Yes, I’ve played other platfighters. However, they aren’t really as interesting to speculate about. Rivals 2 and NASB have rather limited-feeling scopes as to what characters could be in them (plus NASB has no confirmed upcoming content,) and MVS characters are pretty much guaranteed to be leaked way in advance so there’s little to talk about.
Plus, this thread is way, way, way more active than any threads for any other platfighters.
Okay...but, what's that got to do with playing something fresh? It sounds a lot more like the primary interest here is shifting the discussion topics in this thread. Is this about playing something fresh or making speculation more interesting for yourself?
And don't get me wrong, I get it. This thread always goes in circles and a lot of topics simply aren't entertained but if you want a more open thread, you might be better off making your own.
That said, if you do want to discuss an all-newcomer Smash, I suppose now might be the time to throw it out there again. A lot of "what if x set" of characters staying/being cut thought experiments are being thrown around rn. If you try framing it like that you might get some takes, though you should probably add some more criteria beyond just "all-newcomers." Give them some more rules to work with like a set number of characters, etc.
the only reason a new Punch-Out hasn’t been made since is the lack of a good hook.
That's odd. Punch-Out!! is all about throwing good hooks.
EDIT: Dang it, my joke got
'd by PoppyBro
It would be kind of cool to see Sakurai and the Smash team work on a platform fighter for a different property though I don’t expect that to ever happen. I do remember TMNT Smash Up being advertised as “from the dudes that brought you Smash Brawl” but I’m not sure how many of the same people actually worked on it. Sadly, it wasn’t really anywhere close to as good as Smash but I’d love to see someone give a TMNT Smash game another go. There’s a ton of potential for a really fun and unique roster if they pull from across the series’ history.
Honestly, I'd be super down to see the Shredder's Revenge guys recycle and expand the sprite sheets from that game to make a 2D platfighter.
As for Sakurai himself working on another platfighter, I know it's the easy answer, but it'd be nice if he got Sony to give PSAS another chance. Sony made very little effort to help the original team and did more sabotage than anything. At least with Sakurai at the helm, they might actually back off and let him cook, given how respected he is in the industry.
Answer number 2 though is Square Enix. Bring back Ehrgeiz as a platfighter.
