Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[LiveStudioAudience]

Dixie's admittedly not had much recent relevance but that's entirely on Nintendo's relative neglect of the DK franchise. She might overall have the worst luck as character that once had a major spotlight.

-Unnecessarily replaced in DK64
-Highlighted in spin-offs in the aughts before but before Smash dug deep with DKC representation
-Doesn't even get in Mario spin-offs with Funky Kong getting the nod for Wii
-Finally gets showcased again in Tropical Freeze past the point of Smash 4's development
-Understandably loses out of K Rool in the Smash Ballot due to the latter's more critical status as the DK villain
-The Mario Kart Booster course pass grabs all the major Tour characters not in 8 Deluxe... but not her

Honestly the fact that she has any support given how dubiously she's been handled is a testament to just how much an impression she left in DKC2, 3, and (to a lesser extent) Tropical Freeze.

 

[Shinuto]

Dixie's admittedly not had much recent relevance but that's entirely on Nintendo's relative neglect of the DK franchise. She might overall have the worst luck as character that once had a major spotlight.

-Unnecessarily replaced in DK64
-Highlighted in spin-offs in the aughts before but before Smash dug deep with DKC representation
-Doesn't even get in Mario spin-offs with Funky Kong getting the nod for Wii
-Finally gets showcased again in Tropical Freeze past the point of Smash 4's development
-Understandably loses out of K Rool in the Smash Ballot due to the latter's more critical status as the DK villain
-The Mario Kart Booster course pass grabs all the major Tour characters not in 8 Deluxe... but not her

Honestly the fact that she has any support given how dubiously she's been handled is a testament to just how much an impression she left in DKC2, 3, and (to a lesser extent) Tropical Freeze.

Lol Dixie sucks, Tiny best girl Kong.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

Correction: Only the original release did millions. The GBA remake didn't even crack 1 mil.

Source: what Opossum posted before when pointing out DK sales vs. Mario Kart Wii/8.
View attachment 394966

I was thinking about Land 3, but after checking it looks like the Land games didn't do as hot as I was remembering.
Oh well.

I agree that Dixie is a relative longstanding no brainer, but I’m not sure if it would be right to treat her as “contemporary”? Tropical Freeze is ported on Switch at least, but she hasn’t had a whole lot of new going on since Ultimate’s release. She gets to remain a somewhat active character via Mario Kart Tour and seems to have a role in the theme park, so maybe if we’re thinking more abstractly, but I don’t know if she’s the kind of evergreen face today that someone like King Dedede was in 2005-2006.

I don't want to dismiss Dedede but I'm not so sure about him being this super evergreen character back then. If you only stuck to home consoles (like I did) his only notable appearance between Superstar and Brawl was being a sidekick in Kirby 64, and Kirby as a series itself wasn't as popular as it is today. Even on the GBA he only appeared in the Kirby's Adventure remake I think?
K. Rool had more of an impact than him at that point imo.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I think Dedede being the second most notable character in the Kirby series pretty much guaranteed an inclusion. In some ways Meta Knight was a bit more of reach, albeit he didn't have that much diminished relevance in comparison to Dedede.

 

[Shinuto]

What post smash 64 character would you want to see in the smash 64 art style/model?

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

What post smash 64 character would you want to see in the smash 64 art style/model?

I can't lie seeing notable PSX associated figures (Cloud, Sephiroth, Snake) would be genuinely interesting to view in the N64 engine.

 

[jamesster445]

What post smash 64 character would you want to see in the smash 64 art style/model?

All of them that technically have a low poly model. I'd even be down to see newer character who never had a low poly model like Joker re imagined with one.

 

[King Sonnn DeDeDoo]

I was thinking about Land 3, but after checking it looks like the Land games didn't do as hot as I was remembering.
Oh well.


I don't want to dismiss Dedede but I'm not so sure about him being this super evergreen character back then. If you only stuck to home consoles (like I did) his only notable appearance between Superstar and Brawl was being a sidekick in Kirby 64, and Kirby as a series itself wasn't as popular as it is today. Even on the GBA he only appeared in the Kirby's Adventure remake I think?
K. Rool had more of an impact than him at that point imo.

I was about to say that Dedede had an edge over K. Rool by being in a cartoon, but then I remembered

 

[SharkLord]

I said I had trouble thinking of characters like this, but I just realized Ashley definitely fits all of the criteria, and she's been around since WarioWare Touched in 2004, I think lol

Ashley's interesting to me because we saw her score in the top ten of Swamp's poll, and she's made consistent appearances in WarioWare so it's not like she has to worry about relevancy, but her support just isn't very vocal at the moment. I dunno, maybe she'll pick up a bit more when Smash 6 is announced and speculation properly heats back up again

 

[Kirby Dragons]

I don't know why Ultimate shortened/sped up so many victory themes. It made some of them feel incomplete.

 

[SharkLord]

I was thinking about Land 3, but after checking it looks like the Land games didn't do as hot as I was remembering.
Oh well.


I don't want to dismiss Dedede but I'm not so sure about him being this super evergreen character back then. If you only stuck to home consoles (like I did) his only notable appearance between Superstar and Brawl was being a sidekick in Kirby 64, and Kirby as a series itself wasn't as popular as it is today. Even on the GBA he only appeared in the Kirby's Adventure remake I think?
K. Rool had more of an impact than him at that point imo.

Eh, he was still pretty consistent. He showed up in every game from Dream Land to 64, usually as a lategame boss (Except for 64) and he was the most active villain of the show. He skipped Amazing Mirror, but he came back as a boss in Canvas Curse and Squeak Squad, as well as being a playable character in the former. Yeah, he was just the starter boss in Squeak Squad, but his appearance was hinged on the idea of "Hey, King Dedede's always the villain, he must be behind this!", only to subvert the usual formula with the titular Squeak Squad after you beat him. He was still pretty solidly the most recurring villain at that point in time, with Meta Knight shifting to a more heroic role by then and every other villain being a one-off. By the time Brawl released, Super Star Ultra was in the works and Dedede was planned to get a new story mode as an antagonist looking to settle his grudge with Kirby.

There was also the HR-D3 shown off for Kirby GCN trailers, which was certain in development at the time, but that thing was in development hell for a whole console generation so I don't know if that was actually counted in Sakurai's decision making.

 

[Noipoi]

I don't know why Ultimate shortened/sped up so many victory themes. It made some of them feel incomplete.

A lot of Ultimate’s design philosophy was devoted to increasing the pace, streamlining the process and getting you back to the action asap. That included making the victory themes take less time, which I don’t think was overly necessary.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Smash victory songs should at least be long enough to go with old TV production logos:

 

[Perkilator]

A lot of Ultimate’s design philosophy was devoted to increasing the pace, streamlining the process and getting you back to the action asap. That included making the victory themes take less time, which I don’t think was overly necessary.

This also hurt a lot of Final Smashes too, which ended up a lot of copy-paste cinematic supers. And it's not even like using the cinematic Final Smashes was even that fun anyway, since a lot of them required you to successfully hit your opponent in order for the Final Smash to even work.

 

[Shinuto]

A lot of Ultimate’s design philosophy was devoted to increasing the pace, streamlining the process and getting you back to the action asap. That included making the victory themes take less time, which I don’t think was overly necessary.

Yoshis now just feels f****** wrong

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

I was thinking about Land 3, but after checking it looks like the Land games didn't do as hot as I was remembering.
Oh well.

I honestly deadass forgot Land 2 and 3 even existed.
I remember finding it odd Land 1 and the GBC Country 1 weren't listed but assumed they'd be negligible compared to the original SNES and GBA anyway.

 

[Guynamednelson]

A lot of Ultimate’s design philosophy was devoted to increasing the pace, streamlining the process and getting you back to the action asap. That included making the victory themes take less time, which I don’t think was overly necessary.

Well it doesn't feel like the victory animations are any faster if they really wanted to be devoted to that. I'd think having to shave off every last kilobyte they can to fit the game in a 16 GB Switch cartridge would be more to blame.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

Yoshis now just feels f****** wrong

Honestly if I could give Yoshi a new one, I'd just remix the classic Yoshi's Island one for beating a stage and let the loop play out like it does for Cloud or Joker, sorta like they did on the Yoshi's Island course for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe lol

 

[CannonStreak]

Hey, I have a question for you all: If your most wanted character got in and another character from the same series came in alongside them, or of said other character got in over your most wanted (think Min Min over Spring Man) but was from the same series; either way, who would you want it to be and why?

For me, in terms of Crash Bandicoot, I would also like Dr. Neo Cortex to be playable if it were possible, or Ripto with Spyro.

 

[HyperSomari64]

Hey, I have a question for you all: If your most wanted character got in and another character from the same series came in alongside them, or of said other character got in over your most wanted (think Min Min over Spring Man) but was from the same series; either way, who would you want it to be and why?

For me, in terms of Crash Bandicoot, I would also like Dr. Neo Cortex to be playable if it were possible, or Ripto with Spyro.

Hyperdimension Neptunia should have Blanc over Neptune, since the first is based on the Wii.