Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[SPEN18]

Am I the only one who could see both EarthBound boys being cut? The series isn't a mainstay, and while the original 8 is sacred, I don't think the same about the original 12.

Mm, I could see the argument just because if they end up having to remove another smaller franchise, it's an inactive and more niche one. The fact that there's two of them probably makes it seem like Ness (the presumed higher-priority one) has a bit of a cushion, but on the other hand, you could say that in a significant cutdown at least one of the two (most likely Lucas) is just straight gone regardless and it's simply a matter of getting one or zero Mother reps.
However, I don't expect Mother to be cut completely from the playable roster, no. I think they're going to try to avoid cutting entire first party franchises from the roster if possible. There's enough auxiliary reps from larger franchises and third parties who could be cut that probably they will be able to keep most first party franchises, and if we do lose a few I don't see Mother at the absolute bottom of the priority list.

 

[Louie G.]

Am I the only one who could see both EarthBound boys being cut? The series isn't a mainstay, and while the original 8 is sacred, I don't think the same about the original 12.

I've spoken on this before but like... let's exempt Ness from the legacy points and Original 12 status for a second.

Mother still has a wealth of content in Smash. It has two characters, four stages, classic items in Mr. Saturn and Franklin Badge. Lots of beloved music, a couple Assist Trophies, you get the picture. Every Smash has made a deliberate attempt to retain content from the previous entries... if the entire Mother series was cut from the game, this loss would be catastrophic. Maybe this is just by circumstance - they've had over 20 years to build up this amount of content. But to clear the board on all of this would be absolutely jarring. I truly truly cannot see it happening even withholding my bias toward the series, unless Smash truly sees a full on, scorched earth reboot.

(And yeah I mean, you could bring back a lot of that stuff without Ness but... why?)

Ness is also an extremely popular fighter. While there isn't an official statistic I can point to outside of fan cultivated graphs, I can say with relative confidence that Ness sits among the most played characters in both Smash 4 and Ultimate through my own observation. Largely devoid of any meta influence, he just is a very common pick up and play character with presumably a base of players who are very dedicated to him. He's also arguably the first mage character in the series, and while I said I was going to judge him separately from legacy I will say Smash has a tendency to keep its more foundational, archetypical fighters that others are built upon. How many fighters have some derivative of PK Fire? Lucas, Robin and Joker at least.

And then frankly, I straight up don't think Earthbound is an irrelevant game or series. It's a complete, "retired" series yes - so what has been done since Mother 3 to keep it afloat? Honestly, quite a lot. All three Mother titles are on NSO and were met with sufficient fanfare and promotion. The series has been receiving an unprecedented amount of official merchandise. Its influence lives on through a number of widely successful indie titles. I feel like there is barely anything further that can be done here. Earthbound is a bigger deal today than it was 25 years ago when Ness first joined Smash... it is the figurehead of Nintendo cult classics. A path that Smash certainly helped pave the way for, but a success brought about by Smash Bros is still a success at the end of the day.

 

[Ivander]

I'll play whatever Smash has the largest roster.

I'm pretty sure you'll play the version that has Ryu Hayabusa and a Metal Slug character as part of the roster.

 

[DarthEnderX]

It's easy to be pessimistic about Ultimate DX/2/whatever having barely any newcomers when Sakurai himself said Ultimate would barely have any base game newcomers, and he was right.

I don't understand the pessimism though. Ultimate DID have fewer base game newcomers.

...but so what? By the time it was DONE, it had just as many newcomers as any other Smash game.

So the price for EiH was more characters ended up as DLC. A small price to pay, really.

Just watch Sakurai pull some more magic programming BS out of his ass again for the next Smash and we get over 100 characters AND EiH AGAIN.

If by "magic programming BS" you mean "Smash gets the budget that Nintendo's 2nd best selling game should reasonably have".

It sure will have the netcode of one though

Even Virtua Fighter is getting rollback!

You're the only holdout, Smash!

I tried to limit each series' fighter count to only four tops, I still lost some fighters I'd much rather keep.

Amateur hour!

One character per series!

People just want to experience new things and not just play the exact same game over and over for all eternity.

You don't speak for everyone.

If Smash 6 decides to build upon Ultimate the easy slogan would be: Everyone Is Back!

They will never pull a Street Fighter 3 lol

Nobody should ever pull a SF3.

I'm pretty sure you'll play the version that has Ryu Hayabusa and a Metal Slug character as part of the roster.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Assuming you mean unique characters, actually, it's not....base Ult had 69 unique fighters by the official count. So that would be about the same as Ult had at base.

Part of the problem with the reactions to the numbers being thrown out for next game is people comparing it to Ult's final count of 82, which took years after release to realize.

Yeah no not all unique and newcomers accounted for. I honestly don't think we'll end up with something smaller in size than Smash 4, DLC included.

I mean sure all is not realisable but Ultimate laid heavy ground work for a foundation already. Veterans won't be the problem to include.

I just think they're gonna be more selective in what characters they want to include. And to be safe, I bet the bigger and famous names are gonna be included in favor over the gimmicky inclusions.

Whatever was once popular and has a namesake outside of Smash, that's a safe bet. I don't think for example we indeed will end up with a "I can't believe they ****ing cut Meta Knight" situation. Wii Fit Trainer, Ice Climbers, Sheik, Lucas, Young Link, Dr.Mario, Pichu, a big slew of third party characters... these guys am looking at.

 

[ninjahmos]

I'll play whatever Smash has the largest roster.

Why am I not surprised you said that?

You don't speak for everyone.

Neither do you.

 

[Kirbeh]

I always find it somewhat interesting how whenever scaling back does come into the discussion, there's always some push for culling franchises like Mother, F-Zero or even Star Fox.

I just find it a bit ironic that the series that's supposed to be celebrating Nintendo's history is then turned into more of a vehicle for marketing first, being a cool crossover game coming second.

It's the sort of thing I'd expect from a suit/investor trying to push whatever's new for cross promotion and sales. That's absolutely part of Smash too, and I want more contemporary picks but it does read a bit like an out of touch suit when you see "x doesn't have an upcoming release we can market, therefore it's not worth including anymore."

In a heavy cuts scenario you definitely have to make some hard choices but again, Smash is a game about the company's history. I'm sure you could argue that smaller/dormant series can make due with cameos and smaller roles but at that point I feel like you've lost part of what makes Smash, well- Smash.

I can see some franchises getting scaled back to single reps, but I don't see them removing all of their characters outright. Only exceptions I feel would be retro/joke/surprise characters if they're considered to be part of their own collective pool based on that criteria specifically.

 

[Jave]

Yeah, realistically speaking I think a base roster the size of Smash 4's base roster is the absolute lowest we could get. Smash 4 was made from scratch (new team coming from Brawl) and for TWO systems, and they still managed to make a roster that big.

I believe Sakurai's MO for the next game is that he will try to bring back as many characters as possible, but he will prioritize newcomers this time around, unlike Ultimate where the priority was to bring back all veterans.

 

[ninjahmos]

Honestly, I don't see why you would cut any of the franchises that were in Smash 64, especially Mother/EarthBound, F-Zero and Star Fox, because they were there since the beginning and they're all a part of Nintendo's legacy.

Smash is mainly a celebration of Nintendo, and by having Smash without any of these franchises, it probably wouldn't even feel like Smash at all.