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Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

Stratos

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Another Square Enix character I like is Gex the gecko, who travels the world of television in his video game series.
 

Gengar84

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Speaking of the Embracer Group buyout, they seem to already have plans for their new IPs:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Better hope Gex isn't one of them: I have to deal with those memes enough as is, I don't want him to become the next "meme Smash request"...
That’s awesome news! I’ve been waiting forever for something new from the Legacy of Kain series. I’m curious if there will ever be any plans to cross over Legacy of Kain with Darksiders since they have such similar aesthetics and themes. I think it could at least make for a fun spinoff game. I’ve always loved both series and it’s really interesting that they’re owned by the same company now.

It’s funny that despite how much I love the world and characters in both series, I never got very far in any of the games because I’m just not very good at games. One reason I’d like to see LoK come back is so I can give the series another shot. Darksiders was a ton of fun until I got totally lost in a dungeon and couldn’t figure out how to progress so that would be fun to try again as well.
 
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fogbadge

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I think part of my issue is that there aren’t many main protagonists that match my taste in characters. Smash doesn’t have very many dark or tough type characters.
you mean nintendo doesnt have many characters like that

I like characters like Lulu or Auron but there aren’t a whole lot of main characters that are very similar to those two.
dark? those two? you serious?
 

Gengar84

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you mean nintendo doesnt have many characters like that



dark? those two? you serious?
Lulu is kind of dark (at least aesthetically) and Auron is tough. I didn’t mean to imply that they were each both dark AND tough.
 
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fogbadge

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Lulu is kind of dark (at least aesthetically) and Auron is tough. I didn’t mean to imply that they were each both dark AND tough.
personally I wouldn’t call either of the dark but that could be cause their in a game with a guy who murdered his own father
 

Gengar84

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personally I wouldn’t call either of the dark but that could be cause their in a game with a guy who murdered his own father
That’s true, I was mostly talking about design and tone, not so much backstory. Seymour was awesome too though. I don’t really consider dark and evil to be the same thing. I’d call Vincent Valentine a dark character even though he never did anything evil. Hojo is evil but I wouldn’t say he’s as “dark” as Vincent. I’m not sure if that makes any sense lol.
 
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fogbadge

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That’s true, I was mostly talking about design and tone, not so much backstory. Seymour was awesome too though. I don’t really consider dark and evil to be the same thing. I’d call Vincent Valentine a dark character even though he never did anything evil. Hojo is evil but I wouldn’t say he’s as “dark” as Vincent. I’m not sure if that makes any sense lol.
I wouldn’t say evil and dark are the either

though I’d use edgy for Vincent and do lally for hojo
 

Gengar84

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I wouldn’t say evil and dark are the either

though I’d use edgy for Vincent and do lally for hojo
Yeah, I never really know the word to describe characters with a gothic or dark aesthetic like Lulu, Tharja, Raziel, Vincent, Illidan, Velvet, Death, or other characters. None of them are villains so “dark” might be a bit inaccurate but it’s the best word I can think of to describe them.
 

fogbadge

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Yeah, I never really know the word to describe characters with a gothic or dark aesthetic like Lulu, Tharja, Raziel, Vincent, Illidan, Velvet, Death, or other characters. None of them are villains so “dark” might be a bit inaccurate but it’s the best word I can think of to describe them.
gothic sounds appropriate
 

Ivander

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I wouldn’t say evil and dark are the either

though I’d use edgy for Vincent
Edgy is when the character is trying to sound intimidating, dark, insulting or uncaring because it's "cool" and whatnot, like Shadow the Hedgehog in his own game. In all the main content he's been in, Vincent is far far from edgy. He's much more a horror-themed character, with maybe a bit of gothic mixed in.
 

fogbadge

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Edgy is when the character is trying to sound intimidating, dark, insulting or uncaring because it's "cool" and whatnot, like Shadow the Hedgehog in his own game. In all the main content he's been in, Vincent is far far from edgy. He's much more a horror-themed character, with maybe a bit of gothic mixed in.
i always took edgy to mean moody
 

SPEN18

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Some fairly random questions to maybe generate some different discussion:

If, hypothetically, Lucas had to be unique and couldn't be a clone, then would you rather have him or another Mother character like Porky as a second unique Mother rep (assuming we had to have a second)?

How would you feel about a hypothetical double-reveal with two newcomers (you may consider the possibilities of either two uniques OR one unique and one clone) for one of the "bigger" first party series that has very few reps, like say Animal Crossing or Splatoon?
 

fogbadge

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Some fairly random questions to maybe generate some different discussion:

If, hypothetically, Lucas had to be unique and couldn't be a clone, then would you rather have him or another Mother character like Porky as a second unique Mother rep (assuming we had to have a second)?

How would you feel about a hypothetical double-reveal with two newcomers (you may consider the possibilities of either two uniques OR one unique and one clone) for one of the "bigger" first party series that has very few reps, like say Animal Crossing or Splatoon?
lucas is unique
 

CrusherMania1592

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Crash missed the biggest opportunity in Ultimate. Not giving up on my boy for 20+ years
 

Chuderz

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Some have assumed that only characters from Japanese video games come in the Super Smash Bros. series. Banjo, Kazooie and Steve are Microsoft video game characters who as we all know are not a Japanese company and yet they came to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as DLC newcomer characters. So I can not rule out a video game character that is not of a Japanese company.
It's not that speculators have ruled them out completely but it's just a rather high bar they have to clear that Japanese characters don't have to for the most part. Basically something exclusively popular abroad (outside of Japan) won't be seen as a valid reason for inclusion, at least on its own whereas sometimes regional popularity (within Japan) can be the entire reason a Japanese character gets in.

Some fairly random questions to maybe generate some different discussion:

If, hypothetically, Lucas had to be unique and couldn't be a clone, then would you rather have him or another Mother character like Porky as a second unique Mother rep (assuming we had to have a second)?

How would you feel about a hypothetical double-reveal with two newcomers (you may consider the possibilities of either two uniques OR one unique and one clone) for one of the "bigger" first party series that has very few reps, like say Animal Crossing or Splatoon?
Lucas is mostly unique so I guess you mean his specials. Hmmmmmm. It's really hard to say because the way both him and Ness work is to appropriate over PK abilities from their fellow party members. I don't feel like there's much left to pull from.

Maybe PK Beam for his Side-Special and PK Ground for his Down-Special? The only thing I could think of for a new Up-Special would be a simple teleport but I think that's not as good as the classic PK Thunder and I like how both Ness' and Lucas' PK Thunders hit differently so I'd rather not change that.

Then I'd give them PK Rockin and PK Love as their Final Smash attacks. If I had my way further PK Starstorm would be a chargeable Shield-Special for both of them too.

Their current representation in Smash is bonkers anyway considering how niche the Mother series is but this would be the pinnacle of representing minus adding some echoes like Ninten and Paula or something.

Crash missed the biggest opportunity in Ultimate. Not giving up on my boy for 20+ years
I think should the deal with Microsoft go through he'll be borderline guaranteed. I just desperately want him to bring Spyro with him for a double reveal.

Before anyway says it sure the Crash4Smash hypetrain was just as certain for this speculation cycle without it materializing but it's exactly because of that exuberant effort that Crash is in a much stronger position within Smash requests going forward.

Crash4Smash!
 
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Gengar84

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It's not that speculators have ruled them out completely but it's just a rather high bar they have to clear that Japanese characters don't have to for the most part. Basically something exclusively popular abroad (outside of Japan) won't be seen as a valid reason for inclusion, at least on its own whereas sometimes regional popularity (within Japan) can be the entire reason a Japanese character gets in.


Lucas is mostly unique so I guess you mean his specials. Hmmmmmm. It's really hard to say because the way both him and Ness work is to appropriate over PK abilities from their fellow party members. I don't feel like there's much left to pull from.

Maybe PK Beam for his Side-Special and PK Ground for his Down-Special? The only thing I could think of for a new Up-Special would be a simple teleport but I think that's not as good as the classic PK Thunder and I like how both Ness' and Lucas' PK Thunders hit differently so I'd rather not change that.

Then I'd give them PK Rockin and PK Love as their Final Smash attacks. If I had my way further PK Starstorm would be a chargeable Shield-Special for both of them too.

Their current representation in Smash is bonkers anyway considering how niche the Mother series is but this would be the pinnacle of representing minus adding some echoes like Ninten and Paula or something.


I think should the deal with Microsoft go through he'll be borderline guaranteed. I just desperately want him to bring Spyro with him for a double reveal.

Before anyway says it sure the Crash4Smash hypetrain was just as certain for this speculation cycle without it materializing but it's exactly because of that exuberant effort that Crash is in a much stronger position within Smash requests going forward.

Crash4Smash!
I won’t deny that Crash has a very good chance but I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s guaranteed. Microsoft has a ton of potential characters that could make for great Smash characters. For starters, there’s the obvious Master Chief and Doomslayer that also get a lot of fan support. There’s also other less obvious, but still popular characters that we could potentially get as a surprise like Arthas, Kerrigan, Diablo, Rash, and Fulgore.
 

SPEN18

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lucas is unique
Lucas is mostly unique so I guess you mean his specials. Hmmmmmm. It's really hard to say because the way both him and Ness work is to appropriate over PK abilities from their fellow party members. I don't feel like there's much left to pull from.

Maybe PK Beam for his Side-Special and PK Ground for his Down-Special? The only thing I could think of for a new Up-Special would be a simple teleport but I think that's not as good as the classic PK Thunder and I like how both Ness' and Lucas' PK Thunders hit differently so I'd rather not change that.

Then I'd give them PK Rockin and PK Love as their Final Smash attacks. If I had my way further PK Starstorm would be a chargeable Shield-Special for both of them too.

Their current representation in Smash is bonkers anyway considering how niche the Mother series is but this would be the pinnacle of representing minus adding some echoes like Ninten and Paula or something.
Well Lucas is not 100% unique; I think it's clear that he still takes less work than, for example, Porky would. That wasn't really the question, though.
I guess the question is more if you think Porky (or potentially another Mother character) would rep the series better than Lucas (or I guess Ness if that is your opinion), taking any differences in resource consumption out of the equation.

I'm not really saying it should happen; it's just sort of a hypothetical question. Yes, I agree that Mother has plenty in Smash already, if not more than enough, and I'm not really asking for more.

And since you bring it up, yeah, I would also like to hear people's thoughts on how they'd envision the Ness and/or Lucas movesets if they only used their own PSI moves and weren't amalgamations.

I also love the Thunder mechanic and am not sure what they'd use without it. And, yes, Rockin and Love for the FS.
 
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HyperSomari64

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TIL Paon DP, who helped in the development of some Nintendo games like DK Jungle Climber, also owns a handful of Data East IPs that aren't in Marvelous' hands like Karnov and WindJammers. I wonder how they use the first one and Chelnov in the Fighter's History games (a franchise owned by G-Mode).
 

Quillion

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And since you bring it up, yeah, I would also like to hear people's thoughts on how they'd envision the Ness and/or Lucas movesets if they only used their own PSI moves and weren't amalgamations.
I've thought of that before myself: Ness's moveset would probably still be PK Flash for Neutral B, but would have Paralysis for Side B, Teleport (Beta) for Up B, and Shield Beta for Down B.

As for his healing though, I'd like that to be implemented as part of my "super move" idea for adding onto Smash's core gameplay, where the Down Super is Lifeup, where he can expend some meter to heal himself.
 

Yamat08

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There is this sentiment that constantly prioritising protagonists is a bad idea since that supposedly leads to homogeneity but that’s not actually true and hasn’t been since Smash 64, where there roster is mostly comprised of protagonists and it is richly diverse.
Something to keep in mind with the original N64 game is that they were pulling from a bunch of franchises which were still barely 17 years old at most (and about half weren't even 10 years old), and whether due to system limitations or something else, these franchises started off with a VERY small pool of playable characters (often times, only one playable protagonist). And of course, at a time where this was the case for several games on the market, you pretty much had to compete by making the character that players would be controlling look as aesthetically interesting as possible (all the more so since they were just coming off of an era where your "characters" are just some square block half the time). Also kinda helps that RPGs weren't near as prevelant at the time...... at least outside of Japan (though even in Japan, it kinda says something that Mother was one of the only first-party Nintendo RPGs for a while, and I guess Fire Emblem if you wanna count SRPGs).

I feel similarly to Smash going with so many opening stages when there are many more interesting locations to pull from. Look at DK and Mario for example. All their stages tend to look pretty similar but there is so much more variety in their home series that doesn’t get represented in Smash.
I feel we did start to see some more interesting variations when Melee, and I think Brawl to some degree, saw fit to include at least one new stage per returning franchise from the previous game. The inclusion of classic stages, especially, helped to ensure that basic "stage 1" positions were already filled. But I think Smash4 is where it really started to falter. Game gets split between two systems, and both versions just kinda pick and choose which classic versions will be retained (with Smash 3DS putting more of an emphasis on less competitively viable stages....... which doesn't make too much sense, considering that WiiU players could just pick Omega forms now anyway, though I can kinda understand gearing the portable system with no native multiplayer towards a better single-player experience). This resulted in, the WiiU version especially, to fill in some new "stage 1" positions (yet somehow still screwing up some things royally, like having Town and City despite Smashville already being retained, though I guess the influx of high-profile titles worth promoting since Brawl, such as City Folk, Skyward Sword, Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario U, and Mario Kart 8, didn't particularly help either). And of course, with Ultimate bringing back close to every stage in the series' history, the "stage 1" overlap really starts to stand out.

Really leaves you to wonder how things could've gone if this wasn't the route they took. Could we be playing in areas like Krazy Kremland or the Death Egg? Who knows?
 

Diddy Kong

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About cuts and the likes, and speaking of Smash legacy characters and all that, I think this needs to be looked at twice. I don't think Sheik and Ice Climbers for example need to keep being grandfathered in Smash if that's what's gatekeeping more "important" or iconic first party characters, in the form of a new Zelda character or a retro pick instead of Sheik and Ice Climbers, but also in general.

People discuss wether Falco must be cut, I'd say no. But what I would do is rework Fox to be sort of how he was in N64, so less speedy but still combo based, with a Blaster that works similar to both the Fox and Falco Blaster but by tapping you rapid fire and by pressing you shoot a single blast with hitstun, the Falco Blast.

And this reworked Fox has Falco as Echo, and Slippy and Peppy too. They wouldn't be Ultimate styled Echoes, but more akin to the Melee clones with slightly different heights, weights, speed and jumps.

I would do the same with Young and Toon Link by the way. And even adult Link, and him having Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess Link as Echoes.

Maybe Marth, Lucina, Roy and Chrom could work the same, with the differences being in their B Moves and sword hitboxes. Though with the Fire Emblem gang it would be more difficult.

Anyway about Sheik, yes Ocarina of Time is iconic but that doesn't warrant her her spot. We they keep Young Link and Ganondorf, and add OoT Adult Link as Echo, that would represent Ocarina of Time plenty. Both Young Link and Ganondorf aren't fully unique characters, neither would OoT Link as a Link Echo be... That's 3 characters with significant less development time than Sheik, a unique character.

If it where up to me, Impa and Sheik would be on the roster but if they'd do a reboot, I imagine Sheik would go in favor for Impa. Not a direct replacement as Toon Link was for Young Link, but something akin to it regardless.

Impa and Sheik could also be lose Echoes, Impa being a slower Sheik who uses a kodachi sword to give her a move safe play style. Impa would use sword attacks on certain attacks as the F Air, Smash attacks, dash attack and maybe tilts to give her range in exchange of speed.

In general I think they can include a lot of new favorite characters and keep most of the current roster if they're just smart about it. And in this I would sacrifice some of the uniqueness of characters as Falco, Roy Young / Toon Link to make that happen.
 

fogbadge

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Well Lucas is not 100% unique; I think it's clear that he still takes less work than, for example, Porky would. That wasn't really the question, though.
I guess the question is more if you think Porky (or potentially another Mother character) would rep the series better than Lucas (or I guess Ness if that is your opinion), taking any differences in resource consumption out of the equation.

I'm not really saying it should happen; it's just sort of a hypothetical question. Yes, I agree that Mother has plenty in Smash already, if not more than enough, and I'm not really asking for more.

And since you bring it up, yeah, I would also like to hear people's thoughts on how they'd envision the Ness and/or Lucas movesets if they only used their own PSI moves and weren't amalgamations.

I also love the Thunder mechanic and am not sure what they'd use without it. And, yes, Rockin and Love for the FS.
hes got five moves that are the same and even then the function differently. and no i dont think porky would work as a rep for the series as a whole.
 

Sucumbio

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TIL Paon DP, who helped in the development of some Nintendo games like DK Jungle Climber, also owns a handful of Data East IPs that aren't in Marvelous' hands like Karnov and WindJammers. I wonder how they use the first one and Chelnov in the Fighter's History games (a franchise owned by G-Mode).
Karnov was a fun game I'd love it if he found his way into Smash.
 

HyperSomari64

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A good choice could be the two fighters from Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja.
That one's owned by MarvelousAQL (via G-Mode).

Speaking of them, i think their biggest franchise is (unironically) Senran Kagura. And guess what!? The series started in the Nintendo 3DS, but after Mai Shiranui's being omitted, i don't think a character of those games could be added. But Bayonetta and Pythra exists in the roster so who knows?
 
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SPEN18

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About cuts and the likes, and speaking of Smash legacy characters and all that, I think this needs to be looked at twice. I don't think Sheik and Ice Climbers for example need to keep being grandfathered in Smash if that's what's gatekeeping more "important" or iconic first party characters, in the form of a new Zelda character or a retro pick instead of Sheik and Ice Climbers, but also in general.
Agreed. I find it hard to continue to justify the priority they've been given so far.

People discuss wether Falco must be cut, I'd say no. But what I would do is rework Fox to be sort of how he was in N64, so less speedy but still combo based, with a Blaster that works similar to both the Fox and Falco Blaster but by tapping you rapid fire and by pressing you shoot a single blast with hitstun, the Falco Blast.

And this reworked Fox has Falco as Echo, and Slippy and Peppy too. They wouldn't be Ultimate styled Echoes, but more akin to the Melee clones with slightly different heights, weights, speed and jumps.
I don't think the discussion was that Falco "must" be cut, but I think more that people were observing that he's a candidate to be cut. Given that he's basically auxiliary representation for a more or less dormant series and another Melee relic that probably wouldn't be added as a newcomer now if he wasn't already in.

Falco was also likely low priority for 4, given that he was revealed fairly late in that cycle; if you look at the vets who were confirmed on the website after Shulk, they're mostly characters you'd expect to be low priority except for maybe Wario (even Ness was probably pretty low given the focus on recent games for that selection process in particular). It's not a confirmation of low priority by any means, but given this and all the other factors I think it's likely that he was indeed low.

I'm not sure how well Slippy and Peppy would work as Melee clones. I don't really imagine them performing even the up or side specials from Fox/Falco.

Anyway about Sheik, yes Ocarina of Time is iconic but that doesn't warrant her her spot.
Yeah I don't think people should shoehorn themselves into thinking that Sheik is the best or only way to represent OoT, at least not for the reason that it's a vet.

hes got five moves that are the same and even then the function differently. and no i dont think porky would work as a rep for the series as a whole.
My aim was not to get into an argument on the extent to which Lucas is a clone of Ness. I didn't want people to dismiss my question by saying "well, they could make Lucas with less resources so no reason to consider anything else." The argument for Porky would be that he appears in both M2+3, even linking the two together (this also gives him a major worldwide appearance outside of Smash), and that he's a main antagonist for the series as a whole. Lucas is a main protagonist, though, which should absolutely be considered. I just think it's an interesting comparison, that's all.
 
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Quillion

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I wouldn't want Ice Climbers to go, though. I love the obscure faces in Smash as much as the big names, and I'd say mix in a few more, albeit maybe as base game characters rather than DLC.

Another reason I'd love to see more obscure characters is because they don't have a lot of source material to work with and therefore the Smash team has more free reign to make things up without running into a Ganondorf/Wario situation. One of the problems I find with much of the newer characters is that they seem like the play exactly how we expect them to in Smash, which leaves very little room for surprise. Obscure faces with little source material can add that surprise and originality factor rather than more-or-less doing exactly what they do in their home games (which isn't going to be much).
 

SPEN18

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I wouldn't want Ice Climbers to go, though. I love the obscure faces in Smash as much as the big names, and I'd say mix in a few more, albeit maybe as base game characters rather than DLC.

Another reason I'd love to see more obscure characters is because they don't have a lot of source material to work with and therefore the Smash team has more free reign to make things up without running into a Ganondorf/Wario situation. One of the problems I find with much of the newer characters is that they seem like the play exactly how we expect them to in Smash, which leaves very little room for surprise. Obscure faces with little source material can add that surprise and originality factor rather than more-or-less doing exactly what they do in their home games (which isn't going to be much).
Now see, in a vacuum I don't really see anything wrong with the Ice Climbers. I don't view relative obscurity or lack of obvious translation from source material to moveset as hard disqualifying factors. But the reality is that, as has been stated, it is a competitively oriented, priority-based system. And I just find it hard to justify giving Ice Climber much priority over many, many of the other options available. Being picked to fill an NES retro rep quota over twenty years ago (and even then only due to certain other options not being realizable at the time) is just not enough to change the calculus IMO.
 

osby

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On the cuts talk, I wish people would realize that fighters are more than just "reps". You can also play as them.

Ice Climber may not be as unique as they once were during Melee but there's still no other character that plays like them. It'd be a shame to remove them just because they're seen nothing but as a "retro quota" fill.

This applies to other characters too, by the way. "Smash fans only buy the game to look at CSS" jokes are a little overdone but it's hard to not make them when so many fans act like movesets are completely irrelevant (or only bring them up to complain about clones).

Smash should provide a wide range of playstyles and treating how characters fight as an afterthought is a bad way to do it.
 

LiveStudioAudience

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On the cuts talk, I wish people would realize that fighters are more than just "reps". You can also play as them.

Ice Climber may not be as unique as they once were during Melee but there's still no other character that plays like them. It'd be a shame to remove them just because they're seen nothing but as a "retro quota" fill.

This applies to other characters too, by the way. "Smash fans only buy the game to look at CSS" jokes are a little overdone but it's hard to not make them when so many fans act like movesets are completely irrelevant (or only bring them up to complain about clones).

Smash should provide a wide range of playstyles and treating how characters fight as an afterthought is a bad way to do it.
This is a strong point, and it's also relevant when talking about potential inclusions as well. While I do think the likes of DK needs more fighters, one of the reasons I've been an advocate of Dixie is that there are so many elements from the Country games specifically that could make a cool moveset if well implemented. It's why I've always had mixed feelings on those that advocate her being in as a Diddy clone; cool as it would be to have her, it would feel like it a bit of waste given what the character could be capable of.

I'd even say that while the likes of Impa does feel like a fitting addition to the series and as solid as she was in the first Hyrule Warriors, it was Age of Calamity that really demonstrated how great she could be in Smash.
 

Pupp135

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On the cuts talk, I wish people would realize that fighters are more than just "reps". You can also play as them.

Ice Climber may not be as unique as they once were during Melee but there's still no other character that plays like them. It'd be a shame to remove them just because they're seen nothing but as a "retro quota" fill.

This applies to other characters too, by the way. "Smash fans only buy the game to look at CSS" jokes are a little overdone but it's hard to not make them when so many fans act like movesets are completely irrelevant (or only bring them up to complain about clones).

Smash should provide a wide range of playstyles and treating how characters fight as an afterthought is a bad way to do it.
I definitely agree that representation gets overemphasized, and I hope that my main (Icies) don’t get cut.

I find the smash relic argument is kind of weird to me because I feel that some characters who are Smash relics (Falcon and Ness) seem to get preferred treatment, yet others (more specifically Sheik, Icies, and Jigglypuff) have that used against them.

Would this be due to Ness and Falcon not being in a “representation” pool compared to the other three (LoZ, retro, and Pokemon for the respective ones) even if I‘d argue that they could be in the retro pool now, or is it because the fanbase likes those two more?
 
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DarthEnderX

Smash Hero
Joined
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I would prefer that the more obscure retro characters had not been chosen.

Ice Climbers is the worst offender though, because their only game ever is legit BAD. At least Duck Hunt was a classic. Ice Climbers getting in feels like celebrating inadequacy...

As does ROB.
 

SPEN18

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On the cuts talk, I wish people would realize that fighters are more than just "reps". You can also play as them.

Ice Climber may not be as unique as they once were during Melee but there's still no other character that plays like them. It'd be a shame to remove them just because they're seen nothing but as a "retro quota" fill.

This applies to other characters too, by the way. "Smash fans only buy the game to look at CSS" jokes are a little overdone but it's hard to not make them when so many fans act like movesets are completely irrelevant (or only bring them up to complain about clones).

Smash should provide a wide range of playstyles and treating how characters fight as an afterthought is a bad way to do it.
Not a new point, and one of the most common counterarguments.

Sure, losing Ice Climber would be losing a unique, fun moveset. But investing significant resources into adding them also misses you out on other equally unique, fun content. It's not like the budget or staffing are raised specifically so that Ice Climber can make it in.

With the technical capabilities now, and with the wide range of characters we've seen represented (including the usually cited ones like Duck Hunt or Wii Fit, but also even Animal Crossing and so forth), it's fair to say that basically any character can have a unique, fun moveset if you're willing to put enough creative thought into it. Basically any series or character you could add is going to bring something new and fun to the table, and claiming otherwise would be a disservice to those series and characters. Even the current clones and other characters considered cloneable could do it; it's just that the ability to add them without using as many resources is a trade-off considered in the practical setting.

I don't see "we should include Ice Climber rather than Kid Icarus because Popo and Nana are a duo and we have other characters who shoot arrows" as a good argument or reason to set priorities. Maybe you really do think Ice Climber is more worth rostering than Kid Icarus, but it has to be for reasons other than "Ice Climber could give us a duo character." If Pit's source material was really so incapable of generating an interesting and unique fighter who carves their own special niche on the roster, then maybe you'd have an argument, but I don't think Pit is boring in Smash at all...

Regardless of any of the above points, let me finish with this:

The core gameplay is absolutely important. Maybe even the most important part of Smash's continued success, and one of the biggest reasons it's remained above other platform fighters. But pick basically any roster of 50+ iconic Nintendo characters and you're going to be able to make a mechanically sound game out of that roster, with more variety than anyone could reasonably ask for.

So I don't see hard reasons to dramatically alter priorities over moveset potentials or abilities to fill certain fighting game "niches."

--

I feel that some characters who are Smash relics (Falcon and Ness) seem to get preferred treatment, yet others (more specifically Sheik, Icies, and Jigglypuff) have that used against them
I was anticipating F-Zero and Earthbound being brought up.

Since this was already a long post, I'll try to respond to this later in a separate one.
 
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fogbadge

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I would prefer that the more obscure retro characters had not been chosen.

Ice Climbers is the worst offender though, because their only game ever is legit BAD. At least Duck Hunt was a classic. Ice Climbers getting in feels like celebrating inadequacy...

As does ROB.
the thing that saved the north american video game market celebrates inadequacy?
 

CrusherMania1592

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So of all the third party characters, who do you guys feel has the highest chances of getting axed?

:ultbanjokazooie::ultbayonetta::ultcloud::ulthero::ultjoker::ultkazuya::ultmegaman::ultpacman::ultryu::ultken::ultsephiroth::ultsimon::ultrichter::ultsnake::ultsonic::ultsora::ultsteve::ult_terry:


That's an awful lot of 3rd party characters for Smash. 18 and I can see at least 4 getting cut. Richter and Ken would be easy cuts as clones. Sora due to the development hell all companies had to hop around to get him in, and possibly Snake and/or Steve depending on the relationships
 

JOJONumber691

Smash Lord
Joined
Sep 28, 2020
Messages
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So of all the third party characters, who do you guys feel has the highest chances of getting axed?

:ultbanjokazooie::ultbayonetta::ultcloud::ulthero::ultjoker::ultkazuya::ultmegaman::ultpacman::ultryu::ultken::ultsephiroth::ultsimon::ultrichter::ultsnake::ultsonic::ultsora::ultsteve::ult_terry:


That's an awful lot of 3rd party characters for Smash. 18 and I can see at least 4 getting cut. Richter and Ken would be easy cuts as clones. Sora due to the development hell all companies had to hop around to get him in, and possibly Snake and/or Steve depending on the relationships
Banjo-Kazooie
Konami
Final Fantasy
Sora
Joker.
 
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