Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[chocolatejr9]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

They're gonna have to update the Pac-Land stage at some point, aren't they?

 

[Perkilator]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

They're gonna have to update the Pac-Land stage at some point, aren't they?

I'd rather Pac-Land not even be a stage but whatever

 

[Gengar84]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

They're gonna have to update the Pac-Land stage at some point, aren't they?

I’m still disappointed they went with Pac-Land over Pac-Maze for Ultimate. The latter is much more iconic to Pac Man and the former looks like it was drawn by an 8 year old in MS Paint.

 

[JOJONumber691]

Link, Samus, or Byleth? And what is wrong with any of their movesets from a moveset design standpoint?

And in the words of Filthy Frank, why you crying?

First off I’m referring to Samus Byleth is fine. Second off, Filthy Frank is based. Third off, Samus is a bad example of what you’re referring to.

 

[Gengar84]

First off I’m referring to Samus Byleth is fine. Second off, Filthy Frank is based. Third off, Samus is a bad example of what you’re referring to.

Shows what I know about competitive Smash lol. I just assumed you were referring to Byleth. I never had any issue with any of those characters although it would be nice if Samus could get some updates to fit with some of her more modern abilities. I do wish she could crawl in her morph ball though.

 

[Ivander]

(Corrin seems to be almost unanimously the popular choice in this regard),

Yeah, for mostly the wrong reasoning.

 

[Wonder Smash]

I'd rather Pac-Land not even be a stage but whatever

I’m still disappointed they went with Pac-Land over Pac-Maze for Ultimate. The latter is much more iconic to Pac Man and the former looks like it was drawn by an 8 year old in MS Paint.

The problem with the Pac-Maze is the way the ghosts are designed to appear on different screens; the ghosts on the screen of the player under the effect of a Power Pellet become blue and vulnerable while the other players see the ghosts normally and can still be damaged by them. Something like that wouldn't work with multiple players using one screen.

 

[Perkilator]

The problem with the Pac-Maze is the way the ghosts are designed to appear on different screens; the ghosts on the screen of the player under the effect of a Power Pellet become blue and vulnerable while the other players see the ghosts normally and can still be damaged by them. Something like that wouldn't work with multiple players using one screen.

I think a reasonable way to get around that is to have the player who got the Power Pellet be indicated by their HUD flashing.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Part of the weirdness for me with Pac-Man stages is that while the famous maze level made complete sense to include, was there really nothing from the series to pull from other than an arcade spin-off that was fairly niche in people's memories before Smash? I mean Pac-In-Time, the Pac-Man World games, even some setting from Pac-Man 2 feels like it would have made for a better level.

It would be like having the chance to have another Castlevania stage and going with something from Haunted Castle. A deep cut, sure, but not exactly something that really feels like it's taking advantage of the options that are there.

 

[Wonder Smash]

I guess with Pac-Land being a 2D platformer that predated even Super Mario Bros., maybe they felt that that was a fitting stage for a platform fighter? That's just my guess.

I think a reasonable way to get around that is to have the player who got the Power Pellet be indicated by their HUD flashing.

But what about the way players see the ghosts?

 

[Chuderz]

The Ms.Pacman legal battle is still so strange to me. I don't really understand how it could be this disputed in court when it's clearly Bandai Namco's property name and design in all. I think I've seen the history of it once or twice but it never really settled into a firm understanding of the legal precedent being used to keep this ongoing. Is it a Geno-like situation where a third-party made a character for the Pacman universe but kept the rights to the character they made?

But what about the way players see the ghosts?

It's either let them change blue and still attack the other players without the power pellet as would have be the perspective of the player with the power pellet in Smash 3DS or conversely don't have them change to blue while still allowing for the player with the power pellet to absorb them as would be the perspective of the players that didn't get the power pellet in Smash 3DS. I think the former (letting them change blue and damage players without the pellet) is the ideal.

I think axing Pacman's actual legitimate stage over concerns for a stupid stage hazard, something that can be turned off entirely in this game, is an extremely twisted set of priorities.

The lack of his iconic death noise for at least his star KO is just as baffling. Sakurai even used the sound for that dumb beyblade mode thing. How could he have missed this? He usually has such a knack for those small details.

 

[chocolatejr9]

The Ms.Pacman legal battle is still so strange to me. I don't really understand how it could be this disputed in court when it's clearly Bandai Namco's property name and design in all. I think I've seen the history of it once or twice but it never really settled into a firm understanding of the legal precedent being used to keep this ongoing. Is it a Geno-like situation where a third-party made a character for the Pacman universe but kept the rights to the character they made?

It's been awhile since I last took a good look into it, but I THINK that's what it is. I remember things recently got more messy after the original owners of Ms. Pac-Man apparently sold the rights to AtGames right before Bandai Namco could finally get the rights themselves, and if you know anything about AtGames, then... yeah.

 

[Chuderz]

It's been awhile since I last took a good look into it, but I THINK that's what it is. I remember things recently got more messy after the original owners of Ms. Pac-Man apparently sold the rights to AtGames right before Bandai Namco could finally get the rights themselves, and if you know anything about AtGames, then... yeah.

I did a quick glance again.

Basically Midway had a North America distribution license to Pacman IP products in the early 80's and made various legal settlements with GCC that I personally don't feel like they had a legal right to do under a simple distribution license but I guess they did. I'm not a lawyer but that just seems ridiculous to me but I guess it's legal nonetheless. Namco took over when that distribution deal ended (a seemingly less than amicable split) and presumably as they were fighting this legal fight, held out on paying any royalties. They made some sort of partial agreement with GCC in 2008 though still not completely resolved and then after that GCC sold the royalties that they were "owed" by Bamco to Atgames almost kind of restarting this legal nonsense all over again.

But in 2020 Bamco asked for the case to be dismissed and the judge said it'd been resolved by all parties. The details of that resolution aren't publicly disclosed.

Apparently Bandai Namco owns the trademark and the copyright to Ms.Pacman but AtGames owns the royalties to the Ms.Pacman game. That already doesn't make sense to me because how do you own the copyright and trademark but somehow still lose the royalties while still retaining the aforementioned legal rights? It also seems like AtGames just own the backlog royalties to the original Ms.Pacman game specifically as opposed the character itself. I'm not so sure on that one.

The whole situation is a freaking mess though.

 

[Sucumbio]

I really dislike the scrolling stages.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Knowing when to keep your distance and when to rush down for big damage or the kill is enough thought in Smash 64 and Melee. With those two characters you mentioned, you practically have to keep looking at your UI to remind yourself what things you have stocked. That just takes me out of the stage where the fight is happening.

Besides, that's only half of my problem with the Smash 4-on characters. The other half is that the line between what suits a normal input and what suits a special input has gotten too fine at this point. Palutena's Up-Smash being so vertical is one of the biggest examples of this problem to me, and I don't care about having it no horizontal range. That would be like Meta Knight having his Tornado Slash (the giant floor-to-ceiling tornado) from his boss fights as his Up or Down Smash.

It sounds like you want characters to be more homogenized, not simpler.

"Palutena's Up Smash is big." Is something casuals figure out in seconds. It's simple to understand. It's less complicated then Link's Bombs or Mario's Cape or Jigglypuff's Rest.

Arguing normal shouldn't have those kind of special qualities is arbitrary. Especially since Melee and 64 already have tons of oddities with their normals. For examples, Ness' yo-yo, Peach's F Smash, and Marth and Roy in general.

I understand characters like Shulk, Ryu and Kazuya are complicated and potentially intimidating.

But when your examples are Villager and Palutena? Two straight forward and easy to understand characters? Casuals are not braindead. They can look at something slightly different and put two and two together.

This sounds like a you problem, not so much a game design problem.

 

[Gengar84]

I really dislike the scrolling stages.

I don’t have a problem with scrolling stages as a rule, just the aesthetics of the Pac-Land stage. Brawl’s Mushroomy Kingdom was probably my favorite stage in the game. I really wish they kept the underground part of that stage since that part was my favorite but I still enjoy the first stage.

 

[Sucumbio]

I don’t have a problem with scrolling stages as a rule, just the aesthetics of the Pac-Land stage. Brawl’s Myshroomy Kingdom was probably my favorite stage in the game. I really wish they kept the underground part of that stage since that part was my favorite but I still enjoy the first stage.

I loved the underground! I remember one time during an online match this Jigglypuff got like 8 kos by staying on the top and hitting the rest of us with... Rest good times!

Come to thinking about it it's really just in Ultimate the scrolling stages have annoyed me. I dunno why really.

 

[DarthEnderX]

Imagine if Sony bought Konami, Square and Namco all at once just to try and recreate the Playstation golden age when they had exclusivity with Metal Gear, Final Fantasy and Tekken...

I've said this a few times before, but I really dislike how the Smash 4-on newcomers seem to prioritize cramming as much "wacky moves" as possible at the cost of intuitive moveset design. If it were up to me, I would love to see the Smash 4 and Ultimate veterans be simplified/streamlined to be as simple as the 64 and Melee characters in their moveset designs.

Still pissed that Hero, one of my most-wanteds, is basically unplayable to me due to mechanical complexity.

I’d love to see more female characters in general but has Dragon Quest ever had a female Hero?

Not exclusively, but 3, 4, 9 and 10 let you pick your gender.

 

[Gengar84]

Imagine if Sony bought Konami, Square and Namco all at once just to try and recreate the Playstation golden age when they had exclusivity with Metal Gear, Final Fantasy and Tekken...

That would do a ton of damage to Smash, losing not only important third party characters and potential future characters but also their developers for the last two games. I would love to see a return to the quality and of the PS1 Final Fantasy era (and FFX) and hopefully speed up productivity to make more than one game every 10 years.

I use Hero occasionally but don’t use his down special often unless I’m just messing around. It’s not like he’s the only character that has a move I avoid though. I main Ganondorf and almost never use Warlock Punch or his up tilt in a serious battle.

 

[chocolatejr9]

Imagine if Sony bought Konami, Square and Namco all at once just to try and recreate the Playstation golden age when they had exclusivity with Metal Gear, Final Fantasy and Tekken...

And they say Microsoft are the bad guys...

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

so long as pacman has his oven mitts alt i dont care who owns what

 

[Perkilator]

But what about the way players see the ghosts?

Have them damage those other players while still keeping them blue. There, problem solved.

 

[Sucumbio]

Hey it's the Guy who predicted Sora!

Your premium name always reminds me of the opening lyrics to this song lol but not because I think you a lie because of the daybreak part

 

[DarthEnderX]

Hey it's the Guy who predicted Sora!

Video unavailable.

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

Hey it's the Guy who predicted Sora!

Your premium name always reminds me of the opening lyrics to this song lol but not because I think you a lie because of the daybreak part

yeah it me!

i have come to speculate with the gang! on https://smashboards.com/threads/next-smash-speculation-discussion-thread.515747/page-190

i think cacomallow is still real

 

[PeridotGX]

yeah it me!

i have come to speculate with the gang! on https://smashboards.com/threads/next-smash-speculation-discussion-thread.515747/page-190

i think cacomallow is still real

How can cacomallow be real when doom fellow isn't even on the Grinch leak?

 

[chocolatejr9]

i think cacomallow is still real

Sorry, bud, the Super Mario RPG thread is elsewhere.

Seriously, HOW DO PEOPLE STILL GIVE CACOMALLOW THE TIME OF DAY!?!?!

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

Sorry, bud, the Super Mario RPG thread is elsewhere.

Seriously, HOW DO PEOPLE STILL GIVE CACOMALLOW THE TIME OF DAY!?!?!

-------the joke-------->

your head

 

[Quillion]

It sounds like you want characters to be more homogenized, not simpler.

I can see that homogeneity would be a side effect of simplifying the characters' moveset designs to 64/Melee standards. And honestly, so be it. I came to the conclusion in a discussion about three years ago that a bit of homogeneity played a role in Ultimate's character balance being better than Brawl's and Smash 4's. While my complaints with the outlandishness of several (though not all, admittedly) Smash 4-on newcomers has little to do with balance, I'm willing to accept the characters having similar functions for similar move inputs if it makes the characters more intuitive. Playing 64, Melee, and even Brawl, I had so much fun constantly changing the character I used with every vs match (human or CPU) or single-player mode run, while with Smash 4 and especially Ultimate, I find myself trying out a newcomer once, then gravitate back to the 64-Brawl characters again and again.

Besides, most agree nowadays that even in Melee's clones having similar move functions and straight-up sharing animations for the most part, even they end up playing very differently from one another. I'd argue that, as I mentioned before, setting Brawl Snake as the upper limit for character complexity would breed creativity, not stifle it.

"Palutena's Up Smash is big." Is something casuals figure out in seconds. It's simple to understand. It's less complicated then Link's Bombs or Mario's Cape or Jigglypuff's Rest.

Arguing normal shouldn't have those kind of special qualities is arbitrary. Especially since Melee and 64 already have tons of oddities with their normals. For examples, Ness' yo-yo, Peach's F Smash, and Marth and Roy in general.

I understand characters like Shulk, Ryu and Kazuya are complicated and potentially intimidating.

But when your examples are Villager and Palutena? Two straight forward and easy to understand characters? Casuals are not braindead. They can look at something slightly different and put two and two together.

This sounds like a you problem, not so much a game design problem.

Characters being a lot harder to pick up and play due to their complicated mechanics is, again, only half my problem with the Smash 4-on newcomers' moveset designs.

Sure, Palutena's Up Smash being really tall is easy to understand, but really, the other part of the problem is that it's making the "special" moves... just not feel special anymore. You mention moves like Ness's Down and Up Smashes and Peach's F Smash, but Ness's charging hitbox felt like an easter egg since the release still feels like the "meat" of the move, and it's quite telling that Peach's Forward Smash got its RNG removed. Even then, the 64, Melee, and even Brawl newcomers felt like they had some limit on putting those moves in the game, nothing like Min Min feeling like an ARMS character plopped in Smash's engine rather than a Smash character making careful and deliberate homage to their source material.

If Mario were a Smash 4-on newcomer, he'd be using a mishmash of different powerups from many different platformers rather than be a hand-to-hand shoto adapted to Smash's engine. If Meta Knight were a Smash 4-on newcomer, he would have his Crescent Shot on his Forward Smash and his Tornado Slash on his Down Smash. And those are just dumb ideas.

 

[chocolatejr9]

-------the joke-------->

your head

Oh. Sorry, it's a little hard to tell sometimes.

 

[dream1ng]

Cacomallow is real. They're going to add the characters when Ultimate DLC returns in four years. Just like Mario Kart.

 

[Wonder Smash]

Have them damage those other players while still keeping them blue. There, problem solved.

Well, that would be a change in the way the stage was intended to work, which may not have been what they wanted.

 

[osby]

Sure, Palutena's Up Smash being really tall is easy to understand, but really, the other part of the problem is that it's making the "special" moves... just not feel special anymore. You mention moves like Ness's Down and Up Smashes and Peach's F Smash, but Ness's charging hitbox felt like an easter egg since the release still feels like the "meat" of the move, and it's quite telling that Peach's Forward Smash got its RNG removed. Even then, the 64, Melee, and even Brawl newcomers felt like they had some limit on putting those moves in the game, nothing like Min Min feeling like an ARMS character plopped in Smash's engine rather than a Smash character making careful and deliberate homage to their source material.

I have my own problems with how Min-Min was implemented but I think it's highly off-the-mark to say that how she works in Smash isn't deliberate. There's obviously a lot of effort went into making her play uniquely and presenting this as a lack of planning is dishonest.

Also, characters being less unique is an unavoidable result of having more and more characters. Characters in a 20-fighter roster can do much less to set themselves apart from the rest.

If Mario were a Smash 4-on newcomer, he'd be using a mishmash of different powerups from many different platformers rather than be a hand-to-hand shoto adapted to Smash's engine. If Meta Knight were a Smash 4-on newcomer, he would have his Crescent Shot on his Forward Smash and his Tornado Slash on his Down Smash. And those are just dumb ideas.

That's a poor argument. Mario would be the first character to be added to Smash in any universe and if Smash 4 was the first game, it wouldn't have movesets this complicated, to begin with.

As for Meta Knight, I don't see how the two changes you proposed are bad additions to his kit as long as they are balanced properly.

 

[dream1ng]

I think of the entire roster, you have maybe 10-15% of the characters whose movesets you could describe as either complicated or so dominated by a gimmick they no longer function "normally". By Smash standards. Which are the most accessible standards this side of Divekick.

Rosters are getting progressively more referential. There's less and less just making stuff up. And the ceiling for how intricate movesets get is higher than it used to be. But how many Ultimate newcomers had movesets that were truly esoteric insofar as, if you went in blind, it would take dedicated time to simply understand how the character functions? Not their metagame, just how their moves work.

By a liberal estimate, maybe a half dozen? There are a great deal of movesets still being created which function without supplemental elaborations. Plus you have the entire back catalogue of movesets. Just by probabilities, chances are you're playing a character that isn't towards the more complicated end. And if you are, none are so complicated as to be impenetrable. It's Smash. The most complicated character's gimmick is that they function like they're from a different fighter. That should illustrate the baseline of accessibility.

It's a bit disingenuous to paint a picture as if we get nothing but Kazuyas, Min Mins and Steves. The final character we got was made deliberately simple because of how wide their anticipated audience would be.

 

[WeirdChillFever]

I feel like the complexity is also a result of sunk cost (not the fallacy); We’ve spent a good amount of time with the older characters, we’ve gotten to know their quirks and those quirks have been grandfathered in as normal; Yoshi and Peach are complex characters, but they were added pretty early on. The DLC characters, however, had to compete for our time to get familiar with them against like 70 other characters and at that point our mains were pretty settled in: Why take the time to learn Steve when you’ve got an ol’ reliable laying around for a good decade?

DLC made this kinda worse; waiting three-to-six months just to get a fighting game character that demands you to reroute decades-old muscle memory and other characters that break a built-up Smash intuition just isn’t fun, although great for variety (again, those more fond of their 64/Melee/Brawl mains can enjoy 30 characters worth of those) and in theoretical sense, but if it’s not intuitive to pick up then it’s a big demand from a character to ask a player to reroute some core fundamentals just to pick up a character you’ve waited half a year for.

I assume 64/Melee/Brawl style characters does refer to a style here; Sora, Aegis, Sepiroth and Byleth are all pretty intuitive to me, and Smash 4 had Greninja and WFT. Cloud too if meters weren’t close-to-a-mainstay for 10% of the cast exclusively. Reversely, I doubt Olimar makes the cut if Snake is the upper limit of complexity.

 

[AlRex]

I don't have much to say on the complexity thing besides that there wouldn't be much purpose to Ryu and Ken in this game without the inputs thing because they'd be kind of boring without it. Terry might've been fine, and I dunno how Kazuya would've worked.

 

[Geno Boost]

smash ultimate starting roster is pretty cool that they are all the original 8 i hope next smash game keep the starting roster few characters only
i want the next smash starting roster to be

pretty much the 10 most sold game franchises being the starters (if you dont count since you have to create them to be added anyway)

 

[Diddy Kong]

Shows what I know about competitive Smash lol. I just assumed you were referring to Byleth. I never had any issue with any of those characters although it would be nice if Samus could get some updates to fit with some of her more modern abilities. I do wish she could crawl in her morph ball though.

Honestly Samus is a weird case, the more modern Metroid games come out, the more canon her Smash moveset seems to become. It's almost ironic. All I really want is the Missile Storm, Morph Ball crawl, and more true to Metroid canon Charge Shot , and the Melee Counter, which can easily be a tilt and dash attack.

Samus is finally a well designed character in Ultimate too, after being so horribly broken in every game since Melee, so honestly, I wouldn't change her too much. Her Ultimate design is her most competitive viable incarnation so far.

 

[Ivander]

Imagine if Sony bought Konami, Square and Namco all at once just to try and recreate the Playstation golden age when they had exclusivity with Metal Gear, Final Fantasy and Tekken...

And they say Microsoft are the bad guys...

What does this mean for Capcom and Sega? They join forces with Nintendo and work to re-create the NES/SNES/Genesis days of glory when Capcom made a lot of games with Nintendo back then and Sega to make a sequel to the Nintendo vs Genesis wars of uniting together against a greater foe?

 

[chocolatejr9]

What does this mean for Capcom and Sega? They join forces with Nintendo and work to re-create the NES/SNES/Genesis days of glory when Capcom made a lot of games with Nintendo back then and Sega to make a sequel to the Nintendo vs Genesis wars of uniting together against a greater foe?

That COULD work, if it weren't for the fact Capcom is also rumored to be Sony's big Japanese buy. Granted, that theory mostly stands on the fact that we don't know what platforms Street Fighter 6 is coming to, but still.