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Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

Golden Icarus

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They seriously should be more bold with Mario Kart rosters. Like what’s holding them back? It’s Mario Kart. It’s selling bajillion copies regardless, they should get weird with it. Picks like Funky and Wiggler feel so rare and even those are pretty tame compared to Sluggers giving us Tiny Kong. It shouldn’t take this long for us to get some sauce like Fawful and E. Gadd.

Anybody else want to see this goofy dude again? I miss those obnoxious voice lines.
 

Ivander

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I get the premise, but not the conclusion. To be honest, I think Bowsette, and the fannon implications of the Super Crown were way more popular than Peachette ever was.
Gee, I wonder why...

There is more to it, but c'mon, who's obviously going to be the more popular version? The Peach-ified version of a character who's less popular compared to the main characters and was designed to be cute or the Peach-ified version of the main villain designed to be sexy and whatnot.
---
That rant aside, if Bowsette and Wapeach show anything, it's that there is alot of interest for Nintendo to make a more villainous princess.
 

superprincess

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Babies exist so that people who like playing as lightweights have access to popular characters like Mario and Peach. Toad is already accessible to lightweight mains, so there's no need for an even lighter Toad.

Now, Elephant Toad would be truly novel. A Toad for heavyweight mains is a nice concept.

What? If anything SMRPG has by far the closest art style to the "normal" Mario art style of the RPGs, and this MK even has the characters seemingly a little stubbier like the remake. You're not de-papering some character here, Geno and Mallow could easily make the jump to something like this, design-wise.
Mallow probably could, Geno is a definite no, and so is Smithy.
Considering that 2 of those are Toad, 4 of those are Yoshi, and the series in general doesn't tend to have a huge roster, I'd say it's pretty significant that they're all playable at all. The characters not having mechanical differences (barring Yoshi and Nabbit who are meant to be the game's "easy mode") is fairly standard, as the only two games that made everyone different are Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario 3D World. Even New Super Luigi U made everyone like Luigi instead of giving the Toads any unique traits.
Even still, Daisy is carried by being a foil to a more popular and well known character. If the asset reuse didn't allow for it, she wouldn't be in most of the games she's in. And Wonder is part of that, like 99% of her animations are shared with Peach. She is Peach 2, and so she looks like it.
Why is that a problem, but Donkey Kong looking completely different after looking consistent for 30 years is not? Would Daisy looking like a different white woman be less weird?

In narrative focused series I usually prefer to keep stuff like skin color consistent or have a narrative reason for why it changed, but for a series like Mario that does whatever it wants with it’s characters and doesn’t give a crap about continuity, I really don’t care.

She’s the princess of a desert kingdom, people native to desert regions typically have darker skin, not to mention her skin was darker during the N64 era, so no, it’s not arbitrary.
I just don't get why representation has to be limited to retexturing an old character. We shouldn't settle for that.

And Daisy doesn't rule a desert. Sarasaland is a combination of like four random biomes, one of which is China-based. But she lives in the Mushroom Kingdom anyway, as confirmed by multiple sources including her MP6 bio.
IMG_3464.png

She had the same tan as Mario & Luigi in the N64 days, so her skin wasn't necessarily dark, just darker than Peach's. Then they reverted it to a pale ghostly tone reminiscent of her Mario Land art & the character she copies. This has thankfully been remedied in recent titles, where she has the same suntan as the Mario bros again.
 

fogbadge

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Babies exist so that people who like playing as lightweights have access to popular characters like Mario and Peach. Toad is already accessible to lightweight mains, so there's no need for an even lighter Toad.
some people play as characters they like rather than for their function. and fun is all the need necessary for a racer
 

Gorgonzales

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They seriously should be more bold with Mario Kart rosters. Like what’s holding them back? It’s Mario Kart. It’s selling bajillion copies regardless, they should get weird with it. Picks like Funky and Wiggler feel so rare and even those are pretty tame compared to Sluggers giving us Tiny Kong. It shouldn’t take this long for us to get some sauce like Fawful and E. Gadd.

Anybody else want to see this goofy dude again? I miss those obnoxious voice lines.
Absolutely agree on all your points.

And yeah, Mario Party 8 was the stuff. These two are great and I'd love to see them make it in no matter how unlikely. Their designs just ooze that Masanori Sato style.


Gee, I wonder why...

There is more to it, but c'mon, who's obviously going to be the more popular version? The Peach-ified version of a character who's less popular compared to the main characters and was designed to be cute or the Peach-ified version of the main villain designed to be sexy and whatnot.
---
That rant aside, if Bowsette and Wapeach show anything, it's that there is alot of interest for Nintendo to make a more villainous princess.
Mario's cast really could benefit from a (Non-RPG-bound) villainous princess. Moreso WaPeach than Bowsette, since the former was actually pitched in some official capacity and I found Bowsette's whole trend to be kind of obnoxious. I'd gladly take a completely original villainous princess as an alternative, too.

Haven't played Showtime, but I think Grape could fill this sort of void. To an extent, at least.
 
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dream1ng

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Mallow probably could, Geno is a definite no, and so is Smithy.
Compelling rhetoric.



I mean... how can you make any characters of that artstyle look not hideous in Mario Kart?

Screenshot 2025-01-16 at 3.53.13 PM.png


They're unrecognizable!

But I'm with you, 4/5 of the SMRPG party can work in MK but not Geno because... reasons. He obviously can't undergo the slight change to proportions that every Mario character has to fit this game.


I honestly don't know what you're on about.
 

Opossum

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Babies exist so that people who like playing as lightweights have access to popular characters like Mario and Peach. Toad is already accessible to lightweight mains, so there's no need for an even lighter Toad.

Now, Elephant Toad would be truly novel. A Toad for heavyweight mains is a nice concept.


Mallow probably could, Geno is a definite no, and so is Smithy.

Even still, Daisy is carried by being a foil to a more popular and well known character. If the asset reuse didn't allow for it, she wouldn't be in most of the games she's in. And Wonder is part of that, like 99% of her animations are shared with Peach. She is Peach 2, and so she looks like it.

I just don't get why representation has to be limited to retexturing an old character. We shouldn't settle for that.

And Daisy doesn't rule a desert. Sarasaland is a combination of like four random biomes, one of which is China-based. But she lives in the Mushroom Kingdom anyway, as confirmed by multiple sources including her MP6 bio. View attachment 397869
She had the same tan as Mario & Luigi in the N64 days, so her skin wasn't necessarily dark, just darker than Peach's. Then they reverted it to a pale ghostly tone reminiscent of her Mario Land art & the character she copies. This has thankfully been remedied in recent titles, where she has the same suntan as the Mario bros again.
"Daisy, a white woman, doesn't just rule over a kingdom based on ancient Egypt, but also ones based on China, Bermuda, and Rapa Nui" really isn't the reason to not change her that you're implying it is. 🤐
 

TheFirstPoppyBro

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Honestly, I think E. Gadd is long overdue for a Mario Kart position. If King Boo can be here (even if it is Mario Kart's version of the character), and we sometimes get the others Kongs like Diddy, Dixie, and Funky, then why not E. Gadd? Heck, show him off driving the Poltergust 4000 from DS.
 

Super Flygon

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Since the new Mario kart seems to have 24 potential racers at the same time thanks to the switch 2 power, it made me wonder if the next smash could have more then 8 player smash? At the bare minimum I hope we can play with 8 players online this time.
If they could just make the online run basically flawlessly with 4 players for the next Smash, I'd be happy.
 

Ivander

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Mario's cast really could benefit from a (Non-RPG-bound) villainous princess. Moreso WaPeach than Bowsette, since the former was actually pitched in some official capacity and I found Bowsette's whole trend to be kind of obnoxious. I'd gladly take a completely original villainous princess as an alternative, too.
Bowsette started out hilarious, with just the simple comic skit that was a nod/jab at the Toadette+Super Crown deal in SMBU Deluxe, followed by the whole Super Crown thing with some of the other characters also started out innocent, then followed by Nintendo's stock getting raised because of it. It was pretty hilarious at the beginning. Not to mention that "Bowsette" was also pitched in after the Odyssey concept art reveal where Bowser had his own "Cappy" and used it on Peach.

But like most things, when the bad eggs of the internet start getting into the mix and the artwork goes from more innocuous to straight up NSFW posting, of course it would sour eventually, just like what would happen with WaPeach when she was revealed after long months of speculation about her creation. So if Nintendo ever does a villainous princess, I don't mind which direction Nintendo goes with them, Nintendo will still make them a fun character regardless(and they will get artwork regardless).
 

Swamp Sensei

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I just don't get why representation has to be limited to retexturing an old character. We shouldn't settle for that.
It isn't. It's just a nice bonus. Nobody said things should stop at making Daisy have slightly darker skin.
 

Kirbeh

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I guess this is a hot take apparently but I agree with superprincess regarding Daisy. I'm all for giving her a more pronounced tan again or even going back and forth from game to game but outright race swapping instead of making a new character doesn't sit right with me. We should be getting new, well designed, from the ground up characters like Twintelle, Marina Timerra and Frye.

If they are doing drastic changes to skin tone then give it to me fighting game style like in Guilty Gear or Third Strike. Give me a PKSparkxx color for Mario. Do it to everyone.

Alternate interpretations via multiple worlds/universes is fair game imo but that's not really something the Mario franchise does. Well, outside of Paper Mario I guess (and we only just got out of the zero character variety era there...)

Completely disagree with the SMRPG take though. Especially after the remake and the stubbier character design of the new MK. Geno and Mallow would fit in just fine. Perfectly even.

And now to sandwich this with another hot take. I think it's unreasonable to refer the NSFW artist community as "bad eggs" by default just because they draw art you don't like. Most are regular fans who happen to be artists and happen to be comfortable dabbling in those areas. They're not actively trying to ruin things for you.
 

BuckleyTim

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another potentially big detail regarding the kart footage.

 

chocolatejr9

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They seriously should be more bold with Mario Kart rosters. Like what’s holding them back? It’s Mario Kart. It’s selling bajillion copies regardless, they should get weird with it. Picks like Funky and Wiggler feel so rare and even those are pretty tame compared to Sluggers giving us Tiny Kong. It shouldn’t take this long for us to get some sauce like Fawful and E. Gadd.

Anybody else want to see this goofy dude again? I miss those obnoxious voice lines.
Promise me we'll get Tumble, Brighton and Twila as part of it, and you got yourself a deal.
 

Godzillathewonderdog

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I just don't get why representation has to be limited to retexturing an old character. We shouldn't settle for that.

And Daisy doesn't rule a desert. Sarasaland is a combination of like four random biomes, one of which is China-based. But she lives in the Mushroom Kingdom anyway, as confirmed by multiple sources including her MP6 bio. View attachment 397869
She had the same tan as Mario & Luigi in the N64 days, so her skin wasn't necessarily dark, just darker than Peach's. Then they reverted it to a pale ghostly tone reminiscent of her Mario Land art & the character she copies. This has thankfully been remedied in recent titles, where she has the same suntan as the Mario bros again.
No one is saying representation has to be limited to that.
IMG_7773.jpeg


That’s true about Sarasaland, you got me there, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to think Daisy resided in the desert biome like how Peach resides in the grasslands. It would explain why Mario went to the desert biome first to find Daisy. We can’t now for sure, but Nintendo could say as much if they really wanted to justify giving her darker skin.

But again I don’t really care about trying to stay consistent in a series that is historically inconsistent, and is now showing with Donkey Kong that character designs don’t have to be forever consistent.

Why do you think they made Daisy tan after being consistently pale for almost 20 years? Also are we really trying to use a snippet from the manual of a random 20 year old Mario Party as cemented canon, not that where she lives now matters when talking about where she was raised.
 

Kirbeh

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another potentially big detail regarding the kart footage.

They should've added gas stations that charge you coins to refill. Add petrol types to the kart stats. How many miles a gallon do you get on a Biddybuggy?
 

Swamp Sensei

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another potentially big detail regarding the kart footage.

They keep taking **** from F-Zero.

This is tragically hilarious.
 

Thegameandwatch

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I feel like the most unlikely Mario characters in Mario Kart 9 are from the original Mario RPG such as Geno since Nintendo doesn’t own them unlike the characters from Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi.

If I had to guess, the base roster will have most of the characters from 8. Maybe the clone characters would be costumes. Guest characters would probably be DLC.
 

Ivander

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And now to sandwich this with another hot take. I think it's unreasonable to refer the NSFW artist community as "bad eggs" by default just because they draw art you don't like. Most are regular fans who happen to be artists and happen to be comfortable dabbling in those areas. They're not actively trying to ruin things for you.
I wasn't mixing NSFW artists and bad eggs together. And that wasn't my intention. When I mean bad eggs, I mean the ones who are very obnoxious, disgusting or outright vicious towards others in regards to the subject. Or the ones who become full out legalists and be controlling like, 'You can't do this, You can't do that, You are horrible for this." You know, outright bad eggs.
That said, the other issue I pointed out was when the postings went from all-around the place to just straight up NSFW. That's not a fault on the NSFW artists, but the issue is more that Bowsette went from something that was just a funny subject to next to nothing but NSFW posting. Which can hurt someone's perception of something when people are no longer about having fun with the subject and more about something that can become obnoxious in minutes.
 

Kirbeh

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I wasn't mixing NSFW artists and bad eggs together. And that wasn't my intention. When I mean bad eggs, I mean the ones who are very obnoxious, disgusting or outright vicious towards others in regards to the subject. Or the ones who become full out legalists and be controlling like, 'You can't do this, You can't do that, You are horrible for this." You know, outright bad eggs.
That said, the other issue I pointed out was when the postings went from all-around the place to just straight up NSFW. That's not a fault on the NSFW artists, but the issue is more that Bowsette went from something that was just a funny subject to next to nothing but NSFW posting. Which can hurt someone's perception of something when people are no longer about having fun with the subject and more about something that can become obnoxious in minutes.
Apologies then, since the "bad eggs" was immediately followed up by the mention of NSFW artists, I took that as you laying the blame on them for ruining the concept (and other concepts in general.) A lot of people do treat the community as disgusting or lesser or intenional bad actors, so I wound up assuming the same from your wording. Again, my apologies.
 

TheFirstPoppyBro

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Also for any of you who are into the whole Hollow Knight Silksong fiasco, apparently yesterday a member of Team Cherry changed their profile picture on Twitter to a cake while saying "Big things are coming. Keep your eyes closed tomorrow". The cake when reverse image searched leads to a recipe for a Brooklyn Blackout Cake made on April 2nd last year, coinciding with the Direct date for the Switch 2.

I definitely will not believe it until I see it, but seeing Silksong fans potentially playing a weird ARG with Team Cherry with their copium tanks at full blast is really funny to me lmao

The tweet in question.
 

LiveStudioAudience

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Not to feed into the (already somewhat fanatical) hopes of the Silksong crowd, but a Nintendo 2 Direct?

It would be a hell of a spot to finally show off the game again, especially given how well Switch owners took to Hollow Knight. Granted "this is when Silksong shows up" is its own running joke, but debut of a new console? It would have far more of splash than doing so at your typical Direct, State of Play, or Xbox Games Showcase.
 
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TheFirstPoppyBro

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Not to feed into the (already somewhat fanatical) hopes of the Silksong crowd, but a Nintendo 2 Direct?

It would be a hell of a spot to finally show off the game again, especially given how well Switch owners took to Hollow Knight.
Yeah, I mean hey, if it happens, I'm happy for the Silksong fans who are finally getting their game!

I'll just be sad that the clown wig memes will be dead lmao
 

Watuna4343

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Hey I hear ya and I wouldn’t say I totally disagree, but we already saw a trailer that showed a little over 20 characters and 5 of them were babies. I saw what they did with MK8 and Tour. There’s gonna be some cheap characters on the roster - I just hope there’s enough characters in general including totally unique characters like Ninji and Dixie Kong to justify all the “filler.”

Also, it’s Mario Kart. This isn’t a fighting game or a MOBA where we need every character to have a unique playstyle. It’s just character models placed inside a kart with a handful of fun animations. It’s okay to ask for quantity.
Again, there's no need to oversaturate the roster with like 20 versions of pre-existing characters. There's a limit to everything and we're not going to give 100 different skins a slot of their own for the sake of quantity and for plenty options. I mean, heck Pink Gold Peach and Peachette get backlash as is for being among 5 different versions of Peach ffs, there comes a point where the number of different racers is 'too much' and just because Nintendo did it with 8 (not counting tour since that's a different story with the gatcha mechanic) doesn't mean that we'll crave for another round with even bigger proportions. (And also, just because desinging is far easier than in Smash has never been a reason for there to be an abundance of racers, if anything Mario Kart has always had a smaller roster than Smash bros)
 

DarthEnderX

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For how much Donkey Kong "seems" to be in the picture, in terms of priorities he isn't.
If this is DK not being prioritized, I'm sure StarFox, F-Zero, Kid Icarus or Earthbound would kill for that level of deprioritization.

Fans of actually neglected franchises reading the current convo
Exactly.

Or just make a new character that's dark skinned. Daisy has been established as a white woman for all of her 35 year-long existence. She is tanned in newer releases, but why settle for an arbitrarily darkened Daisy? They have to make an actual human character that's not white from the beginning.
Warudaisy?

They probably won't do it, but I think Captain Falcon would make an interesting addition to the roster, especially since F-Zero was featured in MK8 via the Blue Falcon, Mute City and Big Blue.
All 4 of the original F-Zero racers and cars should be in. And it should get a full Cup this time. Bring back Mute City and Big Blue, and add 2 more.

Not happening (thank god). The clash of art styles would be terrible.
Clash of styles? The new designs look closer to SMRPG proportions than the do mainline SMB proportions.

some people play as characters they like rather than for their function. and fun is all the need necessary for a racer
I play as Black Shyguy. For maximum edginess!

another potentially big detail regarding the kart footage.
It would be cool if, instead of just slightly increasing your top speed, collecting coins refilled your boost meter.
 

dream1ng

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Apologies if I missed this already being posted:
Literally there's more games from Microsoft for Switch 2, that I know of, than any other company, it's a LOT of stuff, A LOT.
Source is decently reliable

What a wild timeline to be in. I mean, MS at this point is like five different publishers' worth of stuff, but still, I remember when even getting the old Rare games re-released on a Nintendo system seemed ludicrous, Banjo in Smash was a pipe dream, and Master Chief was le meme pick.

Big Sega during 6th gen flashbacks rn.

Certainly seems like MS would be set to expand in Smash as well with everything going on.
 

LiveStudioAudience

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Apologies if I missed this already being posted:

Source is decently reliable

What a wild timeline to be in. I mean, MS at this point is like five different publishers' worth of stuff, but still, I remember when even getting the old Rare games re-released on a Nintendo system seemed ludicrous, Banjo in Smash was a pipe dream, and Master Chief was le meme pick.

Big Sega during 6th gen flashbacks rn.

Certainly seems like MS would be set to expand in Smash as well with everything going on.
It would be cool if there were all sorts of older Xbox owned exclusives that ended up on Switch 2. I'm not saying modern versions of Blinx the Time Sweeper are necessarily going to sell like gangbusters but it is the sort of deep cut that I'd appreciate Nintendo and Microsoft doing in additon to really obvious stuff like Psychonauts.
 
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Noipoi

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My wishlist for the new Mario Kart:
Mario
Luigi
Peach
Daisy
Bowser
Donkey Kong with a new design that makes people really mad for some reason.
Until proven otherwise, I'm personally just going to assume that everyone posting their character wishlists for the new Mario Kart is going to be disappointed.
IMG_9518.jpeg
 

Gorgonzales

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Until proven otherwise, I'm personally just going to assume that everyone posting their character wishlists for the new Mario Kart is going to be disappointed.
Oh believe me, I don't outright expect anyone on my wishlist to make it in.
Wishlists are typically just that, wishes. It's all hopeful thinking.
Nothing will raise my expectations unless they start announcing the newcomers and the choices are really interesting and non-standard.
 

Louie G.

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If Microsoft comes in hot with like a dozen games in the Switch’s first year, I would find it difficult to argue against their involvement in Smash moving forward. And furthermore if Master Chief Collection is one of those games (I believe it will be… we’ve been hearing murmurs of this for years) I really just think the man himself becomes one of the most likely third party characters by a strong margin.
 
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