Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[DarthEnderX]

how do you guys feel are the chances of characters like Sans, Zagreus, Hollow Knight, Hat Kid and the like joining Smash Bros as Fighters?

I think ATs and premium Mii costumes is the appropriate level of representation for indie characters.

It looks like I’ve been here since 2009 but I’m not exactly sure when I started actually speculating about Smash here.

I joined in 2014, but didn't start posting regularly till 2018.

I kind of regret naming myself Gengar84 here as my modder name was Aafyre and I’ve been using that as my gaming alias ever since. I think I named my account here before I decided to just make Aafyre my alias everywhere else.

I've been DarthEnder for as long as I've been using the internet.

Star Wars + Ender's Game.

I like my username because all these years later people are still surprised when they figure out it's a pun.

 

[MBRedboy31]

My name is based on a Lego OC, Red Boy (he wore an all red outfit and a red baseball cap, obviously) whom I made when I was, like, 6, and I just decided to keep using that username everywhere. (My LEGO sigfig nowadays is a different one.) 31 was just the auto-suggestion on Lego's website since just "Redboy" as a username was already taken.

MB just stands for “Message Boards.” I had to make a second account on Lego’s website years ago since my original one wasn’t working on their message boards (R.I.P. Lego Message Boards, btw…) for some reason, so I added MB to the start of my username for that account. I afterward decided that it sounds cooler that way and kept the MB for all other websites

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Guys. You're not gonna believe this but...I like puppies. Also Earthbound reference + name of game we talk about.


I actually don't use this username anymore. The older I get the less I like it, especially since it can raise some eyebrows in spaces that aren't familiar with EarthBound...which is pretty much just anywhere that isn't here. lol

 

[Pupp135]

Guys. You're not gonna believe this but...I like puppies. Also Earthbound reference + name of game we talk about.


I actually don't use this username anymore. The older I get the less I like it, especially since it can raise some eyebrows in spaces that aren't familiar with EarthBound...which is pretty much just anywhere that isn't here. lol

I also came up with username because I like puppies.

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

My username came from MUGEN.

Was even very Entei-styled overall when starting out years ago.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Swampasaur was originally just Swampert and Venusaur smooshed together.

Kid me was very dumb. But it stuck.

 

[ninjahmos]

My username comes from the fact that I think ninjas are cool, and the addition of the "h" is inspired by the name Jah, which is often mentioned in reggae music.

Some of you may already know this, but Jah is actually another name for God.

 

[Wonder Smash]

My username is reference to both Smash and The Wonderful 101, which was what I playing when I made this account. That game was so fun! A lot of characters had Wonder in their names, like Wonder Red, Wonder Blue, Wonder Green, and Wonder Yellow. So since I'm on a Smash centered site, I'll just be Wonder Smash.

 

[Golden Icarus]

Golden Sun + Kid Icarus

My two favorite franchises that I only ever discovered because of Smash. Also I like gold and greek myths and the way it sounds. In hindsight I would have preferred a name with more…identity? But I’m comfortable with it, although it has the same problem as most usernames I had back when I was a teenager in that it’s a specific reference that only this fandom would understand, so I don’t really use it anywhere else.

I did this nonsense all the time. My username on the MK and SF forums I used to visit are also just mashups of my favorite characters. Luckily this isn’t a habit I have anymore lol

 

[MBRedboy31]

edit: ehh, forget it

 

[SharkLord]

Anyways I've put together my personal 45 veteran-15 newcomer roster (Excluding Echoes)

My previous rosters prioritized first-parties, which often meant I was fairly crunched for third-parties. This time around, I started with the third-parties and budgeted the rest of my vets around them. Then I worked out the newcomers, and finished by adding in Echoes I thought would be fitting. We're not sure exactly how Echoes compare to full fighters - A while back someone worked out that Melee clones must be less than a sixth of a full fighter, but more distinct Ken-style Echoes could go up to half the effort of a full fighter - So I'll admit, the ten Echoes are kinda cheating.

I went into detail for my decisions, but it ended as a bit of an unwieldy yapathon so I'll put my reasoning in spoilers. Give it a read if you want to, but if it's too much you can just look at the roster and call it a day

Spoiler: Third-Party Vets

Since I started with the third-parties, I'll explain them first. I capped myself at 9 for veterans, a fifth of the vets (Again, sans Echoes). I mainly focused on fighters closely tied to Nintendo, but I also made room for those who have a strong influence in Smash specifically. Aside from Final Fantasy, where most of the rights are divied up between different holders, most companies shouldn't be too difficult to negotiate with, so I didn't worry myself about that too much.

• holds an important part as the mascot of Nintendo's most iconic rivalry, has a strong presence on Nintendo systems for decades, and thus far is the only third-party to have starred in three Smash games
• is the mascot of Bandai-Namco, Smash's current developers, and is an icon of gaming in general. Needs little elaboration
• are icons of the NES era and continued to have strong ties to Nintendo, especially handhelds for the first two
• scored highly on the ballot and are regarded as honorary Nintendo characters
• are associated with arcades more than anything, but Street Fighter II codified the fighting game genre as a whole, and a game of KoF is what led Sakurai to create Smash itself. Plus, as Louie G. has argued lately, Ryu's set something of an archetype for traditional fighting game characters in Smash, which gives him an outsized influence in the roster
• straight up won the ballot. I rarely say this, but he's earned it. Besides, Disney was actually completely on board with Sora in Smash, so it shouldn't be too hard to get him back.

Spoiler: First-Party Vets

The third-party selection left me about 36 slots for first-parties. I started with mascots and main characters, then worked my way down to important supporting characters from major series. Aside from retro characters with only a couple games on older systems, I tried to preserve at least one fighter for each series represented so far.

• are the main characters of their games, and therefore the primary representation. Sometimes they might take a backseat, but for the most part, if you pick up a game from their series you'll see these guys
• are from RPGs with rotating casts, but they're the first of their series' reps in Smash and serve as the "primary" rep for their games
• : technically aren't the main characters, but are part of ensemble casts and/or serve as mascots for their games, letting them serve similar functions. I considered keeping Villager, but they and Isabelle have fairly similar kits and there's only so much room with 45 slots, so I went with Isabelle as the primary AC rep
• originated as supporting characters from the Mario series, but got big enough to branch out into their own subseries, and that's pretty major
• represents retro games as a whole, being the oldest fighter on the roster, and the Game & Watch being an important part of Nintendo's history

That's about 21 "main characters," leaving about 15 slots left for supporting characters

• haven't broken off into their own subseries yet, but they're big enough deals to be the main character of a game, and that says a lot to their status in the series. Also it's Peach and Zelda I can't just drop them
• are major villains from fairly-to-seriously big franchises. Ridley and K. Rool were also hot requests for the longest time, and it'd be a shame to just drop them immediately
• are mainstays in both Smash and their respective series
• / represent breakout hits from their home series. I was originally going to have Ike here, but when I added Edelgard, I realized Robin gave a better dynamic for the series - Swift fencer, mage, heavy weapon, as opposed to swift fencer and two heavy weapons. Obviously Edelgard could fight differently from Ike, being more refined and implementing more magic, but there's only so much room to go around and Robin just stood out more.
• were the two highest scorers on the Pokemon of the Year 2020 Google poll, which is the most comprehensive poll for the series in recent memory. Realistically there should probably be more, but I wanted to give other series more room to breathe.
• was the last fighter added. Palutena's a decently popular character who's fairly distinct in terms of aesthetic and abilities, and that led me to keep her in. Villager, Rosalina, and the Ice Climbers were close runner-ups, but ultimately Palu won out.

Spoiler: Newcomers

And then for the fifteen newcomers. There's not too much room here, so I mainly looked to series that have gotten major releases in the Switch era.

• Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon are Nintendo's biggest IPs, so they get a fighter. Waluigi's a popular request, Mimikyu was third place for the aforementioned PotY poll, and Midna... Well, if Swamp's poll is any indication, it's a tight race for Zelda reps, so choosing a character was kinda "vibes-based." Midna seemed pretty cool and I hear she's basically the real main character of Twilight Princess, so...
• Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Ring Fit Adventure, and Kirby have all crossed the 10 million copies line, AC and RFA both with just a single game. Tom Nook and Bandana Waddle Dee are simply the last members of their series' core main characters not in Smash yet, and Ring Fit Trainee is the player character, so they're easy choices. With Off the Hook, they're the most popular of the idol groups, and I believe they'd have more moveset potential than the Squid Sisters, between their signature weapons and stuff they've done in the DLC campaigns.
• Fire Emblem, Pikmin, Metroid, and Xenoblade Chronicles have all grown quite a bit during the Switch era, so they get fighters as well. Edelgard is the most popular character from the best-selling Fire Emblem game, Oatchi essentially acts as another player character in Pikmin 4 and would be more distinct than the P4 avatar, Raven Beak is a very popular villain from Metroid's biggest installment, and Noah's one of the main characters from XC3. Some rosters add Mio over Noah, but Noah has his game's Monado (And also my brother binged the Xenoblade games lately and his explainations of XC3 keep devolving into TACHYON SLASH TACHYON SLASH TACHYON SLASH so I can only assume Noah has that Special Sauce)
• Astral Chain, aside from Ring Fit, is one of the biggest new IPs of the Switch era, so Legionis it is. There isn't really a canon name for the main character (and Akira is not the main character stop calling them @#$%ing Akira), so I went with Legionis, the term used for everyone who uses a Legion. Kinda like Pokemon Trainer, or Villager.
• Golden Sun is kinda dormant right now, but Isaac has been a fairly popular request for quite a while, so I'll give him a pass. Him being from a less active IP also gives a bit of variety to the mostly Switch-centric newcomer lineup
• Shadow is a mainstay for Sonic, popular enough to be the main character of his own campaigns and get a whole year dedicated to him, honors no other character gets nowadays beyond Sonic himself. He's also a popular request for Smash, and has been long enough that he's the only Assist Trophy to be featured in Smash 4's intro.
• Monster Hunter has become a juggernaut IP for Capcom, both on the Switch and in general. Monster Hunter has also had a strong presence on Nintendo consoles, with Monster Hunter Rise being the best-selling third-party game on the Switch.

 

[Nickthebrick1]

What do you guys think of his assessment. He makes a lot of good points.

 

[McSpanker]

I just thought my username sounded funny when I was 12 lol. been almost 20 years since I came up with it

 

[RodNutTakin]

What do you guys think of his assessment. He makes a lot of good points.

I can't give a straight answer when the template he chose is just objectively...shallow and not good from a character selection standpoint.

 

[PersonAngelo53]

What do you guys think of his assessment. He makes a lot of good points.

I agree with most points here surprisingly. Tho one am somewhat Iffy on is his placement of the Chosen undead from Dark souls Vs The Tarnished from Elden Ring. He makes the point that we probably get Chosen undead since his games came first and Dark souls is on Nintendo unlike Elden ring. But this argument is giving me Shin Megami tensei would get a character before Persona in smash flash backs all over again. I think the most recent title of a series being super popular recently can sometimes beat the character choice in smash compared to the first or more classic character from that same series joining the game instead.

 

[Thegameandwatch]

Even games like Undertale where popular was hitting moon with during the time of Ballot?

Undertale released only a month before the Ballot ended meaning that a character like Sans probably didn’t get that much votes because of bad timing.

Not even sure if that game sold huge numbers since lot of its popularity back then was because of YouTube and the internet in general.

 

[DarthEnderX]

What do you guys think of his assessment. He makes a lot of good points.

Couldn't tell ya. Cause there's no way I'm watching a 7 hour video.

 

[Shinuto]

I thought of my username back in the mid 2000s as a Japanese ish sounding name and it's stuck since for me.

I can't give a straight answer when the template he chose is just objectively...shallow and not good from a character selection standpoint.

I agree on a lot of points but I'm tired of people overinflating Sans potential. Like every interpretation I see for a moveset in smash has never felt truly "Sans" you know? I think he's but more difficult to pull off than people think.

I can't give a straight answer when the template he chose is just objectively...shallow and not good from a character selection standpoint.

what do you mean? Template?

 

[fogbadge]

Usernames? well mine obviously is a pokemon prize. what can I say? when I joined HG was still fresh in my mind and Morty was my favourite gym leader from the game

 

[Diddy Kong]

My username ie obvious. Passion for the DKC series and Diddy is my favorite character ever. I also used this username to rally for Diddy support for a Smash Bros past Melee.

I joined when I was 14 or so.

 

[Stratos]

Regarding the ballot for newcomers to future Super Smash Bros games, I was thinking that maybe there should be an AI that only accepts video game characters and non-video game characters related to Nintendo, such as Daitouryou and Tengu from Nintendo's hanafuda cards, Nester from Nintendo Power magazine, Mini Kangaroo from the Mini Games series, and Kevin Keene from the Captain N: The Game Master series. In other words, we could suggest a character and write where they come from, and have this AI process and accept only those who come from video games and non-video game characters related to Nintendo.

 

[Lionfranky]

What do you guys think of his assessment. He makes a lot of good points.

I do object some of reasoning sound contradictory. He mentions Japanese factor which still should apply to Doom Slayer, but simply gloss over.

 

[Gengar84]

I think Smash will always favor characters made in Japan, which makes sense given where Smash is developed. However, I’d love if they continued to branch out more and included more characters from around the world. I think Banjo and Steve are encouraging signs they might be opening up a bit more. Most games I play are made in Japan but there are quite a few western characters I really like and would love to see in Smash as well. While I’m less familiar with characters made outside Japan or the west, it would still be cool to see them get some representation as well.

 

[Garteam]

What do you guys think of his assessment. He makes a lot of good points.

I can't really comment on the logic behind most individual characters because the video is 7 hours, but his final list seems pretty weird. For example, Lyn being more likely than Isaac in particular seems like more of a preference than a rational argument in 2025.

 

[BuckleyTim]

I think if you watch that video all the way through you will accidentally remove all surprise that any smash announcement could give you. They could announce literally anything for smash at that point and your reaction would be "yeah but i already visualized it in my head and thus the novelty is gone.... Pass."

 

[Gorgonzales]

What do you guys think of his assessment. He makes a lot of good points.

Saw this live.

I think most of the picks are pretty reasonable. Waluigi being at the top is definitely the move, and most of the other top picks are safe bets too.

Bandana Dee being in "Could go either way" stings a little but it isn't completely unprecedented given the bias against recent Kirby stuff.

Ayumi and Chief are too high, but other than those I more or less agree with everything presented here.

I think if you watch that video all the way through you will accidentally remove all surprise that any smash announcement could give you. They could announce literally anything for smash at that point and your reaction would be "yeah but i already visualized it in my head and thus the novelty is gone.... Pass."

The one big factor of Smash speculation is that no matter how much you try to pin down character selection to an exact science, it'll always end up inevitably being wrong in some way.

I think it's cool to see where things matched up and where they didn't and trying to figure out why things happened that way.

 

[fogbadge]

I think if you watch that video all the way through you will accidentally remove all surprise that any smash announcement could give you. They could announce literally anything for smash at that point and your reaction would be "yeah but i already visualized it in my head and thus the novelty is gone.... Pass."

smash has already done that

 

[BuckleyTim]

Saw Phoenix Wright in the thumbnail and got just a little sad because he really is the least likely of the currently semi-active Capcom series at this point. He's like the only series Capcom is currently investing in that missed Ultimate entirely, spirit/Mii costumes or otherwise.

 

[Diddy Kong]

What do you guys think of his assessment. He makes a lot of good points.

That might be, but I ain't gonna watch all that.

7 whole hours !!

Anyone knows what he said regarding Impa and Dixie ?

 

[Gengar84]

Speaking of Phoenix Wright, how much does a character’s potential moveset influence how much you’d like to see them in Smash? Does being able to visualize how a character could play make you want them more? Phoenix has been shown to work in fighting games already through MVC but he’s still pretty unconventional as far as fighters go. I’m guessing that’s why characters from action games like Dante might be ahead of him.

For me, it does influence my desire to see them a bit. How much I like a character will always be the main factor but I tend to lean towards characters that have the potential for a flashy and unique moveset. For example, Dunban is my favorite character from the first Xenoblade but he’s not particularly interesting from a moveset persoective where Fiora would probably be a lot more exciting to play.

 

[Speed Weed]

Does anyone remember Master Higgins from Adventure Island on the NES? That was another childhood game of mine that I never hear of brought up anymore. I’m not sure if it was ever actually popular since I was so young at the time but I had fond memories of the game. He’d make for a fun surprise retro character.

Forgot to reply to this earlier, but Master Higgins is an interesting case, cuz believe it or not, he's actually based on a real guy. Adventure Island in Japan was originally branded around Takahashi Meijin, a spokesperson for Hudson who was very famous at the time and went on to be something of a symbol of the Famicom era. This "incarnation" of him, however, is interesting because they still kinda treated it like a game character they put in stuff, i.e. he shows up in Saturn Bomberman, DreamMix TV, and the like. That said, I do think that even if we set aside the real person issue, getting him in might be pretty difficult these days - Takahashi has the rights to the name and is currently off on his own doing stuff with indie devs, and generally these days I feel like Konami is pretty cagey about doing anything with most Hudson stuff that isn't Bomberman or Momotaro Dentetsu. Maybe in a better reality it could get something though - the games are very fondly remembered in Japan, after all.

 

[Oshawott777]

My username came from MUGEN.

Was even very Entei-styled overall when starting out years ago.

Did it come from this Entei character? I remember when it came out and people were fighting it all over youtube.

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

Did it come from this Entei character? I remember when it came out and people were fighting it all over youtube.

The very one.

 

[Nabbitfan730]

Someone massively popular like Dante barely existed in speculation compared to smaller characters like Phoenix Wright, as a frame of reference. Emphasis was largely Nintendo-centric and we did not have the imagination to envision how the hell someone like Chosen Undead or even Steve would get into Smash Bros in 2014. That's Ultimate brain, not Smash 4 brain. We could barely process that Cloud was in the game.

I think something else you’re missing is that fan demand doesn’t exactly correlate one to one to series sales. I feel like there’s just a lot of overlap between Kingdom Hearts and Nintendo/Smash fans as they both feature colorful and upbeat characters that are fun and exciting. His moveset from Kingdom Hearts also just naturally fits a game like Smash well, which helps.

That framing just brings even more disbelief because then why Sora of all characters?

Waluigi, K.Rool, The Belmonts, Inklings, Chrom? Returning vets like Wolf? Even SE like Chrono and Black Mage. Those with actual Nintendo presence, Sora is the most Nintendo-centric pick at the time of Smash 4?

The games that came on Nintendo systems were the smaller niche side games that came to handhelds that even needed previous main entries to gain full context. The popular main numbered games where always on Playstation as an solid exclusive. The KH collections including all games from KH1 to DDD was the recent release at the time of Ballot and it was all Playstation Exclusive. There wasn't any strong connection between the KH and Nintendo at all. Sora was always a PS guy

To this day, we still don't even have a proper collection release on Nintendo systems unlike Playstation.

The King of Phantoms is one brought up sales numbers as a factor which i shot down as factor as it doesn't hold up.

Steve was said to be negotiated 5 years before his reveal which lines up strongly with the ballot. Even in 2015, he was strongly regarded favorite with the Minecraft boom going strong. I argue the connection of Nintendo fanbase and Minecraft greatly aligns much more than Kingdom Hearts. I don't like using fan polls as sources but even those polls Steve usually topped Sora on the charts. No doubt he dominated the ballot.

Theory territory but Bayonetta was probably picked the "ballot winner" at the time because Nintendo couldn't secure Steve in time for Smash 4 DLC so was saved for Ultimate which would explain why Vergeben and his sources picked up the info of Minecraft content coming to Smash but he couldn't pinpoint what because Negotiations took longer than expected even during Ultimate season.

Very likely Steve was going to final major pick ending off Ultimate DLC as true winner when the next pass was still 5 until Sakurai met the Disney VP and retroactively added Sora not a winner but as the unexpected surprise that most would never see coming/would happen finale. Only adding the "ballot" winner spin to drum icing on hype cake.

 

[Gengar84]

That framing just brings even more disbelief because then why Sora of all characters?

Waluigi, K.Rool, The Belmonts, Inklings, Chrom? Returning vets like Wolf? Even SE like Chrono and Black Mage. Those with actual Nintendo presence, Sora is the most Nintendo-centric pick at the time of Smash 4?

The games that came on Nintendo systems were the smaller niche side games that came to handhelds that even needed previous main entries to gain full context. The popular main numbered games where always on Playstation as an solid exclusive. The KH collections including all games from KH1 to DDD was the recent release at the time of Ballot and it was all Playstation Exclusive. There wasn't any strong connection between the KH and Nintendo at all. Sora was always a PS guy

To this day, we still don't even have a proper collection release on Nintendo systems unlike Playstation.

The King of Phantoms is one brought up sales numbers as a factor which i shot down as factor as it doesn't hold up.

Steve was said to be negotiated 5 years before his reveal which lines up strongly with the ballot. Even in 2015, he was strongly regarded favorite with the Minecraft boom going strong. I argue the connection of Nintendo fanbase and Minecraft greatly aligns much more than Kingdom Hearts. I don't like using fan polls as sources but even those polls Steve usually topped Sora on the charts. No doubt he dominated the ballot.

Theory territory but Bayonetta was probably picked the "ballot winner" at the time because Nintendo couldn't secure Steve in time for Smash 4 DLC so was saved for Ultimate which would explain why Vergeben and his sources picked up the info of Minecraft content coming to Smash but he couldn't pinpoint what because Negotiations took longer than expected even during Ultimate season.

Very likely Steve was going to final major pick ending off Ultimate DLC as true winner when the next pass was still 5 until Sakurai met the Disney VP and retroactively added Sora as the unexpected surprise finale. Only adding the "ballot" winner spin to drum hype.

Look, as much as I love Chrono Trigger (Magus is one of my all time favorite game characters and it’s in my top 2 favorite games ever), it hasn’t really been in the public eye for such a long time. It’s no surprise that Sora got more votes than Crono especially considering Square-Enix’s hesitancy to port the game to modern consoles. Sora must have also taken quite a bit of effort to work out the licensing so I doubt Sakurai would have made the effort if he didn’t score so well on the ballot. You’re free to believe whatever you want to. I like Kingdom Hearts but Sora wasn’t really on my personal list of characters I wanted to see in Smash. Still, it makes perfect sense why he won since he does fit the Nintendo image of family friendly characters with a bright colorful design and fun moveset potential.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

That framing just brings even more disbelief because then why Sora of all characters?

Waluigi, K.Rool, The Belmonts, Inklings, Chrom? Returning vets like Wolf? Even SE like Chrono and Black Mage. Those with actual Nintendo presence, Sora is the most Nintendo-centric pick at the time of Smash 4?

The games that came on Nintendo systems were the smaller niche side games that came to handhelds that even needed previous main entries to gain full context. The popular main numbered games where always on Playstation as an solid exclusive. The KH collections including all games from KH1 to DDD was the recent release at the time of Ballot and it was all Playstation Exclusive. There wasn't any strong connection between the KH and Nintendo at all. Sora was always a PS guy

Then maybe, and hear me out here because that might sound absolutely insane but... what if people voted Sora because they like him?

It might not be about being Nintendo-centric but rather taking their chance on voting someone they want to see but is perceived as impossible because Disney (which is deeply ironic given what we now know but 2015 was a different time)

It might just be that they saw this as a chance to get someone who they thought would never make it otherwise...

Steve was said to be negotiated 5 years before his reveal which lines up strongly with the ballot. Even in 2015, he was strongly regarded favorite with the Minecraft boom going strong. I argue the connection of Nintendo fanbase and Minecraft greatly aligns much more than Kingdom Hearts. I don't like using fan polls as sources but even those polls Steve usually topped Sora on the charts. No doubt he dominated the ballot.

Theory territory but Bayonetta was probably picked the "ballot winner" at the time because Nintendo couldn't secure Steve in time for Smash 4 DLC so was saved for Ultimate which would explain why Vergeben and his sources picked up the info of Minecraft content coming to Smash but he couldn't pinpoint what because Negotiations took longer than expected even during Ultimate season.

Very likely Steve was going to final major pick ending off Ultimate DLC as true winner when the next pass was still 5 until Sakurai met the Disney VP and retroactively added Sora as the unexpected surprise finale. Only adding the "ballot" winner spin to drum hype.

No. Just no.

Any theory that involves Sakurai outright lying to us is one I will always disregard. The man has no reason to lie about who won the ballot and he's also never been much of a liar or a troll to begin with.

The fact that he specified "among realizable characters" for Bayonetta in Smash 4 shows he's always trying to be transparent to some degree with the fans.

With that said, I fully believe Steve must've done well in the Ballot. Even back in 2015, Minecraft was massive so the idea of that game not scoring a good spot in the Ballot is absolutely ridiculous. I'll agree that Steve must've been a Ballot pick even if it was never explicitly stated... I just don't think Sakurai would lie about who had the most votes (unless it's a character that breaks the "gaming only" rule like Goku or Shrek)

 

[Opossum]

I cannot stress enough that Kingdom Hearts is like one of the most beloved video game franchises of all time. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how Sora placed first on the Smash Ballot.

 

[Gengar84]

Then maybe, and hear me out here because that might sound absolutely insane but... what if people voted Sora because they like him?

It might not be about being Nintendo-centric but rather taking their chance on voting someone they want to see but is perceived as impossible because Disney (which is deeply ironic given what we now know but 2015 was a different time)

It might just be that they saw this as a chance to get someone who they thought would never make it otherwise...


No. Just no.

Any theory that involves Sakurai outright lying to us is one I will always disregard. The man has no reason to lie about who won the ballot and he's also never been much of a liar or a troll to begin with.

The fact that he specified "among realizable characters" for Bayonetta in Smash 4 shows he's always trying to be transparent to some degree with the fans.

With that said, I fully believe Steve must've done well in the Ballot. Just not as well as Sora or Banjo. Even back in 2015, Minecraft was massive so the idea of that game not scoring well in the Ballot is absolutely ridiculous.

Yeah, I think that’s the reason at the end of the day. He won because so many people like the games and the character. Even though he hasn’t historically been connected to Nintendo as strongly as Sony, he shares a lot of traits with Nintendo characters and I could see how he would appeal strongly with Nintendo fans.

 

[Nabbitfan730]

But as a Nintendo-centric pick that everyone is here is claiming that got Sora the edge in ballot, you have to admit a cult-classic like CT that defined itself on the Nintendo platforms would resonate more with Nintendo based audience than Kingdom Hearts which did the same but for Playstation instead.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

But as a Nintendo-centric pick that everyone is here is claiming that got Sora the edge in ballot, you have to admit a cult-classic like CT that defined itself on the Nintendo platforms would resonate more with Nintendo based audience than Kingdom Hearts which did the same but for Playstation instead.

This line of logic doesn't matter on a ballot where you can pick anyone you want

Nintendo fans are allowed to enjoy things not on Nintendo consoles, y'know. To think otherwise is downright elitism.