Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Wonder Smash]

I’m not sure The Last of Us really translates super well to a Smash moveset. That game is pretty realistic in terms of abilities visual style so it might look kind of weird to see Joel or Ellie double jump around the battlefield. Not that it can’t be done, it’s just not as natural a fit for Smash as someone like Crash. It also doesn’t help that it’s owned by Sony who has been notoriously stingy with collaborating with other console developers. I would think Kratos or Aloy would fit Smash better if they wanted to go for a human Sony character.

I say, this is where a new PlayStation All-Stars is needed for characters like them.

So we're talking about Sony reps, huh?
View attachment 399191

Don't listen to em buddy, you'll always be the number 1 rep in my heart

I knew it was just a matter of time before somebody brought him up.

 

[Gengar84]

Sakurai could work his magic. She unarguably has much more to her than a basic Goomba.

Personality and character wise, totally. I was just talking about the moveset. Goombas have winged variants that drop microgoombas, the kuribo shoe, Goomba towers, and tons of other things. It’s been a while since I played but the only Goombella abilities I remember are Tattle and Head Bonk. Not that I’d complain at all if they can make her work. I do really like her as a character.

 

[fogbadge]

I have had the funniest feeling since Ultimate concluded that our next Mario rep WILL be Toad/Captain Toad just so Sakurai can spite the Waluigi fans again. Maybe even a Goomba after that... Poor Waluigi... I love him but that doesn't stop him from looking, sounding, and fitting right in to every meme ever conceived.. :/

oh don’t be daft, he’s been spiting the toad fans for longer

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

Good for him to have a most wanted.

But to try and stamp down every other Sony-associated rep by saying they're washed and irrelevant (reagrdless of whether that's true or not) and using the good ol' sales numbers argument as if that was the only thing that mattered when it comes to a game's impact sure ain't the way to sell your point on a character you want in this here thread.

The problem isn't that he wants Abby. The problem is that he's gatekeeping everyone we associate with Sony because they're not Abby.

I was making a joke :V

 

[Will]

Sakurai could work his magic. She unarguably has much more to her than a basic Goomba.

Yeah sure, but could she ever be as unique as Dr. Goomba Tower?

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I was making a joke :V

Silly wrestling cat. Jokes aren't allowed.

It's all srs bsns here

 

[Wonder Smash]

Ellie seeing Toad: "AHH! CLICKER!"

Ellie tries to shoot Toad but misses every shot.

Duck Hunt watches nearby.

Ellie: Shut up, you naughty dog!

 

[SubspaceJigglypuff]

RIP page 2018, the most goated year ever.

Sadly, I think she actually has less moveset potential than a basic Goomba despite being an original character. Goombas have a ton of variations you can pull from for the moveset where Goombella’s moveset was pretty limited in Paper Mario.

Anything a normal Goomba can do, it's safe to assume Goombella could do too. Just let her fleece them. if she got wings/microgoombas for a move, I doubt anyone would cry foul.

Yeah sure, but could she ever be as unique as Dr. Goomba Tower?

Switch 2 tryna do 8 player Smash with 8 Goomba Towers on Fountain of Dreams

 

[fogbadge]

Silly wrestling cat. Jokes aren't allowed.

It's all srs bsns here

now you tell me

 

[Will]

Switch 2 tryna do 8 player Smash with 8 Goomba Towers on Fountain of Dreams

View attachment 399194

Now turn on Metal Smash
Now turn on permanent Bunny Hoods
Now turn on Giant Smash
Now set the knockback as little as possible
Now turn up the item spawn to high
Now disable all items except Poke Balls, Assist Trophies, and Super Hammers
Now disable all Poke Balls but Clefairy, Palkia, Latios/Latias, and Tapu Koko
Now disable all Assists but Rathalos, Devil, Ghosts, and Pong.
Now pick Snake Eater as the song

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Now pick Snake Eater as the song

This will never happen, but I would love to see the new Smash Remix of Snake Eater with lyrics. I bet it would go super hard.

 

[Speed Weed]

it's crazy that there's even a debate on the best sony rep

tremble before the might of Funny Cat

 

[cashregister9]

While I do prefer a legacy Sony rep (Sackboy, Toro Inoue, Ratchet etc. etc.)

Recency bias is a hell of a drug and how could you say no to this little guy?

 

[KingofPhantoms]

While I do prefer a legacy Sony rep (Sackboy, Toro Inoue, Ratchet etc. etc.)

Recency bias is a hell of a drug and how could you say no to this little guy?

I've only played Astro's Playroom so far and I already agree with this notion.

 

[Thegameandwatch]

While I do prefer a legacy Sony rep (Sackboy, Toro Inoue, Ratchet etc. etc.)

Recency bias is a hell of a drug and how could you say no to this little guy?

Probably the most likely character outside of Kratos for a Sony character that they actually own.

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

While I do prefer a legacy Sony rep (Sackboy, Toro Inoue, Ratchet etc. etc.)

Recency bias is a hell of a drug and how could you say no to this little guy?

Like this.

 

[Captain Shwampy]

I'll confess to not knowing the ins and outs of this process, I'm not an insider. I'm just not sure the lack of anything SEGA after the Joker Challenger Pack, even something minor like a RGG or Puyo or Sakura Wars spirit event seems like something "in-character" for Nintendo when this is the same company that gladly makes you pay an Expansion Pack to play a good selection of Genesis titles. Not to mention that SEGA stuff immediately drying up is compounded with how Sonic's series still has the minimum in some aspects, as well.


This is why I specifically brought up popularity in Smash speculation circles. The amount of recognizability a character has, while it is a good factor, is not always the sole deciding factor of who gets in, especially when we have cases of Smash-specific demand superseding general recognizability.

Ryu from Street Fighter is generally more recognizable to the average person. I'm talking "referenced often enough on TV" recognizable. Mega Man, while not unpopular in his own right, is what I'd consider a bit below surface level in terms of gaming recognition, especially at the time where Inafune's departure buried a lot of plans for the series. But Mega Man got in first because he was the character Smash fans were asking about more.

Steve from Minecraft is absolutely more recognizable than Banjo & Kazooie, anyone can tell you that for free, and on top of that it's Western audiences who owned an N64 that would recognize him--a pretty small group compared to the one that'd be likely to recognize Steve or anything Minecraft related. But ultimately, Banjo got to be first in line because the demand from Smash players was that strong.

Now, I won't talk out of my bum and automatically assume that Arle has anywhere near the demand that Mega Man or Banjo had, but again, I absolutely recall seeing her talked about more often than any other non-Sonic SEGA character during Ultimate's active period. We have predecent for Smash popularity outweighing general recognizability in the past, but that same predecent usually dictates that one dominating the former and one dominating the latter both get in. If Nintendo has the final say in who gets in...? I guess it'd be reasonable to assume Arle comes first, but someone from Like a Dragon follows not too far behind. And I'd be okay with that.
Though speaking of Banjo--this may very well me be actually talking out of my bum, but from what I've seen at this point, I'd feel confident enough saying that Puyo has more of a Western presence at this point than Banjo has a Japanese presence. Though that may be a bit of an unfair metric considering the latter never really had the chance to cultivate an audience after the N64.


I think the main thing is just...using the characters from a branding/marketing aspect for more than just gacha crossovers. I'm not saying they should shove Arle and Amitie in Fortnite right away, but the hard truth is that it feels like Puyo has been historically treated as lesser in SEGA crossover games and similar aspects. None of the characters appear in any of the Sega Superstars/All-Stars games, at best you'll have a small Puyo minigame or a Garbage Puyo cameo as an item in the Japanese version of one of the games. None of the Puyo characters appear as guest characters in either recent Monkey Ball title (so far), Puyo Puyo wasn't included in that defunct Sega Heroes game...I know Like a Dragon was stiffed sometimes as well in that regard (zero presence in any of the Superstars/All-Stars games), but you know what's a game that did include those characters while still snubbing Puyo's cast? Project X Zone. Sonic as a guest in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 is...a baby step towards something meaningful. I would love to see a traditional RPG starring Arle and friends, or other non-puzle spinoffs, but honestly I'd be happy with just the bare minimum of letting Puyo's characters appear in other things that don't tie back into Quest. It's...just tiring to see a pretty legendary Japanese arcade series not at least get something a little more to reflect its merits, or something to help increase international visibility for it like how they managed to do it for Like a Dragon.

Besides that, heck, I just realized I forgot a pretty important thing in terms of international visibility. It's been two decades since the West got a straight Puyo Puyo experience without some sort of catch.
Every Puyo game we've gotten here in the past decade:
-Was a crossover with Tetris
-Was a budget title meant for nothing beyond competitive play
-Was a barely changed re-release of an old title (not that this is a bad thing, but most people aren't exactly rushing out to buy a decades-old arcade port)
-Was another crossover with Tetris that didn't even expand on much balancing-wise or story-wise when that was why people got attached to the first one
-Or is locked to Apple's stupid game service
Quite literally the best thing SEGA could do right now would be to give the West a straight, juicy Puyo game (think something a good bit bigger than 20th Anniversary, which I consider the quintessential "modern" Puyo game) without needing to rely on unbalanced crossovers or Apple exclusitivity money, and make it an early title for the Switch 2 like what they did with PPT1's re-release on the Switch 1. Having something like that available for westerners early on for the system would go a long way, assuming that the NS2 doesn't suddenly become a PR disaster for Nintendo.

Also pardon if I'm talking like I'm running on fumes here, I kind of am. I'll check back when I wake up tomorrow.

Puyo Puyo gets into more crossovers than some of Sega more well known IPs like Phantasy Star, Love and Berry, Mushiking, etc believe it or not. PS is self explanatory with its popularity but Mushiking and Love and Berry nearly rivaled Virtua Fighter 2 in the arcades and made children come to the arcades again. Love and Berry in particular scared Toei at one point and permanently changed the way Toei marketed Precure.

Unironically Puyo Puyo is the only time Mushiking and Love and Berry made appearance in a crossover.

PPQ:Popo and Mushiking/★6 - Puyo Nexus Wiki

puyonexus.com

PPQ:Love and Berry/★7 - Puyo Nexus Wiki

puyonexus.com

Dont even get started on those genesis/mega drive games like Vectorman, Streets of Rage, or Gunstar Heroes that westerners love. Project X Zone was the only time SoR ever made it into a crossover game lol.

 

[Guynamednelson]

I still dunno about wanting a Sony rep or thinking it could happen, but I've thought about a Pipo Monkey spirit battle before

Vs. 5 yellow Diddy Kongs on Garden of Hope, the Diddies like to run away, use Down-B, and are immune to every single attack except for Villager's grab.

 

[Gengar84]

I’m not overly familiar with Puyo Puyo (or most non Sonic, Atlus, or Bayonetta SEGA properties) but I do support more female characters in Smash. Smash 4 and Ultimate did a decent job at giving us a few more but there are so many other cool female characters I’d love to see. I doubt we’ll ever get to the point where the roster approaches 50/50 but it would be great to see more. Arle also represents a genre new to Smash and that’s cool. It would be interesting to see what they’d do for her moveset to reference the puzzle genre.

 

[SPEN18]

Hilarious to hear to this after of literal pages before when I told that popularity wasn't the end of all when I criticized Sora and Banjo's placement on the ballot. Every words and every letter here applies to Banjo specifically to equal amount of games and being niche third party but I was some how delusional in questioning his position like most here are with the Puppetman despite similar circumstances. Geno is impossible because he's an internet relic but somehow Banjo who also solely relied on the same thing was definitely 2nd place beyond all VG's characters conceivable. Definitely greater than Inkling, Isabelle, Minecraft Steve and Ryu. Because He was okay!?!

Well, Banjo actually did have the polling results to back up community perception of his popularity, being the highest-ranked third party by a pretty respectable margin and third overall behind K. Rool and Isaac in the consolidated polling data. And now after the fact of them getting in we have the public statements from Sakurai on just how well Banjo did, and Sora as well. Of course we also have word from Sakurai that Geno is very popular, but we don't have anything so specific like a ballot placement or anything (not that we'd expect to have that for most characters). And speaking of Sora, it shows that the polls are far from infallible, especially in separating the absolute top of the pack from the rest of the upper tier. It's possible the polls could've significantly mistaken Geno's actual raw standing as well, but we wouldn't expect that for Geno based on the past and current data.

The point isn't that Geno can't get in, or that polls tell the whole story, or that Geno is confirmedly not among the absolute most popular. I was just saying that he doesn't have any of the attributes that traditionally lead to inclusion, besides popularity, which means he probably does have to be one of the absolute most popular options in order to get in. Because if there's a feasible option that's even more popular than Geno...and one that actually has more reason to be included besides that popularity...then why in the world would you go for Geno?

Back to the comparison with Banjo and Sora, I wouldn't actually say they're very similar to Geno, either. No character reasonably prominent in speculation really is.
Both Banjo and Sora are from wholly original franchises and both are much more major players in their games and franchises to boot, which is actually a huge difference when it comes to consideration for a crossover fighter like Smash. Neither has to deal with Mario himself absorbing their spotlight. When it comes to sales and general notoriety, Sora isn't even in the same conversation as Geno, and that ends basically all similarity in situation between Geno and Sora right there. Banjo sold more than SMRPG back in the day, too, though not nearly as significantly, and the SMRPG remake did comparable numbers (albeit with a massive installbase advantage); overall you could say Banjo is a similarly niche choice and a better point of comparison than Sora.
What it comes down to, though, besides Banjo being an easier sell as a main character from a new franchise, is that we have all reason to expect Banjo was actually one of the kings of the ballot whereas we don't really know that for Geno. Point is, it's not that Geno couldn't get in without a lot of other things going for him just like Banjo, just the fanbase outcry would have to be extremely overwhelming to make that happen. Not to mention that one character like Banjo getting in doesn't make it a common occurrence by any stretch.

 

[Laniv]

If we're talking Sony reps, I gotta make some noise for my GOAT:

 

[Perkilator]

Puyo Puyo gets into more crossovers than some of Sega more well known IPs like Phantasy Star, Love and Berry, Mushiking, etc believe it or not. PS is self explanatory with its popularity but Mushiking and Love and Berry nearly rivaled Virtua Fighter 2 in the arcades and made children come to the arcades again. Love and Berry in particular scared Toei at one point and permanently changed the way Toei marketed Precure.
View attachment 399204

The irony of this is that Yes Precure 5 actually appeared in a Puyo Puyo mobile game as part of a collaboration, so talk about full circle.

 

[Gengar84]

Here’s my GOAT Sony rep and one of my favorite video game characters ever:

 

[duchess-olive]

I want trophies again.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I could live with no trophies as long as we get the descriptions like in pre-Ultimate games for Spirits.

 

[Will]

Here’s my GOAT Sony rep and one of my favorite video game characters ever:

View attachment 399209

Johnny Depp?!?!?!?!

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

Make the new collectable trading cards with details like baseball cards.

 

[Thegameandwatch]

I want trophies again.

Although I hope that it’s not just reused models like in Brawl and Smash 4 since this impacted series like EarthBound which only had models for the stuff in Brawl.

Fire Emblem just had Ike’s games outside of Lyn and Marth.

 

[duchess-olive]

If we're going with unrealistic expectations...I want Peach playable again.

 

[fogbadge]

If we're talking Sony reps, I gotta make some noise for my GOAT:

View attachment 399205

im unfamiliar with this character, might I ask who he is?

 

[Swamp Sensei]

If we're going with unrealistic expectations...I want Peach playable again.

...

Bruh?

 

[Gengar84]

Johnny Depp?!?!?!?!

Lol close enough. He’s Zegram Ghart from Rogue Galaxy. He’s got more of a cool, cocky, Han Solo vibe compared to Jack Sparrow’s more goofy personality but I like both a lot as characters.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

If we're going with unrealistic expectations...I want Peach playable again.

God forbid women do anything in the gaming industry

 

[Will]

...

Bruh?

Avril Lavigne replacement conspiracy theory

 

[duchess-olive]

...

Bruh?

IDK, is it wrong that I'm a guy who enjoys playing as female characters more nowadays than male characters, and I like seeing Peach kick butt instead of being the damsel in distress for the umpteenth time?

 

[Captain Shwampy]

The irony of this is that Yes Precure 5 actually appeared in a Puyo Puyo mobile game as part of a collaboration, so talk about full circle.

The original ARS designs for the Puyo Puyo 7 trio were going to be the tri-color precure team.

 

[Will]

IDK, is it wrong that I'm a guy who enjoys playing as female characters more nowadays than male characters?

Women are playing Peach in Smash?

 

[mynameisBlade]

oh don’t be daft, he’s been spiting the toad fans for longer

I wouldn't say that. Guess it depends on each individuals scale of importance. For example, Toad being in Peach's move set puts him higher than Waluigi being an AT for me.

 

[KingofPhantoms]

I miss Trophies, but I'm kinda glad we didn't get them in Ultimate. It provided more development time for the team to work on bringing back every veteran while still developing new characters. It's not unlikely that Ultimate may not have gotten a good chunk of the characters, veterans or otherwise, that the final game had if they had still put a lot of time and energy into making trophies for tons of characters who weren't playable and quite possibly wouldn't have been in the game in any other capacity outside of Trophies, either.

Plus this is probably a hot take but outside of a lack of an improved Smash Run and a Boss Battles rush mode Ultimate's single player content is perfectly fine.

 

[Guynamednelson]

IDK, is it wrong that I'm a guy who enjoys playing as female characters more nowadays than male characters, and I like seeing Peach kick butt instead of being the damsel in distress for the umpteenth time?

No, it's just sensible that Peach would stay unless the next roster goes down to Smash 64 levels. Which I doubt it will.