Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Wunderwaft]

Since SMT V is just a few days away from release I guess I'll ask, how do you all feel about SMT getting a fighter in the next game?

 

[Oracle Link]

Since SMT V is just a few days away from release I guess I'll ask, how do you all feel about SMT getting a fighter in the next game?

whats smt?

 

[Geno Boost]

Since SMT V is just a few days away from release I guess I'll ask, how do you all feel about SMT getting a fighter in the next game?

If it’s Jack Frost I would be excited but if it’s someone else then i wouldnt be interested
I only played Jack Bros. through emulator and it was fun so that’s my experience with SMT series so far

 

[JOJONumber691]

Since SMT V is just a few days away from release I guess I'll ask, how do you all feel about SMT getting a fighter in the next game?

Another one of those series I can’t see getting a Fighter ever.

 

[Sucumbio]

whats smt?

Shin Megami Tensei V

 

[Oracle Link]

Shin Megami Tensei V

ahh ok!

 

[Delzethin]

Yeah, to use the Daisy thread specifically, a lot of it was also like, the same few people making a ton of posts and using it like a social thread (with two of the most prolific posters even ending up being the same person). The social thread aspect also impacted threads like the Geno thread, which at times seemed more like a general leaks thread.

Another thing to keep in mind is that using this as a show of support levels negatively and disproportionately impacts Waluigi, whose thread was closed by the owner of the thread after the Assist confirmation, only to be reopened for DLC, and then closed again after they deleted their account, so the thread got straight up rebooted.

While it's true that we can't rely on the list to judge how much support each character had for the reasons you touched on, we can at least look at the big picture. For all speculation started to revolve around big name third parties and collecting as many "icons" as possible as time went on, the support threads on this site covered a much more varied spread of characters. In fact, an actual majority of them--26 of the 50 biggest threads--were first party.

I'm unsure yet how to interpret this data. I noticed a lot of the third party characters on the list got outright deconfirmed (or soft deconfirmed via AT), so my theory at the moment is that people who had their most wanted characters deconfirmed went with the flow and started following whichever characters were being talked about most--or loudest--at the time. Might explain a few ways the community as a whole acted as DLC went on.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

TFW Neku didn’t even make top 50 in that list tho

hell I don’t even see 2B despite NieR Automata being a mega hit, or Crono despite him being the only member of Seven Squares who was totally absent

 

[Guynamednelson]

While it's true that we can't rely on the list to judge how much support each character had for the reasons you touched on, we can at least look at the big picture. For all speculation started to revolve around big name third parties and collecting as many "icons" as possible as time went on, the support threads on this site covered a much more varied spread of characters. In fact, an actual majority of them--26 of the 50 biggest threads--were first party.

I'm unsure yet how to interpret this data. I noticed a lot of the third party characters on the list got outright deconfirmed (or soft deconfirmed via AT), so my theory at the moment is that people who had their most wanted characters deconfirmed went with the flow and started following whichever characters were being talked about most--or loudest--at the time. Might explain a few ways the community as a whole acted as DLC went on.

Weren't most of those threads mainly active during the base game anyway?

If anything, this shows why character threads are necessary regardless, so you can help build support for characters that aren't the safest choices.

 

[Oracle Link]

I would say dixie is only so high because shes the last really highly requested DK Char BWD has to fight with magolor, marx and Galacta!

 

[WeirdChillFever]

I would say dixie is only so high because shes the last really highly requested DK Char BWD has to fight with magolor, marx and Galacta!

BWD had the almost unanimous support of the Kirby fandom and all of the momentum that entails since base game Smash 4. If the boy can’t keep up now, that’s on him.
Dixie Kong‘s fanbase first focussed on K. Rool, then Banjo-Kazooie and even had Funky Kong thrown around as an Echo. BWD’s “fight” with Magolor in contrast is like the fight between Waluigi and Birdo. It’s super disingenious to discredit Dixie’s position as “only so high” for something that applies much more to BWD

 

[Wonder Smash]

I don't doubt that doom is an iconic game by itself; however no one can deny that there are bigger FPS series that are much more recognizable to the general gaming audience. Those factors have always trumped legacy as a factor when it comes to whoever gets in first for their respective genres - just look at how they chose
1. FF7 over FF1-6 and DQ, despite the former being the first RPG. And even if you look at it down the road, the DQ3 hero was prioritized over 1-2 because that entry is the most recognizable/commercially successful.
2. Street fighter over any other fighting game (and how the bulk of content came from 2, not the first SF despite "legacy")
3. Persona over SMT even through the latter is much more closely associated with nintendo
There's many more examples, and we did get multiple reps from different genres in the end so it doesn't really matter. But it's pretty clear they would go for bigger fish first than doom.

All of this kind of falls flat when you realize that DOOM is not only one of the bigger franchises in the genre (it's not a matter of which one is bigger in this case) but also one that already has content in Smash, where as the other "bigger" series don't have anything. Also, if you do want to go by that logic, Tekken should have been represented before Fatal Fury, since it's the much more bigger fighting game series.

Also i thought we were done with the need for the nintendo connection? Especially given how they chose Snake/Cloud/Joker? You're probably going to point out that they had games on a nintendo console, but i can guarantee you Nintendo didn't choose joker on the basis of PQ2. Characters have been chosen despite only having cameos so i don't see what's different here.

It doesn't matter what you assume what they were thinking when they added Joker, the fact remains that prior to appearing in Smash, he and the others all had some connections to Nintendo in some way. Halo has none and that's a big difference that can't be denied.

And mii costumes doesn't mean anything for playability status either cough geno/lloyd It could equally mean that Nintendo sees it as sufficient and doesn't want to pursue any more content!

Which doesn't make any sense. There's no reason for Nintendo just suddenly not want to pursue more content from an iconic and influential series like DOOM, otherwise, they wouldn't have went so far as to make a Mii costume for him (which is the second best thing to being playable). They could have done something far less than that. But the fact that DOOM got something like that in Smash while the "bigger" Halo got nothing does say something. It shows they respect a series legacy more than you think.

 

[DarthEnderX]

Here's something to chew on for a bit:

Thought it might be fun to organize the newcomer speculation threads on Smashboards by post count to see which of the Smash Bros. Ultimate potential newcomers that didn't make it were the most talked about pic.twitter.com/12zqp9qkN1

— David Krane (@8bit_Snazzy) November 8, 2021

Obviously, Smashboards isn't completely representative of the general population, but I thought this was something interesting to share regardless.

I also think a better indicator than post count would be unique users.

Since SMT V is just a few days away from release I guess I'll ask, how do you all feel about SMT getting a fighter in the next game?

Fine. Though I'd prefer new franchises over a 2nd MegaTen rep.

 

[Wunderwaft]

whats smt?

Shin Megami Tensei, it's a series created by Atlus that centers around collecting demons and fusing them to make stronger demons. Think of it as Pokemon but with demons. The series was the earliest known monster catching game, essentially being the grand daddy of the genre. Persona is a spin-off of this series but funnily enough it grew to become more popular than the mainline series.

If it’s Jack Frost I would be excited but if it’s someone else then i wouldnt be interested
I only played Jack Bros. through emulator and it was fun so that’s my experience with SMT series so far

Jack would be based, but I don't think it's gonna be him. My money on the character pick is Demi-Fiend considering how much of a fan favorite he is, and also how Atlus likes to use him as a super boss in their games every now and then.

Another one of those series I can’t see getting a Fighter ever.

How so?

 

[ZelDan]

Here's something to chew on for a bit:

Thought it might be fun to organize the newcomer speculation threads on Smashboards by post count to see which of the Smash Bros. Ultimate potential newcomers that didn't make it were the most talked about pic.twitter.com/12zqp9qkN1

— David Krane (@8bit_Snazzy) November 8, 2021

Obviously, Smashboards isn't completely representative of the general population, but I thought this was something interesting to share regardless.

The issue I have with this is that it ONLY shows what the results are at the very end, when things have changed around during the 3 years of speculation and circumstances have changed throughout those years.

I mean, there was a time during base game speculation and very early DLC speculation where the Isaac thread was seriously crushing both the Geno thread and Shantae thread, but then Isaac got AT'd which substantially squandered his discussion, and then the Geno thread...well you know, and Shantae would eventually get a new game announced with Seven Sirens which would boost their discussion/speculation.

So Isaac being below those 2 characters doesn't necessarily mean he is less popular, but just that things lined up more poorly for him compared to Geno and Shantae.

 

[Yamat08]

The issue I have with this is that it ONLY shows what the results are at the very end, when things have changed around during the 3 years of speculation and circumstances have changed throughout those years.

I mean, there was a time during base game speculation and very early DLC speculation where the Isaac thread was seriously crushing both the Geno thread and Shantae thread, but then Isaac got AT'd which substantially squandered his discussion, and then the Geno thread...well you know, and Shantae would eventually get a new game announced with Seven Sirens which would boost their discussion/speculation.

So Isaac being below those 2 characters doesn't necessarily mean he is less popular, but just that things lined up more poorly for him compared to Geno and Shantae.

To be fair, getting 3rd place is still exceptionally well. Ashley and Skull Kid also did pretty great despite getting the Trophy confirmation prior to release.

 

[Calamitas]

(i dont really count elma after all we got 2 other xenoblade reps! and i think her and ashley got costumes!)

She didn't. Only Xenoblade Mii costumes in Smash are from 1 and 2. All X has in the game are five Spirits.

 

[ForsakenM]

So theoretically, on paper, this is a good way to determine some idea of support for these characters. There are some factors to consider that don't really help out, but honestly this is about to as good as you can get it.

Obviously, us Geno fans blew it out of the park. Even if the Geno Thread hadn't become Leak Speculation 2.0, the fact that at one point everyday we were telling haters to shut up and that Geno's chances were still good counts as support and makes it so we would have trounced every other thread anyway. In that weird way, we can thank the haters for bringing out the support in us, even if it wasn't healthy.

What is more sad is that you really can never do something like this with this site again because of how much activity had been lost since then. You would be better off focusing on other sites from here on out, which is sad because well, this site is Smash-focused.

Also, anyone who says a thread getting closed makes it an unfair factor can blame staff or the OP, but the guy doing the data here can only do so much with that. However, if the thread was still open even after an AT of costume, then having less post is the fault of that community and no one else. It's just proof that they let something like that slow them down massively when that train should have kept going no matter what. Had the Geno Thread not gotten locked so abruptly, there was at least two or three whole pages of people settling down and deciding to keep fighting for Geno, so I'm pretty sure we would have kept chugging even if there was going to be some amount of exodus.

It's why I'm glad this took the numbers from the original thread as they are more accurate overall.

Gotta love that Geno in that Twitter thread either doesn't get talked about, of gets some sort of negative comment. The comment about it being a second newcomer thread is fine, but saying Geno is just a meme or that he didn't deserve as many posts (which implies not deserving support) is kinda sad. Glad to know that even after Ultimate is over people are still toxic af when it comes to character inclusions. It's what brings this community down and keeps people out of it while losing people from it, but no one will ever learn.

 

[Wonder Smash]

Here's something to chew on for a bit:

Thought it might be fun to organize the newcomer speculation threads on Smashboards by post count to see which of the Smash Bros. Ultimate potential newcomers that didn't make it were the most talked about pic.twitter.com/12zqp9qkN1

— David Krane (@8bit_Snazzy) November 8, 2021

Obviously, Smashboards isn't completely representative of the general population, but I thought this was something interesting to share regardless.

Glad to see Ryu Hayabusa high on that list.

Not surprised that there's no Billy and Jimmy Lee on it.

But one thing I don't understand is how in the world did Reimu become such a big talk? I knew nothing about her or her series until all these Smash discussions start happening.

 

[Yamat08]

Glad to see Ryu Hayabusa high on that list.

Not surprised that there's no Billy and Jimmy Lee on it.

But one thing I don't understand is how the world did Reimu become such a big talk? I knew nothing about her or her series until all these Smash discussions start happening.

Touhou is a MASSIVE franchise over in Japan. It's not as well known in the west, but that shouldn't have been an issue ever since Fire Emblem was featured in Melee (and now that Touhou has some official releases in English, many saw that as only increasing her odds).

 

[Wonder Smash]

Touhou is a MASSIVE franchise over in Japan. It's not as well known in the west, but that shouldn't have been an issue ever since Fire Emblem was featured in Melee (and now that Touhou has some official releases in English, many saw that as only increasing her odds).

Well that's kind of different since Fire Emblem is a Nintendo series.

It's all the more reason why I find it strange. Seeing how big Touhou is in Japan compared to everywhere else, I just didn't expect the Smash fanbase (outside of Japan) to know that much about a series like that.

 

[SKX31]

Things like slows, slips and stuns are really unfun to deal with in a fighting game, and an ice-themed fighter would have to be extremely balanced around these concepts carefully.

It can work - Sub-Zero's style proves that point since AFAIK he's not been considered overpowered in recent MK games - but for me it comes down to a number of factors:

If the ice freezes / stuns, how consistent or dangerous are the follow-ups? can start their zero-to-deaths off of Blizzard (whether it freezes or not), but it's not only dependent on when the opponent exits the deep freeze; the most consistent set up requires an up tilt -> footstool to begin with into the ICies' combos. As one might expect, it's expert ICies that most often do this, and I don't think it's entirely consistent. likewise has a few potential followups from Blizzaga, although those require a good sense of timing (U-Air, U-Smash, F-Smash). The point is, I don't think freezes / stuns will be that much of an issue provided that the follow ups are not consistently overpowering per se. Also, ICies are balanced out by a mediocre-at-the-very-best neutral, Sora and Hero don't have access to theirs all the time and Lucas' PK Freeze is telegraphed.

EDIT: Hero's Kacrackle Slash comes out fast but has a lot of endlag, Lucas PK Freeze can snipe edges - but not only is it telegraphed it also isn't that spammable.

Slips / trips can be fine if incredibly potent - I mean, most people don't have an issue with 's Peel even as it's considered incredibly useful if mastered. RNG Tripping is less well-recieved to say the least - partly because RNG tripping doesn't make people on the couch laugh while it also tells the player "sometimes you get a combo, sometimes you don't" ( 's D-Tilt as an example). For me it'll depend entirely on how the slips / tripping is implemented - assuming the ice covers the terrain briefly, one way to implement it would be that if an opponent steps on the ice traction decreases noticeably (but not too much, otherwise turning would become a major hassle) while a trip would happen ca. 0.5 - 1 second afterwards; giving the opponent time to jump or say shield / dodge the trip "hit" and introducing a counterplay tree.

Slows are the tricky part though, especially since mobility is such a major part of the series and a spammable slow could if refreshed theoretically wreck both casual and competitive games. If an ice related slow were to be introduced, it might be for the best if it has a "thawing" effect attached (where speed is regained bit by bit), have it function kinda like PK Freeze where it's not directly spammable, and / or include a cooldown to the slow.

It's all the more reason why I find it strange. Seeing how big Touhou is in Japan compared to everywhere else, I just didn't expect the Smash fanbase (outside of Japan) to know about a series like that that much.

It doesn't really sound that surprising, considering that:

1. There is a decently-sized anime / manga fanbase in the West, which extends to games that follow that general style.
2. As an extension to the above, the Western Nintendo / Smash fanbases do include a segment who are very interested in games primarily or exclusively released in Japan. There are some exceptions (I don't think most Nintendo fans are interested in Knives Out being popular there - including on the Switch - since Knives Out is mainly a mobile PUBG) but it contributed to the initially warm reception to Marth and Roy in Melee as well as several JP-exclusive characters gaining decent traction here. Such as Takamaru and Ayumi Tachibana.
3. Touhou has long attributed its success on word of mouth and the creator allowing fans to do a lot with the franchise. Word of mouth spread over to English speaking sites and the relative freedom has allowed fan translations to thrive.

 

[Oracle Link]

So theoretically, on paper, this is a good way to determine some idea of support for these characters. There are some factors to consider that don't really help out, but honestly this is about to as good as you can get it.

Obviously, us Geno fans blew it out of the park. Even if the Geno Thread hadn't become Leak Speculation 2.0, the fact that at one point everyday we were telling haters to shut up and that Geno's chances were still good counts as support and makes it so we would have trounced every other thread anyway. In that weird way, we can thank the haters for bringing out the support in us, even if it wasn't healthy.

What is more sad is that you really can never do something like this with this site again because of how much activity had been lost since then. You would be better off focusing on other sites from here on out, which is sad because well, this site is Smash-focused.

Also, anyone who says a thread getting closed makes it an unfair factor can blame staff or the OP, but the guy doing the data here can only do so much with that. However, if the thread was still open even after an AT of costume, then having less post is the fault of that community and no one else. It's just proof that they let something like that slow them down massively when that train should have kept going no matter what. Had the Geno Thread not gotten locked so abruptly, there was at least two or three whole pages of people settling down and deciding to keep fighting for Geno, so I'm pretty sure we would have kept chugging even if there was going to be some amount of exodus.

It's why I'm glad this took the numbers from the original thread as they are more accurate overall.

Gotta love that Geno in that Twitter thread either doesn't get talked about, of gets some sort of negative comment. The comment about it being a second newcomer thread is fine, but saying Geno is just a meme or that he didn't deserve as many posts (which implies not deserving support) is kinda sad. Glad to know that even after Ultimate is over people are still toxic af when it comes to character inclusions. It's what brings this community down and keeps people out of it while losing people from it, but no one will ever learn.

I still honestly dont get Geno i mean yeah super mario rpg is great but i just never got why Geno is That high! Nothing personal tho!

 

[DarthEnderX]

Touhou is a MASSIVE franchise over in Japan. It's not as well known in the west, but that shouldn't have been an issue ever since Fire Emblem was featured in Melee

Fire Emblem was a 1st party franchise Nintendo wanted to push. Not a 3rd party indie franchise.

 

[Wonder Smash]

It doesn't really sound that surprising, considering that:

1. There is a decently-sized anime / manga fanbase in the West, which extends to games that follow that general style.
2. As an extension to the above, the Western Nintendo / Smash fanbases do include a segment who are very interested in games primarily or exclusively released in Japan. There are some exceptions (I don't think most Nintendo fans are interested in Knives Out being popular there - including on the Switch - since Knives Out is mainly a mobile PUBG) but it contributed to the initially warm reception to Marth and Roy in Melee as well as several JP-exclusive characters gaining decent traction here. Such as Takamaru and Ayumi Tachibana.
3. Touhou has long attributed its success on word of mouth and the creator allowing fans to do a lot with the franchise. Word of mouth spread over to English speaking sites and the relative freedom has allowed fan translations to thrive.

I still don't know about that. I mean, there are people who are interested in games released in Japan but it's kind of hard to believe people going "that character should be in Smash" when they probably never played the game. I never even expected such a character to be discussed this much compared to much more recognizable characters that are actually popular outside of Japan.

In cases like this, I just question people's real intention for saying a character should be in Smash.

 

[Geno Boost]

Yeah. That's when I played it. And it suuuuuucked.

The one song from that game that is currently in Smash is all the recognition that game deserves.

i was looking up more information regarding that series it actually got a sequel back in 2006 it was a mobile game and it was japanese exclusive with 2 playable characters i was trying to look for a way to play it but then i realized its now a lost media and only the soundtrack of that game has been recovered through album that SNK released but damn thats really sad there are only few gameplay of Athena Full Throttle AKA アテナフルスロットル https://www.mobygames.com/game/athena-full-throttle/promo

2009年[平成21年] | PRESS RELEASE | 株式会社SNKプレイモア

SNKプレイモアのゲーム情報サイトです。ゲームに関する最新情報を紹介しています。

game.snk-corp.co.jp

i was also dumb i downloaded a virus thinking the game has been recovered

 

[dream1ng]

Here's something to chew on for a bit:

Thought it might be fun to organize the newcomer speculation threads on Smashboards by post count to see which of the Smash Bros. Ultimate potential newcomers that didn't make it were the most talked about pic.twitter.com/12zqp9qkN1

— David Krane (@8bit_Snazzy) November 8, 2021

Obviously, Smashboards isn't completely representative of the general population, but I thought this was something interesting to share regardless.

This isn't very pertinent considering the amount of extraneous variables like deconfirmations and atypically active users. For instance, Ashley had near as much activity as the K. Rool thread until she was deconfirmed, when it slowed to a crawl.

If every character spent the same amount of time being active, then it'd be more worthwhile, but that's not the case.

This is like sponsoring characters during a marathon. Some participants are going to bow out before others, and then get fewer donations afterwards, whereas those who keep going will continue to get more.

 

[Geno Boost]

I still honestly dont get Geno i mean yeah super mario rpg is great but i just never got why Geno is That high! Nothing personal tho!

Is there a reason to not find him memorable and fun to use?
He is a possessed doll that’s capable of using magic and shoot bullets and a whole fist and huge beam and cause beam to rain and transform into a canon and shoot his star spirit out of the body and can deal 9999 damage with timed hit functionality and the fastest of the party member plus the design is very cool and it’s easy to see how people do find him very memorable and people wants to see more of him and the truth is smash is the only game which would be possible for him to ever appear again
So the real question is where do you want the SMRPG fans to go after that game spawned a big fanbase? Both Nintendo and Square-enix are not doing anything with SMRPG for the past 25 years our only hope is Smash where they can listen to the fans just like they did to Banjo and K. Rool fans

 

[dream1ng]

I still honestly dont get Geno i mean yeah super mario rpg is great but i just never got why Geno is That high! Nothing personal tho!

People find him cool.

You have and will be given other reasons. But that's really all it boils down to. If Geno wasn't in the game, it's not like all this popularity would've defaulted to Mallow.

 

[Shroob]

Welp, looks like events are basically 'done'. They're just going to cycle through old ones.

 

[Idon]

Welp, looks like events are basically 'done'. They're just going to cycle through old ones.

The direspect on SMT smh.

 

[Sucumbio]

Dang r.i.p. sword tournament

 

[ZelDan]

The only reason I ever gave a **** about spirit events is for potential disconfirmations and to see the playing field weeded out for DLC.

Now that we're past DLC and done with the game, nothing of value is really lost for me.

 

[Delzethin]

Well, hopefully this doesn't mean balance patches are done with.

Though considering they'll need to update the game multiple times to make the FP2 amiibo compatible, I wouldn't rule it out. Especially when Smash 4 had two more balance patches after its DLC finished despite immediately going all hands on deck to start Ultimate.

 

[skylanders fan]

Dang r.i.p. sword tournament

There were too many characters so they decided to skip it all together

 

[Sucumbio]

There were too many characters so they decided to skip it all together

Yeah I'll admit when we used to talk about there being a sword wielder tournament my initial reaction was "so everyone basically" lol but I dunno they could have done one. I'd have put money on Roy or Aegis being the most successful of the swords tho.

 

[osby]

There were too many characters so they decided to skip it all together

Sword bad memes aside, the 90s tourney had 27 fighters.

There are like 21 swordfighters in the game, and that's with counting Byleth and Ganondorf.

 

[Lionfranky]

Bandai Namco Taking Jump Force off All Digital Stores This February

www.noobfeed.com

Jump Force launched back in 2019 with a mixed reception. Thanks to constant support the game has more positive reception in the following months but things are coming to an end. With Bandai Namco ending support and taking the game off all digital stores this February 7th, 2022.

Bandai Namco stated that they will halt online service on August 25th and remove the game on all platforms digitally. Players can still access offline play, online battles, and DLC before the date of the sale.

It's an unfortunate reality for many games that use third-party IPs. Many of these titles are taken off digital stores after licenses run their course resulting in the games getting removed.

Another reason why Goku can never join Smash.

 

[Yamat08]

Well, hopefully this doesn't mean balance patches are done with.

Though considering they'll need to update the game multiple times to make the FP2 amiibo compatible, I wouldn't rule it out. Especially when Smash 4 had two more balance patches after its DLC finished despite immediately going all hands on deck to start Ultimate.

Yeah, it would be a shame if they just left it like Smash4, with Cloud and Bayonetta completely breaking the game. Though from the impression I'm getting, Ultimate in its current state isn't even remotely that bad, but maybe somebody who's way more savvy in the competitive scene than I am could give their input on that. At any rate, more fine-tuning couldn't hurt (especially after the final character just dropped).

 

[DarthEnderX]

The only reason I ever gave a **** about spirit events is for potential disconfirmations and to see the playing field weeded out for DLC.

Now that we're past DLC and done with the game, nothing of value is really lost for me.

I mean, now that Fighters are done, I wouldn't complain about some of my MW that got snubbed getting Spirits...