Dracula's Castle, King of Fighters Stadium, Spring Stadium, Northern Cave and Cloud Sea of Alrest. Spiral Mountain and New Donk City Hall would be stages I feel are lacking.

I probably am not the best person to make assessments as I mostly play semi-competitively (typically items off, 1v1, competitive stages but don’t go to any major tournaments), but here are my takes

From the base game stages, I’d probably say that Dracula’s Castle was my favorite of the four, and Great Plateau Tower was my least favorite. I liked the former’s layout, and the hazards are nice to have.They don’t interest me a lot, but I do enjoy playing on Moray Towers and New Donk City occasionally (I prefer the former).

From Fighter Pass 1, I found the rotating gimmick interesting to play on for Spiral Mountain, and KOF Stadium has a cool gimmick. I also like the visuals for Mementos and Yggdrasil’s Altar, and the only stage that doesn’t interest me is Gareg Mach.

For Fighter Pass 2, Northern Cave and Hollow Bastion have nice competitive layouts and backgrounds, and I liked the Mishima Dojo gimmick. Cloud Sea of Alrest is like Moray Towers and New Donk City for me, and I can’t fairly assess Spring Stadium or Minecraft World as I haven’t played those stages often.

Small Battlefield was a nice add on for Ultimate.

 

[CureParfait]

People have these great big wishlists and that’s awesome

Meanwhile I’m just sitting over here with three guys

I know right I am pretty much the same. I only have five characters on my wishlist.

 

[pitchfulprocessing]

I'm a bit late, but limiting myself to just 8 characters and an equal spread of first and third party, these are who most come to mind for my wishlist.

The Tarnished could be largely swapped out for any FromSoft rep IE Chosen Undead, Malenia, Solaire, etc, they're just the one I think fits the best.

Biggest honourable mentions for me are probably Sakuna from Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin and Agent 47, you can probably get a gauge of my tastes from this lol.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

I have thought that the fossil fighters T-rex would make for a good obscure first party pick.

I guess realistically in my mind it's probably more accurate to call them "Fossil Fighter" or something, but I imagine T-Rex being the main character and having Tricera (though Tricera's a bit more iffy since this trio doesn't have anything like a Team Skill for a Final Smash) and Ptera kind of act as summons for certain moves (for example, Ptera using Great Vortex/Blow Away for recovery) to symbolize the Attack Zone/Support Zone dynamic present in the original and Champions, though I definitely think T-Rex could also just carry the moveset himself if need be.

Also, while I was putting this together, I found out that Tibby actually has official art of some costumes from some of the stages in Megamix, namely the onions from Rhythm Tweezers, Slugger from Exhibition Match, Muscle Doll from Figure Fighter, Golfer from Hole in One, the Wandering Samurai, and the astronaut from First Contact, which kinda just reinforces in my mind that Tibby would work well as a sort of conglomerate character where his moves are from the various stages across the series, moreso than someone like Karate Joe imo lol

 

[DKing]

A bit late but here a list of my requested character:
Dig dug(Taizo Hori), Crash Bandicoot, Akira Howard, Reimu, Shiren, Balloon fighters, Geno, Goemon, Lloyd Irvin, Takamaru, Shovel knight, Saki Amamiya, Andy, Rayman, Bomberman, Isaac, Crono, Cuphead.
Other than are not on the picture:Monster hunter,Dante,2B, Kunio-Kun(recently play river City on the NSO), Bandana Waddle Dee, Waluigi,MasterChief,Doom,Scorpion, A Guilty Gear character, Red from Angry bird, Assasin creed character, a contra rep, a metal slug rep,Adol christin... And a bunch of other characters I didn't listed.

 

[ninjahmos]

I may or may not have said this before, but if Siegfried and Nightmare ever get into Smash, I hope they not only include his themes from Soul Edge/Soul Blade and SoulCalibur 1&2, but also make a hard rock/heavy metal arrangement of this masterpiece:

 

[Perkilator]

RE: Byleth
I've had this Byleth overhaul of mine on the back burner for a while now, but now I think I've crafted something serviceable that still takes advantage of his canon abilities.

Spoiler: Byleth overhaul

Intro: “Let the lesson begin!” Byleth appears from a Warp circle.

Stance/Idle 1: His battle stance from Three Houses.
Idle 2: Byleth twirls the Sword of the Creator into a backhanded grip while striking a pose. M!Byleth points the sword downward in a more dignified pose…
Idle 3: …while F!Byleth holds the sword in a more standard grip and energetic pose.

Notable Palette Swaps

1. Male
   • Default
   • Dimitri (blue)
   • Claude (yellow)
   • Jeralt (orange)
   • Seteth (navy blue)
   • Yuri (white)
   • Black Eagle colors (red)
   • Enlightened One (special costume)
2. Female
   • Default
   • Edelgard (red)
   • Sothis (purple)
   • Rhea (white)
   • Kronya (black)
   • Blue Lion colors (blue)
   • Golden Deer colors (yellow)
   • Enlightened One (special costume)

Walk: Based on his jog from Three Houses outside of combat.
Dash: His run from Three Houses during combat.
Damage: His damage animation from Three Houses
Jump: Similar to other sword lords’ jumps.
Crouch: Byleth kneels while making a thinking gesture.

Normal Attacks
Jab: Ruptured Heaven; two slashes with the Sword of the Creator, followed by a flurry of lashes in its whip form
Forward+A: A horizontal spin kick
Up+A: An uppercut with Byleth’s open hand
Down+A: A slide kick
Dash Attack: His running slash from Three Houses
Edge Attack: A low, outward slash while climbing up
Get-Up Attack: Byleth slashes on both sides of himself

Aerial Attacks
Air+A: Fire Spin; Byleth swings the Sword of the Creator; enveloped in fire, around his body
Air Forward+A: Fire Hazard; an axe kick enveloped in fire
Air Back + A: Ragnarok Kick; a reverse spin kick enveloped in fire
Air Up+A: Byleth flails the Sword of the Creator like an overhead whip
Air Down+A: Bolganone Kick; a dive kick enveloped in fire

Smash Attacks
Forward+A: Wrath Strike; an upward arcing slash that covers an overhead area
Up+A: Byleth flails the Sword of the Creator like an overhead whip
Down+A: Thunderclap; Byleth swings the Sword of the Creator, enveloped in electricity, on both sides downward

Grab Game
Grab: Byleth grabs the opponent with his open hand.
Pummel: A knee strike
Forwards+Throw: Byleth repels the opponent with light magic
Back+Throw: Byleth tosses the opponent away with the Sword of the Creator
Up+Throw: A 540 kick with both legs
Down+Throw: A body slam

Special Moves
B : Aura; Byleth summons three orbs of light around himself. They will eventually all home in on the nearest opponent, but Byleth can press B to shoot one orb of light at a time. If an opponent touches an orb of light before it fires off, that orb will disappear.
B + ←→ : Mystic Blow; Byleth envelops his foot in light magic and charges a kicking attack, with different effects on the ground and midair. On the ground, Byleth performs a backflip kick that launches him into the air. In midair, Byleth instead performs a flying kick that launches him forward.
B + ↑ : Ruptured Sky; Byleth thrusts the Sword of the Creator diagonally upward to extend its whip form. If it grabs an opponent, Byleth can either slam them into the ground (grounded version) or zip up to them and footstool them (aerial version).
B + ↓ : Windsweep; A circular slash that reflects projectiles. This also hurts any nearby opponents.

Final Smash: Sublime Ruptured Heaven; Byleth proclaims “Here’s something to believe in!” as he flails the Sword of the Creator in a large area around himself, pulling in nearby opponents, before finishing with a final circular slash.

Taunts
Up: “No hesitation!” Byleth swings the Sword of the Creator to his right leg, and puts his left fist to his chest while looking into the sky.
Side: “Stay focused!” Byleth brandishes the Sword of the Creator forward.
Down: “Another step forward.” Byleth swings the Sword of the Creator in its whip form around himself.

Winposes (Male)
1: “Each battle, a chance to grow.” Byleth plants the Sword of the Creator into the ground
2: “Such power dwells within?” Byleth raises his left hand to his chest while looking towards the sky.
3: “We must all do our part!” With the Sword of the Creator in its whip form, Byleth swings it around the front of his body in a circular motion.

Winposes (Female)
1: “Each battle, a chance to grow.” Byleth plants the Sword of the Creator into the ground.
2: “Allow me to demonstrate.” Byleth swings the Sword of the Creator outward before holding the sword behind her in a reverse grip.
3: “I'll use this power for the greater good!” With the Sword of the Creator in its whip form, Byleth swings the whip in front of herself twice before holding it vertically.

Applause: Byleth claps for the winner.
Icon: Falchion
Boxing Ring Title: Ashen Demon
Star K.O.: “My battle ends heeeere…!”
Victory Music: The Edge of Dawn (Instrumental)
Kirby Hat: Byleth’s hair; changes depending on which gender Byleth is.

Since it's kinda quiet around here, I decided to bring this back

 

[Sucumbio]

I love everyone's personal roster especially ones with characters I've never heard of / don't recognize.

 

[TheLamerGamer]

Made a quick list of my most-wanted characters off the top of my head, limiting myself to one character per series. Some are more likely, others are... significantly less likely... Also absolutely not supposed to be the roster for a new game, just some characters I'd like to see there.

Entirely unordered as well, although I think I would probably die on the spot if Tatsuya actually did ever get in... or even showed up in an actual persona game again to be honest.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

Finally made my version of the images people were making for the characters they want next game. Took a while because I'm not particularly great or experienced at editing, but I think it came out pretty well considering I don't normally do this sort of thing. Please excuse the frankly **** coloring job, my inexperience means I was using a fill bucket in an image editor (though thankfully not Paint's fill bucket lol). My wants for next game are mostly feasible (Bandana Dee through Noah and Mio), but I had to throw in my crazy longshot picks for posterity's sake and they also made the image a nice even 10 instead of just a pic of 6 characters that were all somewhat likely anyway

Working on this also made me realize that there are a lot of red/orange characters on my list, since about half of them got some kind of blue as a complementary color for the background lol

View attachment 393125

How are you guys making these btw?

 

[Gorgonzales]

How are you guys making these btw?

You can really make these in any image creation or editing software; it just comes down to what you're most familiar with. I use InDesign since I can easily make and arrange frames and paste images of characters into them, but I could also use Clip Studio Paint if I wanted to. One other person here said they used Photoshop.

 

[Perkilator]

How are you guys making these btw?

I made mine using the tables function on this site, but I also frequently use this roster maker here.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

How are you guys making these btw?

I made mine through a free image editor called Pixlr (not their AI editor, the one where you do the work yourself). Just made sure each image was scaled to 225x225 since it was the size I got for the Smash 4 Dojo character images, since that was about the size I wanted, and then just went all in on it and made it as similar as I could with the background, the gray box under them, and the text.

 

[ninjahmos]

I kind of would like to see both Axel and Blaze from Streets of Rage in Smash. I already picked Go Straight for Axel's potential reveal, but I think Dreamer would be a good fit for Blaze.

 

[Borskaboska]

Made a quick list of my most-wanted characters off the top of my head, limiting myself to one character per series. Some are more likely, others are... significantly less likely... Also absolutely not supposed to be the roster for a new game, just some characters I'd like to see there.


View attachment 393138

Entirely unordered as well, although I think I would probably die on the spot if Tatsuya actually did ever get in... or even showed up in an actual persona game again to be honest.

Ok I gotta hear how you think the X parasite would play.
For the fencer from etrian odyssey, im curious why them out of all the classes. I dont play EO so I don't know if they have any unique gameplay thing that would work well.

 

[Borskaboska]

I kind of would like to see both Axel and Blaze from Streets of Rage in Smash. I already picked Go Straight for Axel's potential reveal, but I think Dreamer would be a good fit for Blaze.

A funny detail I noticed, Axel's grand upper blitz attack ignites his fist by grinding it along the ground. And if you look closely, Little Mac also does that for his KO punch, which it why it has fire properties. So I think Mac is meant to already be a subtle streets of rage reference.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I know people have somewhat soured on new fighters having gimmicks, but I wouldn't mind a Streets of Rage character having a special move mechanic from SOR3 (where such attacks don't drain health if the meter's filled) or SOR4 (where any loss of health is mitigated if damage is immediately inflicted on opponents). Of course, I know many would be aghast at the Pichu like concept of Special Moves doing any damage to a fighter performing, but including that for a SOR character would be an effective tribute to countless beat em ups that have had that mechanic.

 

[TheLamerGamer]

Ok I gotta hear how you think the X parasite would play.
For the fencer from etrian odyssey, im curious why them out of all the classes. I dont play EO so I don't know if they have any unique gameplay thing that would work well.

The X-Parasite would be a way to represent a load of smaller enemies from the series, so it would transform for different attacks. E.g. Space Pirate laser for neutral special, a scree for recovery, etc. The SA-X would be the final smash probably. Just seems fun, I've wanted it for a while (I'm a huge fan of the series and the popular requests don't appeal to me that much tbh).

And fencer was just a generic etrian odyssey icon tbh - I have no clue what class would be best, I just want a character of some sort, and the V box art was the first thing j saw of the series, so she's always the first character I think of for it.

 

[Laniv]

Oooh, we're doing most wanted lists but visual? Okay, here's mine:

Likelihoods may vary, I am open to questions

 

[fogbadge]

Oooh, we're doing most wanted lists but visual? Okay, here's mine:

View attachment 393140

Likelihoods may vary, I am open to questions

hmm. it would seem you have excellent taste

 

[Gorgonzales]

Oooh, we're doing most wanted lists but visual? Okay, here's mine:

View attachment 393140

Likelihoods may vary, I am open to questions

This is very good. I can appreciate all the Zelda love, having both Bandana Dee AND Magolor, and delving into the more niche 1st parties like Lip, Sable Prince, Yuka, and Elma. I would be quite pleased with this roster.