Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Opossum]

I mean, that seems to be the consensus, but accounting for newcomers that's about 30+ cuts no matter how you slice it.
Yet the cuts everyone predicts are usually just Pichu, Young Link, Piranha Plant and uuuuh Lucas I guess?, and that's it. Something doesn't add up.

But taking Smash 4 as a baseline feels pretty arbitrary to me. That game also only had all the characters it had because it was largely built off Brawl.

It's not arbitrary at all.

The reason people use Smash 4 as a baseline is because that game gave us ample additional content alongside a sizeable roster of about 50 characters, something that even at the time Sakurai considered a feasible upper limit. Ultimate then went and gave us 76, seven of which were echo fighters, and we got almost no substantial single player content outside of Spirits, with longstanding, nigh-ever present modes either cut entirely or added as DLC updates.

Smash 4 also had the hurdle of developing for two consoles simultaneously, so that's why the baseline of "a bit bigger than Smash 4 but less than base Ultimate" is such a common estimate.

 

[ninjahmos]

I don't really want a Story Mode, to be honest. Subspace Emissary was fun as an experiment but it's not the end all be all in terms of Smash Bros priorities. I would like an Adventure Mode ala Melee's though just with more features, new worlds, new enemies taken from franchises added after Melee and whatnot. I'm happy with the cinematics of Smash being relegated to character reveals as long as they actually add those trailers to the Movies selection of the Vault menu next time. Still weird they didn't when it'd be a nice bonus to have every reveal trailer in one place to watch for whatever reason

If the next Smash game DOES have an Adventure Mode that's just like Melee, it should have a Metroid-style escape sequence level.

Also, I think the final boss should change depending on which character you play as or which series they're from. Mario's final boss could still be Bowser and/or Giga Bowser and Link's final boss could still be Ganon. But, even though this has probably been said many times, why not add in some new bosses from different franchises?

 

[pitchfulprocessing]

I'm of the mindset that if you're making cuts, go all out with it. I'm personally all for "cutting Palutena to add Phosphora" style picks, I think that kind of stuff is fun and makes games unique and stands out, it's a great way to flex some creativity and come up with unexpected movesets. I think it's one of the best parts of MvC. Don't just cut Meta Knight to add Bandana Dee, cut Dedede as well to toss Dark Matter or Susie in.

That said, I think this mindset only applies in the context of all previous Smash games being readily available on the new console and being updated to have functioning online. It's not just a matter of preservation, it's a matter of, if you have a favourite character from a previous game, that game is still available for you to play with other people across the world. Smash Ultimate would benefit massively from a well-made rollback update if the Switch 2's CPU is powerful enough to handle it, which it seems like it will be. Do that, and make the previous games available, and I think you're fully justified to start going crazy.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Rather than a story mode, my pipe dream would be for each character to get a proper arcade campaign or at least some loose narrative string to cleverly cross over different faces. Kind of like Street Fighter or Marvel vs Capcom.

The best solution would be for each character to have a classic mode similar to the one in Ultimate, but with different paths, like this:

The numbers indicate the matches, bonus stages included, the colors the difficulty, with magenta being the max and purple being the lowest.
The way each match is won will determine the ruote, each one telling a little story.
Opponents, bonust stages and even bosses will change.
Oh! We need more bosses! I miss Duon honestly, but I'd love even Queen Sectonia being a boss.

 

[BritishGuy54]

The best solution would be for each character to have a classic mode similar to the one in Ultimate, but with different paths, like this:View attachment 393987
The numbers indicate the matches, bonus stages included, the colors the difficulty, with magenta being the max and purple being the lowest.
The way each match is won will determine the ruote, each one telling a little story.
Opponents, bonust stages and even bosses will change.
Oh! We need more bosses! I miss Duon honestly, but I'd love even Queen Sectonia being a boss.

Welcome back, Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) for Nintendo GameCube.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

The best solution would be for each character to have a classic mode similar to the one in Ultimate, but with different paths, like this:View attachment 393987
The numbers indicate the matches, bonus stages included, the colors the difficulty, with magenta being the max and purple being the lowest.
The way each match is won will determine the ruote, each one telling a little story.
Opponents, bonust stages and even bosses will change.
Oh! We need more bosses! I miss Duon honestly, but I'd love even Queen Sectonia being a boss.

Something like this with platforming stages (maybe with different types oriented around contrasting fighter styles) basically would be the perfect single player mode for me.

 

[SPEN18]

I mean, that seems to be the consensus, but accounting for newcomers that's about 30+ cuts no matter how you slice it.
Yet the cuts everyone predicts are usually just Pichu, Young Link, Piranha Plant and uuuuh Lucas I guess?, and that's it. Something doesn't add up.

But taking Smash 4 as a baseline feels pretty arbitrary to me. That game also only had all the characters it had because it was largely built off Brawl.

The lack of a totally clear consensus on who exactly those 30 or so cuts would be doesn't mean we won't have those cuts. I could list out 30 characters who I think are justifiable cuts if we are constrained to 60 or so total slots, so it doesn't seem problematic to me; others may see things differently, but we could have an open discussion about it.

 

[superprincess]

I think people overestimate how much Ultimate takes from Smash 4, and in turn underestimate how much Smash 4 takes from Brawl.

If you take a look at the animations for some of the older veteran fighters, Ultimate actually went further in freshening them up. Smash 4 did have a handful of moveset overhauls, like Bowser, Pit, and Yoshi, as well as the transforming characters being split and necessitating rebalancing. But when it comes to the rest, they mostly use their Brawl animations almost 1:1. Compare Brawl Mario to Smash 4 Mario and you'll see what I mean.

Ultimate just went further when it comes to aesthetics even when it didn't need to. Staples like Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Yoshi, DK, Link, Zelda, Ness, Ike, etc. got almost their whole kits re-animated. Not to mention that the revived veterans had to be built from the ground up. Yes, even Pichu and Young Link don't recycle animations. And Snake, Pokémon Trainer and Wolf don't use any Brawl assets. The "heavy asset reuse" mostly concerns the Smash 4 newcomers going into Ultimate; which makes sense, those characters were just made.

And why does that matter, you may wonder. This is a bit of my own personal theory crafting, but I think it's futureproofing older characters. They're freshening up the assets to be able to reuse them again and again in the future. Ultimate just has so many little inconsequential aesthetic retouches that I have to believe that is the reason.

 

[Guynamednelson]

And why does that matter, you may wonder. This is a bit of my own personal theory crafting, but I think it's futureproofing older characters. They're freshening up the assets to be able to reuse them again and again in the future. Ultimate just has so many little inconsequential aesthetic retouches that I have to believe that is the reason.

Frankly with how high-poly some of the models are I really don't see any reason to scrap models like those of Pyra and Mythra. Plus with how far away the camera is in a platform fighter compared to traditional fighters I feel like models more detailed than those two's would be a waste of polygons outside of victory screens.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

I think people overestimate how much Ultimate takes from Smash 4, and in turn underestimate how much Smash 4 takes from Brawl.

If you take a look at the animations for some of the older veteran fighters, Ultimate actually went further in freshening them up. Smash 4 did have a handful of moveset overhauls, like Bowser, Pit, and Yoshi, as well as the transforming characters being split and necessitating rebalancing. But when it comes to the rest, they mostly use their Brawl animations almost 1:1. Compare Brawl Mario to Smash 4 Mario and you'll see what I mean.

Ultimate just went further when it comes to aesthetics even when it didn't need to. Staples like Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Yoshi, DK, Link, Zelda, Ness, Ike, etc. got almost their whole kits re-animated. Not to mention that the revived veterans had to be built from the ground up. Yes, even Pichu and Young Link don't recycle animations. And Snake, Pokémon Trainer and Wolf don't use any Brawl assets. The "heavy asset reuse" mostly concerns the Smash 4 newcomers going into Ultimate; which makes sense, those characters were just made.

And why does that matter, you may wonder. This is a bit of my own personal theory crafting, but I think it's futureproofing older characters. They're freshening up the assets to be able to reuse them again and again in the future. Ultimate just has so many little inconsequential aesthetic retouches that I have to believe that is the reason.

Honestly I've been wondering about this since I admittedly don't know much about game design, but even with the Switch 2 supposedly being much more powerful than the Switch, I don't know that there's really too much to be done for veteran designs at this point? Like sure obviously you'd touch them up and make them fit whatever aesthetic you're going for in a new game plus visual effects on moves and stuff, but it's not like any of them are going to drastically change in design minus a few with new looks like what we assume will happen to Samus or the Zelda crew, for instance.

Obviously graphical fidelity of the models will improve (outside of maybe Pyra and Mythra since they already have really high poly counts and they probably wouldn't decrease that or anything lol), but they did that in Ultimate too, plus making them react better to lighting.

So basically, unless there's a drastic art style change in Smash, which is unlikely, couldn't they mostly just reuse the models they've already made and tweak them to fit a new aesthetic? After all, working smarter and not harder likely means less time per character since you obviously don't have to remodel everyone, which means more time to fit more characters in.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

So, are there any echo fighter vets you think are pretty darn likely to stay? I know people often cut them, but if they had to pick some echo fighters to work on during down time, which ones do you think would stay around?

 

[RodNutTakin]

I think people overestimate how much Ultimate takes from Smash 4, and in turn underestimate how much Smash 4 takes from Brawl.

If you take a look at the animations for some of the older veteran fighters, Ultimate actually went further in freshening them up. Smash 4 did have a handful of moveset overhauls, like Bowser, Pit, and Yoshi, as well as the transforming characters being split and necessitating rebalancing. But when it comes to the rest, they mostly use their Brawl animations almost 1:1. Compare Brawl Mario to Smash 4 Mario and you'll see what I mean.

Ultimate just went further when it comes to aesthetics even when it didn't need to. Staples like Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Yoshi, DK, Link, Zelda, Ness, Ike, etc. got almost their whole kits re-animated. Not to mention that the revived veterans had to be built from the ground up. Yes, even Pichu and Young Link don't recycle animations. And Snake, Pokémon Trainer and Wolf don't use any Brawl assets. The "heavy asset reuse" mostly concerns the Smash 4 newcomers going into Ultimate; which makes sense, those characters were just made.

And why does that matter, you may wonder. This is a bit of my own personal theory crafting, but I think it's futureproofing older characters. They're freshening up the assets to be able to reuse them again and again in the future. Ultimate just has so many little inconsequential aesthetic retouches that I have to believe that is the reason.

I honestly didn't even pay too much attention to that myself, and I've been the one who was pushing the theory that them remaking almost every previous stage in Ultimate was for similar purposes (futureproofing them so that the majority of stage development next time can focus solely on brand new stages). Very good observation, I think this is overall a very good point towards the idea of Sakurai and co. planning ahead of time with 6. Between this and the founding of Studio S, my gut's telling me they're going to focus on not losing as much stuff as they can going from Ultimate to the next game.
On that note, I'd imagine some of the characters from 4 and base Ult will be where most of the tweaks will go next time, going off your observations.

 

[Guynamednelson]

So, are there any echo fighter vets you think are pretty darn likely to stay? I know people often cut them, but if they had to pick some echo fighters to work on during down time, which ones do you think would stay around?

Well it probably depends on what models have been made for the new Smash assuming they're not tweaking the preexisting models again, because several of the echoes were made using models that were already made. I shouldn't have to explain Dark Pit, but the rest:

• Ken is Ryu's model with a different hairdo and gloves
• Daisy is edited from Peach's
• Chrom is taken from Robin's FS...so he might depend on if Robin stays and still doesn't get a new FS. Pyra's and Mythra's models are good enough to warrant not scrapping, but Chrom's?

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

So, are there any echo fighter vets you think are pretty darn likely to stay? I know people often cut them, but if they had to pick some echo fighters to work on during down time, which ones do you think would stay around?

Honestly, I feel like ones based on characters that are pretty safe to return are likely to come back as well. So out of this group, basically all except Richter (depending on how Konami plays ball) or Chrom (this one's more personal, since I don't think Roy's making it back lol)

Could also see Daisy and Richter become alts tbh since they have nearly no differences (Richter's only difference is his Holy Water is aura and not fire so it kills Red Pikmin, and Daisy has basically no differences), including stuff like Final Smash, but I feel like the animation differences might make that unlikely since it was a point brought up when Echoes were introduced lol

Now that I think about it, my mentality on Echoes is basically either "cut em" or the same thought process as Pokemon regional variants, like "they can be here as long as the original is" depending on the day lol

 

[superprincess]

Could also see Daisy and Richter become alts tbh since they have nearly no differences (Richter's only difference is his Holy Water is aura and not fire so it kills Red Pikmin, and Daisy has basically no differences), including stuff like Final Smash, but I feel like the animation differences might make that unlikely since it was a point brought up when Echoes were introduced lol

This is never happening. Sakurai thought demoting Dr. Mario to an alt in Smash 4 was a disservice to his mains in Melee, he definitely won't do it now. There's literally no reason to. I'd lose four of my precious Peach's costumes... for what? There's no reason to tuck a character like Daisy into Peach's alts. She's here and she's more well known than like half the roster. Not having her on the CSS does more harm than good, differences or not.

And this ain't happening with Richter either.

 

[Opossum]

Slightly off of that topic, but my unpopular opinion is that Chrom coming back depends more on Robin coming back than Roy doing so. The Final Smash is arguably more crucial considering Chrom's animations were redone almost completely from Roy anyway, to the point that he briefly enters Marth's idle stance after an action, instead of Roy's.

Because of this, Chrom is the only case I can possibly see where an echo stays but the base character gets dropped...mostly because he relies more on a different character returning.

 

[pitchfulprocessing]

Honestly I've been wondering about this since I admittedly don't know much about game design, but even with the Switch 2 supposedly being much more powerful than the Switch, I don't know that there's really too much to be done for veteran designs at this point? Like sure obviously you'd touch them up and make them fit whatever aesthetic you're going for in a new game plus visual effects on moves and stuff, but it's not like any of them are going to drastically change in design minus a few with new looks like what we assume will happen to Samus or the Zelda crew, for instance.

Obviously graphical fidelity of the models will improve (outside of maybe Pyra and Mythra since they already have really high poly counts and they probably wouldn't decrease that or anything lol), but they did that in Ultimate too, plus making them react better to lighting.

So basically, unless there's a drastic art style change in Smash, which is unlikely, couldn't they mostly just reuse the models they've already made and tweak them to fit a new aesthetic? After all, working smarter and not harder likely means less time per character since you obviously don't have to remodel everyone, which means more time to fit more characters in.

I think a point here is that, based on the projected specs of the Switch 2, the graphical fidelity increase will be too big to ignore. We essentially know how powerful the Switch 2 is from the shipping data, no ambiguity, and it's PS4 Pro tier with DLSS on top of that. The Wii U to Switch jump was very small overall, and the Switch actually had less storage in its cartridges than Wii U discs anyways. Both of those consoles are essentially a hypothetical "PS3 Pro" in terms of power. The last time Smash had a leap in graphical fidelity this major was from Brawl to Wii U, which was a full HD transition and required all new models for the entire cast.

Smash has always pushed whatever system its on to its limit, Kid Icarus Uprising actually did the same. Smash 3DS needs to enter a special mode which disables other functions to use the most amount of the CPU's bandwidth as possible, Smash Wii U upscales to 1080p at 60 FPS, Ultimate lands a consistent 1080p at 60 FPS and makes a lot of sacrifices to get 60 FPS and decent resolution in handheld mode. Obviously any Smash game needs 60 FPS by necessity because it's a fighting game, but Smash 4 was arguably Nintendo's first AAA title, and Smash has always been a massive technical showcase and aimed for impressive graphics. Smash Ultimate has good models, but the age would really show if you just stuck them on to a PS4 Pro level game with DLSS, in a way just pumping up the polygons wouldn't fix. I imagine animations will be re-used, but I would be very surprised if the models themselves stuck around.

 

[Gengar84]

So I just completed the demos of Trials of Mana and The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak. This is the first time I’ve put more than an hour into a Trails game and I’m really enjoying it so far. The main character, Van Arkride is really cool so far and has an awesome looking transformation. I wonder if Van has any chance being the most recent protagonist from the series. I’m interested in trying out the remake of Trails in the Sky too. The writing is entertaining so far so I’m sure Estelle Bright is a good character as well. I feel like she’s probably the more likely of the two to join Smash based on comments I’ve read.

 

[superprincess]

Chrom's animations were redone almost completely from Roy anyway, to the point that he briefly enters Marth's idle stance after an action, instead of Roy's.

This is false. Roy also enters Marth's stance before assuming his own. It's just a product of Roy being built off of Marth. And Chrom is built off of Roy, but there's no reason for Chrom to cycle through both stances when he can just skip Roy's stance and enter his own after Marth's (which Roy does too in the exact same manner).

And Chrom's animations definitely weren't redone "almost completely". The only redone ones are: jab, forward tilt, and obviously up special. That's three out of like what, two hundred total animations? That's "barely anything".

Also how does Chrom rely on Robin when they could just... reuse the Chrom model form Ultimate? Or straight up just make a new Chrom model? Why would they need to go through making Robin, then making FS!Chrom's model for Robin to use, only to reuse that model for Fighter!Chrom? This doesn't make sense at all. Balance-wise, Chrom depends on Roy to return. Period. There's no roundabout logic to excuse Chrom coming back without Roy, just say you personally would prefer that. But there's no rationalizing it.

 

[ShotoStar]

If the next Smash game DOES have an Adventure Mode that's just like Melee, it should have a Metroid-style escape sequence level.

Also, I think the final boss should change depending on which character you play as or which series they're from. Mario's final boss could still be Bowser and/or Giga Bowser and Link's final boss could still be Ganon. But, even though this has probably been said many times, why not add in some new bosses from different franchises?

Well, I don't want it to be just like Melee's mind you, I want it to use what Melee did as base inspiration and build far out from there. The structure of having worlds which you platform through and different missions for different stages of progression like Melee does but they could do a lot to build off from there. They could give each character a unique routing through this style of Adventure Mode ala how every character has their own distinct Classic Mode route, they could create new sections of Adventure Mode like a Metroid-style escape sequence or idk a Street Fighter bonus level sequence, whatever they come up with they can throw it in there. Subspace Emissary also built off of Melee's Adventure Mode but they could go back to Melee and take it in a different direction compared to Subspace Emissary without all the in-mode cutscenes

 

[Guynamednelson]

Chrom's animations were redone almost completely from Roy anyway

And Chrom's animations definitely weren't redone "almost completely". The only redone ones are: jab, forward tilt, and obviously up special. That's three out of like what, two hundred total animations? That's "barely anything".

Chrom's animation changes wouldn't require them to completely reanimate them from scratch anyway. He still goes through the same motions as Roy, just with forward grip.

That said I always felt like Chrom is the one echo who can come back without his base fighter, it's not like Roy is more significant in the context of FE.

 

[SPEN18]

I think people overestimate how much Ultimate takes from Smash 4, and in turn underestimate how much Smash 4 takes from Brawl.

If you take a look at the animations for some of the older veteran fighters, Ultimate actually went further in freshening them up. Smash 4 did have a handful of moveset overhauls, like Bowser, Pit, and Yoshi, as well as the transforming characters being split and necessitating rebalancing. But when it comes to the rest, they mostly use their Brawl animations almost 1:1. Compare Brawl Mario to Smash 4 Mario and you'll see what I mean.

Ultimate just went further when it comes to aesthetics even when it didn't need to. Staples like Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Yoshi, DK, Link, Zelda, Ness, Ike, etc. got almost their whole kits re-animated. Not to mention that the revived veterans had to be built from the ground up. Yes, even Pichu and Young Link don't recycle animations. And Snake, Pokémon Trainer and Wolf don't use any Brawl assets. The "heavy asset reuse" mostly concerns the Smash 4 newcomers going into Ultimate; which makes sense, those characters were just made.

And why does that matter, you may wonder. This is a bit of my own personal theory crafting, but I think it's futureproofing older characters. They're freshening up the assets to be able to reuse them again and again in the future. Ultimate just has so many little inconsequential aesthetic retouches that I have to believe that is the reason.

4 uses a much different art style than Brawl and besides Wii-level graphics would definitely not have worked on Wii U, so a significant facelift on everyone was necessary even if that did not always entail significant animation changes. Besides, we also have to count the fact that every character had to be simultaneously prepped for the 3DS version as well. Sakurai has also mentioned different architectures on the 3DS and Wii U versions which probably made various aspects more difficult.
I'll admit it's an interesting observation regarding the Ult glowups, though an increase in animation updates in Ult could be very possibly explained as the direct result of heavier asset reuse: it's easier to spend time creating new animations if you don't have to spend as much time making the model to begin with, before you even have a chance to work on the animations.

But other evidences and hypotheses aside, the principal notion of Ult taking more from 4 than any other game takes from its predecessor is firmly rooted in Sakurai's public statements, where he has talked about aspects like the similar architecture between Wii U and Switch, being able to use the same team, and etc.

E.g. from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDrNWAHaKfI
"With Smash Bros. Brawl and Smash Bros. for 3DS/Wii U, the company and development teams changed completely each time, meaning we couldn't carry over our production assets or shared knowledge. And the differing hardware capabilities meant we had to recreate almost everything. However, Smash Bros. for and Smash Bros. Ultimate were both developed by Bandai Namco Studios. That meant we could retain the same team members to some extent and keep our dev environment intact, outside of the target hardware. The Wii U and Switch do share some similar hardware architecture, after all. While we did need to recreate some assets such as models, the transition from Smash Bros. for Wii U seemed like it would be easier than on previous titles." (boldface mine)

Where he says "we did need to recreate some assets such as models," idk if that means all the models or just some. In any case, it sure doesn't sound like they can just recycle the same items over and over for multiple generations, like many seem to purport.

 

[DarthEnderX]

Oh! We need more bosses!

Yeah we do!

1. Fury Bowser [Mario]
2. Ganon [Zelda]
3. Marx [Kirby]
4. Mother Brain [Metroid]
5. Andross [Star Fox]
6. Arceus [Pokemon]
7. Porky [Earthbound]
8. Medusa [Kid Icarus]
9. Liquid Snake piloting Metal Gear REX [Metal Gear]
10. Eggman piloting Death Egg Robot [Sonic the Hedgehog]
11. Dr. Wily piloting Wily Machine [Mega Man]
12. Safer∙Sephiroth [Final Fantasy]
13. Dracula [Castlevania]
14. Rathalos [Monster Hunter]
15. Astaroth [Ghosts ‘n Goblins]

 

[superprincess]

Am I the only person that prefers Giga Bowser as Bowser's Final Smash & a boss in Smash Bros. to any other "canon" Bowser form? It just makes sense for Smash to have an overarching, generic "Big Bowser" design rather than lean on one specific game.

Also, I like the idea of the more monstrous and menacing design being exclusive to a fighting game. It just makes sense. Fury Bowser was very likely a one-off anyway.

 

[Laniv]

So, are there any echo fighter vets you think are pretty darn likely to stay? I know people often cut them, but if they had to pick some echo fighters to work on during down time, which ones do you think would stay around?

Lucina is both free real estate and an immensely popular character in her home series, so she's pretty likely, I'd say. Same with Chrom and Daisy to a lesser extent.

Capcom is pretty chill with crossovers like this, so Ken is a pretty good bet. Maybe Richter too??

Dark Pit and Dark Samus... I feel like Dark Pit is more likely because he's one of Sakurai's creations

 

[Opossum]

This is false. Roy also enters Marth's stance before assuming his own. It's just a product of Roy being built off of Marth. And Chrom is built off of Roy, but there's no reason for Chrom to cycle through both stances when he can just skip Roy's stance and enter his own after Marth's (which Roy does too in the exact same manner).

I know this. What I'm saying is that you can cut out the middleman in this case much easier than cutting out Robin.

Balance-wise, Chrom depends on Roy to return. Period. There's no roundabout logic to excuse Chrom coming back without Roy, just say you personally would prefer that. But there's no rationalizing it.

Awww someone can't handle an opinion they don't agree with.

 

[Guynamednelson]

reuse the Chrom model form Ultimate?

Because that model sucks, and if all of Robin's animations featuring Chrom return, they'd have to make a better Chrom model for Robin's victory screen anyway since it means both characters need fighter-quality models.

 

[Pupp135]

So, are there any echo fighter vets you think are pretty darn likely to stay? I know people often cut them, but if they had to pick some echo fighters to work on during down time, which ones do you think would stay around?

I think that the echo will tag along if the parent fighter returns. In this case, I’d assume Richter and Chrom are the only ones in danger as I feel less confident in Simon and Roy’s chances.

 

[superprincess]

I know this. What I'm saying is that you can cut out the middleman in this case much easier than cutting out Robin.


Awww someone can't handle an opinion they don't agree with.

Yes, you can cut Roy more easily than Robin but that doesn't mean he wouldn't take Chrom with.

I never said I can't handle your opinion, your statements were just factually incorrect and the logic was backwards. Sorry!

Because that model sucks, and if all of Robin's animations featuring Chrom return, they'd have to make a better Chrom model for Robin's victory screen anyway since it means both characters need fighter-quality models.

A model "sucking" never stopped them from using it tbf lol.

Who says they'd have to make a better Chrom model... for Robin? I don't get this logic. They didn't do it for Ultimate so...?

We've also mentioned about ten times now that a fighter having multiple roles within the same game isn't very common and a supporting role usually rules out playable status. Ult Chrom was an exception because he was probably added really late. If Chrom is decided upon from the get go next time, they'd probably opt to remove him from Robin's FS/victory.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Who says they'd have to make a better Chrom model... for Robin?

Just the fact that you'd be able to see Chrom's model up close in Robin's victory screen. They can't get away with any of the corner cuts they do for NPCs in that situation.

A model "sucking" never stopped them from using it tbf lol

No, but the Switch 2 should be powerful enough to warrant Chrom needing a higher poly model than the one he currently has. His cape's less detailed than his own daughter's!

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

As noted before; Sakurai decided the entire Ultimate roster from the start. It's been cited more than once. That said, Chrom's actual model and programming(not his roster choice) could've been pretty late in, which could explain polish and other various issues. It could depend if his model was taken from his 3DS appearance as its base to touch up a bit. Lucina already had a Smash ready model as of 4, but moreso the Wii U version, so it would make sense her model was simply easier to be, well, better.

Either way, regardless of him being chosen from the start like the rest of the base cast, we don't have very good details on the actual programming. Some of the Echoes easily could've been worked on closer to the end of the character part of the development. Richter is the only one who would've been worked on with Simon due to them sharing a massive amount.

 

[Louie G.]

So, are there any echo fighter vets you think are pretty darn likely to stay?

Many people say echoes are practically guaranteed if their source character returns. I feel like that’s an oversimplification and downplays the effort that would go into these characters individually… so I do think they should be judged independently but always have that asterisk of “if there’s time”. The attention dealt toward these guys eventually adds up.

That said, I think there are a number of echo fighters that will be prioritized from the jump.

- She’s arguably more popular to play than Marth at this point, and I do believe Sakurai will consider it important to maintain this alternate no-tipper gameplay option. One of the only echoes (other than Ken) who is drastically altering the way of play.

- A playable role in Wonder, a presence in the Nintendo World theme park. Daisy stocks are up, and I don’t see them going down. The bigger question is if she gets deviated on to become a Luigified clone, and to that I say… maybe! I sure hope that’s in the cards at least, I think if any of the echoes graduate it will be her. Either way she’s a surefire bet to return.

- Okay, I know what I said in the beginning, but Richter is coming back if Simon comes back. These two were distinctly presented as a package deal, and borrow moves from one another’s history. They’re really really similar too, in both moveset and animation, so this is a case where I just can’t see why you wouldn’t. Oh yeah, and I do think Simon will be back.

The others are a bit more up in the air for me and may boil down to more low priority, late stage adds. Ken deserves a mention but his odds may or may not be influenced by the potential addition of Chun-Li. Would three Street Fighter characters be a tad too much? I tend to err on the side of caution here, but I wouldn’t mind myself.

 

[ninjahmos]

I know that Smash seems to be focusing solely on Street Fighter II for Ryu right now, but I kind of would like to hear some music from Street Fighter Alpha/Zero, Street Fighter III and Street Fighter IV. Maybe some music from Final Fight and Captain Commando.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Chrom could easily be made without Roy. He may be based off him, but there's nothing saying that they wouldn't be able to recreate him from...well it wouldn't be from scratch, he'd be based off of Marth or Lucina, but that's just more evidence that they could do it, and quite easily at that. And that goes for all the other echo fighters as well.

The main problem is just kinda...why would they do that? For one, Chrom is the only case where it'd be reasonable because there's no way they're dropping Peach, Samus, or Marth in general, Simon and Richter were put together for mass appeal so removing one or the other would alienate half their audience, and there's no reason to add Pit with an adjective without regular Pit. For two...I just don't see a scenario where they have time for one but not the other considering how most of them are barely different.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

So, are there any echo fighter vets you think are pretty darn likely to stay? I know people often cut them, but if they had to pick some echo fighters to work on during down time, which ones do you think would stay around?

Definitely Ken, because of his historical value as character.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Definitely Ken, because of his historical value as character.

I get that Ken definitely has that, but can't you argue that for Daisy too?

Heck arguably she has more historical value.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Something like this with platforming stages (maybe with different types oriented around contrasting fighter styles) basically would be the perfect single player mode for me.

Uhmmm... Yeah! Though I'm evisioning the quest mode more as a procedural roguelike metroidvania, where every character count as a life, but you have to rescue/fight them first, and the map is not biggest but it's scrambled every time.
Think of the Great Maze, but with more vibrant and familiar enviroments, and the connections betweenthe various sections are reconfigured every time, as well as elements in each sections, included the enemies that are then recycled as assist trophies and bosses in the classic mode.

I get that Ken definitely has that, but can't you argue that for Daisy too?

Heck arguably she has more historical value.

Ehhh... That's debatable! Before being resumed in Mario Tennis she was a one shot character that appeared as substitute of Peach in Super Mario Land, while Ken, besides having been created before her, has been a stable presence during all the Street Fighter series.
Tough I can't deny the popularity of Daisy as videogame character. She's enough popular she's even referenced in the comic Housepets, where she (well, her parody) appears ramdomly as a joke character with one line:"Hi! I'm Daisy!", until her appearance in Real Stories Of The K9PD when she is asked about the whereabouts of Sasha and, unexpectedly, her response is articulate, perceptive, and helpful.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I die a little inside when I see a roster suggest Raven Beak is a fulfilling replacement for Ridley.

Bonus points when their goal is to fill in modern Nintendo picks but they decide Isabelle of all characters is expendable, cut Min Min etc. Pick a path and stick to it. Many of these people don’t actually know what their end goal is. Always one step forward two steps back with these contemporary “reboots”.

Yeah? What about Delthezin suggesting cutting Diddy and adding Dixie ?

These weird replacement ideas or remixing or rebooting or whatever are getting out of hand honestly.

Many characters got in previous Smash entries due to their extreme popularity and are therefore mandatory inclusions. Those who aren't are more likely to go in my opinion.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Daisy actually appeared again before Mario Tennis; an artwork cameo in Super Mario Bros. Print World, but more importantly, a non-player character in NES Open Tournament Golf. She was nowhere near the appearances Ken had at the time, of course. But it wasn't 11 years for another appearance, but 9 years.

Point being they did reuse her a bit before the hiatus. She wasn't a one-off than a return 11 years later. Mario Tennis' reuse is what pretty much put her in a much more heavy spotlight and constantly used, though.

There's also the original Mario Bros. Movie and its Manga Adaption(well, the Manga was made as a tie-in, but is heavily different. Ironically the Movie in some ways had more elements of the games, heh), so it's only about 8 years, actually. That also said, she's somewhat based upon Peach as well, so you could go either way on what counts. Either way, her hiatus is a tad shorter. Unfortunately so.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

It's not arbitrary at all.

The reason people use Smash 4 as a baseline is because that game gave us ample additional content alongside a sizeable roster of about 50 characters, something that even at the time Sakurai considered a feasible upper limit. Ultimate then went and gave us 76, seven of which were echo fighters, and we got almost no substantial single player content outside of Spirits, with longstanding, nigh-ever present modes either cut entirely or added as DLC updates.

Smash 4 also had the hurdle of developing for two consoles simultaneously, so that's why the baseline of "a bit bigger than Smash 4 but less than base Ultimate" is such a common estimate.

But Ultimate has more content than Smash 4 period. It has 100 stages (each with three versions), an actual single player mode with 1000+ unique encounters that is not just a string of random matches, more items, more Assist Trophies, more poké balls, more special modes, and of course more music.
Stage builder (in a much more flexible version) and Home run contest were brought back for free, and Break the targets wasn't in either version of Smash 4 anyways.
Plus, unlike in Smash 4, every asset is in HD. There's no half the stages having Wii graphical fidelity at best here.
Unless you really liked Smash Run on 3DS or... that minigame where you just break boxes in Smash Wii U... it's a straight upgrade in every sense.

But anyways, yes, using Smash 4 as a baseline is definitely random.
Either they're making everything from scratch and a Melee sized game is to be expected, or they're building the new game off Ultimate, in which case there's no reason to lose all that content.
Smash 4 used a ton of Brawl assets for characters and stages. It's not reflective of the amount of content an HD Smash game made from scratch would have.

Heck look at Brawl stages like the Halberd or Port Town in Smash 4 (simple ports) and them look at them in Ultimate (actual remakes with substantial graphical updates).