Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Hadokeyblade]

I cant see myself properly participating in any of these "25 character wishlists" because the last few smash games already covered most of what i wanted, even some series i like but never would have considered for smash.

So at this point all i can ask for is series that either i got into in later years like Yakuza and SRW or another series i didnt consider before Ultimate like Ace Attorney and Digimon.

The major villains could also be options - Mother 1 Giygas might be a bit similar to Mewtwo physically from what little we can see of him, but Porky could potentially work, and while I haven't played Mother 3 (I'm aware of plot details, though), the Masked Man seems like he has potential.

Okay yeah the Masked man would be pretty cool.

 

[Captain Fun]

I think including a character on the basis that the games they’re from are bad is incredibly disrespectful to the creators of those games. I’m also fascinated with bad games, but I think that’s really just tacky and unflattering.

 

[Opossum]

Each time this thread goes through Wishlist season, i just how to do guys are capable of having list at 25+ and then beyond? Doesn't not seem much and leaves one up more to disappointment. Especially depending on how long you been with the series

I can barely come up with 5 actual wants. I already got burned with wanting 2.

Honestly you'd only be left disappointed if you have super unrealistic expectations. I figure for most people, myself included, it's just a list of "I think these would be cool if they got in" and not a list of twenty five "if they're not in I'm not buying" characters.

Like, a while ago I did a top twelve list of characters I'd like to see make it, and maybe a third of them have any sort of realistic shot, and only like two of them have a shot I'd call remotely "good," but at the end of the day, my wants are not dictated by my expectations.

 

[Oracle Link]

The major villains could also be options - Mother 1 Giygas might be a bit similar to Mewtwo physically from what little we can see of him, but Porky could potentially work, and while I haven't played Mother 3 (I'm aware of plot details, though), the Masked Man seems like he has potential.

As someone who has watched 3 playthroughs of mother 3 ill think considering what a fun game smash is, Making masked man playable might be pretty messed up! Thats the same reason why playble porky should be his younger version instead of his mother 3 version!
Ususally every character in smash including Villains is feed the "Sympathetic Juice" which makes the character more fit for a fighting game
And Masked man is the one character were you cant really do that!

Spoiler: Mother 3

And i mean claus is already a lucas skin he even has specifically a masked man skin!

 

[BritishGuy54]

I know its somewhat believable but the fact that the same franchises get Character AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN is extremly frustrating!
Pokemon, Fire Emblem and Mario should take a break and Zelda, kirby or heck do an Earthbound rep!
The kirby situation wouldnt even be an issue if we had a good kirby fighters aka having tons of diffrent kirby characters instead of just kirby 30 times!

To be fair, some make sense to get new fighters. Pokémon, Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, and yes, Earthbound, all fall into the ‘rotating cast’ section. Just one character from these franchises can’t represent every protagonist, because they either aren’t recurring, or do recur, but are vastly different from their original appearance.

Some like Earthbound, have relatively similar abilities, and only three main entries, while for PokémonFire Emblem (and likely Xenoblade), there’s way more to pull from, both with the amount of games, and possible character movesets, and abilities. I bet if the series continued beyond Mother 3, people would be complaining about too many psychic children on the roster akin the ‘too many swordsmen’ argument.

Mario is just… Mario. Of course people know Mario characters. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the best selling game on Switch. We’ve had Mario Wonder, Odyssey, ports of Wii U games, and recent remakes of classic RPGs. There’s a lot of characters to choose from, and it likely won’t be Waluigi or Geno.

Mario also isn’t even on the list, so I’m unsure where you got that from besides the current selection of characters.

The problem with a new Zelda character, is that the series is trying to be both recurring, and rotating. It’s the weird in-between of a franchise like Mario, and a franchise like Fire Emblem. Choosing one character, and a specific incarnation of them, would be hard to do. The only realistic choice right now for a new face is Impa, but that’s likely just one incarnation.

In terms of the Kirby issue, you kind of explained it yourself.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

So a random thought, does anyone ever wonder how they would go about handling Yakuza in Smash bros?

A lot of the characters designs are just the digitized faces of their voice actors so it would make making spirits or trophies kinda difficult. Granted that doesnt apply to all the characters but still its something i think about.

 

[Schnee117]

I never said I wanted Bubsy because of his redeeming qualities (which there are, do not get me wrong - no game has no redeeming qualities, and there's a lot to love about the Bubsy games if you look hard enough - especially 3D considering its historical context) - I explicitly said I wanted Bubsy because his games are considered legendarily bad, because I think that is an accomplishment which should be celebrated.

Releasing a series of especially reviled games is not an accomplishment anyone wants nor one that warrants celebrating.

And like, if there was a crossover fighter themed on being "a celebration of cinema history", could you really argue against including The Room? or all the 60s B-movies?

Yes, very easily. Particularly when there's hundreds upon hundreds of other movies actually worth celebrating between noir, Westerns, musicals, Kaiju, 80/90s action movies, horror, Star Wars, superhero movies, war flicks, spy movies, samurai movies, gangster movies, sci-fi, epics, fantasy and so on between both live action and animation. There is a long way to go before we start digging at the dregs like The Room or Rebel Moon or Thankskilling or anything from The Asylum. The 60's is a major era but you simply just... add the 60's B-movies that stood out by actually being good like Easy Rider or the movies that followed and embraced what was the Exploitation genre (which in itself was so incredibly broad that you get Exorcist and American Graffiti under the same umbrella here).

Honestly you'd only be left disappointed if you have super unrealistic expectations. I figure for most people, myself included, it's just a list of "I think these would be cool if they got in" and not a list of twenty five "if they're not in I'm not buying" characters.

Like, a while ago I did a top twelve list of characters I'd like to see make it, and maybe a third of them have any sort of realistic shot, and only like two of them have a shot I'd call remotely "good," but at the end of the day, my wants are not dictated by my expectations.

Yeah like... I don't expect Under Night to get anything, much less someone that isn't the main character nor do I expect Umineko to get anything or for FE to go back and add Edelgard or opt for a different new pick like Timerra. I certainly don't expect all of them at once. It's just a selection of 25 characters I think would be particularly neat and it's not like they're the only ones I want. Ryu Hayabusa would be cool, so would Geese Howard and Urbosa and Sidon and Kratos and so on. But there was a limit and they weren't able to fit in.

 

[Oracle Link]

In terms of the Kirby issue, you kind of explained it yourself.

I wont go over the rest because i dont wanna start another big disscusion
But Kirby has a lot of recurring Characters or atleast 2:
Bandana dee and Magolor!
The "kirby Fighters" I mentioned arent character but the game Kirby Fighters which has this roster:

the one in the middle is dedede
Meanwhile kirby star allies (same engine)

Has these plus 20 Abilitys that can be used as either Kirby or an unique enemy!
So kirby has characters its just that kirby fighters has only 6 of them!

 

[Will]

It’s the most iconic glitch character but the real question comes down the whole idea of creating a character that’s intentionally is a design mess
It would be unlike anything seen in a fighting game as it’s a manifestation of glitch as a character

It isn’t a character, though. It’s just a glitch. You can pretend like it’s both, but it ain’t. The closest “glitch” Pokémon I can think of off the top of my head is Rotom with the way it possesses electronics.

I don’t know if Smash could even have a character like that, and MissingNo wouldn’t be the apt choice for that style imo. Crazy Hand glitching the fight around you sounds unfair in the most Smash Bros way possible, but that’s the only application I can think of.

 

[Opossum]

It isn’t a character, though. It’s just a glitch. You can pretend like it’s both, but it ain’t.

The closest “glitch” Pokémon I can think of off the top of my head is Rotom with the way it possesses electronics.

Technically I think Porygon-Z would be closer, but still lmao. Either way, it's a Gen IV Mon with a pointy head that floats. :V

 

[Will]

Technically I think Porygon-Z would be closer, but still lmao. Either way, it's a Gen IV Mon with a pointy head that floats. :V

I knew I was forgetting someone. How could I forget Mr. Epilepsy?

 

[Schnee117]

So a random thought, does anyone ever wonder how they would go about handling Yakuza in Smash bros?

A lot of the characters designs are just the digitized faces of their voice actors so it would make making spirits or trophies kinda difficult. Granted that doesnt apply to all the characters but still its something i think about.

You negotiate for who you can really.
They'd definitely try to get a spirit for Kuze but there's no need to use Tanimura from 4 or Hanawa from Judgment and you definitely aren't getting Yagami. But I think there's also enough characters to where this isn't a concern. Majima, Saejima, Ichiban, Joon-Gi Han, Daigo, Watase, Haruka, Sayama, Nishiki, Nanba, Saeko, Adachi, Seon-hee, Mine, Aizawa, Kaito, Higashi and Ryo Aoki plus any of their Samurai counterparts are a more than sufficient enough selection for LaD spirits.

 

[Oracle Link]

So anyways heres my:
5 things for Smash 6 wishlist (thats not to specific to avoid the big sad)
1. A new Zelda Character (Probably Impa)
2. A new Kirby Character (probably BWD)
3. Something cool from undertale perhaps?
4. No Kirby Cuts!
5. Some kind of Smol Link for me to play!
I dont really ask for more?!

 

[Garteam]

It depends on the game.
A bad game like Shadow the Hedgehog has redeeming qualities.
A bad game like Bubsy has nothing about it that could be considered a redeeming quality by any sane individual.

As someone who has beaten the first two Bubsy games and Shadow the Hedgehog, I'd honestly much rather play Bubsy 1 or 2 if I had to go back and complete them or Shadow again. The only Bubsy game that I would say is definitely worse than Shadow is Bubsy 3-D, which is genuinely terrible.

Both Shadow and Bubsy actually have pretty similar faults (slippery controls, uninspired level design, poor camera placement, cringe attempts to be cool), but Bubsy has a far greater respect for the player's time than Shadow. Bubsy is a relatively short experience that can be knocked out in an afternoon by just going through the levels as you would any other platformer. Shadow, in contrast, wants the player to replay the game 10 ****ing times by constantly repeating levels and giving the player new objectives that those levels were clearly not designed around. That alone turns Shadow into an obnoxious 50+ hour commitment that is much worse than the sum of its parts. I'd rather be punched in the face once than be punched in the face 20 times.

I don't want Bubsy in Smash either and I don't think there's a good case for his inclusion, but there's really no reason to pretend like the series was basically annual rereleases of ET on the Atari 2600. You have to give the devil his due, even if the nicest thing you can say about him is "he's usually just generically mediocre".

 

[Will]

So a random thought, does anyone ever wonder how they would go about handling Yakuza in Smash bros?

A lot of the characters designs are just the digitized faces of their voice actors so it would make making spirits or trophies kinda difficult. Granted that doesnt apply to all the characters but still its something i think about.

1. Hell yes
2. Doesn’t matter how
3.

Throw Yagami and Kasuga too, I don’t care. I ****ing love these games.

 

[Ivander]

I knew I was forgetting someone. How could I forget Mr. Epilepsy?

Is that you, Pikachu? Still shifting the blame?

 

[Will]

Is that you, Pikachu? Still shifting the blame?

A good detective knows how to shift the blame.

 

[Guynamednelson]

A good detective knows how to shift the blame.

It's so shifted they don't know Nurse Joy's the real culprit.

 

[CapitaineCrash]

The problem with a new Zelda character, is that the series is trying to be both recurring, and rotating. It’s the weird in-between of a franchise like Mario, and a franchise like Fire Emblem. Choosing one character, and a specific incarnation of them, would be hard to do. The only realistic choice right now for a new face is Impa, but that’s likely just one incarnation.

I'd argue you could make a very strong case for Sidon even if he's not as reccuring as Impa. First, he's the only Botw champions to come back in Totk, which for Zelda standard appearing in 2 games is already pretty big, especially with a fairly similar design so there's no debate with which version to go. He's also hugely popular, I always see fanarts of him despite that I'm not really part of the Zelda fandom.

 

[fogbadge]

Star Wars

I thought you said worth celebrating

 

[Louie G.]

I don't think there's a very strong case for any new Mother characters, but Porky is the obvious choice if they wanted to. I can't say I'm very confident in Lucas returning, but it would be nice if they were able to add a rival / antagonist character who works as a foil to both protagonists simultaneously. Not to mention the spider mech would just lend itself to a super cool moveset.

He's definitely one of my most wanted first party characters but for now I'm just hoping the series returns with even a fraction of the content it had in Ultimate. At least bring him back as a boss, kind of odd to me that we didn't see him return in any fashion. Not even formally as a spirit outside of the Absolutely Safe Capsule lol - if you ask me he should have evolved into it rather than being excluded outright.

 

[Sucumbio]

Wait Rebel Moon sucks? No! I will still watch it. Thus the conundrum of the Bubsy phenomenon is laid bare.

 

[SPEN18]

With Mother, I don't think there's a shortage of material to pull from, and you could make the psychic kids pretty different if you wanted to spend the resources on it, but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter what kind of cast it has because it's one of the smallest series on the roster. Fans are extremely fortunate to have as much as we've gotten from Mother, and going forward I'd be happy just to keep at least one rep for it (and much of the great auxiliary representation we have). Despite being a big fan of the games, I'm not really asking for more from Mother; the series has its share of acknowledgment I feel, and so I'm happy to focus on other series rather than go 3-4 characters deep with Mother. Don't get me wrong, Porky is cool and all, but I can't see him or another Mother rep being a priority for the devs and in this case I'm fine with that, again despite being a big fan.

Kirby, yeah, has the same issue with Zelda in that it has a small cast of characters who appear all the time, and the rest are mostly one-off types. That said, I wouldn't say the prospects for future Kirby reps are hopeless. Dee undoubtedly got a lot of votes on the Ballot and has now joined the more recurring cast, while Magolor also likely got noticeable Ballot votes and the folks at HAL seem to care about him and Dee. We've also not exhausted the Sakurai-era Kirby material if the alleged "Sak-bias" becomes an issue; Sakurai cared enough about Marx to make him a boss in Ult, and I actually think Marx in particular translates very well to Smash.

 

[Gengar84]

The way I see it, having a lot of wants makes it easier to be happy with what we do get. For example, if my only want for Smash Ultimate was Waluigi, I would have been extremely disappointed when he was revealed to be an assist trophy. However, there were quite a few characters that I wanted to see - Ridley, K. Rool, Geno, Doomguy, Dante from the Devil May Cry series, Banjo and Kazooie...

Sure, all of them might not have made it in, but I was extremely satisfied with the ones that did, which helped a lot in the long run and softened the blow for the ones that didn't get in.

I probably have more wants than most people here. Unfortunately, many of my most wanted are pretty unlikely so even though there are easily 50+ on my list, it’s totally feasible that I don’t get any of them. Thankfully, I’m pretty cool with almost anyone and I can still enjoy characters that weren’t specifically on my list.

 

[CapitaineCrash]

The discussion about "bad games" made me think of something. Do you guys think that games that have shutdown should get representation? The franchise I specifically have in mind is Dragalia lost. While it was never a front runner by any means, I remember it had a fair bit of support in Ultimate Dlc era. But now that the game has shut down, I wonder where do we go from here. Do we still represent it because it's part of Nintendo history or we just forget it?

Another weird case in Ultimate is the Minecraft Earth music. The game shutdown less than a year after the Steve Dlc. Do we keep this music or we remove it? The same goes with Fire emblem heroes content. The game is doing fine, but there will sure come a day that servers will have to shutdown.

 

[Louie G.]

"Want" is a pretty loose term for me. I vaguely want a lot of characters, who I think would have cool potential and I'd be generally happy to see revealed. And then there's the characters I would consider my most wanted, who are generally the only ones I'll actively bring up when people ask me who I want to see in Smash. I passively want as many fun and interesting characters as possible but there aren't many of them that would have me jumping out of my seat in excitement, and ready to pick up day one.

The characters I'm INVESTED in are:
Chorus Kids / Rhythm Heaven character
Arle Nadja
Sans
Chun-Li and / or Morrigan
...Marx maybe?

Anyone else is pretty superfluous, casual desire or well enough outside the realm of what I believe is possible where I haven't humored the thought too much. Like, Marina Liteyears is a pipe dream pick of mine but I don't even know who the hell OWNS her. Otherwise going into this next game I'm trying to stay a little more ambivalent and unbiased in my judgement, even though I feel like some of these aforementioned characters have a good shot.

 

[HyperSomari64]

The game is doing fine, but there will sure come a day that servers will have to shutdown.

Wait till FEH makes a Collab with Xenoblade, that's the only way the game will shutdown.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

The discussion about "bad games" made me think of something. Do you guys think that games that have shutdown should get representation? The franchise I specifically have in mind is Dragalia lost. While it was never a front runner by any means, I remember it had a fair bit of support in Ultimate Dlc era. But now that the game has shut down, I wonder where do we go from here. Do we still represent it because it's part of Nintendo history or we just forget it?

Another weird case in Ultimate is the Minecraft Earth music. The game shutdown less than a year after the Steve Dlc. Do we keep this music or we remove it? The same goes with Fire emblem heroes content. The game is doing fine, but there will sure come a day that servers will have to shutdown.

Well they did put a swap note assist trophy into the game, so they kinda already did put something from abandoned media.

 

[Sucumbio]

Prince of Persia is darn iconic and industry, shoot genre defining and should be in Smash. That is all.

 

[Will]

Prince of Persia is darn iconic and industry, shoot genre defining and should be in Smash. That is all.

I agree. I just forget he exists, just like King Graham and other PC Gaming revolutionaries

 

[Sucumbio]

I agree. I just forget he exists, just like King Graham and other PC Gaming revolutionaries

Not your fault, it's Ubisoft for taking sands of time's popularity and turning him into... Assassin's Creed. Doh! But it's a new game next year so actually yeah let's go!

 

[AlRex]

Ultimately, my real thought is that seeing a “bad” game character get in would be funny and people take things way too seriously.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Ultimately, my real thought is that seeing a “bad” game character get in would be funny and people take things way too seriously.

At the same time, if you're going to act like Smash's standards are supposed to be too high for Banjo and Geno, don't be surprised when people wonder how Bubsy could align with them.

 

[Gorgonzales]

Ultimately, my real thought is that seeing a “bad” game character get in would be funny and people take things way too seriously.

If it was like Morshu or King Harkinian or something then I guarantee most people would be on board, since they're not only popular characters (albeit through memes) but affiliated with Nintendo in the first place. They'd fit in as wacky picks with the likes of R.O.B. and Wii Fit. It'd be cool to see the series poke fun at some of the more unsuccessful parts of Nintendo's history.

Speaking of "bad game" reps, I think having an edutaiment game rep would be unironically really funny, like Putt Putt or I. M. Meen.

 

[Schnee117]

It's all well and good going "but they'd be funny tho" until you realise the character is also taking a spot from a character you would have actually wanted once the funny factor wears off after a few weeks.

 

[Guynamednelson]

I guarantee most people would be on board, since they're not only popular characters (albeit through memes) but affiliated with Nintendo in the first place.

This thread isn't a wretched hive of Nintendo fanboyism just because people were shooting down Bubsy and wondering how the hell he was more "worthy" than Banjo and Geno. Besides, we aren't on board with Harkinian and Morshu anyway, since there's no point when that would require Nintendo to acknowledge the CDI games.

 

[Noipoi]

Wait a second, I float in and out of this thread but-

Did someone really say that Bubsy freakin’ Bobcat deserves to be in Smash more than Banjo?

First of all I hate using the term deserves in these discussions, and second of all-

Why

 

[Gorgonzales]

It's all well and good going "but they'd be funny tho" until you realise the character is also taking a spot from a character you would have actually wanted once the funny factor wears off after a few weeks.

Funny factor is temporary, but gameplay is forever. You could put Greenfist from Wario World into the game for all I care as long as he's genuinely fun to play. I took issue with Incinerorar's inclusion when he was first revealed, but now he's practically my favorite character in the game because he's so well-designed and is an absolute blast to use in casual and competitive.

 

[Nabbitfan730]

Ultimately, my real thought is that seeing a “bad” game character get in would be funny and people take things way too seriously.

I sort get that Wario guy reasoning for wanting a bad character but honestly, kinda dislike the mentality of wanting characters to just troll or just needlessly chaos within the community. Not only it's tiring and irratating for discourse, like the others said, when the "funny" fades, you left with choice with no substance behind it.

 

[AlRex]

It's all well and good going "but they'd be funny tho" until you realise the character is also taking a spot from a character you would have actually wanted once the funny factor wears off after a few weeks.

Every character that people dislike can be said to take up a slot already, and there are several who already say it.

Also, Ice Climbers and ROB are not necessarily great as games, but are still included for some kind of importance or uniqueness factor or both.